Posts
Grice
e Borelli: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del moto
– origine della vita – fitotropismo, geotropismo, tacto-tropismo – scuola di
Napoli – filosofia napoletana -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza, pel
Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice, The Swimming-Pool Library (Napoli). Filosofo napoletano. Filosofo campanese. Filosofo italiano. Napoli,
Camania. Grice: “I would call Borreli a Griceian; I never took Sraffa’s rude
Neapolitan gesture too seriously, but Borelli, like Vitters, does – as he
notes, a bended wrist can mean, the utterer by moving his hands this or that
way IMPLICATES that p – or q; I certainly allows my ‘utter’ to cover such cases
– ‘express’ – but Borreli is into the mechanics of it!” La ricostruzione
della vita di B. si basa sull'epistolario che B. tiene con Viviani, Marchetti, Magliabechi
e Malpighi. Figlio di Michele Alfonso Alonzo, soldato di fanteria del presidio distaccato
al Castel Nuovo di Napoli. Il padre e processato per aver favorito la fuga di
CAMPANELLA dal Castel Nuovo, e fu condannato alla pena capitale, che gli e poi
commutata nell'esilio a Roma. Questo ultimo sarà il luogo dove B. effettua i
suoi studi diventando allievo di Castelli. Insegna matematica prima a
Messina a Pisa, dove fonda la Societa degl’Investigandi. Si ritira a Roma dove
fonda la Societa dell'Esperienza Fisica-Matematica. A Roma frequenta le lezioni
di idrodinamica di Castelli. Castelli gode di una notevole fama e fu certamente
in quell'occasione che Borelli comincia ad appassionarsi alla fisica e, in
particolare, alla meccanica classica. Chiaramente questo periodo e decisivo per
il suo indirizzo culturale in quanto gli permise di elaborare quella
metodologia di pensiero grazie alla quale lascia impresso il suo nome nella
storia. B. infatti utilizza l'applicazione della matematica della meccanica e
del metodo sperimentale, proprio della scuola galileiana, per risolvere i
problemi biologici. B. u chiamato dal senato accademico dell'Messina, grazie in
parte alla raccomandazione del Castelli, al fine di occupare la nuova lettura
de matematiche. L'Messina lo tenne in gran conto e gli fornì i mezzi per
viaggiare e mettersi in contatto con i professori delle altre università. B.
pubblica la risoluzione di alcuni problemi geometrici di Pietro Emanuele
Scoppia una epidemia in Sicilia che da l'occasione a B. di scrivere la sua
prima opera da medico. L'opera intitolata “Cagioni delle febbri maligne in
Sicilia” e pubblicata a Cosenza. La precisione con la quale B. tratta questa ‘febbre
maligna’ conferma ulteriormente che egli già in precedenza aveva raggiunto
notevoli conoscenze mediche. Lasciò Messina al fine di occupare la cattedra
di matematica a Pisa, conferitagli dal Granduca Ferdinando II. Tenne la sua
prima lezione pisana ma con scarso successo. Non passa molto tempo però che
quegli stessi allievi dovettero ricredersi sulle qualità del maestro. Tra i
suoi più illustri discepoli, merita di essere citato Marchetti. Il soggiorno
pisano si rivela di grandissima importanza al fine di plasmare l'orientamento
scientifico di B. che già alla scuola del Castelli si era andato rafforzando.
Per sottolineare l'importanza del soggiorno pisano è giusto considerare che il
territorio di Pisa ha visto passare i più illustri medici del tempo: Vesalio,
Colombo, Cesalpino, GALILEI (si veda) infine che era stato a Pisa per
conseguire il titolo di dottorato, ma poi finì per insegnare matematica.
Sebbene tra i medici appena nominati Galilei possa sembrare estraneo al loro
campo non bisogna escluderlo del tutto. La tradizione galileiana infatti trae
nuove risorse grazie alla fondazione del Cimento che ha costituito un evento di
notevole importanza per l'evoluzione del progresso scientifico. Della suddetto
Cimento ha parte Viviani, Dati, Segni, Redi, Torricelli, Oliva (di Reggio
Calabria), e B.. Il motto del Cimento e “provando e riprovando”. Col Cimento
viene dato credito al metodo sperimentale galileiano in contrapposizione al
principio di autorità del metodo aristotelico. Borelli da un contributo
notevole a ogni importante esperienza del Cimento. Tozzetti si riferisce a
Borelli come uno dei maggiori luminari del Cimento. B. pubblica “L’Euclides
restitutus” di notevole importanza matematica. Sccessivamente si dedica alla
traduzione del “Dei conici” di Apollonio. Pisa si presenta come il teatro di
una epidemia di febbri. B.studia questo morbo e ne fa una descrizione in alcune
lettere che inviò a Malpighi. Pubblicò il De rerum usu, completando le
osservazioni anatomiche del Bellini L. con delle osservazioni fisiologiche.
Si
occupa anche di astronomia, in particolare della cometa che era apparsa. Nel
Theoricae medieorum planetarum ex causis phisicis deductaem si interessa del
movimento dei satelliti di Giove. B., parallelamente alle esperienze di
matematica e fisica, si occupa di anatomia e soprattutto di fisiologia. Queste
ultime esperienze gli sono di estremo aiuto per la successiva elaborazione del
De motu animalium. Sia l'anatomia che la fisiologia compiono in questi momenti
dei progressi significativi, soprattutto grazie all'applicazione del metodo
sperimentale alla fisiologia (Harvey con la dimostrazione della circolazione
del sangue). In questo period, l'intento principale è quello di abbandonare il
cieco empirismo al fine di porre le basi di quella che sarà la medicina moderna.
Sotto questi auspici nasce, grazie anche a B., un nuovo movimento, la
scuola iatro-meccanica che agli inizi viene anche chiamata scuola iatro-matematica.
Tuttavia, già sorgeno i primi dissidi e le prime inimicizie tra i membri del
Cimento; B. e in dissidio soprattutto con Viviani, per cui cominciava a
maturare il convincement odi ritornare a Messina. B. scrive al Principe
Leopoldo e manifesta l'intenzione di lasciare Pisa adducendo il pretesto della
salute. La partenza di B. dispiacce al Principe Leopoldo, il quale tuttavia non
lo priva della sua stima. Secondo Francesco Redi, B. si pente di aver
lasciato Pisa. Con il ritorno a Messina si chiude la fase più feconda di
risultati nella vita di B.. Il ritorno di Borelli a Messina fu molto
gradito dai cittadini di questa città, grazie sia al ricordo che conservano e
sia per la fama che Borelli aveva conquistato in Toscana. Nella città sicula,
Borelli riprese l'attività di docente impegnandosi sullo studio dei fenomeni
riguardanti l'astronomia e la fisiologia. Pubblicò le Osservazioni intorno alle
virtù ineguali degli occhi. E incaricato dalla Royal Society di Londra per
studiare l'eruzione dell'Etna. Alla descrizione dell'eruzione del vulcano fatta
da Borelli si interessa anche il Principe Leopoldo. Durante il soggiorno
messinese, Borelli frequenta il palazzo del Visconte Ruffo, luogo nel quale, a
quanto sembra, si cospira contro il regime. Questa attività cospiratrice
culmina in una congiura, a quale, oltre
a non provocare nessuna alterazione nella situazione politica, ha conseguenze
disastrose per la cultura dell'isola. Borelli, per le sue idee e per il suo
operare in nome della libertà e dell'indipendenza, e accusato di ribellione e
dovette espiare la sua colpa a Roma. Borelli raggiunse Roma. Il poco avere che
era riuscito a portare con sé gli fu derubato da un servo infedele. Malgrado
queste tristi condizioni, non abbandona l'attività intellettuale, anzi riprese
lo studio al fine di portare a termine la sua più grande opera, il De motu
animalium. Fortunatamente Borelli incontra
a Roma la regina Cristina di Svezia, la quale avrebbe poi patrocinato la
pubblicazione della sua opera capitale. A causa delle condizioni economiche in
cui versa, Borelli dove accettare l'ospitalità offertagli da B. Carlo Giovanni
di Gesù nella sua casa di San Pantaleo. Il De motu animalium rappresenta il suo
ultimo grande contributo per la conoscenza scientifica infatti, mentre lavora
su questa opera, fu colpito dalla malattia, probabilmente polmonite. Prima di
morire, Borelli, raccomanda la pubblicazione del De motu animalium a B. Carlo
Giovanni di Gesù. L'opera più conosciuta del Borelli è il trattato De Motu Animalium,
con il quale cerca di spiegare il movimento del corpo dei uomoni basandosi su
principi meccanici, tentando di estendere all'ambito biologico il metodo di
analisi geometrico-matematica elaborato da Galilei in ambito meccanico e per il
quale si guadagna il titolo di padre della iatromeccanica. Borelli si
occupa anche di astronomia, elaborando una teoria generale sul moto dei
pianeti, seppure limitatamente ai satelliti di Giove. Si suppone che la
decisione di limitare lo studio a tali corpi fosse stata dettata
dall'opportunità di non andare in contrasto con le teorie geocentriche imposte
dalla Chiesa. Nel suo studio Theoricae mediceorum planetarum, sostiene che
tutti i satelliti abbiano una naturale tendenza ad avvicinarsi a Giove, mentre
la loro orbita circolare intorno ad esso li spingerebbe ad allontanarsene. Le
forze contrapposte si equilibrerebbero: l'attrazione verso Giove sarebbe costante
mentre la spinta contraria sarebbe inversamente proporzionale alla distanza dei
satelliti da Giove. Borelli giustifica il moto delle orbite e la loro forma
ellittica come una combinazione di forze tra "l'attrazione dei raggi
solari" e i "raggi motori" originati da Giove. Giovanni
Alfonso Borelli, continuando i tentativi di Galileo sulla misurazione della
velocità della luce, eseguì un esperimento utilizzando un sistema di specchi
riflettenti sulla distanza tra Firenze e Pistoia, circa 35 km. Questo metodo fu
poi ripreso da Fizeau che riuscì a valutare una velocità di 283.000 km/s, molto
vicino alla misura esatta. Altre opere: “Cagioni delle febbri maligne in
Sicilia”; “Della cagioni delle febbri maligni” (Pisa); “Euclides restitutus,
sive prisca geometriae elementa, brevius, et facilius context” (Pisa); “De
Renum usu Judicium” (Strasburgo); “Lettera del movimento della cometa apparsa a
Pisa”; “Theoricae mediceorum planetarum ex causis phisicis deductae” (Pisa); “De
Vi Percussionis, et Motionibus Naturalibus a Gravitate Pendentibus” (Bologna);
“Osservazioni intorno alle virtù ineguali degli occhi” (Messina); “Meteorologia
Aetnea, seu historia et methereologia incendi Aetnei” (Reggio Calabria); “De
motionibus naturalibus a gravitate pendentibus” (Bologna); “De Motu Animalium. (Roma),
Lettere di Borelli ad Alessandro Marchetti, Lettere di Giovanni Alfonso
Borelli, dirette una a Malpighi, le altre a Magliabechi. Napoli. La scuola di
Roma. Alfonso Borelli, fisico: Celebrazione dell'Accademia del Cimento nel
tricentenario della fondazion, Pisa. Dal Bal Malpighi. La mécanique céleste de
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli. Di una diversa soluzione di un problema di meccanica
muscolare da parte di due medici matematici. Considerazioni sulle vedute
neurofisiologiche. Spunti di neurofisiologia nel De Motu Animalium di Borelli. L'apparato
motore nello studio di Borelli. Memoria della pontificia Accademia Romana dei
Nuovi Lincei. Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Wikipedia Ricerca
Origine della vita possibili teorie sulla genesi della vita da materia non
vivente. L'abiogenesi (dal greco a-bio-genesis, "origini NON
biologiche"), o informalmente l'origine della vita, è il processo naturale
con il quale la vita si origina a partire da materia non vivente, come semplici
composti organici.[1][4][5] La Terra per lungo tempo è stata
pensata come l'unico luogo dove la vita si potesse sviluppare Il passaggio da sistema
non vivente ad organismo vivente non è stato un singolo evento ma piuttosto un
processo graduale di aumento di complessità del sistema. L'abiogenesi è
studiata combinando conoscenze di biologia molecolare, paleontologia,
astrobiologia e biochimica per determinare come l'organizzazione crescente di
reazioni chimicheabiotiche in sistemi non viventi abbia portato all'origine
della vita sia sulla Terra che in altri luoghi dell'universo, dopo un po' di
tempo dalla sua nascita (che si fa risalire ad un evento colossale noto con il
nome di Big Bang, che si stima sia avvenuto circa 13,8 miliardi di anni fa)
fino ai giorni nostri.[10] Inizi Modifica L'origine della vita sulla
Terra è databile entro un periodo compreso tra i 4,4 miliardi di anni fa quando
l'acqua allo stato liquido comparve sulla superficie terrestre[11] e i 2,7
miliardi di anni fa quando la prima incontrovertibile evidenza della vita è
verificata da isotopi stabili[12][13] e biomarcatori molecolari che mostrano
l'attività di fotosintesi. Si ritiene comunque che la vita abbia avuto origine
intorno ai 3,9 miliardi di anni fa, quando la terra iniziò a raffreddarsi fino
ad una temperatura alla quale l'acqua poté trovarsi diffusamente allo stato
liquido; lo avvalorano le scoperte di strutture microbiche risalenti a 3,7
miliardi di anni fa nelle rocce verdi di Isua, in Groenlandia[16]. Inoltre
varie campagne di ricerca hanno attestato la presenza di cianobatteri fossili
racchiusi in rocce stromatolitiche dell'Australia occidentale dell'età di circa
3,5 miliardi di anni[17]. Uno studio recente ha analizzato possibili
microfossili, individuati come filamenti di ematite presenti in campioni
prelevati dal Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt, datandoli tra i 3,75 miliardi di
anni fa e i 4,28 miliardi di anni fa. Se lo studio venisse confermato sarebbe
la prova che la formazione della vita sulla Terra sia avvenuta in tempi molto
rapidi dopo la sua formazione.[18] Il concetto di origine della vita è
stato trattato fin dall'antichità nell'ambito di diverse religioni e nella
filosofia: con lo svilupparsi di modelli scientifici spesso in contrasto con
quanto letteralmente affermato nei testi sacri delle religioni, l'origine della
vita è diventato tema di dibattito tra scienza e fede.[19] Dal punto di vista
scientifico la spiegazione dell'origine della vita parte dal presupposto
fondamentale che le prime forme viventi si originarono da materiale non
vivente. Spiegazioni Modifica L'interrogativo su come si originò la vita
sulla Terra si pose soprattutto in seguito allo sviluppo della teoria della
evoluzione per selezione naturale, elaborata in modo indipendente da A.R.
Wallace e da C.R. Darwinnel 1858, la quale suggeriva che tutte le forme di vita
sono legate da relazioni di discendenza comune attraverso ramificati alberi
filogenetici che riconducono ad un unico progenitore, estremamente semplice dal
punto di vista biologico. Il problema era capire come si originò questa
semplice forma primordiale, presumibilmente una cellula molto simile ai moderni
procarioti e contenente l'informazione genetica, conservata negli acidi
nucleici, oltre a proteine e altre biomolecole indispensabili alla propria
sopravvivenza e riproduzione. Il processo evolutivo che ha portato alla
formazione di un sistema complesso e organizzato (ovvero il primo essere
vivente) a partire dal mondo prebiotico è durato centinaia di milioni d'anni ed
è avvenuto attraverso tappe successive di eventi, che dopo un numero elevato di
tentativi hanno portato a sistemi progressivamente più complessi. La
prima tappa fondamentale è stata la produzione di semplici molecole organiche,
come amminoacidi e nucleotidi, che costituiscono i mattoni della vita. Gli
esperimenti di Stanley Miller e altri hanno dimostrato che quest'evento era
realizzabile nelle condizioni chimico-fisiche della Terra primordiale,
caratterizzata da un'atmosfera riducente. Inoltre il ritrovamento di molecole
organiche nello spazio, all'interno di nebulose e meteoriti ha dimostrato che
queste reazioni sono avvenute anche in altri luoghi dell'universo, tanto che
alcuni scienziati ritengono che le prime biomolecole siano state trasportate
sulla Terra per mezzo di meteoriti. Ultimi quesiti Modifica La questione
più difficile è spiegare come da questi semplici composti organici, concentrati
nei mari in un brodo primordiale, poterono formarsi delle cellule dotate dei
requisiti minimi essenziali per poter essere considerate viventi, cioè la
capacità di utilizzare materiali presenti nell'ambiente per mantenere la
propria struttura, organizzazione e potersi riprodurre. Molti scienziati hanno
cercato di chiarire attraverso ipotesi ed esperimenti le tappe fondamentali che
hanno condotto alla vita, tra cui l'origine dei primi polimeri biologici e tra
questi di una molecola capace di produrre copie di se stessa, il replicatore,
dal quale derivano i nostri geni e la formazione delle prime membrane
biologiche, che hanno creato dei compartimenti isolati dall'ambiente esterno,
nei quali si sono evoluti i primi sistemi di reazioni e le prime vie
metaboliche catalizzate da enzimi. Nonostante ciò, la ricostruzione della
storia della vita presenta ancora molti interrogativi, concernenti soprattutto
la successione degli eventi. I progressi in questo campo di ricerca sono
ostacolati dalla carenza di reperti fossilie dalla difficoltà di riprodurre
questi processi in laboratorio. Storia del concetto nella scienza
Modifica La teoria della generazione spontanea Modifica Magnifying glass icon
mgx2.svgLo stesso argomento in dettaglio: Generazione spontanea. Un testo
del 1658 raffigurante degli insetti. Prima del 1668 si pensava che gli insetti
prendessero vita per "generazione spontanea". Per generazione
spontanea (o abiogenesi) si intende la credenza, molto diffusa dall'antichità
fino al XVII secolo, secondo cui la vita possa nascere in modo
"spontaneo" dalla materia inerte o inanimata, tramite l'effetto di
"flussi vitali". Si riteneva che Dio avesse creato direttamente
solo gli esseri viventi "superiori" (come l'uomo e i grandi animali),
mentre quelli "inferiori" (come i vermi e gli insetti) potessero
nascere spontaneamente dal fangoo da carcasse in putrefazione. A tale
riguardo, il chimico Jean Baptiste van Helmontarrivava a fornire la seguente
ricetta per "creare dei topi": Lascia una camicia sporca o
degli stracci in un contenitore, come una pentola o un barile, aperto
contenente alcuni chicchi di grano o mangime e in 21 giorni appariranno dei
topi. Vi saranno esemplari maschi e femmine adulti e in grado di accoppiarsi e
riprodurre altri topi. Questa teoria fu confutata nel XVII secolo, grazie ad
alcuni esperimenti di Francesco Redi e di Lazzaro Spallanzani. Francesco
Redi nel 1668,[21] per determinare se avvenisse o meno il processo di
generazione spontanea, effettuò un rigoroso esperimento a proposito, che
rappresenta un classico esempio di applicazione del metodo sperimentale alla
biologia. Esperimento di Francesco Redi sull'abiogenesi. Un
pezzetto di carne è inserito in un barattolo in vetro; nel barattolo aperto (1a
e 1b) si ha comparsa di larve e mosche, mentre nel barattolo chiuso (2a e 2b)
non si formano né mosche né larve. Redi prese otto barattoli, in ognuno dei
quali introdusse pezzi di diversi animali: un serpente, dei pesci, delle
anguille ed un pezzo di carne di bue, e li divise in due gruppi di
quattro: Senza tappo ('gruppo di controllo', in cui venivano riprodotte
le condizioni presenti nei luoghi dove "la generazione spontanea" era
più evidente, quali macellerie, etc.) Con tappo ('gruppo sperimentale') Nei
barattoli del gruppo di controllo si osservarono delle mosche, che venivano a
diretto contatto con la carne e, dopo poco tempo, si sviluppavano diverse
larve. Nei barattoli tappati non furono ritrovate né larve, né mosche. Da
questi risultati Redi dedusse che le mosche potevano essere generate solo da
altre mosche: nel barattolo aperto, le mosche erano entrate e avevano deposto
le loro uova sulla carne; nel barattolo chiuso, invece, le mosche,
impossibilitate ad entrare, non erano riuscite a depositare le loro uova sulla
carne. Questi risultati non erano ancora conclusivi, poiché Redi, per
eliminare qualsiasi dubbio sulla possibilità che la mancata circolazione d'aria,
nei recipienti chiusi, poteva aver in qualche modo interferito con lo sviluppo
delle larve, eseguì un altro esperimento nel quale i barattoli del gruppo
sperimentale furono chiusi con della garza, che permetteva la circolazione
dell'aria, impedendo l'ingresso delle mosche. Anche in questo caso non si
svilupparono larve, confermando i precedenti risultati sperimentali. Col
passare degli anni la teoria della generazione spontanea venne progressivamente
abbandonata. Tuttavia, l'avvento, lo sviluppo e il perfezionamento del
microscopio portò ad una generale ripresa della teoria, poiché si scoprirono
altre forme di vita, prima sconosciute, come funghi, batteri e vari protozoi:
si notò infatti che bastava mettere delle sostanze organiche in decomposizione
in un luogo caldo per breve tempo e delle strane "bestiole viventi"
apparivano sulla superficie. Nel 1745-1750, John Turberville Needham,[22]
un ecclesiastico e naturalista inglese, partendo dall'osservazione che i
microrganismi crescevano rigogliosamente in varie zuppe, ottenute
dall'infusione di carne o vegetali, quando queste erano esposte all'aria,
concluse che all'interno di tutta la materia, inclusi l'aria e l'ossigeno, era
presente una "forza vitale" responsabile della generazione spontanea.[23]Per
avvalorare questa tesi, egli bollì per pochi minuti alcune delle sue zuppe, al
fine di eliminare eventuali microbi contaminanti, e le versò in beute
"pulite", chiuse con tappi di sughero; anche in questo caso,
tuttavia, osservò la crescita dei microrganismi. Alcuni anni più tardi
(1765), Lazzaro Spallanzani,[24] un abate e biologo italiano, non convinto
delle conclusioni di Needham, condusse degli esperimenti simili con diverse
variazioni, applicando un metodo più rigoroso: innanzitutto, egli sottopose ad
ebollizione di un'ora le zuppe, poi sigillò le beute di vetro che contenevano
il brodo fondendo le aperture. Il brodo ottenuto era sterile e non si rilevò la
crescita di microrganismi nemmeno dopo diversi giorni. In un gruppo di
controllo, bollì il brodo solo per alcuni minuti e osservò che in queste beute
crescevano microorganismi. In un terzo gruppo bollì il brodo per un'ora, ma
chiuse le beute con tappi di sughero (che erano larghi abbastanza per il
passaggio dell'aria) ed anche in questo osservò lo sviluppo di microorganismi.
Spallanzani concluse che, mentre un'ora di bollitura sterilizzava la zuppa,
pochi minuti non erano sufficienti per uccidere tutte le forme viventi
inizialmente presenti ed inoltre che i microorganismi potevano essere anche
trasportati dall'aria, come era avvenuto nelle beute del terzo gruppo.
Questi risultati accesero un'animata discussione tra Spallanzani e Needham
riguardo alla sterilizzazione come metodo per confutare la generazione
spontanea. Needham affermò che l'eccessiva bollitura del brodo usata per
sterilizzare i contenitori aveva ucciso la "forza vitale", mentre la
breve ebollizione non era stata sufficientemente gravosa per distruggerla,
cosicché i microbi erano ancora capaci di svilupparsi. Inoltre sostenne che
l'uso di contenitori sigillati impediva l'ingresso della forza vitale.
Contrariamente, nei contenitori aperti, l'aria fresca poteva entrare, dando
così l'avvio alla generazione spontanea.[25] Un gruppo di formiche
mentre si cibano della carcassa di un serpente. Probabilmente l'ipotesi della
"generazione spontanea" è nata da interpretazioni erronee di
osservazioni di fenomeni di questo genere. Quando la controversia divenne
troppo vivace, l'Accademia delle Scienze di Parigi offrì un premio a chiunque
fosse stato in grado di fare luce sull'argomento. Il premio fu vinto nel 1864
da Louis Pasteur, che attraverso un semplice esperimento riuscì a confutare la
teoria della generazione spontanea. Egli impiegò per i suoi esperimenti dei
matracci a collo d'oca, che permettevano l'entrata dell'ossigeno, elemento
indispensabile allo sviluppo della vita, ma impedivano che il liquido
all'interno venisse a contatto con agenti contaminanti come spore e batteri.
Egli bollì il contenuto dei matracci, uccidendo così ogni forma di vita all'interno,
e dimostrò che i microrganismi riapparivano solo se il collo dei matracci
veniva rotto, permettendo così agli agenti contaminanti di entrare.
Attraverso questo semplice, ma ingegnoso esperimento Louis Pasteur fu in grado
di confutare definitivamente la teoria della generazione spontanea e, come lui
stesso disse in una serata scientifica alla Sorbona di Parigi: Mai la
teoria della generazione spontanea potrà risollevarsi dal colpo mortale
inflittole da questo semplice esperimento. Verso le teorie moderne Modifica In
una lettera a Joseph Dalton Hooker del 1º febbraio 1871, Charles Darwin suggerì
che l'iniziale scintilla della vita poteva essersi verificata in un
"piccolo e tiepido stagno, contenente ammoniaca e sali fosforici, luce,
calore, elettricità, ecc., in modo che una proteinafosse chimicamente prodotta
pronta per subire nuovi e più complessi cambiamenti". Egli proseguiva
spiegando che "oggi tale materia sarebbe istantaneamente divorata o
assorbita, cosa che non sarebbe avvenuta prima della formazione delle creature
viventi". In altre parole, la presenza della vita stessa evita che la
generazione spontanea di semplici composti organici avvenga sulla Terra oggi;
una circostanza che rende la ricerca dell'origine della vita dipendente dalle
condizioni sterili del laboratorio. Un approccio sperimentale alla
questione era oltre le possibilità della scienza di laboratorio ai tempi di
Darwin, e nessun progresso reale fu compiuto fino al 1924, quando Aleksandr
Ivanovič Oparin intuì che fu la carenza di ossigeno atmosferico a precedere la
catena degli eventi, la quale avrebbe condotto all'evoluzione della vita. In
effetti, secondo Oparin, il catalizzatore delle prime reazioni fu costituito
dalla radiazione ultravioletta la quale, in presenza di ossigeno, sarebbe stata
prontamente schermata dalla formazione di ozono. Tale meccanismo è spiegato
nella pubblicazione dello scienziato intitolata L'origine della vita sulla
Terra, in cui Oparin ipotizzò che, in un'atmosfera povera di ossigeno e per
azione della luce solare, si sarebbero prodotte molecole organiche, le quali,
accumulate nei mari primitivi, avrebbero formato un "brodo
primordiale". Queste prime sostanze organiche si sarebbero combinate
formando molecole sempre più complesse, fino ad arrivare ai coacervati. Queste
goccioline, simili nell'aspetto alle attuali cellule, si sarebbero accresciute
per fusione con altre gocce e riprodotte attraverso la divisione in gocce
figlie, ottenendo così un metabolismoprimordiale in cui quei fattori che promuovevano
l'integrità cellulare si mantenevano, al contrario degli altri che si
estinguevano. Molte teorie moderne sull'origine della vita mantengono l'idea di
Oparin come punto di partenza. Modelli correnti Modifica
Stromatoliti risalenti al Precambriano nella Formazione di Siyeh Formation,
Glacier National Park. Nel 2002, William Schopf della UCLA pubblicò un
controverso articolo sul giornale scientifico Nature affermando che formazioni
geologiche come quelle appartenessero ad alghemicrobiche fossilizzate di 3,5 miliardi
di anni fa. Se fosse vero, si tratterebbe della prima forma di vita conosciuta
sulla Terra. In verità non esiste un modello standard dell'origine della vita.
Tuttavia i modelli attualmente accettati si basano su alcune scoperte circa
l'origine delle componenti molecolari e cellulari della vita, che sono elencate
qui sotto: Le condizioni pre-biotiche hanno permesso lo sviluppo di
talune piccole molecole (monomeri) basilari per la vita, come gli amminoacidi.
Questo fu dimostrato nel corso dell'esperimento di Miller-Urey da Stanley
Miller e Harold Urey nel 1953. I fosfolipidi (se di lunghezza appropriata)
possono spontaneamente formare un doppio strato, componente base della membrana
cellulare. La polimerizzazione di nucleotidi in molecole casuali di RNA
potrebbe aver originato i ribozimiautoreplicantisi (ipotesi del mondo a RNA).
Una selezione naturale diretta verso una maggiore efficienza catalitica e
diversità ha prodotto ribozimi dotati di attività peptidil-trasferasica (di qui
la sintesi di piccole proteine), dalla formazione di complessi tra oligopeptidi
e molecole di RNA. Nacque così il primo ribosoma, e la sintesi proteica divenne
più prevalente. Le proteine hanno superato i ribozimi per abilità catalitica,
divenendo quindi i biopolimeri dominanti. Gli acidi nucleici sono stati
limitati ad una funzione prettamente genomica. Esistono dubbi sull'esatto
ordine cronologico delle tappe 2 e 3, poiché la comparsa dell'RNA
autoreplicante potrebbe aver preceduto la formazione delle prime membrane
biologiche. L'origine delle biomolecole fondamentali, benché non stabilita, è
meno controversa. Le sostanze fondamentali da cui si pensa che la vita si sia
formata sono: metano (CH4) ammoniaca (NH3) acqua (H2O) acido solfidrico
(H2S) anidride carbonica (CO2) o monossido di carbonio(CO) fosfati (PO43-).
L'ossigeno molecolare (O2) e l'ozono (O3) erano entrambi rari o assenti.
È stata sintetizzata una "protocellula" usando componenti base, che
avesse le proprietà necessarie per la vita attraverso il cosiddetto
"approccio dal basso verso l'alto" (in inglese:
"bottom-up")[27]. Alcuni ricercatori stanno lavorando in questo
campo, in particolare Steen Rasmussen al Los Alamos National Laboratory e Jack
Szostak all'Harvard University. Altri ricercatori ritengono più attuabile un
"approccio dall'alto verso il basso" (in inglese:
"top-down"). Un tale approccio, tentato da Craig Venter e da altri al
The Institute for Genomic Research, comporta la modifica di cellule procariote
esistenti, per ottenere cellule con un numero sempre minore di geni, tentando
di discernere a che punto i requisiti minimi per la vita sono raggiunti. Il
biologo John Desmond Bernal coniò per tale processo il termine Biopoiesi e
suggerì che vi erano alcuni "stadi" chiaramente definiti che potevano
essere riconosciuti per spiegare l'origine della vita: stadio 1:
l'origine dei monomeri biologici stadio 2: l'origine dei polimeri biologici
stadio 3: l'evoluzione dalle molecole alla cellula. Bernal suggerì che
l'evoluzione Darwiniana doveva essere iniziata presto, in un periodo compreso
tra gli stadi 1 e 2. Il biologo evolutivo Eugene Koonin ha proposto dei
calcoli[28] che suggeriscono che le probabilità in gioco diventano ammissibili
per giustificare la possibilità di pervenire al sistema di traduzione/replica
mediante la selezione darwiniana solo se si accetta la teoria del
multiverso. Origine delle molecole organiche Modifica Esperimenti di
Miller Modifica Magnifying glass icon mgx2.svgLo stesso argomento in dettaglio:
Esperimento di Miller-Urey e Ipotesi del mondo a IPA. Nel 1953 un neolaureato,
Stanley Miller, ed il suo professore, Harold Urey, realizzarono un esperimento
che provò che molecole organiche si sarebbero potute formare spontaneamente
sulla Terra primordiale da precursori inorganici. In quello che è passato alla
storia come "esperimento di Miller" si fece uso di una soluzione
gassosa altamente riducente, contenente metano, ammoniaca, idrogeno e vapore
acqueo, per formare, sotto l'esposizione di una scarica elettrica continua,
alcuni monomeri organici di base, come gli amminoacidi. Resta argomento
controverso se la soluzione di gas utilizzata nell'esperimento riflettesse
davvero la composizione dell'atmosfera della Terra primordiale. Altri gas meno
riducenti producono una minore quantità e varietà di prodotti. Un tempo si
pensava che nell'atmosfera prebiotica fossero presenti quantità apprezzabili di
ossigeno molecolare, che avrebbe essenzialmente prevenuto la formazione di
molecole organiche; tuttavia, la comunità scientifica odierna ritiene che tale
ipotesi sia fuorviante. Nel 1961 Joan Oró, dell'Università di Houston,
preparò una soluzione acquosa contenente ammoniaca ed acido cianidrico, un
composto che si formava nell'atmosfera riducente proposta da Miller, ed
ottenne, insieme agli amminoacidi, grandi quantità di adenina, una base azotata
presente sia negli acidi nucleici che nell'ATP. Anche le altre basi azotate
sono state ottenute in esperimenti simili, da reazioni tra l'acido cianidrico
ed altri composti che potrebbero essersi originati nell'atmosfera primordiale,
come il cianogeno ed il cianoacetilene.[29] Cyril Ponnamperuma nei
laboratori NASA durante un esperimento per verificare la possibilità della vita
su Giove, nel solco del noto esperimento di Stanley Miller. Immettendo scariche
elettriche in una miscela di acetilene e metano a bassissime temperature si
formano catene di polimeri. Nel 2006 un altro esperimento mostrò che una densa
foschia organica avvolgeva la Terra primordiale.[30]Una tale foschia organica
poteva dar luogo alle grandi concentrazioni di metano e anidride carbonica che
si ritiene fossero presenti nell'atmosfera della Terra a quel tempo. Una volta
formate, tali molecole organiche sarebbero ricadute sulla superficie terrestre,
consentendo la fioritura della vita a livello globale.[31] Le molecole
organiche di questo tipo sono, ovviamente, molto distanti da una forma di vita
pienamente compiuta ed autoreplicantesi, ma in un ambiente privo di forme di
vita preesistenti, queste molecole si sarebbero accumulate ed avrebbero fornito
un ambiente ricco per l'evoluzione chimica("brodo primordiale").
D'altro canto la formazione spontanea di polimeri complessi da monomeri
generati abioticamente in tali condizioni non è un processo diretto. Inoltre
alcuni isomeri dei monomeri organici fondamentali, che avrebbero evitato la
formazione di polimeri, si sono formati in elevate concentrazioni
nell'esperimento. Sono state ipotizzate altre sorgenti di molecole
complesse, incluse quelle di origine extra-terrestre o interstellare. Per
esempio, da analisi spettrali, si sa che tali molecole organiche sono presenti
su comete e meteoriti. Nel 2004, un'équipe trovò in una nebulosatracce di
idrocarburi policiclici aromatici (IPA), attualmente il tipo di molecole più
complesse mai rinvenuta nell'universo. Gli IPA sono stati anche proposti come
precursori dell'RNA nella cosiddetta "ipotesi del mondo a IPA".
Si può obiettare che la questione cruciale a cui questa teoria non fornisce una
risposta esauriente è come le molecole organiche relativamente semplici si
siano polimerizzate a formare strutture più complesse, fino alla protocellula.
Per esempio, in ambiente acquoso l'idrolisi degli oligomeri/polimeri nei loro
monomeri costituenti è favorita rispetto alla condensazione dei singoli
monomeri in polimeri. Ancora, l'esperimento di Miller produce varie sostanze
che potrebbero dar luogo a reazioni di doppio scambio con gli amminoacidi o
bloccare la crescita della catena peptidica. Esperimenti recenti che si
rifanno agli esperimenti di Miller Modifica Negli anni cinquanta e sessanta,
Sidney W. Fox studiò la formazione spontanea di strutture peptidiche in
condizioni che potrebbero essersi verificate nella Terra primordiale. Egli
dimostrò che gli amminoacidi potevano spontaneamente formare piccoli peptidi. Tali
amminoacidi e piccoli peptidi potevano essere indotti a formare membrane
sferiche chiuse, chiamate "microsfere".[32] Esperimenti più recenti
compiuti dal chimico Jeffrey Bada presso la Scripps Institution of Oceanography
(La Jolla, California) sono simili a quelli eseguiti da Miller. Comunque, Bada
notò che nei modelli correnti delle condizioni della Terra primordiale, il
biossido di carbonio e l'azoto formano nitriti, che distruggono gli amminoacidi
appena si formano. Tuttavia, sulla Terra primordiale dovevano essere presenti
quantità rilevanti di ferro e carbonati in grado di neutralizzare gli effetti
dei nitriti. Quando Bada eseguì un esperimento che ricalcava quello di Miller
con l'aggiunta di ferro e minerali carbonati, i prodotti risultarono ricchi di
amminoacidi. Questo suggerisce che l'origine di quantità significative di
amminoacidi possa essere avvenuta nella Terra primordiale anche se
nell'atmosfera erano presenti biossido di carbonio e azoto.[33] Ipotesi
di Eigen Modifica Magnifying glass icon mgx2.svgLo stesso argomento in
dettaglio: Teoria delle quasispecie. All'inizio degli anni settanta, un'équipe
di scienziati riuniti intorno a Manfred Eigen dell'Istituto Max Planckcercò di
risolvere definitivamente il mistero dell'origine della vita. Essi cercarono di
esaminare i passaggi di transizione tra il caos molecolare nel brodo
primordialee un sistema autoreplicantesi di semplici macromolecole. In un
"iperciclo", il sistema di memorizzazione dell'informazione (forse
l'RNA) produce un enzima, che catalizza la formazione di un altro sistema di
informazione, e così via in sequenza, finché il prodotto dell'ultimo aiuta
nella formazione del primo sistema di informazione. Trattati matematicamente,
gli ipercicli possono dar luogo a quasispecie, che attraverso la selezione
naturale entrarono in una forma di evoluzione darwiniana. Una spinta alla
teoria dell'iperciclo fu la scoperta che l'RNA in certe circostanze si
trasforma in ribozimi, una forma di enzimi. Ipotesi di Wächtershäuser
Modifica Magnifying glass icon mgx2.svgLo stesso argomento in dettaglio: Teoria
del mondo a ferro-zolfo. Una fumarola neranell'oceano Atlantico. Un'altra
possibile risposta all'enigma della polimerizzazione venne fornita negli anni
ottanta da Günter Wächtershäuser nella sua teoria del mondo a ferro-zolfo. In
questa teoria, egli postulò l'evoluzione sottomarina di pathways (vie
metaboliche) biochimici come fondamento dell'evoluzione della vita.[34]
Inoltre, presentò un consistente sistema per tracciare un percorso
retrospettivo dalla biochimica moderna fino alle reazioni ancestrali, le quali
fornirono i pathways alternativi per la sintesi di mattoncini organici da
semplici composti gassosi. In contrasto con l'esperimento di Miller
classico, che dipende da fonti di energia esterne (come la simulazione di
fulmini o radiazione ultravioletta), i "sistemi di Wächtershäuser"
funzionano con una risorsa energetica endogena, i solfuri di ferro e altri
minerali come la pirite. La reazione di ossidoriduzione di questi solfuri metallici
{\displaystyle \mathrm {Fe^{2+}+FeS_{2} + H_{2}\leftrightharpoons \;2\ FeS+2\ H^{+}\;\;\,\Delta G^{0}=-\
44,2\,kJ/mol} } libera energia che non solo è disponibile per la sintesi di
molecole organiche, ma anche per la formazione di oligomeri e polimeri. È pertanto
ipotizzato che tali sistemi possano evolvere in insiemi autocatalitici di
entità metabolicamente attive e autoreplicantesi, che avrebbero preceduto le
forme di vita oggi conosciute. L'esperimento così eseguito produsse una
quantità relativamente bassa di dipeptidi (dallo 0,4% al 12,4%) ed una ancora
minore di tripeptidi (0,10%) e gli scienziati notarono che a quelle stesse
condizioni i dipeptidi si idrolizzano rapidamente. Un'altra critica che si può
muovere è che l'esperimento non includeva nessuna delle organomolecole che
probabilmente avrebbero reagito o interrotto la catena.[35] L'ultima
modifica all'ipotesi ferro-zolfo fu apportata da William Martin e Michael
Russell nel 2002. Nello scenario da loro ipotizzato, le prime forme di vita
cellulari si sarebbero evolute all'interno di vulcanisottomarini sui fondali di
mari molto profondi. Schema biogeochimico dell'ecosistema dei
vulcani sottomarini Queste strutture consistono di piccole caverne, coperte da
leggeri muri membranosi formati da solfuri metallici. Pertanto, tali strutture
risolverebbero molti punti critici dei sistemi puri di Wächtershäuser: le
micro-caverne forniscono un modo per concentrare le molecole appena
sintetizzate, aumentando perciò la possibilità di formare oligomeri; i gradienti
di temperatura nel vulcano permettono di raggiungere le condizioni ottimali per
le reazioni parziali in differenti regioni del vulcano (sintesi dei monomeri in
quelle più calde, oligomerizzazione nelle parti più fredde); lo scorrere di
acqua idrotermale dalle strutture fornisce una fonte costante di energia e di
molecole semplici (solfuri metallici appena precipitati); il modello consente
una successione di diversi passaggi dell'evoluzione cellulare (chimica
prebiotica, sintesi di monomeri e oligomeri, sintesi di peptidi e proteine,
mondo dell'RNA, assemblaggio di proteine ribonucleari e mondo del DNA) in una
singola struttura, facilitando lo scambio tra tutti gli stadi di sviluppo; la
sintesi dei lipidi come mezzo di protezione delle cellule contro l'ambiente non
è necessaria, fino a che tutte le basilari funzioni cellulari sono sviluppate.
Questo modello localizza il LUCA ("Ultimo Antenato Comune
Universale") nel vulcano sottomarino, piuttosto che assumerne l'esistenza
come forma di vita libera. L'ultimo passo evolutivo sarebbe stata la sintesi di
una membrana lipidica che, alla fine, avrebbe permesso agli organismi di
abbandonare il sistema di microcaverne dei vulcani sottomarini e iniziare vite
indipendenti. Questa acquisizione tardiva dei lipidi è coerente con la presenza
di membrane lipidiche completamente diverse negli archaebatteri e negli
eubatteri e con la notevole somiglianza di molti aspetti della fisiologia
cellulare di tutte le forme di vita. Ipotesi sull'origine
dell'omochiralità Modifica Alanina R e L Un'altra questione irrisolta
nell'evoluzione chimica è l'origine dell'omochiralità, cioè la presenza negli
organismi viventi di molecole organiche con la stessa configurazione (ad
esempio, gli amminoacidi sono tutti nella configurazione L, mentre il ribosio e
il deossiribosio degli acidi nucleici hanno configurazione D). L'omochiralità,
spiegabile semplicemente con un'iniziale asimmetria, è essenziale per la
formazione di ribozimi e proteine funzionali. Un lavoro eseguito da scienziati
al Purdue identificò l'amminoacido serina come probabile causa prima
dell'omochilarità delle molecole organiche.[36][37] La serina, infatti, forma
legami particolarmente saldi con gli amminoacidi della stessa chiralità,
risultando in un oligopeptide di circa otto molecole, nel quale gli amminoacidi
hanno la stessa configurazione, D o L. Questa proprietà non è condivisa dagli
altri amminoacidi, che sono in grado di formare legami deboli anche con
amminoacidi di chiralità opposta. Benché il mistero sul perché la serina L
divenne dominante sia ancora insoluto, questo risultato suggerisce una risposta
alla questione della trasmissione chirale, poiché una volta che l'asimmetria si
è stabilita, le molecole organiche di una chiralità diventano dominanti.
Uno studio su alcuni amminoacidi, ritrovati sul meteorite Murchison, dimostrava
che c'era una maggiore percentuale di L-alanina e L-acido-glutammico rispetto
ai corrispondenti enantiomeri D. Da questi risultati si è formulata l'ipotesi
di una probabile origine nello spazio dell'omochiralità. Secondo questa teoria,
la luce polarizzata all'interno del disco protoplanetario potrebbe aver
provocato una fotodecomposizione selettiva di uno dei due enantiomeri,
conducendo a un eccesso dell'altro.[39] Altri studi hanno dimostrato che
il decadimento betapuò determinare una degradazione preferenziale dell'isomero
D-leucina, in una miscela racemica. Quest'osservazione, associata alla
possibile presenza di 14C nelle molecole prebiotiche identifica il decadimento
radioattivo come una probabile causa all'origine dell'omochiralità. Un'altra
teoria si basa sulla caratteristica dei cristalli chirali di concentrare sulla
loro superficie uno dei due enantiomeri. Quest'osservazione ha condotto
all'ipotesi di un possibile scenario prebiotico, in cui cristalli naturali
chirali hanno agito da catalizzatori per l'assemblaggio di macromolecole
formate da unità monomeriche chirali. Di recente è stata formulata l'ipotesi,
supportata da simulazioni al computer, che una serie di eventi di estinzione
selettiva possa avere selezionato un certo tipo di chiralità in una fase assai
primordiale della vita[42] Dalle molecole organiche alle protocellule
Modifica La domanda "Come semplici molecole organiche possono formare una
protocellula?" è tuttora senza risposta, ma vi sono molte ipotesi. Alcune
di queste postulano come tappa iniziale la comparsa degli acidi nucleici,
mentre altre ritengono antecedenti l'evoluzione delle reazioni biochimiche e
dei pathways. Recentemente stanno emergendo modelli ibridi che combinano gli
aspetti delle due ipotesi. Modello "Prima i Geni": il mondo a
RNA Modifica Magnifying glass icon mgx2.svgLo stesso argomento in dettaglio:
Ipotesi del mondo a RNA. Confronto tra le basi di RNA e DNA L'ipotesi del
mondo a RNA suggerisce che molecole relativamente corte di RNA, capaci di
catalizzare la propria replicazione, potrebbero essersi formate spontaneamente.
È difficile valutare la probabilità di tale evento, ma sono state avanzate
varie teorie sulle possibili modalità di formazione di queste molecole.
Le prime membrane cellulari si sarebbero formate spontaneamente da proteinoidi,
molecole simili a proteine che vengono prodotte riscaldando soluzioni
amminoacidiche e, se presenti alla corretta concentrazione in ambiente acquoso,
formano microsfere che si comportano in modo simile a compartimenti racchiusi
in membrana. Altre possibilità includono sistemi di reazioni chimiche
all'interno di substrati di argilla o sulla superficie di rocce di pirite. I
fattori che supportano l'importante ruolo del RNA nelle prime fasi della vita
sulla Terra sono: la sua abilità nel replicarsi; la sua capacità sia di
immagazzinare informazioni che di catalizzare reazioni chimiche (come nei
ribozimi); i suoi molteplici ruoli come intermedio nell'espressione e nel mantenimento
dell'informazione genetica (nella forma di DNA) negli organismi superiori; Il
ruolo centrale assunto dall'rRNA all'interno dei ribosomi nel catalizzare la
formazione del legame peptidico della catena proteica nascente; la possibilità
di ottenere le sintesi chimiche dei suoi componenti in condizioni che
approssimano quelle della Terra primordiale. I problemi che sollevano dubbi
contro questa ipotesi sono legati, in particolare: all'instabilità
dell'RNA, soprattutto quando viene esposto alla radiazione ultravioletta; alla
difficoltà di ottenere i nucleotidi presenti nella molecola di RNA in
esperimenti di laboratorio, a partire dai suoi componenti; alla scarsità in
soluzione di fosfati disponibili, necessari a formare la spina dorsale; alla
difficoltà di ottenere le basi citosina e uracile in esperimenti in vitro;
all'instabilità della base citosina, che è facilmente idrolizzata; al problema
legato al ribosio, che viene prodotto in vitro come miscela dei due enantiomeri
D ed L. Esperimenti recenti hanno rilevato che le prime stime sulle dimensioni
di una molecola di RNA capace di auto-replicarsi erano molto probabilmente
fortemente sottostimate. Le forme attuali della teoria del mondo a RNA
propongono che molecole più semplici, in grado di auto-replicarsi, abbiano
preceduto l'RNA (che un altro "Mondo" si sarebbe evoluto producendo
successivamente il Mondo a RNA). Secondo alcuni studiosi, acidi nucleici
alternativi potrebbero essersi formati in tempi prebiotici, precedendo il mondo
a RNA. Uno dei possibili candidati è il piranosil-RNA (p-RNA), molto simile
alla molecola di RNA ma che, al posto del ribosio, presenta una versione
modificata di questo, con un anello a sei atomi. Questo polimero, prodotto da
Eschenmoser, può formare strutture a duplice filamento e si è dimostrato più
adatto dello stesso RNA all'auto-replicazione in assenza di un sistema
enzimatico. Altri acidi nucleici possibili precursori dell'RNA sono il PNA, che
invece possiede uno scheletro di tipo proteico, il TNA (Threose nucleic acid),
ed il GNA(Glycerol nucleic acid). Attualmente, tuttavia, le varie ipotesi
hanno un impianto sperimentale incompleto: molte di esse possono essere
simulate e testate in laboratorio, ma la scarsità di rocce sedimentarie
risalenti a quel periodo della Terra primordiale conferisce scarse opportunità
di verificare quest'ipotesi con certezza. Modelli "Prima il
Metabolismo": mondo a ferro-zolfo e altri Modifica Molti modelli respingono l'idea dell'auto-replicazione di un
"gene-nudo" e ipotizzano la comparsa di un primitivo metabolismo che
avrebbe fornito l'ambiente per il successivo emergere della replicazione
dell'RNA. Una delle prime formalizzazioni di quest'idea fu avanzata nel
1924 da Alexander Oparin, che postulò la presenza di primitive vescicole
auto-replicantesi, antecedenti all'evoluzione della struttura del DNA. Varianti
più moderne, risalenti agli anni ottanta e novanta, includono la teoria del
mondo a ferro-zolfo di Günter Wächtershäuser e i modelli introdotti da
Christian de Duve basati sulla chimica dei tioesteri. Tra le argomentazioni più
astratte e teoriche a sostegno dell'emergenza del metabolismo in assenza geni
si includono un modello matematico introdotto da Freeman Dyson all'inizio degli
anni ottanta e l'idea di Stuart Kauffman a proposito di insiemi autocatalitici,
discussi più tardi in quel decennio. Tuttavia, l'idea che un ciclo
metabolico chiuso, come il ciclo dell'acido citrico, si possa formare
spontaneamente (come proposto da Günter Wächtershäuser) rimane priva di
supporto. Secondo Leslie Orgel, un leader negli studi sull'origine della vita
degli ultimi decenni, le cose non cambieranno in futuro. In un articolo
intitolato Self-Organizing Biochemical Cycles,[44] Orgel riassume la sua
analisi sull'argomento affermando: "Non vi sono attualmente ragioni per
credere che cicli formati da più passaggi, come il ciclo riduttivo dell'acido
citrico, si siano auto-organizzati su una superficie composta da FeS o FeS2o da
qualche altro minerale". È possibile che un altro tipo di pathway
metabolico si sia evoluto al principio della vita. Per esempio, invece del
ciclo riduttivo dell'acido citrico, il pathway "aperto"
dell'acetil-CoA(uno dei quattro modi oggi riconosciuti per la fissazione del
biossido di carbonio in natura) risulta più compatibile con l'ipotesi
dell'auto-organizzazione sulla superficie di un solfuro metallico. L'enzima
chiave di questo pathway, la monossido di carbonio deidrogenasi/acetil-CoA
sintetasi, ospita gruppi misti nichel-ferro-zolfo nei suoi centri di reazione e
catalizza la formazione dell'acetil-CoA in un singolo passaggio. Teoria
delle bolle Modifica Le onde che s'infrangono sulla riva creano una delicata
schiuma composta da bolle. I venti che soffiano sugli oceani hanno la tendenza
a portare gli oggetti galleggianti a riva, come la legna che si accumula sulla
battigia. È possibile che, nei mari primordiali, le molecole organiche si siano
concentrate sulle rive più o meno allo stesso modo. Inoltre, le acque costiere
poco profonde tendono anche a essere più calde, concentrando ulteriormente le
molecole con l'evaporazione. Mentre le bolle composte soprattutto da acqua si
dissolvono rapidamente, quelle oleose possiedono una maggiore stabilità.
Rappresentazione del doppio strato fosfolipidico. I fosfolipidi costituiscono
un buon esempio di composto oleoso ritenuto abbondante nei mari prebiotici.
Siccome i fosfolipidi contengono una testa idrofila da un lato, e una coda
idrofobica dall'altro, hanno la tendenza spontanea a formare membrane lipidiche
in acqua. Una bolla formata da un unico strato può contenere solo olio, e,
pertanto, non è favorevole a ospitare molecole organiche idrosolubili. D'altro
canto, una bolla lipidica a doppio strato può contenere acqua e, al momento
della sua formazione nei mari primitivi, potrebbe aver intrappolato e
concentrato numerose molecole organiche idrosolubili, tra le quali zuccheri,
proteine e anche polimeri di acidi nucleici, e per questo motivo rappresenta il
precursore più probabile delle moderne membrane cellulari.[45] All'interno di
questa bolla neoformata, le molecole organiche catturate potrebbero aver
reagito formando composti organici più complessi. Inoltre, l'acquisizione di
una proteina all'interno del doppio strato, aumentando la stabilità della
membrana, può aver offerto un vantaggio selettivo ad alcune bolle, poiché le
macromolecole in esse contenute hanno interagito per un periodo di tempo
maggiore, sintetizzando nuove proteine e acidi nucleici. Quando queste bolle si
sono dissolte, a causa delle sollecitazioni meccaniche e del moto ondoso, hanno
rilasciato nel mezzo circostante il loro contenuto di molecole organiche, le
quali, a loro volta, possono essere state catturate all'interno di nuove bolle
in formazione, realizzando una forma primitiva di trasmissione genetica. Una
sequenza di questi processi avvenuta nei mari primordiali, grazie alla
selezione naturale, potrebbe aver trasformato le bolle primitive nelle prime
cellule, dalle quali poi si sono evoluti i primi procarioti, eucarioti ed,
infine, gli organismi pluricellulari.[46] Similmente, le bolle formate
interamente da molecole simili a proteine, denominate microsfere, si formeranno
spontaneamente alle giuste condizioni. Ma non sono un probabile precursore
delle moderne membrane cellulari, dal momento che le membrane cellulari sono
formate prevalentemente da composti lipidici che amminoacidici. Altri
modelli Modifica Autocatalisi Modifica L'etologo britannico Richard Dawkins,
nel suo libro Il racconto dell'antenato. La grande storia dell'evoluzione edito
nel 2004, sostenne l'ipotesi di un possibile ruolo dell'autocatalisi nelle
prime fasi dell'origine della vita. Gli autocatalitici sono sostanze che
catalizzano la propria produzione, e pertanto sono dei semplici replicatori
molecolari. In questo libro, Dawkins cita esperimenti effettuati da Julius
Rebek ed i suoi colleghi allo Scripps Research Institute in California, nei
quali combinarono ammino adenosina e pentafluorofenilestere con l'autocatalita
ammino adenosina triacido estere (AATE). Varianti di AATE, contenuti in un analogo
sistema sperimentale, mostrarono di possedere la proprietà di catalizzare la
propria sintesi. Questo esperimento dimostrò la possibilità che l'autocatalisi
poteva manifestare competizione all'interno di una popolazione di entità con
caratteristiche di ereditarietà, che poteva essere interpretata come una forma
rudimentale di selezione naturale. Teoria dell'argilla Modifica Una
teoria basata sull'argilla fu avanzata da A.Graham Cairns-Smith dell'University
of Glasgow nel 1985 e adottata come un'ipotesi plausibile anche da altri
scienziati (tra cui Dawkins). La teoria di Graham Cairns-Smith postula la
formazione graduale di molecole organiche complesse su una piattaforma
inorganica preesistente, presumibilmente cristalli di silicati in soluzione. In
pratica, si propone un modello di "vita dalla roccia".
Cairns-Smith è uno strenuo critico di altri modelli di evoluzione chimica. Tuttavia,
ammette che, come molti altri modelli dell'origine della vita, anche il suo
contiene dei risvolti problematici (Horgan 1991). Peggy Rigou
dell'Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA), a Jouy-en-Josas, in
Francia, riporta sull'edizione dell'11 febbraio 2006 della rivista Science
News[48] che i prioni sono capaci di legarsi alle particelle di argilla e
migrare quando l'argilla diventa carica negativamente. Anche se in questa
relazione non c'è alcun riferimento sulle possibili implicazioni per le teorie
sull'origine della vita, questa ricerca suggerisce che i prioni possano
rappresentare un probabile pathway per le prime molecole replicantesi.
"Biosfera profonda-calda" modello di Gold Modifica La scoperta dei
nanobi (strutture filiformi contenenti DNA e di dimensioni inferiori ad un
batterio) in rocce profonde, portò negli anni novanta alla formulazione, da
parte di Thomas Gold, di una controversa teoria secondo cui le prime forme di
vita non si svilupparono sulla superficie terrestre, ma vari chilometri al di
sotto della crosta. È noto che la vita microbica è abbondante fino a cinque
chilometri al di sotto della superficie terrestre nella forma degli archaea,
che generalmente si considerano come anteriori o per lo meno contemporanei agli
eubatteri, molti dei quali vivono sulla superficie, inclusi gli oceani. Si
ritiene che la scoperta di vita microbica sotto la superficie di altri corpi
celesti nel nostro Sistema Solare darebbe una credibilità rilevante a questa
teoria. Secondo Gold una sorgente profonda di sostanza organica, asciutta e
difficile da raggiungere, promuove la sopravvivenza, perché la vita che si
forma in una pozzanghera di materiale organico tende a consumare tutto il cibo
fino ad estinguersi. Il Mondo a lipidi Modifica I fosfolipidi sono
in grado di formare membrane biologiche Secondo questa teoria le prime entità autoreplicantesi
erano composti organici simili ai lipidi. È noto che i fosfolipidi formano
spontaneamente doppi strati in acqua - la stessa struttura delle odierne
membrane cellulari. Anche altre molecole anfifiliche, con una catena lunga
idrofoba ed una testa polare, sono in grado di formare spontaneamente strutture
simili a vescicole racchiuse da membrane. Queste catene carboniose erano
presenti sulla Terra primordiale, dove la loro capacità di auto organizzarsi in
strutture sovramolecolari può essere stata determinante per l'emergere della
vita. Infatti, i corpi lipidici formati da anfifili possiedono, nella zona
centrale apolare, molecole capaci di assorbire la luce visibile e utilizzarla
per numerose reazioni, tra cui la sintesi di altre molecole anfifiliche a partire
da precursori presenti nell'ambiente. Le molecole neosintetizzate, inserendosi
nel doppio strato, provocano l'espansione delle vescicole, le quali, in seguito
ad eccessiva espansione, vanno incontro ad una scissione spontanea, conservando
la stessa composizione dei lipidi nella progenie. Questo processo può
aver rappresentato una prima forma di replicazione e di trasferimento
dell'informazione. Secondo questo modello, infatti, sulla Terra primordiale
esistevano diversi tipi di questi corpi lipidici, alcuni dei quali, grazie alla
loro particolare composizione, possedevano capacità catalitiche superiori, e
quindi si accrescevano e replicavano più velocemente degli altri, trasferendo
la loro informazione composizionale alla progenie; in questo modo si sarebbe
realizzata una forma di selezione naturale e solo in seguito, l'evoluzione
condusse alla comparsa di entità polimeriche come l'RNA o il DNA più adatte
alla conservazione dell'informazione.[49] Il modello a polifosfati
Modifica Il problema con la maggior parte degli scenari abiogenetici è che
l'equilibrio termodinamico degli amminoacidi con i peptidi è spostato nella
direzione degli amminoacidi liberi; sono stati spesso tralasciati, infatti, i
meccanismi che hanno indotto la polimerizzazione. La risoluzione di questo
problema può essere rilevata nelle proprietà dei polifosfati, generati dalla
polimerizzazione di ioni monofosfato ordinari PO4−3 ad opera della radiazione
ultravioletta. I polifosfati inducono la polimerizzazione degli amminoacidi in
peptidi, guidando il processo contro la direzione dell'equilibrio. Grandi
quantità di ultravioletti erano probabilmente presenti negli oceani
primordiali. Il problema fondamentale, tuttavia, sembra essere che il calcio
reagisce con il fosfato solubile formando fosfato di calcio insolubile, per cui
occorre trovare un meccanismo plausibile per mantenere gli ioni calcio liberi
in soluzione. Forse, la risposta potrebbe trovarsi in alcuni complessi stabili
e non reattivi come il citrato di calcio. Il modello dell'ecopoiesi
Modifica Il modello dell'ecopoiesi propone che i cicli biogeochimici degli
elementi biogenici, catalizzati da un'atmosfera primordiale ricca di ossigeno,
generato dalla fotolisi del vapore acqueo, siano stati la base di un
metabolismo planetario che precedette e condizionò la graduale evoluzione della
vita.[52] Vita "primitiva" extraterrestre Modifica Magnifying
glass icon mgx2.svg Lo stesso argomento in dettaglio: Esobiologia.
Un'alternativa all'abiogenesi terrestre è l'ipotesi che la vita primitiva si
sia originariamente formata in ambiente extraterrestre, o nel cosmo o su un
pianeta vicino (Marte). (Si noti che l'esogenesi è legata, ma non coincide con
la nozione di panspermia). La presenza di acqua Modifica Distese
ghiacciate su Europa. Per questo motivo ultimamente rivestono particolare
importanza le osservazioni dei pianeti esterni alla Terra o addirittura fuori
dal Sistema Solare. Per cercare la presenza di vita su questi pianeti, ci si
concentra principalmente sulla ricerca di acqua allo stato liquido, considerata
indispensabile alla formazione di entità viventi. In questi casi, la situazione
è molto diversa: il calore necessario per la presenza di acqua allo stato
liquido non è più legata principalmente all'energia ricevuta dal Sole, ma da quella
prodotta all'interno dei singoli pianeti per effetto della forza gravitazionale
e del decadimento radioattivo. Per esempio, si ipotizza la possibile presenza
di acqua allo stato liquido all'interno dei cosiddetti satelliti di ghiaccio,
dove le forze di marea indotte dal pianeta stirano e distorcono la crosta
causando l'innalzamento della temperaturaoltre il punto di fusione.[53]
Acqua su Marte Modifica Magnifying glass icon mgx2.sv Lo stesso argomento in
dettaglio: Vita su Marte. Varie missioni spaziali sono state effettuate sul
pianeta rosso al fine di verificare la presenza di acqua. Sul suolo marziano
sono state rintracciate tracce di ematite, un minerale che si forma solamente in
presenza di acqua e sono state osservate zone sedimentarie che si ipotizza
possano essersi formate per azione erosiva di un liquido; il rover Opportunity
ha inoltre ottenuto riscontri che in un antico passato l'acqua esisteva allo
stato fluido sulla superficie di Marte. I solchi, che si originano
dal bordo rialzato del cratere, sono attribuiti al ruscellamento di liquidi
(probabilmente acqua) sulla superficie di Marte Nel dicembre del 2006 Mars
Global Surveyor ha fornito le prove fotografiche che a tutt'oggi l'acqua
fuoriesce da fenditure lasciando depositi sul terreno. Altre fotografie hanno
mostrato alvei di antichi fiumi, isole che sorgevano al loro interno, prove
inconfutabili che un tempo il liquido scorreva formando le caratteristiche
formazioni ora visibili. Ma col diminuire del campo magnetico il vento solare
ha spazzato via la primitiva atmosfera facendo diminuire drasticamente la
pressione ed eliminando quasi completamente l'acqua dalla superficie. Nel
marzo del 2004 la sonda Mars Express ha rilevato la presenza di metano
nell'atmosfera di Marte, e siccome questo gas può persistere solo per poche
centinaia di anni, essa viene spiegata solamente attraverso un processo
vulcanico o geologico non identificato o con la presenza di certe forme di vita
estremofile. Secondo altri esperti, il minerale chiamato olivina in presenza di
acqua potrebbe essere stato convertito in serpentina, e questo fenomeno
potrebbe essere successo in qualche posto nel sottosuolo di Marte ed aver
liberato abbastanza metano da poter essere stato rilevato dalle sonde. Ancora
il Mars Express nel febbraio 2005 ha segnalato la presenza di formaldeide,
altro indizio di presenza di vita microbica. Nel novembre del 2005 i
ricercatori dell'ESA hanno comunicato che la sonda utilizzando il radar
MARSISha individuato quello che probabilmente è un lago ghiacciato largo fino a
250 chilometri nel sottosuolo del pianeta ad una profondità di circa 2
chilometri. Il bacino del lago deriverebbe da un impatto di un meteorite che in
seguito si sarebbe riempito di materiale ricco di ghiaccio. Tramite MARSIS si
sono potuti contare i crateri nascosti dai sedimenti e dalle colate laviche
della regione nord di Marte. Il numero di questi crateri è comparabile con il
numero di quelli presenti nella regione sud, quindi entrambe le regioni si
sarebbero formate nello stesso arco temporale.[54]Lo strumento MARSIS inoltre
ha permesso di effettuare una stima di massima della quantità d'acqua
immagazzinata sotto forma di ghiaccio nella regione del polo sud. Nel maggio
2008 è atterrata la sonda Phoenix su una regione polare con il compito di
analizzare l'ambiente per verificare se vi possano vivere i microorganismi; il
lander con un braccio meccanico ha scavato nel terreno ed analizzato il
materiale ottenuto. Si ritiene che i terreni, analizzati da Phoenix siano
vecchi di 50.000 e forse un milione di anni, e potrebbero avere tracce di un
antico clima marziano più temperato. Il 1º agosto 2008 in una conferenza stampa
la NASA ha annunciato la rilevazione da parte della sonda Phoenix di ghiaccio
presente a 5 centimetri sotto il suolo marziano.[56] L'arrivo sulla Terra
Modifica I composti organici sono relativamente comuni nello spazio,
specialmente al di fuori del sistema solare, dove i composti volatili non
evaporano per effetto del calore solare. Le comete sono rivestite da strati
esterni in materiale scuro, ritenuto essere simile al catramecomposto di
materiale organico complesso formato da semplici composti del carbonio andati
incontro a reazioni dovute soprattutto all'irraggiamento da parte degli
ultravioletti. Si può supporre che una pioggia di materiale dalle comete possa
aver portato sulla Terra quantità significative di tali complessi
organici. La cometa Hale-Bopp. L'impatto di comete come questa con
la superficie terrestre potrebbe aver rilasciato una gran quantità di complessi
organici Un'ipotesi alternativa ma legata a quest'ultima, proposta per spiegare
la presenza della vita sulla Terra così presto su un pianeta appena
raffreddato, con un tempo per l'evoluzione prebiotica evidentemente molto
ridotto, è che la vita si sia formata inizialmente su Marte. A causa delle sue
minori dimensioni, Marte si sarebbe raffreddato prima della Terra (una
differenza di centinaia di milioni di anni), permettendo processi prebiotici
mentre la Terra era ancora troppo calda. La vita sarebbe poi stata trasportata
sulla Terra quando il materiale crostale subì esplosioni a causa di impatti con
comete e asteroidi. Marte avrebbe continuato a raffreddarsi molto velocemente
divenendo ostile alla prosecuzione dell'evoluzione e anche all'esistenza stessa
della vita (perse la sua atmosfera a causa di un blando vulcanesimo). La Terra
sta andando incontro allo stesso destino, ma a minore velocità. Questa
ipotesi non risponde in realtà alla domanda su come si sia originata la vita,
ma semplicemente sposta la questione su un altro pianeta o su una cometa.
Tuttavia, il vantaggio di un'origine extraterrestre della vita primitiva è che
la vita non deve necessariamente essersi evoluta su ciascun pianeta per esservi
presente, ma piuttosto da un singolo luogo da cui si sarebbe diffusa nella
galassia ad altri sistemi stellari attraverso comete e meteoriti. L'evidenza a
supporto della plausibilità del concetto è scarsa, ma trova dimostrazione nello
studio recente delle meteoriti marziane ritrovate in Antartide e negli studi
sui microbi estremofili[57] e sui risultati di esperimenti sulla resistenza
all'esposizione nello spazio di alcune forme di vita terrestri. Un ulteriore
sostegno all'ipotesi viene dalla recente scoperta di un ecosistema batterico la
cui sorgente di energia è la radioattività.[58] L'origine della vita
nella cultura Modifica L'interrogativo di come abbia avuto origine la vita ha
coinvolto molto la cultura umana e prima che la scienza elaborasse le teorie
che oggi conosciamo, è tramite la mitologia, la religione e la filosofia che
l'uomo ha provato a fornire risposte a tale interrogativo. Religione e
mitologia Modifica Magnifying glass icon mgx2.svg Lo stesso argomento in
dettaglio: Cosmogonia. Secondo l'induismo, Brahmā è il padre di tutti gli
esseri viventi. Il concetto di creazione permea tutte le culture, e in talune è
comune la mancanza di un processo evolutivo. Le dottrine o complesso di miti
che si rifanno alla creazione possono tuttavia essere fra loro molto diversi,
spostandosi da cultura a cultura. Infatti alcuni miti fanno nascere il mondo
dalle lotte intestine tra le divinità, altri affidano la creazione ad un'unica
divinità che fa nascere il creato dal nulla mentre, per altri ancora, la Terra
e tutto ciò che ci circonda sarebbe fuoriuscito da un uovo cosmico primordiale.
In ognuno di questi miti, le varie società e le varie culture hanno inserito
gli elementi e le metafore che ritenevano più rappresentativi della loro
concezione del mondo. Alcuni ritengono che il mito della creazione influenzi l'atteggiamento
degli uomini che vivono nella società che gli ha dato vita, anche se essi non
vi credono. Australiani aborigeni Modifica Nella cultura degli aborigeni
australiani, la creazione del mondo svolge un ruolo fondamentale. La creazione
risale al Tempo del sogno, in cui gigantesche creature totemiche attraversarono
la Terra cantando di ciò che incontravano (rocce, pozze d'acqua, animali,
piante) e così facendo portarono questi elementi alla creazione vera e
propria. Babilonia Modifica Il mito della creazione babilonese è stato
descritto nell'Enûma Elish, di cui esistono varie versioni e copie, la più
antica delle quali è datata al 1700 a.C. Secondo questa descrizione, il dio
Marduk si armò per combattere il mostro Tiamat. Marduk distrusse Tiamat, tagliandola
in due parti che divennero la terra e il cielo. Dopo, distrusse anche il marito
di Tiamat, Kingu, usando il suo sangue per creare l'umanità. Bantu
Modifica Secondo i Bantu, in origine la Terra non era altro che acqua e
oscurità. Mbombo, il gigante bianco, governava questo caos. Un giorno egli
sentì un fortissimo dolore allo stomaco e vomitò il sole, la luna e le stelle.
Il sole splendeva perfidamente e l'acqua evaporò nelle nuvole. Gradualmente,
apparvero delle colline asciutte. Mbombo vomitò di nuovo e questa volta vennero
fuori gli alberi, gli animali, le persone e molte altre cose: la prima donna,
il leopardo, l'aquila, l'incudine, la scimmia Fumu, il primo uomo, il
firmamento, la medicina e la luce. Nchienge, la donna delle acque, viveva ad Est.
Ella aveva un figlio, Woto, e una figlia, Labama. Woto fu il primo re dei
Bakuba. Buddismo Modifica Il Buddismo normalmente ignora le questioni
riguardanti l'origine della vita. Il Buddha a questo riguardo disse che sarebbe
stato possibile ponderare su queste questioni per tutta la vita senza tuttavia
avvicinarsi al vero obiettivo, la cessazione della sofferenza. Cherokee
Modifica In principio, c'era solo l'acqua. Tutti gli animali vivevano sopra di
essa ed il cielo era sommerso. Erano tutti curiosi di sapere cosa ci fosse
sotto l'acqua ed un giorno Dayuni'si, lo scarabeo acquatico, si offrì
volontario per esplorare. Esplorò la superficie, ma non riuscì a trovare nessun
terreno solido. Esplorò sotto la superficie fino al fondo e tutto quello che
trovò fu del fango che portò in superficie. Dopo aver preso il fango, esso
cominciò a crescere e a spargersi tutto intorno, fino a che non divenne la
Terra così come la conosciamo. Dopo che tutto ciò accadde, uno degli
animali attaccò questa nuova terra al cielo con quattro stringhe. La terra era
ancora troppo umida, così mandarono il grande falco nel Galun'lati per
prepararla per loro. Il falco volò giù e quando raggiunse la terra dei Cherokee
era così stanco che le sue ali cominciarono a colpire il suolo. Ogni volta che
colpivano il suolo si formava una valle od una montagna. Gli animali poi
decisero che era troppo buio, così crearono il sole e lo misero lì dove è
tutt'oggi. Cina Modifica In Cina sussistono cinque maggiori punti di
vista sulla creazione. Secondo il primo non ci sono le prove necessarie
per spiegare la creazione e le sue origini. Il secondo si fonda sull'idea che
il paradiso e la terra erano un'entità unica che poi si separò in due parti. Il
terzo, apparso relativamente tardi nella storia della cultura cinese, è quello
del Taoismo. Secondo questo il Tao è la forza alla base della creazione grazie
alla quale, dal nulla si è creato il tutto, ovvero dal vuoto si è generata la
materia (rispettivamente lo yin e lo yang) e da questi è nata ogni cosa attraverso
i vari processi naturali. Il quarto, anch'esso relativamente giovane, è il mito
di Pangu. Secondo questa spiegazione, offerta dai monaci Taoisti secoli dopo
Lao Zi, l'universo nacque da un uovo cosmico. Una divinità, Pangu, nascendo da
quell'uovo lo ruppe in due parti: quella superiore divenne il cielo e quella
inferiore la terra. Man mano che la divinità crebbe le due parti dell'uovo si
separarono sempre più e, quando Pangu morì, le parti del suo corpo divennero
varie zone terrestri. Il quinto è costituito da racconti tribali non legati in
un sistema unicizzante. Bibbia Modifica Un mosaico del Duomo di Monreale,
raffigurante la creazione delle specie animali ad opera di Dio. Nella Bibbia si
narra che Dio avrebbe creato il mondo, ivi inteso l'universo, in sei giorni,
riposandosi il settimo. Alcune dottrine cristiane insegnano che si tratta di
giorni letterali, mentre altre credono che il termine "giorno" debba
essere inteso come Ere creative, della durata di migliaia, se non milioni, di anni
e il riferirsi a giorni sia solo un espediente per facilitare la comprensione
con un'immagine il più semplice e comprensibile da tutti[senza fonte]. Nella
Genesi, il primo libro del testo sacro per ebrei e cristiani, ma riconosciuto
tale anche dai musulmani, la narrazione della Creazione occupa i capitoli
1,1-2,4a[59]. La Genesi si apre con le seguenti frasi: «In principio Dio creò
il cielo e la terra. La terra era informe e deserta e le tenebre ricoprivano
l'abisso e lo spirito di Dio aleggiava sulle acque. Sin dalle origini della
filosofia occidentale, in particolare nella filosofia greca, il problema
dell'origine della vita è stato posto al centro della riflessione; le varie
scuole di pensiero si distinguono fra quelle che attribuivano l'origine del
cosmo a un principio statico (l'acqua, il numero, il logos, l'essere), ovvero a
una pluralità di fattori(amore e odio, gli atomi etc.) che, mediante un
equilibrio dinamico, assicurano il divenire della vita. Nel Poema sulla natura
Parmenide sostiene che la molteplicità e i mutamenti del mondo fisico sono
illusori, e afferma, contrariamente al senso comune, che sola realtà è
l'Essere: immutabile, ingenerato, finito, immortale, unico, omogeneo, immobile,
eterno. Questa concezione è diametralmente opposta alla tesi formulata da
Eraclito, secondo il quale tutto il mondo non è che un flusso perennemente in
divenire, nel quale nessuna cosa è mai la stessa poiché tutto si trasforma ed è
in una continua evoluzione. Pur se la filosofia di Eraclito ci è giunta in modo
frammentario, egli sembra quindi ancorare la realtà al tempo e alle continue
trasformazioni che esso comporta; in questo senso sostiene che solo il
cambiamento e il movimento siano reali e che l'identità delle cose sia
illusoria: per Eraclito tutto scorre (panta rei). Anche gli atomisti
democriteisi opponevano alla concezione di immobilismo degli eleati. La teoria
atomistica prevedeva, in effetti, la coesistenza di Essere e Non essere. La
realtà sarebbe originata da scontri casuali di atomi che si uniscono formando gli
enti sensibili. Una teoria differente è elaborata da Anassagora secondo cui la
vita sulla Terra si sarebbe sviluppata in seguito allo sviluppo di
"semi" presenti in tutto l'Universo, armonizzati da un Nous, una
sorta di intelligenza divina. Tale ipotesi è stata ripresa nell'Ottocento e
prende il nome di panspermia. Secondo Platone, il mondo visibile sarebbe opera
del Demiurgo, una sorta di divinità che avrebbe traslato il mondo perfetto
delle idee nel mondo terreno imperfetto. Diversa invece la concezione
aristotelica: secondo Aristotele, infatti, essendo Dio puro pensiero e
immutabile, non può creare il mondo, che è anch'esso eterno. Come riporta CICERONE
(si veda) (Tuscolane): «il mondo non ha mai avuto origine, poiché non vi è
stato alcun inizio, per il sopravvenire di una nuova decisione, di un'opera
così eccellente» Arte Modifica Affresco della Cappella Sistina,
raffigurante la creazione dell'uomo. Anche varie opere artistiche (letterarie,
pittoriche, ecc.) hanno affrontato il tema dell'origine della vita. Il tema
della Creazione, preso dalla Genesi si trova in innumerevoli cicli pittori e
musivi di storie dell'Antico Testamento. Michelangelo dipinse alcuni
affreschi sul soffitto della Cappella Sistina in cui rappresentava scene tratte
dai primi capitoli della Genesi: una di queste rappresentava la creazione del
primo uomo, Adamo, in cui Dio viene rappresentato come un vecchio signore che
fluttua in aria con il suo mantello e che conferisce la vita a Adamo
sfiorandolo con la mano. Il Tintoretto eseguì a Venezia la sua Creazione
degli Animali, oggi conservata nelle Gallerie dell'Accademia. Vi si può vedere
il Creatore in mezzo ad una brillante luce nella Terra ancora oscura dopo la
creazione della Terra stessa nel secondo giorno; e si può ammirare la scena del
quarto giorno: pesci, uccelli ed anche mammiferi. Raffaello Sanzio a Roma aveva
già eseguito un bellissimo dipinto sulla creazione degli animali con lo stesso
titolo del Tintoretto; esso è visitabile nella Loggia di Raffaello nel
Vaticano. In esso gli animali sono tutti intorno al Creatore, anche gli animali
mitici, come l'unicorno. Oparin, Peretó, Controversies on the origin of life, in International
Microbiology, Barcelona, Spanish Society for Microbiology, Scharf, Caleb, A
Strategy for Origins of Life Research, in Astrobiology, Warmflash e Benjamin
Warmflash, Did Life Come from Another World?, in Scientific American,
Stuttgart, Georg von Holtzbrinck, Yarus, Howell, How Did Life Become Complex,
And Could It Happen Beyond Earth?, in Astrobiology, Davis, Paleontologist
presents origin of life theory, in Texas Tech University, Staff, Abiogenesis -
A Brief History, in All About Science, 2018. URL consultato il 14 febbraio
2018. ^ Stephane Tirard, Abiogenesis - Definition, in Encyclopedia of Astrobiology,
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S.A., Valley J.W., Peck W.H. and Graham C.M, Evidence from detrital zircons for
the existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago, in
Nature, Hayes J.M., Waldbauer J.R, The carbon cycle and associated redox
processes through time, in Phil. Trans. R. Soc., Archer C. and Vance D, Coupled
Fe and S isotope evidence for Archean microbial Fe (III) and sulfate reduction,
in Geology Cavalier-Smith T., Brasier M., Embley T.M, Introduction: how and
when did microbes change the world?, in Phil. Trans. R. Soc., Summons R.E.,
Bradley A.S., Jahnke L.L., Waldbauer J.R, Steroids, triterpenoids and molecular
oxygen, in Phil. Trans. R. Soc., Nutman, Vickie Bennett, Clark Friend, Martin
Van Kranendonk e Allan Chivas, Rapid emergence of life shown by discovery of
3,700-million-year-old microbial structures, in Nature, Campbell e Jane
B.Reece, Meccanismi dell'evoluzione ed origini della diversità, Zanichelli, Metabolically
diverse primordial microbial communities in Earth’s oldest
seafloor-hydrothermal jasper, su science.org. ^ Dizionario Interdisciplinare di
Scienza e Fede, voce Creazione cap. V
(Creazione ed evoluzione), Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, on-line sudisf.org, Fankhauser
and J. L. Stein Carter, Spontaneous Generation, su General Biology Lab, Redi,
Esperienze intorno alla generazione degli insetti, Needham, Nouvelles
observations microscopiques, avec des découvertes interessantes sur la
composition et la décompositions des corps organisés, RSI, Spallanzani, Saggio
di osservazioni microscopiche concernenti il sistema della generazione dei
signori Needham e Buffon( PDF ). ^ PGS. Schopf W. et al, Laser–Raman spectroscopy
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L.E, L'origine della vita sulla Terra, in Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol., Koonin
E.V., The cosmological model of eternal inflation and the transition from
chance to biological evolution in the history of life, in Biology Direct, Orgel
L.E, L'origine della vita sulla Terra, in Le Scienze, Trainer M.G., Pavlov
A.A., DeWitt H.L., Jimenez J.L., McKay C.P., Toon O.B, Tolbert M.A, Organic
haze on Titan and the early Earth, in PNAS, Jacqui Hayes, Hazy origins of life
on Earth, in Cosmos, Walsh, Origins of life, su nitro.biosci.arizona.edu,
University of Arizona, Fox D, Primordial Soup's On: Scientists Repeat
Evolution's Most Famous Experiment, in Scientific American, Caprara, Siamo nati
in fondo agli oceani, in Corriere della Sera, Huber C. and Wächterhäuser G,
Peptides by activation of amino acids with CO on (Ni,Fe)S surfaces:
implications for the origin of life, in Science, Cooks, D. Zhang, and K. J.
Koch, Chiroselective Self-Directed Octamerization of Serine: Implications for
Homochirogenesis, in Anal. Chem., Takats, S. C. Nanita, and R. G. Cooks, Serine
Octamer Reactions: Indicators of Prebiotic Relevance, in Angewandte Chemie, Engel,
Nagy, Bartholomew, Distribution and enantiomeric composition of amino acids in
the Murchison meteorite, in Nature, Clark, Polarised starlight and the
handedness of Life, in American Scientist, Noyes HP, Bonner WA, Tomlin JA, On
the origin of biological chirality via natural beta-decay, in Orig. Life,
Hazen, Robert M., Genesis: the scientific quest for life's origin, Washington,
D.C, Joseph Henry Press, Savino Longo, Miriana Carmela Chincoli e Gaia Micca
Longo, Anomalous fluctuations and selective extinction in primordial
replicators: a ‘struggle for life’ at the origin of biological homochirality, in
International Journal of Astrobiology, Orgel L.E., L'origine della vita sulla
Terra, in Le Scienze, Orgel L.E, Self-Organizing Biochemical Cycles, in PNAS, per
i tipi di membrana sferica associata all'abiogenesi, si veda probionti,
micelle, coacervati. ^ Panno J., The Cell: Evolution of the First Organism,
Facts on File, Cairns-Smith A.G., Genetic Takeover: And the Mineral Origins of
Life, Cambridge, Rigou P, Prions' dirty little secret [collegamento
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The Lipid World, in Origins Life Evol. Biosphere, Brown M.R.W. and Kornberg A.,
Inorganic polyphosphate in the origin and survival of species, in PNAS Clark
D.P, The origin of life, su science.siu.edu, Sousa, Raul A., Ecopoese - A criação
da ecosfera, Rio de Janeiro, L'Universo e l'origine della vita, Pisa, Istituti
Editoriali e Poligrafici, Marte, radar italiano scopre nuovi
crateri[collegamento interrotto], in Quotidiano Polo sud di Marte: una «riserva
d'acqua», in Corriere,C'è acqua su Marte, in Corriere, Clark S, Tough Earth bug
may be from Mars, in New Scientist, Lin Li-Hung et al., Long-Term
Sustainability of a High-Energy, Low-Diversity Crustal Biome, in Science, Gen
1,1-2,4a, su laparola.net. Bibliografia Modifica Efemeridi letterarie di Roma,
Volume 5, Presso Gregorio Settari, Istituto fascista di coltura di Torino,
Giunta centrale per gli studi storici, Istituto per gli studi di politica
internazionale, Rivista storica italiana, Edizioni scientifiche italiane,
Brooks, Shaw G., Origins and Development of Living Systems, Academic, Duve,
Vital Dust: The Origin and Evolution of Life on Earth, Basic Books, Horgan, In
the beginning, in Scientific American, Huber, Gunter Wächterhäuser, Peptides by
activation of amino acids with CO on (Ni,Fe)S surfaces: implications for the
origin of life, in Science, Martin, W. and Russell M.J., On the origins of
cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry
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Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological sciences, Russell
MJ, Hall AJ, Cairns-Smith AG, Braterman PS, Submarine hot springs and the
origin of life, in Nature, Schopf et al., Laser-Raman imagery of Earth's
earliest fossils., in Nature, Smith, Szathmary, Eors, The Origins of Life: From
the Birth of Life to the Origin of Language, Oxford Paperbacks, Hazen, Genesis:
The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins, Joseph Henry Press, Naso, Ipotesi
meccanica sull'origine della materia vivente, Systema Naturae, Iris Fry,
L'origine della vita sulla terra. Le
ipotesi e le teorie dall'antichità a oggi, Garzanti, Ageno, Lezioni di
Biofisica, Opera in tre tomi Zanichelli Bologna, Christian De Duve, Alle
origini della vita, Longanesi, Voci correlate Abitabilità planetaria
Astrobiologia Astrochimica Brodo primordiale Bugonia Creazionismo DNA Equazione
di Drake Esobiologia Ipotesi della rarità della Terra Mimivirus (virus gigante
che potrebbe aver preceduto gli organismi cellulari) Panspermia Sistemi complessi
Storia della Terra Stuart Kauffman Ultimo antenato comune universale (LUCA)
Zeolite Collegamenti esterni Modifica Origine della vita, in Treccani.it –
Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, Hanczyc e Jack W
Szostak. Vescicole replicantesi come modelli della crescita e divisione
cellulare primordiale. Opinione corrente in Biologia Chimica, su
genetics.mgh.harvard.edu. Auto-replicazione": Anche i peptidi la
fanno"di Stuart A. Kauffman Sito web sulle origini della vita che include
giornali, risorse, del Dr. Michael Russell all'Università di Glasgow,
Connessioni possibili tra la chimica interstellare e le origini della vita
sulla Terra, su pokey.arc.nasa.gov. Gli scienziati trovano indizi che la vita
iniziò nello spazio profondo — NASA Astrobiology Institute, su nai.arc.nasa.gov,
Cicli biochimici auto-regolati — di Leslie Orgel, su pnas.org. (Come iniziò la
vita: Una nuova ricerca suggerisce un approccio semplice, su livescience.com.
Il brodo primordiale: gli scienziati replicano l'esperimento più famoso
sull'evoluzione - articolo in Scientific American. Acta Naturae, su
azorcord.orc.ru., Origine della vita, c’è un nuovo ingrediente per il brodo
primordiale, su galileonet.it. Podcast, video video Freeview 'L'origine della
vita, di John Maynard-Smith' A Royal Institution Discourse by the Vega Science
Trust, su vega.org.uk. Evolution and the Origins of Life -
lettura di Harold Morowitz, George Mason University. Portale Arte Portale Bibbia Portale
Biologia Portale Filosofia Portale Religioni
Portale Scienze della Terra PAGINE CORRELATE Aleksandr Ivanovič Oparin
biochimico e biologo russo Brodo primordiale ipotetico ambiente di
origine della vita sulla Terra Ipotesi del mondo a RNA ipotesi
sull'origine della vita Giovanni Francesco Antonio Bonelli. Giovanni
Alfonso Borelli. Keywords: corpo umano, fisiologia, teoria de la natura –
natural philosophy, physics, physicist, physician, anatomia, psicologia, motu,
fisiologia filosofica, explanation of bodily movement, behaviourism, body
movement, corpore, corporalism, animism, corpo animato, che cosa anima il
corpo, che cose animano i corpori? Che anima il corpo? Spirito, anima,
personificazione del principio vitale, vita, l’origine della vita dalla materia
inorganica – l’idea di vita in Aristotle – De anima --. Zoon, animale – bios – biologia e zoologia –
l’origine della vita animale -- Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Borelli” – The
Swimming-Pool Library.
Grice
e Borsa: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dell’imitazione
– scuola di Mantova – filosofia lombarda -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza,
pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice (Mantova). Filosofo lombardo. Filosofo italiano. Mantova, Lombardia. Grice: “I
would call Borsa a Griceian – I mean he wrote on eloquence, as I did – and he
qualified this in two ways: ‘eloquenza sacra’ and ‘in Italia’ – Like Austin, he
thought that this or that ‘filosofismo academico’ (think ‘impilcatura’) was an
abuse to the ‘eloquenza sacra’ in Italia – another was the use of ‘neologism’ –
Friends tried to disencourage: “This or that filosofismo did have some
influence on Roman poetry!” “Damn them!” – He also wrote a rather anti-pathetic
‘elogio di me stesso,’ whose chapter on ‘gli amori’ is hardly sincere!” “But I love
him!” -- Studia a Verona, Reggio Emilia,
e Bologna. Gl’interessi di Borsa sono di stampo prettamente filosofico. Publica
“I fisiologi” e “Gl’empirici”. Segretario dell'Accademia mantovana. Pubblica “Del
gusto” presente in letteratura italiana, saggio scritto in risposta a un
quesito posto dalla medesima Accademia, ovvero, “I vizi più comuni e
osservabili del corrente gusto italiano” in belle lettere. Il vizio, non la
virtu, del gusto, la corruzione del gusto s’incarna in tre diversi aspetti; il ne-ologismo
no-romano, ovvero straniero, il filosofismo enciclopedico, e la confusione dei generi grammaticali. Insegna
logica e metafisica nel ginnasio di Mantova. Tra le opere di Borsa vanno
inoltre ricordati due saggi problemi
estetici in relazione alla musica – “La musica imitativa” -- e alla danza – “I
balli pantomimi” – la pantomima. – musica imitazione – Scruton. “A sad melody”.
Si cimenta inoltre nella composizione di
una tragedia, “L’assassinio d’Agamennone”. “Palese”. “Zatta”. Dizionario
biografico degli italiani. M a selecircostanzepolitiche,elemorali,che il primo
difetto del Neologismo portaronci, quello ci comunicarono in seguito del
Filosofismo; an che questo Secondo un terzo ne produce, che è la universale
Confusione dei Generi, e quindi la noja dei puri, ed eccellenti. Questo vizio
anzi ė si immediatamente, e intimamente connesso, colla Filosofia,ma col
Filosofismo, che par talota identificarsi con lui, e costituire una medesima
coa sa.Ad occhio intelligente però saran molto diver. si, eparràaggravarsiin quest'ultimoildestino
del. la Letteratura Italiana. Tom.II. - raven propria cosi, che il
Tragico le passioni istesse di. pinga con colori molto lontani dal Comico; che
ciascuno esponga fatti, animi personaggi, scelga incidenti degni di lui; e che
infine ognun parli il proprio linguaggio, e faccia il proprio mestiere. 1 1
tendo quell'intima natura della cosa in se stessa, la quale nega d'estendersi
ad oggetti stranieri, ne i propri sa maneggiare in foggia diversa da quella,
che si conviene. Intendo per ultimo quell'avvedu tezza, e integrità di
composizione, per cui dal Poema Epico discendendo perfino all'Epigramma, e alla
Lettera, ogni sua parte, e ogni membro oc çura cosi esattamente quel luogo, che
gli sta bene, che trasposizione non soffra senza difetto. Queste cose oltre
l'esserci insegnate da più gravi Fi. lologi, sono anche cosi chiaramente
emanate dalla natura della persuasione, e della illusione, e cosi strettamente
silegano colla necessaria generazion dell'idee, che nulla più. In questo senso
sono, e si devono esse dire la Filosofia propria, e rispet. tiva di ciascun
genere. Quella, che nell’Articolo antecedente si dipinse latente, animatrice,
dispo. sitrice, e anticipatamente ragionata. Quella che a forza d'osservazioni
su la natura ha imparato a col. Sento dunque io dentro di me (sia
a ragio. ne, sia a torto ) che e nel totale, e nelle singole parti dei più dei
libri, che si scrivono e leggono, serpe profonda una tal confusione di generi,
che perverte ogni cosa; turba, ed offende le idee a n che le più obvie del
Bello, e del Perfetto. O piut tosto sentendo ciò ne argoniento, che sien
que locare i varj istrumenti o poetici, od oratorj in quel modo, luogo,
numero,aspetto, che ¢ l'eccellente a farli giuocare su le fantasie, e sui
cuori, con tutto quel massimo vantaggio, che sia possibi le, in quella tale
situazion d'oggetti, e di persone. Quindi ognun vede, che non più no delle
frasi, e delle sintassi, come nell'Articolo primo, né del Gusto Italiano or non
trattasi nella generale maniera di piegare i pensieri staccati, e colorire la
superficie delle cose, che si maneggiano, come nel secondo. A più alte cose
moviamo; a ricercare qual sia il Gusto presente degl'Italiani nel disegro, nel
getto delle Opere loro; e se seguono in ciò la natura, ed il genio delle
materie diverse, e delle compo sizioni. Si esaminano infine ora i libri nel
loro tut. to;non già i modi, e i periodi; non le strofe,le scene, le
digressioni. ste idee, che guastatesi, e corrotte, guastano poi, e
moltiplicano si fatti libri a di nostri. Il bello, e il sublime, dice
Aristotile, nasce dall'Espressio ne della Grandezza con Ordine; cioè, come
spiega dal mostrare il suo soggetto nelle proporziv ni più ampie, di cui sia
capace. Ommettiam pue, che il pensier d'Aristotile non s'adatta trop po bene al
sublime propriamente tale, come s'é esposto nel Saggio su la Fantasia; ma certo
s'a datta egregiamente al bello, al maestoso, al gran de, all'imponente; e
certo è che questa grandezza, e quest ordine non son niente affatto secondo il
Gusto presente? Anzi al contrario la proprietà nel. lo scrivere, l'esattezza in
dividere, e separar ogni parte più o meno spiegatamente, secondo la natura
dell'opera: un'aria infine ora di trattazione seria e posata, ora di
composizion meditata e rigorosa, egli è omai quello appunto, che decide della
morte d'un libro di Belle Lettere appena nato, alme no riguardo ad una gran
parte de'leggitori. Pur troppo è cosi; e comunemente parlando, non de. ve
procedere altrimenti la cosa. Poiché se la Filosofia per temperamento si grave,
e per natura, p u re è resa oggi si instabile, e si leggera presso in 84
no, finiti; che non debbon poi essere le Belle Lettere amiche
soltanto di piaceri, e di delizie, e meno assai tolleranti della fatica? La
leggerezza, e il carattere d'una facile universalità contrarrano es se dalla
Filosofia con somma rapidità. Si getteran su la carta, come prima i pensieri
s'affaccino, e le materie, senza meditare gran fatto, senza con nettere, ed
ordinare. Incerti come colui, se del suole gname farsi dove s s e uno scanno,
ovvero un nume. Tutta l'arte starà nella pratica d'aver pron. te scappate verso
i luoghi topici della Filosofia. Questa tiene il luogo di disegno. Questa
s'adopra egualmente e nei modi medesimi in ogni argomen to. E questa dopo aver
fusi tutti insieme i generi, ne ha fatto un solo. Perciò l'arte della
disposizio. ne, donde l'armonia delle parti, la progressione crescente, il
convincimento; l'arte, che ad ogni massa assegna il suo luogo più decente, e
oppor tuno,e da cui tutta dipende la somma delle co se; la preziosa Unità
infine parmi perduta, perché la massima parte perduta n'ha l'intelligenza, e il
sapore. S'aggiugne, che oggi la Critica Filologica, cioè quella che tende a
mantenere, e perfezionare l'arte dello scrivere,'edelcomporre'siin
Poesia,che in Prosa è decaduta. Adesso anzi la Critica si col tiva in ogni suo
ramo, é si ama assaissimo in ogni materia fuori che in questa venuta in
derisione. Doglianza tanto legittima, che Arteaga la ripete anch'egli, e
rinforza con molto zelo. M a i più condotti da un'apparenza di libertà, e
indipenden za Filosofica, e senza ricordar, che tal Critica la dobbiamo a un
dei più grandi,ed illustriFilosofi, ad Aristotile, dicono, ch'ella insegna solo
a cucire meccanicamente le cose; che i precetti sono inezie d'oziosi; e che il
modo di poco o nulla nelle co. se decide. N è s'avveggono poi, che mentre il m
o. do trascurano, perdono senza vederlo la sostanza medesima delle cose. Non
già, che abbiasi a gita tar molto tempo in precetti, dove la seria medias
tazione, l'esercizio lungo, e severo, l'esempio degli ottimi infine può giovare
assai più; ma non succede comunemente parlando nè l'un, né l'al tro. La critica
Filologica, cioè l'intima ragione dell'Arti, ne dai precettisti s'impara, nè
colla pra. tica propria si studia sui grandi·Autori. Quindi. nei generi stessi
ipiù severi è sostanzialmente per duta ogni severità. E
dall'eccessod'un'altravolza orperlopiùsitrascorre all'eccesso contrario.. Cosi
ė;alle pedanterie de'secoli andati or ne suca céde un'altra, né so ben quali
sieno le più nojo. se; giacchè tutto poi va a finire in far perdere il tempo, e
lasciar vota la mente. La prova d'un libro, o composizione ben fatta quella io
la credo del restarmene impressa la traccia totale e la tes. situra coi
principali suoi tratti, e le cose le più importanti. Questo piacere manca egli
mai per fret. ta di leggere, che abbiasi, e nei Classici, e nei veramente
grandi Scrittori di qualunque nazione si sieno? Manca egli mai quando l'Autore
abbia ben meditata, e. ordinata la sua materia? M a questo piacere si trova
egli spesso nei libri di letteratura moderna, sebben faccia illusione una larva
di Fió losofia, che anche in tai-libri d’amenità sorge di tanto in tanto, e par
che severa alla ragion ci ri. chiami,anzi pure alla meditazione? Che se ad un
Italiano non credesi, credasi dunque al sopra lo. dato Signor Juvigny, il quale
dimostra, che il via zio generale, e comune egli è quello, ch'io preta, per cui
ad ogni inezia si montava in bigoncia, e perorar si volea; e i punti, e le
divisioni a nodo di scuola seguivansi con accademica stitichez.. !
Che se tali sono le disposizioni, con cui tan ti ora si pongono a
scrivere, qual maraviglia, che questo Autore eccellente il secol nostro
rimprove, ri, quasi di suo caratteristico vizio in Letteratura, di quel
trascurare le regole dei costumi, e dell'ar ti, e dello snaturare e confondere
stranamente ogni genere di composizione? Donde, se non da ciò, quello stile,
che ne i contraria r g o menti è il medesimo, nei medesimi opposto? Ond'é, che
perfino nell'intima sostanza s'offende la proprietà delle cose? Ond'è, che in
Filosofia, e in Novelle, e nella Storia, ed in Fisica, ed in Teatro, ed in
Chiesa vediamo indistintamente, come si disse, e affettazione di bello spirito,
e modi epigrammati. ci, e similitudini forzose, e frasi tecniche, e di. sparate
allusioni, e tutto il tritume gotico infine della Letteratura moderna
Filosofica per caratteri. zarlo con Hume? Ma nè ciò solo,siccome pur ora diceva.
La corruzione non si ferma già ella nell'a, sentemente riprendo; e che
consiste nel non sen tir, non intendere, non ponderare abbastanza la natura
delle materie; e nello sprezzare sovrana mente, e sopra ogni cosa il disegno, e
la sua sem plicità, e l'unità. vere uno stile anche nelle più
difformimaterie uni forme, benchè per ciò stesso riesca poi a parte a parte
disgregato, tumultuoso, e di mille fisiono. mie: ma si va fino a trasforniare
l'intera natura, l'originaria destinazione dei generi. Le Prediche più non
propongonsi di commuovere icuori dei cre denti; si son cambiate in
Dissertazioni polemiche; e all'utile certo della morale la più pura, e divia na,
soè sostituito il pericolo di gettare lo scanda. lo nell'anime felici di
quelli,che non bebbero ancora alle torbide fonti delle umane dottrine. La
Lirica, che sotto Augusto era l'interprete della fantasia, e del cuore, ora
serve, o vuol almeno servire al raziocinio astratto, e all'intelletto
meditabondo:La Storia eraun misto diracconti,edi orazioni ora pubbliche, ed ora
private dei tra passati, piena però di una Filosofia grandiosa, e robusta,ma
toltadalmomento,dalfatto,dalla verità. Adesso altri l'ha convertita in un
seguito di discussioni piccole, minute, meschine, talche pajon anzi processi
per una Curia,che Annali d'u. na Nazione. Altri, come ultimamente ho veduto, ha
fatto il salto, ed ha ridotta ogni cosa a discor si, e dialoghi; distribuendo
le vite di Carlo, d Enrico ec. in tante Azioni con Atti, Scene, e tutto il
corredo teatrale. La Tragedia stanca, e non a torto, di star tra gli Eroi, e
tra'Giganti della m o. rale, dopo d'essersi compiaciuta un momento del quadro
vero, e patetico delle private, e virtuose sciagure, si è tosto gittata tra gli
orrori dei C a stelli privati dei Feudatarj. Ha cercate le atrocità e i
raccapricci in tutte le raunanze di uomini, e perfipo di donne, pel solo
piacere di filosoficamen te istruirci sul pericolo dei Voti immaturi, e su
l'empietà dei forzati.La Commedia poi,altronon è bene spesso, che
un'infilzatura di pezzi scuci. ti degli ordinarj sermoni Filosofici, che hanno
per giunta una grazia infinita in bocca del pezzente da strada, dello sciocco
staffiere, e perfin dello sgher ro, e del pubblico assassino nell'atto d'andare
al patibolo. Cosi l'una s'abbassa di troppo, l'altra s'arrampica da pazza,
tutte perdono il punto del. la natura, e niente s'ottiene. Bastano essi ancora
cotesti esempj per mostrare, che, generalmente par. lando, tutti i generi sono
confusi, snaturati, e tra volti nell'intima loro sostanza secondo il gusto
corrente, e ciò per ragione del Filosofismo? Matteo Borsa. Keywords:
imitazione, genere grammaticale, la confusion dei generi grammaticali, il
genere tragico, il genere comedico, il genere conversazionale, Tannen, stile
conversazionale – la tragedia della morte di Agammenone --. Virtu e vizio di
stilo – filosofismo, neo-logismo, confusion di genero. Austin sul filosofismo,
implicatura come filosofismo – remedio contra filosofismo, la filosofia del
linguaggio ordinario. Etimologia del cognome ‘borsa’ – origine. Grice. -.
Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Borsa” – The Swimming-Pool Library.
Grice
e Botero: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale della memoria di cicerone al rostro -- Cicerone
sull’equita civile – scuola di Bene Vagienna – filosofia piemontese-- filosofia
italiana – Luigi Speranza, pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice, The
Swimming-Pool Library (Bene Vagienna). Filosofo piemontese. Filosofo italiano. Bene Vagiena, Cuneo, Piemonte. Grice:
“You gotta love Botero – my favourite is not so much the one on the reason of
state (the critique of the reason of state) – but his memorabilia of ‘vires’ of
the ‘imperium romanum’!” Studia a Palermo; fu poi in varie case
dell'Italia centrale, fra cui nel Collegio Romano. Pur essendo stimato quale
poeta in versi in latino, forse a causa di un carattere difficile e da una tendenza
alla polemica, interrompe gli studi a Roma e fu inviato come insegnante in
località periferiche (ad Amelia e a Macerata). A Roma fu al servizio di
Borromeo, del cui cugino, san Carlo, fu stretto collaboratore a Milano,
impegnato nella riforma della diocesi, una volta uscito dalla Compagnia di Gesù.
Occorre tenere presente sin dall'inizio che B. s'impegna nella sua nota opera
dal titolo emblematico di “Ragion di Stato” dieci agili libri di circa 300
pagine, ove rimedita le tesi esposte nel suo “De Regia Sapientia” in quanto
ritiene essenziale combattere il machiavellismo per poter riaffermare la
stretta dipendenza di ogni potere politico dalla religione e dalla chiesa (e
segretario di Borromeo) ed approfondire gli studi sulla "ragion di stato",
principalmente al fine di individuare un pensiero politico-guida alternativo a
quello cui si riferivano le tesi dei riformatori (quello cioè di Machiavelli e
di Bodin). La contro-riforma, dunque, necessita di un suo punto di riferimento
in materia di scientia civilis (teoria politica), come aveva già fatto presente
Minucci. Il fine e, per alcuni aspetti, il metodo di B. può solo
apparentemente e prima facie, richiamare quelli di MACHIAVELLI (si veda). B. infatti
considera lo stato italiano come un dominio assoluto e stabile sui popoli. La
ragion di stato secondo B. altro non è che l'insieme di tutti i metodi ("i
mezi") e gli strumenti necessari e opportuni per conservare e gestire
questo dominio. Ma in realtà, sia la sostanza del suo pensiero politico, che lo
scopo ultimo cui esso è indirizzato, sono decisamente divergenti, tanto che B.
arriva a definire rea e falsa la ragion di stato machiavelliana e giunge a
sostenere che il principe, rispettoso dei precetti religiosi, non ha bisogno di
leggere né Machiavelli né Tacito. Si comprende, allora, come la differenza
principale della filosofia di B. rispetto a quello di Machiavelli consista
nell'importanza assegnata alla morale – la ragione prudenziale -- come
strumento di governo; l'uso spregiudicato della “ragion di stato” di natura
machiavelliana da parte del governante dev'essere cioè temperato
dall'applicazione di virtù, quali la moderazione e la giustizia. Ciò, infatti,
conferisce allo stesso principe quella reputazione indispensabile per ottenere
obbedienza raggionabile dai suoi sudditi. B. peraltro, afferma che solo i
sudditi raggionabile siano sudditi ubbidienti. In questo senso . propone una
ferma lotta alle eresie, che comportano dissidi fra i sudditi. Lo stato italiano
deve essere confessionale e la ragion di stato comprende, al suo interno, la garanzia
dell'orto-dossia, la cui curanella divisione boteriana delle funzioni dello stato
italiano spetta alla Chiesa. Ulteriore fondamentale differenza con Machiaveli è
l'importanza che B. dà all'economia e alla demo-grafia come parametro per la misurazione
della potenza dello stato italiano. B., invero, non fu giurista e,
conseguentemente, pose l'accento sull'interesse. Pienamente conscio dell'importanza
della variabile economica, B. prende ad esempio la Spagna, incapace di
promuovere manifatture e attività commerciali, come regno dalle risorse
coloniali praticamente infinite, ma destinato ad essere relegato in secondo
piano dallo stato italiano più dinamico nel campo dello sviluppo e della
crescita dell'agricoltura e delle attività produttive interne. Nell'ambito
della polemica anti-europea, che porta, tra l'altro, a un'elaborazione del
concetto di “civiltà romana” in opposizione a ciò che è barbaro o selvaggio, B.
tratteggia il processo di incivilimento come passaggio dalla pastorizia
all'agricoltura, all'attività industriale e commerciale; è un processo che
richiede, inoltre, il costituirsi di governi stabili e la promulgazione di
leggi certe. Altre opere: “Della ragion di stato, Venezia, Giovanni
Giolito de Ferrari); “Delle cause della grandezza e magnificenza delle città”;
“Le relazioni Universali”; “I Capitani, Giovan Domenico Tarino, Torino). Prudenza
di Stato, o maniere di governo. Die Idee der Staatsräson, Berlino-Monaco. Il
primo scritto italiano di Oceanografia, Società geografica italiana. Le origini
della Statistica e dell'Antropo-geografia. Dizionario biografico degli
italiani. IMPERIUM ROMANUM. IMPERIUM Romanum, quod imperante Trajano eratama
pliſfimum in Scotia, extendebatur enim ab Oceano Hibernico, ultra Tigrim:
Oceano Athlantico ad finum Perficum: ab Athlante adſylvam Calidoniam,
pertingebatg ad flumen Albim, tranſi batg Danubium: primùm labi cæpit bellis
civilibus Galba, Othonis, Vitellii: iis enim temporibus exercitus,quiin magna
Britannia propre fidio erat,trajecit in Continentem. Hollandia &vicinæ
regiones rebels larunt, paucig, temporis progreffu, Imperii finibus præfidio
deftitutis tranfmiferunt Sarmarta Danubium: Alani ſuperaruntfauces Caſpias:
Perla acquifiverunt nomen et potentiam: Gothipervagati funtMoe fiam
&Macedoniam: Franci ingreſſi ſunt Gallias. Conftantinus Imp. reſtituit
Imperium antiquofplendori, ſopivit bella domeſtica,frenavit tyrannos, barbaros,
et gentes hoſtiles. Sedduofuerunt, qua Imperium multum debilitarunt: primumfuit
tranflatiofedis Imperialis Roma Conftantinopolim, quod factum dipoliavit Romam,
es debilitavit. Imperium. Luce enim clarius est,quòd ficut plante ex
nativoſoloin re gionesclimate et qualitatediverſastranſplantatæ, parumretinentvir
tutis naturalis: ita,res humana, præcipuè autem dominia et ftatus magnis illis
mutationibusperdunt fuum vigorem et ftabilitatem.Eam obcauſam Senatus Romanus
nunquă plebiconſentirevoluit, ut Roma Vejam commigraret, quæ
civitasmultògratior, et magisconimodae rat,quàm Roma, maximè pofiquam à Gallis
ruinæ tradita fuerat.Locus in quo Conſtantinopolis fitaest, adcòamænus,commodus
et fertilisest, utſit difficilimū, utvirtus ibialtas radices agat:non enim toto
orbe ter rarumcivitas eft, quamterra maremajorefavore profequantur.Illa enim
nuncſein fertiliffimos campos extendendo, nuncindelitioſas val les ſe
demittenda, rurſusgleniter in fructiferos colles affurgendo, nunc ſe flexibusin
mare inſinuando, rurſusá ſe retrorfum vertendo,abun dèincolis omne delitiarum
genus,non folum frumenta do vina canfert. Diceresibi Bacchum cum Cerere,
Pomonam cum Flora,pulchritudi nem cum fæcunditate certare. Postquam
mareminimopacie, plurimos gratos ſinus& tranquillos portus fecit,quorum in
folo Boſphoro (nec is tamen plus quàm 25.miliaria longus est ) triginta
numerantur, beni gno aſpectuquafiblanditur civitati et regioni,ducitý eo
magnisclaffi bus hinc annonamSyrie &Ægypti, inde divitias TrapezuntinasCa,
phag.Nunquam ibi fructusnecmeffes, nunc Thracia,Afia tunc defunt, Eoquog,
tendit tanta optimorum piſcium copia, quigyros agendo &lu dendo, ferè
domuscivitatis fubeunt,utquiidnon viderit,incredibile judicet.Pifces enim
nuncfugiendofrigus hyemis, tranfeunt ex ponto Eu-, xino, in aſpectu civitatis
Conſtantinopolitana, Propontidem verſus: nuncvitanteseſtatisfervorem, redeunt
eadem via,qua digrefierant. Duabus itag, anni tempeftatibus, eorum infinita
copia fummadelecta tione, cui commodum parest,capitur.Sunt ibi præterea Cidari
et Bar biſa fummèamæni et jucundiflavii, quiambo celebrem hunc finum
influunt,qui inter Conſtantinopolim et Peram est, dilataturg:dicitur is a
ſcriptoribuscornuaureū. Vtfinemfaciam:Noneft locus rerum af fluentia, enervanda
virtuti aptior, nec advirtutem voluptatibuscor rumpendam commodior: id apertè
demonſtrant fegnities&mollities majorispartis Imp. Græcorum,ipforumg
exercituum. Si amænitas ora Tarentine, et delitiæ regionis Sibaritarum
potuerunt ignavosfacere, etcorrumperemores iftorum populorum:fidelitia Capuana
potuerunt emollire et extinguere ferociam virtutemg Hannibalis,fuorumg,mi.
litum: fiPlato diſcipline incapaces Cyreneos æftimavit, propter fuam
profperitatem: quid ſtatuendum erit deloco Conftantinopolitano, dulci et
oportunofupra omnes, qui in orbe terrarum funt? In ſumma,cùm nulla
resmagispernitiofæ fintReipublica, quàm magnanovitates: que resmajoridamno,
nedicam exitio potuitcontingere Imperio Romano, quàmadeò ingens acfubita,
prater omnium expectationem immuta tio? Nonplusminúsvefecit bonus ille
Imperator, quàmfiquis addan. dumanimali meliorem formam, cerebrum adgenua,aut
cor è ſuoloco adcubitum transferret. Secundum erratum Conftantinifuitdiviſio
Imperiiſuisfiliis facta in trespartes, quodcontigit qua ex magno Imperio tria
fecit, cum notabili diminutione authorita. tis da virium. Cùmenim ejus filii
inter fearmis decertarent, taliter ſe invicem confumpferunt, ut Imperium
quafiexangue corpus remanſe git. Quamvis autem Imperium aliquot vicibusſubuno Principe
coa luerit, diviſioni tamen adeò aptum remanfit, ut rarò acciderit, quin in
Orientale et Occidentale non fuerit partitum, ufq;dum Odoacer, Heru lorum etTuringorum
Rex, magno cum exercitu,Italiam ingreffus, in tam magnas anguſtias conjecit
Auguftulum, utpredefperatione feIm perio Occidentali abdicarit, quod
acciditanno Hunnijam antea Danubium tranfmiferant: Alaricus, Vandalorum Rex,
Romam cepe rat: Vandaliprimùm Andaluſiam, et poftea Africam: Alani Luſita niam:
Gothimajorem Hifpaniæpartem: Angli Britanniam: Curguna diones Provinciã occupabant.
Iuſtinianus Imp.res aliquantulum in me lius reftituit,nam per fuos
Capitaneosexegit VandalosAfrica, et Gothos Italia, annosso. Sed parvotantùm
tempore id duravit,nam anno cæperunt Orientale Imperium vexare, arma etherefis
Mahumetana, breviſ tempore fuereà Saracenis oppreſſa prater Syriam, Ægyptum do
Archipelagum, Africa, Sicilia et Hifpania.occuparunt quog Saraceni Narbonem,
Avenionem, Tolofam, Burdegalam, et re giones vicinas. Imperiumitag, Occidentalepaulatimprorfus
in dire ptionem abiit: Orientale autem adeò invalidum remanfit, ut vixali quot
vicibus, civitatem Conftantinopolitanam contra Saracenorum arma defendere,
multò minus Occidenti auxilium potuerit. Annoalla tem Chriſti 800.titulos
Occidentalis Imperii adeptus est Carolus Ma grises, Francorum Rex, quam rem
recenfet Ado, ViemeArchiepifcopus, verbisfequentibus: In die fan £to
nativitatis Domini, anteconfeſio. nem beati Apoſtoli, cùm gloriofus Rex Carolus
ab oratione furrexiffet, Leo Pontifex capiti ejus coronam impofuit,ficg,ab
univerſopopulo ac clamatum est: Carolo Auguſto, à Deo.coronato Magno, pacifico,Imperatori
Romanorum,vita etvictoria. Divifum itafuit Occidentale Imperium ab Orientali,
hoc modo, ut Neapolis Sipontum Orientem verfus, cùm Sicilia Græcorum effet,
Beneventum Longobardis rema neret, Veneti neutri parti adfcripti,ſtatus
Ecclefia libereffet, reliquum Carclo Magno cederet. Blondus vultIrenem
Imperatricem primumin eam divifionem confenfiffe, deindeà Nicephoro
confirmatameffe. Ha buit itag, diviſio Imperiiinitium à tranſlatione
fedisImperialis Roma Conftantinopolim: crevit diſtractione in plures
Principespervenit: ad perfectionem affumptione Caroli Magni. Anteeumenim modus
re giminis, leges, magiſtratus, et confilia erantcommunia, tendebantg ad bonum
commodumg utriuſ, Imperii, tanquam membrorum ejufdem corporis. Etfiunus
Imperatorum moriebaturabſque filiis, totum impe rium manebat alteri: fed Carolo
Magno in Imperatorem Occidentis electo, nulla amplius fuit habita ratio Imperii
Orientis, nec Imperado lor Orientis unquam fucceffit in Imperium Occidentis,
nec ejus Im perator in Orientis Imperium. Permanfit autem Imperium Occiden tis
in familia Caroli Magnipaulò minus quàm centum annis: defe cit autem ea familia
in Arnolpho. Anno Chriſti 100 2. abfcripto omni jure hereditatis, creatio
imperatoris in libera electione ſeptem Principum, qui Electores nuncupantur,
pofita fuit. Ratio faciendi · Imperium electivum, quod eò uſque familia Caroli
Magni haredi. tarium extiterat,fuit,quòd Imp.Otho 111. filios non habuit: utgdi
gnitate perſona, qua eligeretur, Imperium firmius redderetur, Impe rium
Occidentis tunc valde coarctatum et concifum erat: nihilenim ci quàm Germania etItaliæ
parsfupererat: Pontifex fiquidem Roma nus bonam Italiepartem poſſidebat: Veneti
in medio utriuſqueImpe riipoſitivivebant in plenalibertate, cum dominio annexo
fuo ftatui; Regna Neapolis etSicilia, qua Normanni Gracis eripuerant, Ecclefia
Romana feudatariafacta erant, primùm fub Clemente Antipapa, deinde fúb Nicolao
1 1. et ejus fuccefforibus,qui Antipapa faktum, propteremolumentum approbarunt:
Lombardia et Thufcia, partim pro IMPERIUM ROMANUM. propter diffidia Imperatorum,
Henrici IV. et V.Friderici I. et11. cum Pontificibus Romanis, partim
propterpopulorum ferociam, Imperato ribus pluslaborisetimpenfa, quàm commodi
attulerant. Rudolpho Imp.itag,non folùm in Italiam proficiſci,cura non fuit
(quòdeum in fortunia, adverfagresfuorum anteceſſorum terrerent )fed etpopulis
Italia libertatem parvo precio vendidit.Lucenfibus nonconſtitit liber
tasplusquàmdecem aureorum milibus: Florentini eam fex aureorum millibus
redemerunt. Deficientibusitag, cumreputatione, viribus Im perii,inei Italia, preter
nomen,nihilferèremanfit. Vicecomites Medio lanenfes,et fucceſſivè alii
domini,aliis locis rapuerunt libi dominia,quæ potuerunt,abſq; ullo imperatoris
reſpectu,tantumg petebant inveſtitu ram fuorum ftatuum.Sed Franciſcus, cùmfibi
armisſtatum Medio lanenfem paraffet,parvifecitinveſtituram, exiſtimansſepoſſe
feipfum conſervare in ejuspoſſeſſione,iiſdem artibus, quibus eum fibi compara.
verat. Vltramontes ſubſtraxerunt ſeImperio multi Principes, ita, ut Imperium
prafentitemporeferè in Germania conclufumfit. Sedquòd dominia in Germania uniformia
non funt,defcribam illa, utfequitur: Aliqua dominia funtquaſi membra
Imperii,fed ſeparata:quamvis enim Imperiifint,non idagnoſcunt, nec agnofcere
volunt, ficut Reges DanieetSuecia,Dux Pruffie, Helvetii, Rheti: alia agnoſcunt
quidem Imperatorem proſupremo Principe, fed dietas Imperiinon invifunt, nec
contribuunt, feruntgonera Imperii,ficut Duces Sabaudia, Lotha ringia, etPrincipes
Italia: alia in viſuntdiatas,feruntgonera,ficut principes etcivitates Germania:ſed
Rex Bohemie à Carolo IV.imp. à contributionibusexemptus est. Alia dominia non
folùmpenduntcom munes contributiones imperii, fedquodplus eft
folvuntimperatoritri butum particulare:ea funtilla civitates, que Imperiales nunc
upantur: aliqui principes Germania non folùm interſuniComitiis Imperiifed,
Gelečtioni Imperatoris: hifuntfex Electores, tres Ecclefiaftici, de tres
Laici,quibusjungitur,li vota imparia funt, Rex Bohemia, qui non ve wit
adconvocationem (quæ diatadicitur) nihilominus calculum in ele Elione stionehabet.
Sed loquendo ftriétè: Civitates etPrincipes Imperiipro priè dicuntur,qui dietis
interfunt,et tanquam membra uniuscorporis, participant bona etmala, emolumenta etonera.
Hi viventesferè mo dò Reipublicæ fimulunita;ad defenſionem communem habent
impera torem procapite, quinonregit abſolutè,fed per Comitia, nec tamenin.
dicit illa abſqzprecedenti confenfu maximepartisElectorum. Delibe rationum
Decreta,qua edicuntur, irritafieri nonpoffunt, niſi peraliam diatam: fed
imperator habet plenam authoritatem mandandi execu tioni decreta. Imperatorita
quod ad dignitatem et præeminentiam Spectat,eft primusChriſtianorum
princeps,tanquam is,in quem ceſſere Jura Reipublicæ etImperii Romani: ejus est
protegere Ecclefiam Dei, defendere fidem, procurareg_pacem,etbonum Reipublicæ
Chriſtiana. VIREs. Cimo Vmvires Imperiifitæ fintin Germania, neceſſe est, ut
duo verba dicamus dehac ampliſima nobiliffimaſ provincia.lacet ferè in. ter
Oderam et Moſam: inter Viſtulam et fluviolum Aa, quiapud Grae velingam fluit:et
inter Oceanum Germanicum etBalthicum,Alpesg. Ejus figura quadrata
est,longitudine ferèetlatitudine aqualis, oso.mi líariumquaquà verſum. Maximè
abundatfrugibus, pecudibus, piſcia bus: id experientia compertum fæpè fuit.
Carolus enim Viut Turcisre. fifteret, habuit fubfignis ad Viennam go.peditum, et
35. equitum mil lia adIavarinumcontra eoſdem Turcas, nec tamen caritas ibi
experta fuit. Bello inter Carolum V. Proteſtantes peraliquot menfes abundè
fefuftinuerunt in campis ferèiso. militum millia. Divesquog, est mi narisauri,
argenti,omnisý generis metalli,ſuperatý,alias Europæ pro vincias: natura quog,
largitaest ei inregionibus longiffimèàmaridig fitis fontes da puteos aqua
ſalſa,ex quibus excoquitur ſalperfectum.Nec minusmercatrixest, quàm fertilis.
Indigena enim plusquàm ulla alia natio,vacant opificiis, faciunt artificia
miratu digna, ešta Germania tam probèà natura dotata, ornatag magnis
fluminibus, qua ubig na vigantur, utcommeatus etmercesfaciliter ex uno locoinaliumdeve
bantur. Fluviorum omniummaximus est Danubius, ab illo Rhenus, quiGermaniam à
Meridiead Septentrionem tranfgreditur, ficut Das nubius ab Occafu ad Ortum:
Albis oritur in Bohemia,lambit Miſniam, Saxoniam,Marchiam'antiquam:Odera oritur
in Moravia, lavat Si lefiam,duas Marchias, Pomeraniam. Wefara,Neccarus, Mofa,
Mofel la,lfara, Oenus, Varta, Mænus. (HicGermaniam in fuperiorem et in.
feriorem dividit. Superior est,qua à Mæno ad Alpes uſ feextendit.In ferior,quæ
à MænoOceanum verfus excurrit. Germania in pluresPro vinciasdiviſa est,ſed
precipua funt(loquor de iis, que viva membra. Imperii ſunt ) Alſatia,Suevia,
Bavaria, Auſtria, Bohemia (quamvis hæc multis privilegiis gaudeat, quacamab
oneribus eximunt) Mora via,Sileſia, Luſatia,dua Marchia,Saxonia, Miſnia,
Thuringia, Fran conia, Hafia,Weſtphalia,Clivia, Megapolis, Pomerania. In
dictisGer mania Provinciis,cum iis non computando Belgium et Helvetiam,et
ftimatur effecirciter decem hominummyriades. Dividitur populusin quatuor
hominum munera autftatus: rufticos nempe,qui nullo in nu mero funt, civitatum
incolas,Barones, Prelatos.Vltima tria genera con veniunt, faciuntg
ſtatusImperii. 'Inter Prelatos obtinent primum lo cum Archiepiſcopi
Electores:inter hos Moguntinus est Cancellarius Germania, fequiturColonienfis,
deinde Trevirenfis, Cancellarii, ille Italiæ,hic Gallia.Sequitur
ArchiepifcopusSaltzburgenfis, maximus do dignitate etdivitiis. Epifcopus
MagdeburgenfisſePrimatem Germa nieinferibit. Bremenfis et Hamburgenfis quog, multasjuriſdictiones
habuerunt.Sequuntur deindeplus quàm 40. Epiſcopi,et magnus Magia fter Ordinis
Teutonici, etMagiſter EquitumHierofolymitarum. Suns quog feptem Abbates, iig
Imperii Principes. Inter Principes feculares öchtinetprimum locum Rex Bohemia,
qui est ſupremusDapifer: Dux Seaconia Mareſcallus: Marchio Brandenburgenfis
Camerarius: Co Palatinus Architriclinus Imperii.Preter hos Principes funt34.
alii Duces, inter quos habent primum locumArchiduces Auſtrie.Inter Du ces imp.
viiquog, numerantur RexDania, propter Ducatum Holſatie. Sunt deinde
Marchiones,Landgravii,Comites,Barones innumeri.Ci. vitates libere (quarum
go.effe folebant,nunc funt circiter6o.que omnes feiplaspropriis
legibusregunt)ulterius obligata nonfunt, quàm quòd duasquintas partes, ejus,
quodin conventu conſentitur,contribuunt. Earumaliqua Imperiales dicuntur (ficut
diximus, quòd cenfum Impe ratoriſolvant, quicenſusin totumadIs-florenorummillia
accedit. Ha bent civitates fatisamplosreditus,qui utplurimumonera excedunt. Æ
ftimatur Imperium in totum habereplus quàm feptem myriades in re ditibus,
quodproreparvi momenti habendū non est.Cùm enim populi gravati non fint,utin
Italia, dantprater ordinarium ſuis Principibus maximafubſidia,quando id
requirit neceſitas. Imperium obligatúeſt, ſaltem
ex.confuetudine,praftareImperatori, quando Romā vadit ut co ronetur,20.peditum,et
4.equitum millia, fpacio oito menfium, diciturg ideò fubfidium Romanum. Reditus
civitatum etPrincipum laicorum, valdecrevere, tumufurpatione bonorum
Ecclefiafticorum, tum variis impofitionibuspopulo impofitis,quæcùm in Italia
ortü habuerint, facia le ſediffuderunt (exemplumenim malum creſcit femper )per
Franciam et Germaniam. Neceſitate exigente, contribuit Imperiú maximaspe
cuniarum ſummas,colligunturg extraordinariè: utex contributiones facilius
colligi poffint,eštGermaniain decem circulos diviſa, in quibus fiunt
conventusparticulares, proexecutione Edictorum, quæ in diætis Imperii facta
funt, et aliislimilibus incidentibus. Vires Germaniafunt abſq dubiomaxima:
copiaenimcommeatuum inexhauftaeft. Reditus ordinarii et extraordinarii per magni,
et modus colligendi commeatus facillimusest,propter fluviori opportunitatem.
Quod ad populum at tinet, aſtimaturtotum Imperiumin exercitum educerepoſſe,tum
equi tum,cùmpeditum ducenta millia,cujus experimentum factumfuit bel lis,
quafupràcommemoravimus,docet idquog experientia. Abanno enim. permultum
belligeratum eft in Francia, etin Belgio militi bus Germanis, quorum facta
funtfiuntg, adhucquotidie conſcriptio nes non minus frequentes, quàm magna,cüm
peditum,tum equitum. Vnoeodemtempore Wolfgangus Dux Bipontinus,duxitin Franciam
12. peditum,et Sequitum Germanorum millia,pro Huguenotis, erantý in ea (Francia)
adhuc alia quinqueequitum millia, quibus præerat Co mes Mansfeldiuspro
Catholicis. Guilelmus Naffavius habebat in Beli gio et finibusFrancia octo
equitum, et10.peditum millia dicta natio nis, etDux Albanus tria millia. Taceo
de numero Germanorum, qui Flandriam ingreffifuntDuce Caſimiro, etFranciam, eodem
Duce an no 157 8.eorumg quorum parsannopreſentieamingreffa eft in auxi lium
Regis Francia: pars, ut auxilio effet fæderi Catholicorum Frana cia. Vt
extremammanumimponam:Cùmcontinuò belligeretur in di verſis Europæ
partibus,natio Germanica adeò numeroſa est, ut abſqzea nulla
ferèfiantexpeditiones.Non loquor hic de Flandris,qui aliquot vie cibus
exercitum 30. millium virorum collegerunt, iis, reftiteruntpøe tentie Francorum:
aut de Helvetiis,quos i20.peditum millia,adfuide fenfionem poffe cogere
aftimatur. Eorumaliquando plus quàm 30.mil lia extraditionem miſerunt in
defenfionem ftatus Mediolanenfis, ad verſus Franciſcum 1. Francia Regem. Sed ut
ad inſtitutum reverta mur: Inter Germania peditesmeliores cenfentur Tyrolenſes,
Suevido Weſtphali:inter equites Brunfuicenfes, maximè autem Clivenſes de
Franconienſes: inter arma meliustractant Germani enfem,fariſſamga quàm
fclopeta.Valent Germaniſatispræliis campeſtribus,tam ad confli gendum cum
hoftibus,quàm ad iis refiftendum.Multum enim facit or do,qui ipſis
quaſinaturaliseft,inceffusgravis et firmus, armağıquibus #tuntur, defenfioni
apta:parum valent ad defenfionem munitionum, et propter corporum gravitatem,
&quòdutplurimùm ventricoſi funt, oppugnationibus inepti habentur. Sunt
itag, Germanipotiùsconftan tes,quàm audaces, feroces,quàmftrenui. Non enim
tentantres, in qui busmagnanimitaselaceat: in victoria occiduntfine exceptione
ætatis et fexus,in quofcung, incurzunt:fibellum in longum ducitur, aut obfi
dentur,dedunt fe præfegnitie:ſiin caftris degunt,morampatienternon
ferunt,necfciuntvincerecunčtando: fiprima molimina non fuccedunt ex
fententia,ſtant attoniti, caduntý animis: in fugam femel conjeéti nunquam
amplius recolliguntur: in eo præftant Hifpani omnibus na tionibus: in
Germanorum militiamagnifumptus faciendifunt,multa quog, moleftia eft, quòd
uxores fecum in bella ducant, tantumg abſua munt commeatus,uteum convehere
difficile, conſervare quafi impoli bilefit: abfg, commeatu autem nihil
boniſperandum est. Equi Germa nicipotiùsfortes quàm animofi funt, et cum ex
decem; qui in bellum ducuntur, octo ab aratro fumuntur,parum profunt: videntesg
ſangui. nem vilefcunt:contrarium accidit Afturconibus, iisenim crediit audas
cia.Concludendo rem: Peditatus Germanicus in fuo genereequitatu po tior
eft.Vires maritima Germania terreftribus minores no funt,quam. vis ea non adeò
in ufu fint,ficut terreſtres. Civitates enim Hambur gum, Lubeca, Roftochium, et
alie, habent heccentum, hæc iso.naves, quibusæquant vires Regum Dania
&Suecia. His viribus adeò fortis, potensõest Germania,ut unita nullum
hoftem timeat.Viribus,quas di ximus Germania,junguntur (cùm opus est)auxilia
Principum Italia, Sabaudia, Lotharingia. Hienim Principes in neceſſitate nunquam
de fuere Imperio. Bello enim Zigethano miſit Emanuel, DuxSabaudia, fexcentos
equites fclopetarios: Cofmus, Florentia Dux, triapeditum millia,quibus
ipfeftipendia dabat: Alphonfus 11. FerrariaDux, ipfe
profectus est cumille et quingentis equitibus, adeò probèinſtructis,ut in
caftris melior equitatus non eſſet. Eofe quoquecontulit Guilielmus, Mantua
Dux,cum inftruétiffima cohorte virorum.HenricusLotha ringus, Guifia Dux, ei
expeditioni interfuit cum trecentis nobilitate claris viris. Cumhis militibus
&alis,quos adjunxit Papa PiusViha buit Maximilianus 11.fubfignis centum
peditum,&3s.equitummil lia: Ordines Imperii ei in Comitiis annois00.Auguſte
Vindelicorum habitis, conceffèrunt 40.peditum, &8.equitum milliain
8.menfes, 20.peditum, et 4.equitum millia in tres annosſubſequentes. Meinecke: Der
konservativste unter ihnen war Giovanni Botero, ein Jesuitenzögling und
Kleriker, der als Sekretär des Kardinals Karl Borromäus in Mailand, dann im
Dienste des Herzogs von Savoyen in Rom, als Erzieher savoyischer Prinzen in
Madrid und schließlich in gelehrter Muße in Paris die politische Welt Süd- und
Westeuropas gründlich kennen lernte und durch seine vielgelesenen Werke, vor
allem durch das ‘saggio’ “Della ragion di Stato” politisch Schule machte und
zahlreiche Nachtreter seiner Gedanken fand.1) Denn er befriedigte so recht das
Bedürfnis des höfischen und sonstwie politisch interessierten Publikums nach
einer leicht verdau lichen und geschmackvoll gebotenen Nahrung. An Machia velli
gemessen,war er ein mittelmäßiger Kopf. Er hatte nicht wiedieserEcken und
Kanten,an denen man sich wund reiben konnte, und empfahl sich den
katholisch-bigotten Höfen der Gegenreformation als ein mildes
Gegengift gegen Machiavellis Zynismus und Unkirchlichkeit, ohne daß man dabei
auf das Nützliche in Machiavellis Rezepten ganz zu verzichten brauchte. Sein
Lehrgebäude stellt eine aus dem Renaissancestil erwach sene, reich geschmückte
Jesuitenkirche dar, und sein Lehrton ist
der eines Würde, Sanftmut und Strenge richtig mischen den Predigers. Er bot aus
dem Schatze seines Wissens und seiner politischen Erfahrungen jedem etwas und
konnte die Freunde der spanischen Weltmacht und der Kirche ebenso befriedigen,
wie die Bewunderer der republikanischen Selb ständigkeit Venedigs. Man lobte an
ihm, recht aus dem [Wahre Katakomben
von vergessener Literatur der Medio kritäten tun sich hier auf. Vgl. über sie
die von außerordentlicher Belesenheitzeugenden, geistvollen, aberetwaskapriziösenund
wort reichen Bücher von Ferrari, Histoire de la raison d'état und Corso sugli
scrittori politici italiani (auch viele ungedruckte Schriften werden von ihm
behandelt) und Cavalli, La scienza politica inItaliainMemor.
delR.IstitutoVeneto. Im allgemeinen vgl. Gotheins Darstellung in „ Staat und
Gesellschaft der neueren Zeit“ (Hinneberg, Kultur der Gegenwart) und das
Kapitel dieses Buches. 6* Kunstgeschmacke der Zeit heraus, die dolce armonia,
und katholische Monarchen empfahlen sein Buch ihren Thron folgern.] Gleich zu Beginn seines Werkes
unternahm er es, das neue,
machiavellistisch anrüchig gewordene Schlagwort der ragione di stato zu
entgiften und ihm einen harmlosen Sinn zu geben. Ragione di stato, definierte
er, ist die Kenntnis der Mittel, die geeignet sind, einen Staat zu gründen, zu
erhalten und zuvermehren.Wenn man aberfrage,welchesdiegrößere Leistung sei,
einen Staat zu vergrößern oder zu erhalten, so müsse man antworten, das
letztere. Denn man
erwirbt durch Gewalt, man erhält durch Weisheit. Gewalt können viele üben,
Weisheit nur wenige. Und wenn man frage, welche Reiche die dauerhaftesten
seien, die großen, mittleren oder kleineren,soseidieAntwort:diemittleren. Denn
diekleinen seien zu sehr bedroht von den Machtgelüsten der großen, und die
großen seien der Eifersucht der Nachbarn und der inneren Entartung zu sehr
ausgesetzt. „Die Reiche, die die Frugalität auf die Höhe geführt hat,sind durch
die Opulenz verfallen.“ Sparta verfiel erst, als es seine Herrschaft er
weiterte. Als Beispiel aber für die größere Haltbarkeit der mittleren Staaten
rühmte er vor allem Venedig. Leider jedoch wollten die mittleren Staaten sich
nicht immer begnügen, sondern strebten nach Größe, und dann kämen sie in
Gefahr, wie Venedigs frühere Ausdehnungsversuche zeigten. Die spanische
Großmacht warnte er in geschickter Weise, die Freiheit Venedigs nicht
anzutasten: „Brich nicht mit m ächtigen Republiken, außer wenn der Vorteil sehr
groß und der Sieg sicher ist; denn die Liebe zur Freiheit in ihnen ist so
heftig und so tief verwurzelt, daß es fast unmöglich ist, sie auszurotten. Die
Unternehmungen und Pläne der Fürsten sterben mit ihnen; die Gedanken und
Beratschlagungen der freien Städte sind fast unsterblich.“ Nach dieser Anleihe bei Machiavelli) bekam dann aber auch
das Haus Habsburg [1) Calderini,
Discorsi sopra la ragion di stato del Signor Botero, Proemio, Neudruck 2)
Principe, c.5: “Ma nelle repubbliche è maggior vita, maggior] odio,
più desiderio di vendetta; nè gli lascia nè puo lasciare riposare la memoria
dell'antica libertà”] sein Lob, denn die Größe seiner Fürsten sei der Lohn
ihrer hervorragenden Frömmigkeit. Brich vor allem auch nicht, lehrte er weiter,
mit der Kirche, es würde immer als gottlos erscheinen und doch nichts nützen.
Mailand, Florenz, Neapel, Venedig haben bei ihren Kriegen mit den Päpsten ja
doch nur viel ausgegeben und nichts profitiert. Die Koinzidenz des kirchlichen
und des realpolitischen Interesses, auf der das ganze spanische System beruhte,
war also auch ein Kernstück seiner Lehre von der ragione di stato. Geh mit der Kirche, und es geht dir
gut, ist ihr Sinn. Er riet den Fürsten, vor jeder Beratung im Staatsrate die
Sache erst in einem Gewissensrate mit ausgezeichneten Doktoren der Theologie zu
besprechen. Dennoch war er weltklug und erfahren genug, um zu wissen, daß es
zwischen Welt klugheit und Frömmigkeit nicht immer ganz stimmte. Mochte er das
Wesen der wahren Staatsräson noch so sanft und maßvoll umschreiben und es den
Bedürfnissen der Kirche und der Moral anzupassen versuchen, so konnte er sich
doch, wenn er den Dingen ins Auge sah, nicht verhehlen, daß der kristallisch
harte Kern alles politischen Handelns, ganz wie es Machiavelli schon gelehrt
hatte, das selbstische Interesse des Fürsten oder Staates war. „Halte es für eine
ausgemachte Sache," schrieb er,„daß in den Erwägungen der Fürsten das
Interesse das ist,was jede Rücksicht besiegt. Und deswegen darf man nicht
trauen auf Freundschaft, auf Verwandtschaft, auf Bündnis, auf irgendein anderes
Band, wofern nicht dieses auch das Interesse dessen, mit dem man verhandelt,
zum Fundamente hat.“ In einem Anhange zu seinem Buche gab er schließlich
unumwunden zu,daß Staatsräson und Interesse im wesentlichen dasselbe seien: „
Die Fürsten richten sich in Freundschaften und Feindschaften nach dem, was
ihnen Vorteil bringt. Wie es Speisen gibt, die von Natur un schmackhaft, durch
die Würze, die ihnen der Koch gibt, schmackhaft werden, so neigen sie, von
Natur ohne Affektion, zu dieser oder jener Seite, je nachdem das Interesse
ihren Geist und ihren Affekt zurichtet, weil schließlich ragione di stato wenig
anderes ist als ragione d'interesse. [Aggiunte fatte alla sua ragion di stato.
Venedig] Ein tieferes Nachdenken hätte ihn irre machen müssen an der von ihm so
salbungsvoll gelehrten Harmonie staat licher Interessen und kirchlicher
Pflichten und ihn in allerlei für das Denken seiner Zeit noch nicht reife
Probleme der Weltanschauung verstricken können. Er ging dem aus dem Wege, wie
es der praktische Staatsmann aller Zeiten getan hat,und begnügte sich,die
Fürsten zu ermahnen,keine Staats räson aufzurichten, die dem Gesetze Gottes
widerspräche, gleichsam wie einen Altar gegen den anderen Altar. Und am
Schlusse seines Buches schwang er sich gar zu einer Ver urteilung der modernen
Interessenpolitik überhaupt auf. Heute können, so führte er aus, keine großen
gemeinsamen Unternehmungen der Fürsten mehr zustande kommen, weil die
Verschiedenheit der Interessen sie zu sehr spaltet. Einst aber, in den
heroischen Zeiten der Kreuzzüge, konnte m a n sich ohne anderes Interesse als
das der Ehre Gottes zusammentun. Die griechischen Kaiser traten den
Kreuzfahrern in den Weg. Was war die Folge? Die Barbaren vertrieben zuerst die
Unseren aus Asien und unterwarfen sich dann die Griechen. Ecco il frutto della
moderna politica. In einem späteren Werke führte er auch den Verfall
Frankreichs auf dieselbe Ursache zurück. Weil sich Frankreich mit Türken und
Hugenotten befreundete, erschlaffte der Glaube, denn „wenn man alle Dinge auf
eine unvernünftige und tierische ragion di stato zurückführt, löst sich das
Band der Seelen und die Vereinigung der Völker im Glauben."1) Boteros
Theorie konnte also als gutes Brevier für politisierende katholische
Beichtväter dienen. Man predigte die Unterwerfung des eigenen Interesses unter
die Ehre Gottes, man predigte ferner, was nicht immer ganz stimmte, die
Harmonie des eigenen Interesses mit der Ehre Gottes, und man konstatierte
schließlich, wenn es darauf ankam, bald achselzuckend, bald beklagend den Sieg
des eigenen Interesses über alle anderen Lebensmächte. Aber diese Brechungen
und Widersprüche spiegelten genau die politische Praxis der
gegenreformatorischen Höfe. Einer der Päpste selber, Urban VIII., gab ihnen in
den folgenden Zeiten das verführe [Le
relazioni universali; s. darüber unten] rische Beispiel, das Staatsinteresse
über das kirchliche Interesse zu stellen und den katholischen Mächten in ihrem
Kampfe gegen Gustav Adolf in den Arm zu fallen.] Nicht nur die kirchliche, sondern auch die humanistische
Tradition hinderte Botero, mit konsequentem Wirklichkeits sinne und rein
empirisch seine Lehre auszubauen. Er entnahm Probleme und Mittel der
Staatskunst noch in großem U mfange aus den antiken Schriftstellern, ohne sich
zu fragen, ob sie auf die modernen Verhältnisse anwendbar seien.) Freilich
verfuhren auch größere als er, Machiavelli und Bodinus, nicht anders. Diese
konventionelle humanistische Methode beruhte nicht nur auf der Verehrung, die
mandem Altertume widmete,sondern auch auf der althergebrachten dogmatischen
Geschichtsauffassung, die alles geschichtliche Geschehen und die in ihm zutage
getretenen Staats- und Lebensformen als gleichartig und deshalb als immer
wiederkehrend ansah. So war Botero imstande, als beste und höchste Quelle poli
tischer Klugheit nicht die eigene Erfahrung, die doch immer beschränkt sei,
auch nicht die Information durch Zeitgenossen, sondern die Historien zu nennen,
„denn diese umfassen das ganze Leben der Welt.“ So sahen er und seine Zeitgenossen alte und neue G e schichte als
eine einzige Beispielmasse an, aus der man all gemeingültige Maximen der
Staatskunst herauszog, wobei man dann sehr relative Erfahrungen naiv
verallgemeinerte. Dabei fehlte es keineswegs an Interesse für die individuellen
Verschiedenheiten innerhalb der wirklichen Staatenwelt, in der man lebte. Die Verfasser der venetianischen Relationen gaben
sich Mühe genug, ihre Herren über sie zuverlässig zu informieren, und Botero
suchte dasselbe Bedürfnis zu b e friedigen durch eine groß angelegte
Staatenkunde,die er unter dem Titel Le relazioni universali herausgab.) Er ver
sprach hier auch über die Ursachen der Größe und des Teich tums der mächtigeren
Fürsten zu handeln, aber blieb dabei im rein Statistischen und
Zeitgeschichtlichen stecken und [Vgl.
namentlich Buch 6 der Ragione di stato über die Mittel zur Abwehr auswärtiger
Feinde. Den ungedruckten 5. Teil des Werkes hat Gioda in seiner Biographie B. herausgegeben.] begnügte sich meist mit tatsächlichen
Angaben über Re gierungsformen, Finanzen, Heerwesen und Beziehungen zu den
angrenzenden Fürsten. Zu einer schärferen Charakteristik der verschiedenen
politischen Systeme und Interessen schwang er sich noch nicht auf. Auch
der Bedeutendste dieser ganzen Gruppe, die an der Lehre von der ragione di
stato arbeitete, Boccalini tat es noch nicht. Aber er ragte aus ihr weit heraus
durch das per sönliche Lebensfeuer, das sein politisches Denken durch glühte.
Die Probleme, die ihn beschäftigten, und die Antworten, die er gab, waren von
denen Boteros und seiner Genossen nicht so sehr verschieden. Aber während sie
bei diesen zu einer seichten Konvention verflachten, wurden sie ihm zu einem
wahrhaften, leidenschaftlichen Erlebnis und
entwickelten erst dadurch ihren vollen geschichtlichen Inhalt. Der Geist
der echten Renaissance und Machiavellis lebte in ihm wieder auf, aber
fortentwickelt zum unruhig bewegten Barock.
Er wirkte auf die Zeitgenossen vor allem als ein überaus witziger Spötter, als
ein Meister der Ironie und S a tire, der allen über den Nacken sah und alle
Menschlichkeiten erbarmungslos bloßstellte. Aber schon hierin und erst recht in
seinen nachgelassenen Schriften, die lange nach seinem Tode erschienen,
offenbaren sich dem Nachlebenden die tieferen Hintergründe seines Denkens”.
Meinecke. Il più conservatore filosofo e B.. Segretario di Borromeo a Milano,
poi al servizio del duca di Savoia a Roma, come educatore dei principi sabaudi
e finalmente nel tempo libero a Parigi, conosce a fondo il mondo politico
dell'Europa e, attraverso le sue opere molto lette, in particolare il saggio
“Della ragion di Stato” fa scuola politica e trova numerosi seguaci. Perché
soddisfa davvero le esigenze del pubblico aulico e per altro politicamente
interessato alla ricerca di cibi facilmente digeribili e gustosi. Messo a
confronto con MACHIAVELLO MACHIAVELLI (si veda), e una testa mediocre. Non ha
questi angoli e spigoli contro cui fregarsi, e si raccomanda alle fanatiche
corti della Contro-riforma come mite
antidoto al cinismo e all'infedeltà di MACHIAVELLI, senza dover rinunciare
completamente all'utilità delle sue ricette. Il suo edificio didattico è una
chiesa gesuita riccamente decorata che è cresciuta dallo stile rinascimentale.
Il suo tono di insegnamento è quella
di una dignità, mansuetudine e severità mescolando opportunamente il
predicatore. Dal tesoro della sua conoscenza ed esperienza politica offre
qualcosa a tutti ed è in grado di soddisfare gli amici della potenza mondiale e
della Chiesa, nonché gli ammiratori dell'indipendenza repubblicana di Venezia.
Uno lo loda, fin dal [1 Qui si aprono vere catacombe della letteratura
dimenticata della critica mediatica. Su di essi, vedi i saggi estremamente ben
letti, ingegnosi, ma un po' capricciosi e ricchi di parole di Ferrari, “Storia
della ragione di stato” e il suo “Corso sugli scrittori politici italiani” (si
occupa anche di molti scritti non stampati) e Cavalli, “La scienza politica in Italia
in “Memor. del R.Istituto Veneto. In generale, vedere la presentazione di
Gothein in “State and Society of Modern Times” (Hinneberg, Kultur der
Gegenwart) e il quinto capitolo di questo libro. 6. I gusti artistici
dell'epoca, la dolce armonia ei monarchi raccomandano il suo saggio deducendone
il trono]. Proprio all'inizio del suo saggio, intrapreso questo disintossicare il tormentone
machiavellico disdicevole della “ragione di stato” e dargli un significato
innocuo. “Ragione di stato”, define B., è la conoscenza dei mezzi atti a fondare,
mantenere e accrescere lo stato italiano. Ma, se ci si chiede quale sia la più
grande conquista per allargare o mantenere lo stato italiano, si deve
rispondere, quest'ultimo. Perché si acquisisce con la violenza, si riceve con
la saggezza. Molti possono praticare la violenza. Pochi possono praticare la
saggezza. E se chiedi quali imperi sono i più duraturi, il grande, il medio o
il piccolo, la risposta è: il mezzo. Perché il impero piccolo e troppo
minacciato dalla brama di potere dal impero grand. Il impero grande e troppo
esposto alla gelosia dei loro vicini e alla degenerazione interna. Gl’imperi
che la frugalità ha innalzato sono caduti a causa dell'opulenza." Sparta
cadde in rovina solo quando espanse il suo dominio. Tuttavia elogia soprattutto
l’impero di Venezia e l’impero di Genova come esempi della maggiore durabilità
di uno stato centrale. Sfortunatamente, però, uno stato intermedio non vuole
sempre essere soddisfatti, ma lotta per le dimensioni, e allora sarebbero stati
in pericolo, come dimostrarono i primi tentativi di espansione di Venezia, ma
no di Pisa, Genova, o Amalfi. Avvertì abilmente una superpotenza di non invadere
la libertà di Venezia. Non rompere con una repubblica potente se il vantaggio
non è grande e la vittoria è certa. L’amore per la libertà in loro è così
intenso e così profondamente radicato che è quasi impossibile sradicarlo.
L’impresa e il progetto di un principi muoiono col principe. Il pensiero e la
deliberazione di una città libera sono quasi immortali. Dopo questo prestito di
Machiavelli) anche la Casa d'Asburgo ottenne [Calderini, “Discorsi sopra la
ragion di stato di B.) Principe. Ma
nella repubblicha è maggior vita, maggior
odio, più desiderio di vendetta; nè gli lascia nè può lasciare riposare la
memoria dell'antica libertà], perché la grandezza dei suoi principi è la
ricompensa della loro eccezionale pietà. Soprattutto, non rompere colla
religione, insegna, sarebbe sempre apparsa senza Dio e tuttavia non sarebbe
stata di alcuna utilità. Milano, Firenze, Napoli e Venezia spendano solo molto
nelle loro guerre colla religione e non ne beneficiano. La co-incidenza di
interessi ecclesiastici e reali politici, su cui si basa un sistema, e quindi
anche un elemento centrale della sua dottrina della ragione di stato. Vai colla
religione e stai bene, è il loro scopo. Consiglia
al principe, prima di ogni consultazione nel consiglio di stato, di discutere la
questione con la sua coscienza. Eppure e abbastanza mondano ed esperto da
sapere che non e sempre giusto tra la saggezza mondana e la pietà. Per quanto
gentilmente e misurato puo descrivere l'essenza della vera ragion d'essere e
cercare di adattarla alle esigenze della morale, quando guarda le cose negli
occhi, non puo nascondersi che la durezza cristallina nucleo di ogni azione
politica [Come già aveva insegnato Machiavelli, e l'interesse egoistico del
principe o l’interesse colletivo dello stato italiano. Considera cosa scontata che
nella deliberazione del principe il suo interesse è ciò che supera ogni
considerazione. Ed è per questo che non ci si può fidare dell'amicizia, della
parentela, dell'alleanza, di qualsiasi altro legame, se così non è anche questo
ha gli interessi di coloro con i quali si negozia come fondamento. Infine mette
francamente che “ragione di stato” e “interesse colletivo del stato” sono
essenzialmente la stessa cosa. Il principe si orienta nell’amicizia e nell’inimicizie
secondo quanto vi sono piatti che sono naturalmente sgradevoli, resi appetibili
dal condimento che dà loro la cuoca, per cui tende, naturalmente senza affetto,
da una parte o dall'altra, a seconda dell'interesse del suo animo e preparano
il suo affetto, perché in fondo la ragione di stato è poco altro che ragione
d'interesse. Aggiunte grasso alla sua ragion di stato. Venezia] Una riflessione
più profonda avrebbe dovuto sviarlo dall'armonia della ragione dello stato
italiano e dell’interesse dello stato italiano e del dovere etico e religioso
che insegna in modo così untuoso e coinvolgerlo in tutti i tipi di problemi di
visione del mondo che non erano ancora maturi per il pensiero del suo volta.
Evita ciò, come ha fatto lo statista pratico di tutti i tempi, e si limita a
esortare il principe a non stabilire un senso di stato che contraddirebbe la
morale, come un altare contro l'altro. Alla fine del suo saggio si è persino mosso
per condannare la politica di interesse in generale. Spiega che il principe non
puo più realizzare grandi imprese comune ad altro principe perché la differenza
dei interessi li dividono troppo. Ma nei tempi eroici della repubblica romana ci
si poteva unire senza altro interesse che quello della gloria di Roma. Gl’imperatori
greci ostacolano i crociati. Qual'era il risultato? I barbari goti e longobardi
prima cacciarono i nostri dall'Asia e poi si sottomisero ai Greci. Ecco il
frutto della politica. In un saggio successivo attribuisce alla stessa causa
anche il declino della repubblica dei franchi. Poiché il regno franco (l’antica
Gallia) fa amicizia con turchi e ugonotti, la fede si allentò, perché se si
attribuisce ogni cosa a una “ragion di stato irragionevole” e animale, si
scioglie il vincolo dei animi e l'unione del popolo.] La filosofia di Botero
puo quindi essere usata come un buon breviario per la politi servire i confessori cattolici.
Predica la sottomissione del proprio interesse alla gloria ed al interesse
colletivo, si predica ancora, cosa non sempre del tutto vera, l'armonia del
proprio interesse con l'onore patrio, e infine, quando si arriva al punto, si
alza le spalle, a volte lamentando la vittoria del proprio interesse su ogni
altra forza della vita. Ma queste rotture e contraddizioni riflettevano
esattamente la pratica politica dei tribunali contro-riformisti. Uno dei papi
stesso, Urbano VIII, la loro questa seduzione in tempi successivi [Le relazioni
universali] [Vedi sotto per un esempio di mettere gli interessi dello stato al
di sopra degli interessi della chiesa e di cadere nelle braccia delle potenze
cattoliche nella loro lotta contro Gustavo Adolfo.] Non solo la tradizione ecclesiastica, ma anche umanistica impedì a
B. di ampliare il suo insegnamento con un senso coerente della realtà e
puramente empiricamente. Ha preso i problemi e i mezzi di governo su larga
scala. Comincio dagli scrittori antichi senza chiedermi se siano applicabili
alle condizioni moderne.] Certo, anche quelli più grandi di lui, Machiavelli e
Bodino, non si sono comportati diversamente. Questo metodo umanistico
convenzionale si basa non solo sulla venerazione che l'uomo dedica
all'antichità, ma anche sulla tradizionale concezione dogmatica della storia
romana, che vede simili e quindi sempre ricorrenti tutti gli eventi storici e
le forme di stato romano e di vita che in essi emergevano. Botero sa quindi
nominare la migliore e più alta fonte di saggezza politica, non la propria
esperienza, che è sempre limitata, né le informazioni dei contemporanei, ma la
storia di Roma, perché questa abbraccia l'intera vita del mondo. Così Botero
vedevano la storia della Roma antica come un unico insieme di esempi, da cui si
estrae una massima universalmente valida di governo, per cui una esperienze
molto relativa viene poi ingenuamente generalizzata. Non mancava l'interesse
per le differenze dei soggetti o individui all'interno del mondo reale dello
stato italiano in chi visse. Gli
autori delle relazioni veneziane fecero di tutto per informare in modo
affidabile i loro padroni su di loro, e Botero cerca di soddisfare la stessa
esigenza attraverso uno studio su larga scala dello statio romano che pubblica
con il titolo di “Le relazioni universali”. Anche qui promise in procinto di
agire sulle cause della grandezza e del pool dei principi più potenti, ma
rimase bloccato nella storia puramente statistica e contemporanea e [Cfr. in particolare il libro 6 della
Ragione di stato sui mezzi di difesa contro i nemici stranieri. Gioda pubblica la quinta parte non
stampata dell'opera nella sua biografia di Botero] di solito si accontenta di
informazioni reali su forme di governo, finanze, eserciti e rapporti con il principe
vicino. Non arriva ancora aa una descrizione più nitida dei vari sistemi e
interessi politici. Anche il più
importante di tutto questo gruppo che lavoa alla dottrina della ragione di stato,
Boccalini non lo fece ancora. Ma lui sporge lontano da lei attraverso il fuoco
personale della vita che brilla attraverso la sua filosofia politica. I
problemi che lo preoccupavano e le risposte che dava non erano poi così diverse
da quelle di Botero e dei suoi compagni. Ma mentre si sono appiattiti a una
convenzione superficiale in questi, sono diventati un'esperienza vera e
appassionata e per lui solo in
questo modo svilupparono il loro pieno contenuto storico. Lo spirito del vero
Rinascimento e di Machiavelli rivive in lui, ma si sviluppò in uno spirito
irrequieto e commovente Barocco. Ai
suoi contemporanei apparve principalmente come un beffardo estremamente
divertente, come un maestro dell'ironia e della satira, che guarda sopra il
collo e smascherava senza pietà tutte le discipline umanistiche. Ma già qui si
rivela a coloro che vedeno dopo di Botero lo sfondo più profondo della sua
filosofia politica. DE IVRE
CIVILIS. CICERONE (si veda) IN ARTEM REDACTO EXERCITATIO SCRIPSIT
ILLVSTRIS IVii^^^P^LTOlArM ORDINIS TORITATE PRAESIDE D. CHRIST.
GOTTL. HAYBOLDO SVPREMÆ CVRIÆ PROVINCIALIS ADSESSORE, IVRIS SAXONICI PROFESSORE
PVBL. ORDIN. ACAD. ELECT. MOGVNT. SCIENTIAR VTILIVM SODALI. AD
DISPVTANDViM PROPOSVIT ANNES GOTTHELF i^ORNEJVIANNVS
i I.VBENA LIPSIÆ EX GFFIG^IA SAALBAGHIA DE IVRE
CIVILI A M. TVLLIO CICERONE IN ARTEM REDACTO
EXERCITATIO SCRIPSIT ILLVSTRIS IVi^^B^LTOI^M ORDIXIS
;toritate PRAESIDE D. CHRIST. GOTTL, HAVBOLDO
SVPRKMAE CVRIAE PROVIXCIALIS ADSESSORE, IVRIS SAXOXICI PROFESSORE
PVBL. ORDIN. ACAD. ELECT. MOGVNT. SCIEXTIAR VTILIVM SODALI A.
D. Vr. INI. OCT. A. C. cI^LoCCLXXXXVXI AD DISPVTAXD\'M PROi^OSVIT L
V H E N A - t. V Sta T V S ilOANNES GOTTHELF M^RNEMANNVS
L I P'S I A E EX OFFICiNA SAALDACHIA I R O AMPLISSIMO ATQVE
CONSVLTISSIMO «lOANNI CHRISTOPHORO HORNEMANNO * rf
' PARENTI OPTIM O NEC NON VIRO ILLVSTRI ET AMPLISSIMO B. SERENISSIMO
DVCI SAXO VINARIENSI IN SVPREMO SENATV ECCLESIASTICO A CONSILUS ET
ILLVSTRIS QVOD ^VINARIAE FLORET GYMNASII DIRECTORI PRÆCEPTORI OMNI
PIETATIS CVLTV PROSEQTENDO HOCCE QVIDQVID EST LITTERARH
MVNERK OBSEQVII £T OBSERVANTIÆ MONIMENTVM AVGTO R -DE IVRE CIVILI.
CICERONE (si veda) fi o^^f IN ARTEM REDACTO ^ "btinuit haec fempet
vxtOL do£^os honiaes constans opinio, atque etiam nunc in omnium, qui dehis
rebus optime existimare pofTunt, penitus inhaeret animis., quidquid viiquafti
iit poUtiorum disciplinarum, nuUis aliis, quam Romanorum libris ac litteris
contineri, nec vllam omnino efl*e artem ^que icientiam, cui non iniignis
lux ex veterum fcriptis adfundatur. Elgo quidem, quo faepius lego
praeftantiHimos veterum libros, eo magis, quam iam dudum perfuafam mihihabui, iententiam confirmatam video, nuliam reperiri
difciplinam, «ui maiora fubfidia fuppeditet veterum fcriptorum le£Ho,
quam iuris ciuilis fcientiam '), quæ tota fere ab antiquitatis Romanæ
cognitione proficifcttor, nec vllum vmquam intei: omnes, quos tulit
Latium, excellentiam ingenio- De commodis, (}ua£ ex adfidua auAarum
clafficorum ledione InAudium iuris ciuilis redundant, gcneracimdixerunt
Fridl Placnerus in Praef. fuper vt Uitate leffienis au^trum c/affictrtm
im hure ciuili., I. Fr. Groneuii Okfer- va$t. Lipf. 1755. edic. prseminar
et Ge. Frid. Kraufius in OiC de fraefiiiis «ufin-u^f veterum in
explicand* iitrt fraefmim ^mant, Vit^inb. r- . ''geriiorum
/CTiptores M. T. CICERONE brie exftitifle vberldrem, in quo tot tamque
praeclara de iure litteris conngnata reperiantur. Euoluaa enim, quaefo,
diuini illius au£loris fcripta, non orationes folum, -<# fed illa
etiam, quibus artem dicendi tradit vel philofophic^tra^at, et reperies in
fingulis ipfius libris, ne dicam in iinguiis fere capiti- bus, innumera
iuris fcientiae vefligia, non leuiter illa adumbrata, sed manifefta ac
penitus expreifa *). ludae mehercule molis volu- men confcribendum eflet,
(i quis omnia, quae ad iurifprudentiam fpe£lant, ex CICERONE coUigere
vellet atque illuftrare Quae quum ita (int, haud fcio, an operae pretium
fa£luri iimus, ii, qunm commode nobis obtulit et de litterulis noilris quaedam,
qualiacumque iint, diilerendi (hidiorum noftrorum ratio, occaiione ita
vtamur, vt Ciceronis iurisprudentiam paullo copioiius explanemus, et,
quot quantaque ad ius ciuile in artem redigendum ipfe ftudia
contulerit, quantum in riobis iitum efl;, pertra£lemus. Sed valde
pertrmefco, ne quis hifce conipe£Hs alto fupercilio ac vultu magna
minanti mihi ..-:Si quis flty cui non facis ponderis habere videacur hæc
mea oratio, age lo. Aug. Hachium, cuius merica de hiAuria iuris Romani
atque eleganriori iurisprudentia nufla vmquam delebir dies, eum igirur
excircmus, vr» quae modo diximus, hls audoritatem tribuat. Nam in WJf.
iurifpr. Rom. Stockmanni omnibus ius Romanum cum laude percepturis adHduam iibrorum
Tullianorum le^ionem vcl idro commendauir, quod in aliis veteribus
au6loribus tot tantxeque veteris iuris reliquiae» vcl potius copiæ, quantæ
in hoc vno, haud reperiantur. lam olim Franc. Balduinus (in Epift. de opt.
iur. doe. et difc. rat. ad studiosam iuuentutem confcriptti et praemifla Eius
Catecbefi iuris p. m. 46.) tantuiQ otii fibi optauit, vt lurisprudentiam
Ciceronianam colligere, et eam, vci inftituerat, in locos rommunes
digerere pofTet; nihii cnim dignius Rotnano iure, nikil ca tdccfliouc
graciu; cflc poiTc. r^ji '
'conSsfHmoecHnt : col n6n di£iusTl7!fts? Me qufdetn nofi jfu^i laiil s
magnis viris fumnn cum laudehuic &rgumento nau^tam efTe ope* W .mck
4), coniilio tamen multum haud dubie diuerfo 4ib e6, quod no^
bispropoiitum e^y ita, vt negotium noftrum paucis certe etfere obiter antehac
tmtatum effe^ abfque adrogantia adfirmemus. Omnes enim, quofcumque
infpiciendi perluflrandique copi& . nobis USoi erat»^in eo maxime
elaborarunt> vt oftenderent, G- Vid. Anr. Scbultlagil Or./4r
imrifpntdentia Ciceremis^ calci fubiefta Dj^//. ^:^ Fr«n«qa. 170».
4. ian^m cditarum» ct recufa in OpufcuKs ad bijitritm imrii xx.
ftrtinentibust a lo. Lud. Vhlio colleAfs (Halae) fqq. Henr. . Mtxi.\ Keftneri
Difl*. Cicer» Iurec^nfuttus in Tr. de Officiis. Rinrelii . Uenrici
Brokes DiflT de Cieerne iuris ciuilis tejy »c interpretet fpecistim
d». Cicerene ICt9. Vitemb. ijjg. 4. Eiufd. Diff. de Cicerone iuris ciu.
trfiesc- *\ inttrprete t fpeciatim in fuis de Inuentiene Ithris.
ibi<L 1739.4. Efafd. DiiC de Cicerone iuris viu. tffle ae
intei^pretep fpeciatim i» primo de erattre iibri m cap. I 3g. ibid- . Henrici Conftantini Cra<
Specimen iurifprmdentiae Ciceronianae f. ^iceronem iujiam pro A. Caecina
cauffam dixijje. L. B. 1769. lo. Olivier Diatr. de iurifprudentia
Ciceronis; in £i. Ciuiiis doQrinae anaiffi pbilofopbica (Rom.) P* .
lof. Lud. Em. Puttmaimi Obf. de vtHitate e leStione fcriptorum M.
'Tuilii Ciceronis phraecipueque eratio- num TuiJianarum in
difciplina iurit erimina/is capienda ; in Ei. M^cellan. c 19.
Quibus addcndi funt» qaos Ciceronianae eniditionis praeconet magno
numero recenfct largiflimus eiufmodi fcriptorum promus condus lo.
Ge. MeufcUus Vir III., in BibHotb. Hifi.Multa qaoque er
praedara diuerfls in locis dc Tulliana iuris fcientia protulic
Conyers Middleton in praeclaro opere, cui tituius eft: Hijiory of tbe
Lifd ' of M.T. CicerO' London 4. quodque in vernaculam linguam
tranfta- lit Seidelius. (Gedani) At ilfud miratus fum, qui fa^um
fit, quod in eo capite, quo de Ciceronis doflrina ct erudicione -
fq. verf. Seidel.) ^bferuauit pluriroa lcvhi digniflima auftor elegan-
tiffifflu^ ne verbulum quidcoi dixcric de cius i)uis
fcicncia. oeronem in iure non futfTe hofpitem » vel plura ac praeclara in
eo reperiri, quae ad ius Romanum expiicandum inprimis faciunt;
illam vero quaeflionem, quot quantaquede iure ciuili ad difciplina e dignitatem
euehendo eius merita exdant, vel iicco pede tran(ilierunt, vel ieui tantum
bracchio pertralanint. Quae quum ita fint, nuUus profe^o dubito, quin nos
non prorfus inanem in hac quaeftione pertra^anda operam infumturi ilmus.
Quod quidem ii cognoue- rimus, fieri foriitan potefl, vt, quaepingui,
quod aiunt, Minerua adumbrauimus lineamenta iatius aliquando dedgnemus,
et quantum ad vniuerfam iurifprudentiam augendam et in aitius promo«
vendam contulerit Gcero, copiodus exponamus. Quod vero ad hafce (ludiorum
meorum pnmitias adtinet, eas omnium, qut Ittteris fauent, quibufue et leuia aut
tenuia haud difplicent, oculis lu- benter fubmitto ac fpefn foueQ
certi(Timam, fore, vt aequi exifli- natores et erga iuuenis mode/lam
imbecillitatem indulgentes lcri- ptiuaculae coaiilium Hnt refpe^uri.
A dgrcdienti autcm mihi hunc locum animus hon eff adnm agree et putida
ditigcntia Arpinatis vitam confcribere; quod prorfus cft ab inftituto meo
aRenura. Id tantum adfequi voto, quod femh per niihi in fummos homines ac
fummis ingeniis praeditos intnenti coniidierandum efle vifum eff, vt ex
qnibufdam quafi dcHneamentis', quo fiicrit ille a natura fa^s ingenio,
oftendam, ct, quod poffini inueftigem, quibus initiis ac fandamcntis haec
tanta rurrfprudenr. tiae facultas excitata fit, quibus præfidiis adiutus,
qua ria ac rtt- tione indu^us ad id legitimae fcientiae faftigiura
penetrauerit. Iti enim fiet, vt, quo diRgentius haec cdnffderemusr ac
perpendamus fingula, eo ditucidius adpareat, quantum ad artem noftram
augeny dam et ampKficandam contuterit atque adeo conferre potuerit. Inter
omnes fere populos maximam curam conftat educanda i^eris adhibuiffe
Romanos. ProDe enim gnari, quantum iiiter- ^, quantunai^|EEfemomenti
habeat tenelios adhuc animos veluti ce» reos fingere et ad bona
omnia^conformare, puerilem praecipue aetatem cura fua amplexi funt, et id
in primis ipedarunt^ vt fincera atque integra vniufcuiufque natura toto
ftatim peiQore a di ipe r et ar- tes honeftas, et, ad quod maiora haberet
adiumenta, in eo mice eiaboraret. Eodem modo TuHium noftmm inftitutum
fuifte, vel ex eo iam colligi poteft, quod eius pater, qui, quum eftet
infirma - valetudine, in Arpinati villa remotus a proceUis reipublicae
aetatem Cf. TACITO Diai. de 6raf, a». Wz tem«ge^t inlttteris, <]^dquid
dabatur otii, id f«re4ii hoe -enifM conrumrerit ^). lam a primis, vt
Graeci dicunt, vnguiculis, iis, quaeL. Graflb placebarit, artibuset ab
iis do£loribus, quibus ille vtebatur^ eruditus 7) elementa iitterarum
celeriter percepit, tan-- tumgue adtigit do^rinae, quantum praeftantidmio
quifque ingenio praeditus prima illa puerili inftitutione potuiffet. Ac
fi verum eft, quod fafepius prodltum legimus et ipfi obferuauimus
quidquid suscipias imprimere, id facile recipere teneros inuenum animos,
noa eft, quod dubitemus, quin puerulo iam amor quidam iingularis
ear rum litterarum, quibus ftudia forenfia aluntur, infitus fuerih
Confideret enim aliquis eius ingenium a fimilitudine paterni haud
abhorrens, ponat fibi ob oculos aui magiftratum fumma cum laude gerentis
exemplum 8^, expendat educationem Crafli, quem eloquentium iurifperitiifimum
vocare Cicero ipfe 9) non dedignatus cft, arbitratu inftitutam. Quae fi
quis fingulatim percenfeat, con- iefturain noftram haud vano niti
argumento, inficias fane ire non poterit. £x vmbratili ac dAneftiCa difciplina
Romam fecontulit, eo con^lio, vt mirificum et ad omnia fumma tutum
ingenium, quod in vnius vrbis, quae naibentem ^remio et (inu fuo
exceperat^ gyrum fe compellinon fuftinebat, maiorem inueni^ret aliquem
cam- pum, in quem excurreret, roaius, in quo Jfpeilaretar,
theatrum. Incidit quidem tunc temporis in funeftum ac perturbatum
reipubli- cae ftatiun, quo vrbs, imperii domicilium, variis fa^lionibus, servire 6)
de leg. 8» X. de prst. i, i. Ep. ad Dim, if, 4. de ttrmt. 3, l.
t) de leg. a, i. }, i6. de wat. fl, 6<. • 9) Brut. 1%. vi»
phrictis, iHbortbat, emmli adlitttt«»Tnrce amnitnti «doer- tfts, felix
vere et anreum feculiim, quo omnis Græciæ {apientta tam feuera lege
excolebatur, vt, quod ibi fuerat exercitatio ingenii, liic in femen
conuerteretur publicae vtilitatis '<>).Quam ob reiii dolefcentes
prirots annis Graecis iitteris dare et grammatico^ rhetores, phildfophos
Graecos audire folebant "). Quum eoim ve- teres ea, quam Plato iam
fbuerat, imbuti efTertt opinione, omneni ingenuarum artium do^inam Vno
quodam focietatis vincuio conti- n'eri **), nihil profedo prius neque
antiquius habuerunt, quam vt iuuenes, iiue ad rem militarrai, iiue ad
iuris fcienttam, iiue id eloquentiae ftudium fefe adplicarent, id non
fblum agereot, fiad omnem etiam liberalis difciplinae orbem emetirentur.
Adeam quo- <|ue^fententiam (ludiorum fuonun rationem adcommodauit
Gcero ; de quo fi quis dixerit, tanto eum ingenio fuifle, vt,
quaecunque effent in litteramm cognitione pofita, intelligentia
comprehende- rit, fi quis commemorauerit^ tanta eum induftria exfMtifk,
vt, quidquid librosum philofophi Graeci reliquiflent, qui in aliqUo
fiumero haberentur, qmdquid oratores, quidquid hiflorici iitteris coniignaflent,
quidquid.cecinilTent poetae, ideuoluerit ac fhidiofe legerit, ii quis
adfemerit, antiquitatis memori^m paene omnem, maximarum gentiura ac
nationum res geftas cognitas eum habuiffe, ' lo) Cf. Seneca mPrae/.
L. i. Controu. nQtiidquid, Inquic, Romana facundia habet» quod infolenti
Graeciae auc opponac aut praeferac, circa Cicerpnem effloruic: omnia
ingenia, quae iucem flndiis nollris adtuleruflt, tuncnaca Bfut. 40. dfg
off. I, I. Sueton. de el. rbet. i. et ^* riv>i^* hicy inquam,
qui omma haec illi Tindicare non dubitatet, nimias lorfitan laudum
TuUianariun videretur eSe buccinator. Nemo Tero Cicesonem adtigit, qui
dubitare, quin ita fit, vUo modo poC- £t '3). In primis vero in
philofophiae (ludio, non eft £aciie di^hi^ quantum excelUierit '4) ;
quani non a limine, vt dicitur,. falutauiti fad ad intima eiufdera
cubilia penetrauit, et vnamquamque eius par- %em ita adcurate
diiigenterque perluilraiut, vt Ulos, qui in vna phiiofophia quafi
tabernaculum vitae {iiae coUocauerant,^ fere superaret. Legatnr lac.
Periaonii Orttib de deeronts eruditione et indii/fria (Frane^a.
l6%i.) p. l^ {qq. ^ ii. -Non fe e porricu Zenonif, atit Lyceo
Arlftoteir», lat liortis Epicuri, fcd cxAcadcmiae fpMJis maxime
exiiHie dicit Or. |. Ep.adDiy. 1,9. Nempe .,Acadcinicae philofophiae ezat,
de ooinibus zebus in vtranque partem difpu- tare, quod ad forcnfcm
etoquentiam fane valebat quam plurimum, nequc / ad angufte ec tcnurter,
ftd cleganccr, copiofe ct ornate. Sed philofophiam f^/ aon folum
tamquam eloquentiae miniftram amptexus *eft, quae arma ipfi »r«,
iuppcditarc poflcCt quibus aduerfarios, hifce fubfidiis deftitucos,.
pEoftcrncnt,.' valeret, vcrum etiam ad ituifprudentiac Audium tranilulit, vt
haec, philo- Ibphiae opcra fubjeuata, paullo magis fe commoucrct,
ec tamquam carncm, fuccnm, iaaguinem coioremque adciperet. Cuius
focietatis illu/Vre arga« lentum ipfe exftare voluit eo loce {de Itg. i,
(.), vbi non a psactoris ediiffco» Bcquc a XII tabulis, fed penitus
ex intima philofephia hauriendam iuris difciplinam putat. Qycm autem
morcm dilFcrendi Socraticum in omnibus libris fequutus eft, eumdem quoque jn
iuris fcientia adfiibuit. Vbf- cumque cnim de iuris quaeftionibus
vel controvcrfiis fermo eft, ab vna parte fententias, et quibus
nituntur rationes fumma arte difponit, his vero jka difpofftis,
contratias opiniones earumque argumenta ita tn aciem educit» vt
quiuis ex earum coniliftu, quid in vtraque parte minus firmum, quid
verifimiltus (ir, facile intelligere pollit. Ci.de I»u. s, a Orut. Tart.
14. cc 34. Plura dtbunt, qui de philofophia Doftri ex iolUcuto
coounentati .li- •^ji-: rar^. Omnibus lis itaque
do^lrims, quibus aetas pilerilts inleiy imari adhumanitatemlblet, -atque
omnium ik)narum artium ormi^ v mentis iitflrudus in forum, tamquam in
ifAcra ac puluerem, Mu* €txis eft, rt eius auditor efTet et fedator
iu^eiorum. IVes Tiimiruni Hs temp6ribus artes fuere, qwie ad furoma
quaeque viam muniebanl^^ ars dicendt, iuris fctentia atque arma ^i). Ek
quibus -quas ^potiifi*, mum amplexus fit nofter, facile ^uhns potf ft comedura
adfequi', qui eius mentem penitus introfpeut. Qunm enim-omnes tFahaiiiur'
- iandis ftudio, quid mirum, H Qcero, qui, quum amore gioriaenimis
:- acri fortafle neque proHus inhonefto ftagraret} nihai invtta
ezpe*. tendumputabat, ntd quod||0et cmn laude et cum dignitate
coniua*. Chim, eumdem,
quem optimi ac nobilHnmi, petere curfum laudts, atque in iis elaborare
yeiiet ac deiudare, quibus maxima expofita erant vel ad gratiam vel ad opes vel
ad dignttatem praemift, quaeque in omni libero populo femper fleruerunt
fefnperque dominatae funt "'^). Aiia qnoque ratio tn retpuMicae
ilatu ac temporibus, quaeillum exceperunt, quaerenda «ft. . QuaeqHtdem^
dUig^ter tnfpidamus, tnuememus, i^mpubiioam Romanam tunctemporis
. -ciuiH- " Xfunt, Gautier de Siberc in Dlatr. cui
litulus: Examen de U PblUftftU d« '^'?'Ciciront inferta AUm. deVAemd. d.
hfcr. ettn ^ians ^; '.^ C Meinc»rfius, VirlU., inOr. degantiffim; ac
dodi/fimc fcripta de pbtlefitphis ^^ Cicerenii eiufque in vniuerfam
pbilofopbitm meutis^ quae exibt in Opuftc. . ' pbilofophlcis varii
argumenti (Lipf.). Add. Middletoni /. /. T. 11 II. p. 3)o. fq. ex verf.
SeideU Xxji) BKttf^4s. Cf. quae egrcjie, vt oronia^ hanc in rem
«bieruauic Cbr. Gtr> viuf. Vir Celeb., ia den pbilofopb. Anmerhungen
itnd Abbandlungen zu Ciee- •' r#V BUcbern vn den Pflicbteh T. f . p. aa j fim. 41. ^ro Afor.<t. <Aj;^a, 19. .i;^
*v.-v^*^ >^^f'<jj^ ?&?<, m - ciuilibus di^Hdik
ac bellis mirum in modum conquafTatam fuiflc et Ubefa£Utara. Ac primum
quidem Gracchanae Druiianaeque atque Apuleiae feditiones rempublicam
conturbauere, quibus ea femina fparfa funt, vnde bellorum ciuilium,
Sullani, Mariani atque Cinatr oi formidolofa fufeitata eil flamma, quae
ciuium fanguine reftiob guebatur. In tantis tenebris atque parietinis
reipublicae omnia bo^ oarum artium fludia iiluerunt. Forum moeilum
etvaftatum, muta i^tque elinguis curia, fides venalis, iudicia diflbluta,
perdita, num* maria. Sed non dilatabo orationem meam ; etenim poffet efTe
infinita, a mihi liberet commemorare iiios turbines, illas procellas ac
ciuiles difleniiones, quibus fatis ^^nter deplorandis alicuius eorum, qui
tunc occubuerunt opus eflet ingenio. Ad CICERONE vnde deflexa efl noflra
oratio, reuertamur. Qui quidem quiim omnia haec adfpiceret, quid mirum,
fl eius animus, veterum ie^ione innutritus, ac fortiflimorum virorura,
quoruiQ imagines et ad intuendum et ad imitandumi expreflas reliquerunt et
Graeci et Romani fcriptores, exemplis incitatus eo adduceretur, vt omnes
curas, omnes cogitationes, omnes vigilias in eo collocandas eflTe
putaret, vt flrenuiflimus iibertatis vindex, ^umanitatis acerrimus
propugna- tor, iufliflimus cauflarum patronus, ii4|^roborum adcufator
ai|da- cifHmus atque fortiflimus infontium defenfor euaderet. Nihil
enim pulcrius, nihil honeflius, nihil dignius cogitari pofle
putabat, 4)uam improbos adcufare et miferos calamitofofque defendere
^7). Quem quidem finem flbi propofltum quo plenius adfequeretur, in
Diuintt. in Caecil. s, so. ai. PbiUpp. i, }. pr» ClMeni.%7, lo prinus
vero lc^u digiuffifflus cft locu^ qui cxftat i^ O^ a, -"^0 ;i
fo^Xeiiiikpvit ^^m^^S>tt»ttm^M^6per9my vt et trtem dicendt «|
v iuris icientinin, iiiH} qur tegttima defenfio rel adcufatto, in foro
tfinr| ilituenda, nuUo modo fuccedere poterat, ar^flSKio vtnculo eoniuii^
gtoret ^^), Quam ob rem, neXhemidis&cra illotis mantbus adttQ#;
geret, Mtm 9 paruis leges decenrairales» a quibus, tamqqam pobU«§
pTiuatiqueiurisfonte, iioifprudenttae ftudium aufpicahdum pufetfbant vetetes,
edidieit i9), atquein fcholis rbeUvuin» vt tam ih dttiTl fendendo, quam
ui adcufando ejcerctt:«tur, fumma induftria M^ • l| I I I I I I III lll# -;.
/" ig) DHliiifta eraht iit tempbribtts ihter fe ittrirconfs!r»ram ct
pttronoKMi^V •^fi^' mnoi»-, qmmquam haud decranr» qui Ttnim<)u«
<umma otm 1^4c &^ilii^^' .| rcnt, vcluti }A. Porcius Cato (^Er
«r^/. 1, ]7» ct K.lJ.)* P- Crafliis DtueaO^;; ' . ar««. I, 37. ^rc/. 36.)
i Q. Mucius Scaeuola pontifex (BrM. |9. et 40.), h, T CraiTus (2?r»/. jg.
39. 40.) etSeruius Sulpicius (ffrivr. ^i.ec^a.). Noftmrt 'ft*" Vero
Vtnmqoe perfonam pari com fiutdc faftiaoiffe, qdean ad modoa miur*
•$^.,fi|m^i/u4:de oratore diuinum opus ioquicur, ia tf^^^iaih^ ^ngnthr»^^
locorum» vbi iis, qui ^crfeflt oracorct ellj: VBUiK»lPnt Gp^tUmem cll^^-
necCiuriam ipfe prbfefTus cfl, tcftimonlis aDuadc ihtclligitur. Vid. md ^ HerHm. u li. de hutnt.
i, f. Ormt. Pitrt. «t. (it Or. t, $» 6. %. 14. 41. >^. Or, |. 41. 43.
Brut. Hinc accrrtaic perftrinxic cauilanim patrenos« qw t\ huc^tque
iiliic ofagrui cum cacerua in foro voJitareqc, praefidium cUeQC»i' bus
atque opem amicis et ctitnAis prope ciuibus lucem ingenii et confilii
•(^' ftti porrigerent, qui vero ignari plane legum in maiorum inftitutis
-faacfit»*^ rJe;ii^8C,'ir quaHeiure Incidcrct"dtt6itacio, ad ICtoram
prudenciam anffSi geren^ a quibus liaflas ameiuatis adciperentf qnas
oraeeriis kccrtis et virU' A' busLtorqttcreiu: Ttpic 17. de Orat. i, {7.
Quac ICti ct oratoris offici» .'^: quamquam Corn, van BfnJcershoelc Oiffi
iar. R»n$. 7, 6. Aib Impcratoribua >«».. coniund» fuiff^ iudicat :
tamcn .contrarium, de qno cx Qjuinftil. fnfii.Ormt»' la* 3. nec
non-Ittucacl. 7«4af^ ciniqne Scholiaftk conftaro potcrar, ftlidi»
racionlbns euindt lo.Guil. Hoftmannus in Prmef' Aegitlii Menmgii
AniHWit^' •: ti^s intitciuiUtprmemiffm, Cf. Schultingii Qr. M: p. J4f,
> ^n 19) de teg. a, aj. Liu. J, J4. Tactt. .«^. J, aj. ' i
•Mf^< Ihoque ftudio verfatus «ft >•). PoftiBaquam rero in foram
^eduBtit erat, iuxta prifcum Romanorum morem ad Q, Mucium ScMuoIam
augurem, Timm i^s ciuilis intelligentia atque "omni prudentiae genere
confpicumn fe contulit, quem fenem iuvtenis ita' fe^Htus eft, vt, quoad
poftet, abeius latere'nunrquam decederet, «t^ quae itb eo prudenter
diiputata eftent, fedulo menuMiae mandaret omnta ^>)i' (I.UO mortuo fe
ad^. Mucium Seaeuolam pontificem adplicuit, ^i quum ea aetate
iurifperitorum elequenci(SmiK putaretur ^% Tullium in primis exemplo
fuoexcitafte videtur, vt eloquentlam cum iuris fcientia coniungerei,
eamque indotatam atque incomitatam yerborum dote locupletaret et 4}rnaret
*3). Magni ifti viri, in duorum familia iupifprudentiae laus erat
hereditaria, et er^quorum ludo, tamquam ex equo Troiano, multi prodierunt
lurecorifulti, guam(}uam nemini fe {id docendum dabant, domi tamen in
hemicy- dio fedentes aeque ac tranfuerfo foro obambulaotes
admittebant adolefcentes difc^wii eupidos, vt, quid conMentibus
refj)0nde-* rent, quas aQiones, exceptiones et cautiones in quauis caufta
com- jnendarent, quibufque rationibus in his omnibus vterentur,
.audi- fent, eaque omnia libi in futuros vAis enotarent ^4).
Ificredibi- lis tamen^quaedam ingeniij quod (ibiplurima deberet,
magnitudo . 4ion jU) Brut. 36. et 89. A Amick. u quem
ad locum c£ Wetzd. ^p. iif. ' Plu« ''tarch- ia vks Cu-.c.J.
4]uum.Ciceroneai PhiloiM Academico operam naua/re . •^ommemoraneC, haec
addk:,i(ta i$ r$t« wtp MetuuB» avSfmtt tvmv troMrtme. xKi ntnfmm/tt tnt ^Mhnu
$ts tiix$igim$ rm $oimv .m^$MtT$. •j>'i >^ > ^. a4) ^non magnepewf
clefiderauitaherit» iflfeefadiendo lalJdrfiBnrWfia- duftriam '^), fed
ipfa iuriiperitbrum et prudentum de iure ciw^ fcripta etcommentarios percenfuit^
in iifque quum in iuuenili tuqi ' in matura aetate fingukrlem -quamdam
iueuttdikatem ae deleflafiqi^', nem fefe.reperi0e teflatum reliquit *^).
Sed non in patrio foltiitt - iure cognofcendo fubftitit, verumre^am^ quum
ftudiorum eat^ Athena$, tamquam ad mercafeuram bcmiiru M ar^um, fe
con£ert«i|[ actotam fereGraeciam peragraret, omne fuum ftudium in Græcarum
legum hiftoria, funmifte prudentiae fonte Tberrimo, nonu* x^atim Lycurgi,
Dracoms et Solonis inftitutis percipiendis peAiil^ i^x iif<}ue, quod
iuri Romano explicando maxime inferuiret, d«*' promfit«7). Qqantum autem
iam ineunte aeti^e in iurisibienti» prpfecerit, luculenter teftantur,
quos de inuentione fcripfit admodum adolefcens iibros, atque orationes pro
Quin^o et Sex. Roficio" Amerino habitae ^s), in quibus tot tantaque
furgentis ac creicentis in immenfum ingenii documenta deprehendebantur,
vt qt|iuit fa- - cile poffet iudicare, vnum e fummis viris euafunim
illum, vel ta- lem potius f uturum» cuius iimilem vix yUa praeteritorum
feculo- rum aetas tulitTet. Cicero aeai (mffe.avrtitSaxrov ac
propria vimice et Stutniri ad taoeum fa-,^\,.yftigi\>m penctraaifle, egregie
me docuerac S^ettigfrust cuiiis futnmi vici pi»,,i^aieinoria numciuam exanimo
diicedet meo» la Pr«iMjUtu tui Uctm Ck. m . Catiih. }, 8. ». (Budiflac
1791 J p. 17^^ s-:i, «6) Jt Ortt. ii 43« 44- ^' P'»' «» 4- t .'l
aj) C£|^^ddIetoa. /. /.. Atcamen iam antc iter in Graecian .^,^fiircd|pi
plurimas Graecotum ieges cogi^itas irabuine Tullium, patetes libris
de inuentione, in quibus nulta» quae »pud Craecos vigeban^ infU- ^
tuta recenfet, vt i, }}. 2, a). ii. }8., •t) ViA. Breuiitriittn
vit^e^ m^ionitm ei fcriftQritm Ciceremft pcaeaiflttai B^OB-, tw* «4«. T, L Pv
WVI. iq. ; I^ yxpoluimus {«-o virium noltranim tnodulo, qua via ac
ratione ^-^ iuris peritiam omnino naQus fit CICERONE Quae (i quis rite
per- penderit) quis e(l, qui ambigat, quin Tullius ciuilem
prudentiam non extremis modo labris dcguftarit, verum, qiiemadmodum
reli* quas humaniores difciplinas, ita et hanc ad vnguem caliuerit?
Attamen dici vix potefl, quantopere
inter fe eruditi dilTentiant de CICERONE (si veda) iurisprudentia.
Fuerunt^'), qui ideo, quod numquam fe ICtum profeflus fit, nec de iure
refponderit, ICtis adnumeran- dum eflfe praefra€ke negarent ^oy Quomm
vero iniquae fubtilitati iam aff) Eorura
antdigBanus eft Corn. van Byrnkershoek, qui (in Praetermiffis zA L. 2. $.
4^. D. de O. I. infertis ec ipfms Kynkershoekii Opufcf. T. II. p. 60.
f()q. et Colleflioni Vhiianae p. ag^. fqq.) magna id cgic opera, vc
Ciceronem ex albo ICcorum expungeret. Simite quid iam ante Bynkershoekium in men- tem
venerac Anc. Fabro in Libro de error. pragmat. Dec. 94. err. 9. et Vberto
Folietae de philofopkiae et iuris ciuitis inter fe comparattene Lib. I.
p. i^. Eanidem fenccntiam amplexi fuBt lo. Sam Brunqu?llius in Hijl.iurit
Pcm. c.-iO. ^. 34. et Eu.
Otto in Lib. fing. Je vita, fludiis, fcriptis et bonwi' kitt Seruii
Suipicii c. 4. $. g- hic qurdem, vt iarn Craflius Praef. Spec. iuris-
fruHenfiae Cicero». p. II. nvt. 4. fulpicacus e((i herois fui » quem runc
lau- dabat, extoileadi cauila. Cerce
idem parum fui memor in Dt({. de perpetua feminarum tutela c. i. $. 4.
(repccica in Differtatt. iur, puH. et priu. p. 199.) in «aflra eorum, qui
cencrarias parccs fequuncur, cranliiiic, vbi^rimas, m- quic» teneat At.
Tullius, difertifjimus inttr lCtos orator, et lufffinter oratores
eruditijpmus.** JO) V't probetur, TuUium non fuiflTe ICtum,
pkrumque etiam falent adfcrre, quod h«^ ihido Pompohius, hid. L.i. de 0.
I lurifccnraltomm reccnium agens, CICERONE filencio praeterieriC) verom
tfciam Q. FuHus Olcmis in Oratio« iam dodHRi fttma^m cfle
abiis,^^tti inCiMroatt pa^roeinio fofti- pieado fitronu cum laude
rerfiiti tet, tiettie eft, qoA nelbUf J^. Suum cuique hac de re iudicmm
efto : hic tamen memiiiifl*e <^p4F- tet eitis, <]uod grauiter dizit
Quin^tilianns »)t modiJt$ tt tkttkh JptSfo imdiao 4U toMtu mrit
promuUumdum tjl, nt, quod fMf^ tM- ^tidUt iMmntnt, quod nom mttUigMt^
figo vero profiteri noii TiltiM^ In eam aninuim meum femper tncUnafle
fentcntfam, ftciniutiiii^ aon fuo ttmtum tempore iuris fcientia ioter primos
potniffe eeii>- fivi, ied et iufilprudfiiitiae pomoeria haud
parumprottdiife, A^eri» >,; pradoae contn CSecroncai/atne loliginit
^ltOM, ^mc a^d Dioocm GrfT. jCAi. 46. cxftat» ftttdia Ciceronis
expreiTerit, aullaai irero iorif fcientiac,ipca- ^''Mlioiicm ftcerit.
Poiiipottittt «ttteni l L tm fikkcm ICtok nomiiiafle i^illtut, tnu
:Vi Wl «i« jure ec^ponaetuDC, vcl icri|Nts md io* ptriitiwihiii
indWM. . rnaCi vcl alio
qtto<?iinqiM vap^ crtcm ittris ^ofeffi fuat. Ifife cticai aMl>
tot ^ios maximac «uftoriatis iCtot omifit, «i^ mienwriat c«cram
-IQte- ^''rttiik nott «^co adeutaVe dciiacaait; cttlut nej^fli«fltiae
«xemi>ta coUcgk .^- :^ilM^e« inDifl*. ik Pmt^», kijhrku
Btietmrim ^fMi^eO^itcbt if)^.). Giiaao -r ^tpud Caflittm quin nulla
planc fidcs ha bfco d< fit« ntaio dtAitabttg qm iot^ Jieet, ex
odio, quod crga CICERONE (si veda) Calcnot fiifoepmtj ywictCfai jn aoil-
Yione fttpprimi inagts« <juam connnnari. Cf.^ttte mbtttterant Gml
Bttdactts ^tt. D. deh H 7. Gdlf. GfMt ht^ Tdkvith .fCttrmmVhk 1. c f .
Ittioh. Bachooittk md Ami FmM Ctiko, fTj .frtgmmt. Pcc 94. err. 9.
S^ultii^^ii in Or. fiepius Jaudaci, Chrii^ Waechtlerut in Ihterist
tecsfime PrMtermiJerttm Bynkersboeiii eid L t. D. ^ **'^4fe 0. /.
fcriptif, ipfiurque Ofnfcc. rsrier. p. 7 »6. fqq. nec non C^Ut&iem
n^^WZnJMr p^ 29^. fqq. inferti^Tffoltesin ti^.deT:teerene iurijeenfmhe $.
it. 1' Sf^; 15; CMffittt i»ni^. J)pir^iibrii^. €itt NW h n ioi p.
11. toKfatos /C^ imr. <H i X^ pb«<«4*/edit; TOCCMM&
<||iuMiaci'OM. <4lr iariffrm/i Cie. in €/«//// doarinae
amUjfi pHhfefkica p. 97« fqq- « Piittmannus Mi/cell^ I9*pil4l- 3»)
InfihMt. Orat.X. i.«tte/btntur lucurenttifima ilta «t darifCma,
qua6,;qnotic&um<{ue 'Cacerdiuf opera euoluo, noR ime magna
animi dele£Utione animad- -terto, ciuilis iuris veftigia, com{»:obant
cauflae abeo orataer..^de« ckraot res in oiHcio geftae. Quis vmquam
tot prircanun legum •4* uui^ pnblico priuatoque nomina, quin et
ipla earum verb&.no* ;lus ceBTemauit? quis iilas omnes «xaQius ac
preffius ejumiinauit?,^pi» eamm fenfura, rationem, vim dtlucidius adeoque
dignitatem .c!Urius expHcMMt? Quidquid «nim in legibus eflet vel
vtile ct 'iiiy^n, vel noxium et iniuftum, nofter peruefligauerat,
quaeqise,cz iis probandae improbandaeue efTent, probe perfpexerat. Ac
il quis^ qpaerat, an iuris naturaBs praecepta tenoerit, nonne
teSes tocupletiffimi praeter praeclarum de hgibuT opus Amt aurei
illi iibri, quos dt ojpcns elaborauit lam (enex? Si quis rog^st,
iurifn» publici tum communis) tum patriae fuae propf ii, reique
pul^icae gerendae prudentia caUuerit, nonne i^ae refpondent
iagsfiiiaiyquas ad Atticura fcrip(it, epi{!otae? Se^ quid opus eft hiec
pluribus per&qul? Hoc folummodo addam,. pofle iumn^onmi. virorum
epinioncs, quamuis toto, quod aiunt, coelo diuerfae videatitur,
fiicilltfflo artificio, fi quid mihi cemere datum, conciHari. Tota
«nim lis poti^mum verfatur in vocabulo lCiu Hunc Bynkershee^
kius aliique, qui eius partes (equuntur^ cum ip£b. Gcerone eum
cfle voluerunt, qui legum «t ad r^pondendum et ad agendum et
ad cauendum peritus £t 3^. Inde non negant, TuUium exeeHuifle .-
'Qgpdlibroruai pratftaiicIAinorum coaiilHun dofte i<ittfflbrtuit Qvi A.
Aag. G&nclMras,. V. IIJ., ia GeoMB. 4k kgt immm tt mmt Cmrmit,
LipC nuis ff1(?IlliX)*"m!|g9Aftttlttini, 'BUlilllmi
faimClCttnt,'" NiBUlUiTIOl hoc dldmus, tdque iis lubenter largiri
pofTumus, liummodo omnei in maximaiuris fcientia CICERONE nlmbuenda amice
confpireot. Fa* cileiui(&it ilUv fp»* pcimo a«t»tiflKtemp<>re
iuri oper9Jn-4^M% oft^j^dore ac profiterir ie etiam I(ki perfanafp tueri
ppfl<v ii cuiit rf^ujbiicae pptuiiTet a je^tbticei:^ *i). Qmiil
^q^odQ^Uitus fcaW^ ipfeyUii^quaiHU^iwcfuaclere voluit, vt, ialuis
inuoeribus pu(blici% {Utkn fedaret ad ius refpoadendum ^), Ac x;onfen/i(ret
adeoCjl-^ oero, (juidem nuHutneiiet in experiend<i periculam, mii
y^ttii- «flet,. ne iBterpi:«tati;0.ittfis, ctUfnfi miaus molq^ propter,
{«bOrj cei^jV auferret tamen ipft«eiBp<¥:9i «4 di^peodi cogitationem
4ilftt'* «atil* : Quafn ob rem fUA|tt|,«am-> doaec va(;atioiif«m aetas
ipfi^ fioret acUaturaJT), et ni^ praiecAariu^ dujcit neque hone^ios,
qupa^: bonoribus et reipubiica£ «nuncribus perfunctum fenem pofife
Iu& iurd ^cere idem, qued apiild-BAnium dicat iUe Pythius ApoUQ,
4p. efXe eum, vnde iibi., £ non popiiU et reg9s,> at onine»^
^PMtfS oonfiiium expetant 3*). ^ ''^^In omaiam ore fttoc verbaHla
nociiEma, -«luae pnt Nhar, \% . occnrrant ^v Si mUbit btmimi
vtiementer jocci^4UtfiomMhm moturUis, trida» mt ImrtS" etnfuttum
effi frtfteiw., Ad quem iocum comroematus eft Ge. Ricfatec»» Or. de
fioma</bo Cicertnis in InrecPnfiiJtcs, ioter eiufU. Oratt. (Norim^
-J6) deLeg. t,. If) de Or*t. I, 4J. |t) Eamdem diaerits
virorum doflorura &atentias conciliandi viam iniuit et>' ^
-itmlo.JLxMC-Sfee^. memd-^^Mbii.^bftrnatitnes nemmuUmt ^iftUgetiems frm lOis
. i Bm, (L. B. 17«. 4») c- 3- ^ «5 -- «7- P- 46« fq^ Veakmus nunc,
praemiflTs, quae necenarit praemittenda piftauf«. ad merita TVittiana de
iureciuili in ^rtem redig^do ritedelV^ aeanda. Quae qutdem it diiigenter
con(tderare'TeIimiii ae|>erppA'^ dere iingula, ahimum
potiflimumadiurifprudentiam,. qiiaUsCidi^ ronis aetate fuerit, adoertamua
necefle e(l. Namet hic vhemeA- ter eomntendanda eft cautio, quam tn art^
critica obferuari fuadet loi Cterictts 39), dom ^o/^erfff,*^ itiquit,
^.vitutimftrnrumopmaHhiin (tbMfci, etqtiaertri, quid tfitePit
il^mg^ifinfirinty non, qmdfii^ tin diBmffi mHs tfidtnturt vtfajfif^ha^f^'
Af^uflis «utem a^odutif ftnibus id temporis circum(eripta fuit
hirifprudentia ^), necdum tottantafque Aibiit viciditudines, a^pefteafub
imperatoribus illi adciderunt, quibus inane quahtuitt^on^nsac confudonts
legum ihi-^ dio adcefHt. Quum veroHurecotiAiltf, fiue erroris obiiciendi
csuflai quoplura et difHciliora fcire vlderentur, fiue^ quod fiminus
veri eft, ignoratione docettdi, faepe, quod pofitum eflet in vna
cognitione, id in iofinit» dirpertiti fuerint 4*;, non ef^ y quod
miremur, dtfcipUnam ea aetate euafiflfe hiu^cam et tftafe cohaerentem,
indkr gedaeque moli haud abn^milem. Non defuere quideih ingenio
maximi, arte vero rudes, vel fapirates pottus, qtiam itireconfulti, qui,
in cunis quafi vagieiite iurifprudentia, quum legibus colli-
J9) Art. Critic. P. II.
Seft. a. c. 3. $. 7. ' 40) de OrMt. u |3. 41) dt ieg. i, 19.
4it Or. I, 4J. hilM^^^titt liM PkipirW teget regias in ymnn coiitident *),
A{m» pius^^ iegi&' a^ones conih-ipferat 41), Sextus Aelius Tripcrtita
edK d^t 44)y qate inris tncunabata continebant^ P. Madiis Sdwinli^
M.- IiiAitt»-'Frutus et M^iMsrtilhii teguU» iuris inttr foren^^ tationem
exe6gitftCltfr col{eger«nt-4f), Qutn im^ i^"Mudm Hm ekAitpimio»
icodfHtuentt 4^), generatim illud in cboem et 6dol& bros redigendo,
et mediam iurifprudentiam, funuiib eius capitibiai Vftand«^'confef!onis
gratia diftindis, foii^us HrmavOTat 4P); ffudii 'tueufentir ' teftimoni»
iw frtgmeiiti», er iibro ijfm eivfi IGAihtil>ig0(b trattfiat&»^
1i«£«ni«m 6buw iunt; Seif la ijaiJMi oMtt)^ fniii^ et matjseiaili
congieflenu^, aedi^ciam ante^ Oaamoami. aftruxit nemo 4S),. a quo nouus
quait incipit rmun ordo» dum tns mmi^ J^) L. i. f^ i.i>.
m0.r, tklmwjftHat, Uh p-^ >7t^ «d. Sfftvfg^v.^^ 4iv .^. 41) 1. 1: f
1«. O; A O. /. nia.iM, N. }}» c . - ::>t, •44) i:.s.-^.|T.i>.w^O.A
-•:-=!• r^h.'^r:-::^-.f:^,, ' ^^ 45)! Hoc fchfo triumiitros, qiKi^
reccafuic Pomponius in £. «^ |.|4. D. db O./. - {atclt^gvndo» «flc
.^Mi/tf^ M« rflki^t docoic BracAn iUuftric iar£r«v)q||«Mi> ^/x
titm. frHmti «Mnrj^E«wV-<* 4. f. »9. p>3). Qf. Fraac Gnr. fioiMMU>
Or. liir i§rify*%iitii»i« ¥tgmktri^1^m4iu4/ram (rer. Li{rf'. 1^62.
4-> |K f . • 4«> V- •. f. 4t- A dr O. I. Gcil. N. A. Vil, if.
tloiu^ftii» frqnU aifeqiu fotktp pfofc£to fftcilc nobi» perfuafam
iMbcrcmuc*? prftcotptoric fammi > cxcmpl» ia primis •dduftuia fuiiCe
Tnllium» vt de iurtt ciuiiit arteperfi- cien^ cogftarct.^.
^-i-<*' -'••'J'*-i>5?3|- f;i*.l »ci f(M^4 r» trrfc>a4i : :•
'^.-^.n^r-^ja^' 47) £u. Octo Lib. fiog: A vttm Sertii Sm/picS c 7* 1- ».
ia 7»c/ imtii V. V. P* t59f' • r,i;i'.. :...'ts:.4S> Sunc
quidcm, qui Seruium Sulpic!um« (^ccronis acqnaieih, iMi IMtc CiccroiKa
pMctUcinfe flaciianc; vcior Cc. Sclu4>amis dt /mtitimrJf^. Rm. Ex. 3.
$.^ t. cc Brokes Oifll commcm. tlt Cictrtmt ICtt\. %, Ae
Jaqnitur i^euifbrmtmjirels redegit, et fft;^/M« piitterciiiHim
Qftioiim» vk,' in cfuo omnU, e priacipits futs dedu£ia» fiomo^eocu
cy>}MM||e« iiBnt. DeplorandLa fane eft rei litterariae ia^uca,
quo/i tx ill^ khro, priMter Yerbula qutedam, quae Geliius 49) «t
Charifiu« ^o) ienuV vmnt, nihil nobi» iit r^liqui. 7 . Qiiem
nt(i.itat<malehibMifletiii- iitria temporuifi, pLurinu icirerans
cognitu iucuBdiflinia •at/ipf; vlA-:Ikate fertiliffima^ <quae nunc aefeemae
no^is teo^bris iepuita pse« mantur. Quemadmodum vere., qui in
iprima pi£hirae cuiufdara; lineamenta incidunt, ^uamuis «x totius operie
ooiitemplatioBe iUi«s imlcritudinem multo faciltus eflent
perfpe^ui«,itamen yele> primis, quibus-adumbrata eft, iiiieis
detotius pii^urae pnae^ntia^ Jband 'inftdiriter iudicant, ita fi% nobis^ quibus
per lat^nynlmquir. yNiar^^l^-vr,'-r- r-f: ^'tatem l^ 4mt TuUius in
Srtit. c^4i. dc arte iuzis» .quac ip Scruio nuxuna. iuerit» aut verius
vnica» tam magnificef vt hoc de fummo ICto iudicium " ^ix
concitiiri ppfle wideatnr cua' aKa noftri profeiioiic (de OTf, i, 44. i^
qua necdum cxftitinc» qui jus artificiofe xligeftum generacim
cempafuerir, iU>let» optatque, vt aut Hbi» quod iara diu cogitaueric,
>tale opus perficere ' liBcatf aec aiios qutfpiamie impedito,
/ufcipiat. Quod piofc^ nenopiafS- . ^Xt fi i^ tum Seruius in co
genere «cellui/ree. Vcrum <nimuerQ« (i ccmpofis «aiiioDCS intueamur, ct
Smtwm fcre decennio pott libros dt Ormtme a Cicerone icripcum eflTc
recordenur» facilc concordiam i«(er vtrumque lo. ^'r'4sn fic
rcftitttciiius» «t» Ciceroocm poft libfos 4e i)r4itore cditesiid ipfpm ttntalTe»
mox autem, quia fe foccc a Seruio, interea idem molito fupcra» <um
intellexifTet, conntium •rurfuc abMcifle, ec Opus in£e^m rciiquinc, dicamus.
Vt taceam, in Brute ne fatis quidem clare adfirraari, Sulpiciura jtlud«'
dc quo qxueijmiu, Jcriptit efeoiik^ quandoquidfm ars im Jtomiue fumma
efle poted^ ctiamfi de ea ex iitterarum monimentia non cvnAcc. 'ijd) Vid.
fragMenim eit libris Cieereuit fkUofepkicit^ adied» £dic. Bipont. VW.XH.
p. 30r' «0 dttftftaav >«t} .' <(i|od in projaerkto eft «, ^ n^eleoataL
ieiHan» Ificebit., FrimftitU Imeaiiichtft, qut.e piogiui, quo^aHint;
Mtnenil ^tiautM; defignAuit Tuliiiis^ ^tnquMa ea irridete videtur
do^tM^ iilkV)Vf»ruii&>iodoiQus A]ifednlus5«), ;ii jquts ad^ciat,
qviseH ;9<^r«taMbiqiiidttBi-^perFundatttr:iidiB»a M fomxm qdr
^MmcoviBMo iuhbictua&iSJ) ine, qui iQ^hs^imae^H(»..vfitat»e in
rebu» cai^&fquiK ciuiura iequabititarti» cenfen*atione cernitijur«
omoe ius ciuite digerenduni ceii^uit in geuera, quae perpauca fimti
tdfifideeiwuqigfnprumqnafirnicnibi^aiquAj^bwi difpeitifada, atq«»
-eimiia» qitailK^Bt^^iiBcnua vsel partbifli;fioiniaa» definitieniblifi
;<{uam quaAquervini.habeaht, . ej^imenda i£e aebitratus' eft S^ Bieuit
quidem eft haec deliiieatii>, fed iiirif^dentiae, qttaltstnnc 4emperis
c^at, valds adcolnmodata:, nee.nos dubitare patitur Tnl- 4tus, qhii^ et quisy
quae b»ui eomplexus eflb, iatius eip|iearet, peC" ie^ if$\h»m<
ciuMis ^fiB^€t, cfaurimr iUaatque vbecior, 4illMA diiEcili^ ati^eobicura.
Quae quidem omnia numquam efferiflet ipfius iuris (icientia^ nifi ad ea
artem omntum artiom maodmam, il) Cuius cognitlonem qaim Cicen» a iiirrs
poatiCcii fhidio preninquc feiiiii- ' gerc fwar, vt Brat. ^t. dt kg, s,
\%^ i % criiiiiiile £t, ad illui, JMm ad hec • - ffcfioncfn t>peris pe
rrinnife. Quod CICERONE confilium
idcnrate exprc4it M. Aur. Galttanuc StvJ»» fru/tm j. |. dum argumentum
libri in iis potiflimum iusis pracccyjtio- nibus, quae, do^inae gratia
inucntae,. dcfiaiti^aibps, diuifimiibutr mfdio* dici» difpofi(iombu%
aUif^uc iimilibi» obiciaatiMiibtts ceaftaMSI» ciSimoaaic. ni fjot&fowm,
iiffnlifTrtinfnlrfTiniini pnli. i]ii«inim ri^iifafMii fiiiiim nemt,
dtfibhitxm diwilfimique conglutinaret «t ration»€QritcJKOii- 'ftnng^t.
Indo re€ta. partium difpofitio, et iufius ordo, ifto fki- •piiM. ^naeque
coilocentur, inde vis arguroentationts i« rtttiomifn iptmdar, tnde «titm
deftniendi et diuidendi modiit^ qiti in^omnl -do£lrinainim i^nere
explicatU' primui 9(f. > tStA- id* ;md«iWiitione tiuins operis haec
quidem h«(Sennai. lo^tnttnci «mnwdem ejoeni- pUsaiiquot e reliquis
TuUianae eniditionis monfBMitoti» potitisil- ^luftrare. Quam In rem
optima procid dubb difctplina eftle&io 'Ihpkonm, Jid C 'IVebattumr
2Gtinn i cocfmiiim} Iqiptotsum, qivie (toia in praeceptis difl«rendi «d
luris ^uaefHoines tranfferendis rt- 'fiintur. Sic, quale dt partitiomun
ac diisffiohum gemtf, tp^i Mttjis •artem ingrediatur, elegantifltmis ipie
exeroplis iarU tiuilif et abuHt' if0thnis declarauit ^S).
Definitionum:quis modus eflfe debeat, hirh atitim-^t gttrtilis
Aibtiliterd^niendadocoit ^). QoiDiiiodo argii- imeitkis dtale2Hcis in
iuiie ttendum £t, tamH>ttfcsm, timi»al^', «iajri- ^e in Hbris de imteraio$n
iiy^ perpartes eundodefhonlMMtit. Qii*e (mgula, (icut axiomata iuris
generaiia, pailiffl aCioemne^tligeni^itfs multo, quam ab aliis,
inculcata, quale e(l iliud : nullam ejfe perfo- -nem^ fu t ie nd viteim
eiue, qm s~vita emigraut rit^ fMfj^ut md eedat k ei ie - de ), aut illud
: vniur pecuniae ptures, diffimitibus ok ta^fiti^heredet ejfe non pojfe
59J, fi vberius perfequi vellem, veroOr,' 'tk te^pus., ^i^ pfius •W
V. g. de hment. t. f jV'W4.''f-'**'*) delnuent. z, tt. "J
""^iius, qaafll ititteriil, deficeret ^). Alui vero nobis reftat quaeftio,
«tque grauKHmar ac difficiilima, quani dirimere vijc audeo, nui^ ciHoet
ipfe rmquam librum de iure ciuiii in artem redigendo ab- foluerit Gcero.
Qtiin ita iit, in dubium vocat Bynkershoekius ^^), quem irero grauiflimis
verbis reprehendit Bachius ^'). Abfit a nif -procul, vt (an£liflimas
violera Bachii manes; attamen non pofTum, •quin fententiae Bynkershoekii
calculum meum adiiciam, ac mihi perTuafum habeam, hunc librum a CICERONE
ad vmbilicum num<> iquam fuilTe perdu£lum. Idque quum <:onie£lura
probabiie ell, tum quibufdam etiam veftigiis indicatur. Ac primum
quiden Quin^iianus ^), cui maximam puto fidem iiai>eadam efTe,
difertis verbis dicit, eum aliqua de iure ciuili componere corpijfe. Qui ldem iocus nullo alio modo, ii quid iudicare
valeo, inteliigi potefl, nifi de hoc libro inchoato foium, non perfe£lo
^4). Tui* lium multa de iure ciuiii in animo h«buifle fcril>ere,
quorum in^ itium {a£him iit hoc vno iibro edito, vt Baciiius opinatur,
non fatis confiat, nec vlium omnino, in quo expcefHe id.pro£efrus fit
Cicero, reperi iocum. Deinde vero in Ciceronis iibris, quos roatura
aetate Quædam occupauic OUncrhts mi DiMr., quam aliquoties «xcicauimus Praetermiff:
ad i. ». §• ^^•J>.
Je V. f. in Ofufcc. T. II. p. tf^. etin CoUef}. Vbl. p. i%j.
<Ja) Hift. iur. Rom. p. S47. cd. nouiflT. . ; .6j) /njiitt. Ormt. XII,
}, 10. 64) Hadr- quidcm Tumebus «^ (^infiilimni d. l. verba Fabii
interpretatur de libris Ciceronis de legibus «t de repuUicM, qui tamen
non ir.agis de lure fue- runt, quam eiufdem argumenti !'latonis. Cf.
Luzac Sjtec. acad. fuura lau- dacum c. 3. $. 17. not. i8. p. 49* C
..^ D conlcrjpfit, ne verbo quiderahuius ofperis mentio fit. Denique
«iw paret, eum voluifle primas illas lineas leuiter adumbratas
latiut explicare, dumraodo paullum otii fuppeditaret imraenfa nego^
tix)rum moles. lam vcro ab illp inde tempore, quo priraum ad rempublicam
adteflerat, cauflHrum defeniionibus, amicitiis et cUeitv- telis tuendis,
inimicitiis pcepulfandi», ampUflimis deaique mun&' ribus
adminiftrandis occupatus fuit ; fenem vero exceperunt tur- bulentiflima
reipublicae tempora, quibus aiiimus nofter facile in* ducatur ad
credendum, haud potuifl*e TuIIiura propter otii inopiam huic libro
vltimam imponere manum ^5)^,y..<. t» Haec funt, quae in raeam
iententiam brenlter adducenda^ pu^ taui, certe non eo coniiUo, vt,
quorum.aliter de-hac re fententift eft, eorum au^oritatem infringere
conarer, fed vt, quae conie£luy ra adfequutus fueram, virorum eruditorum
iudicio exactius ponderanda reUnqucrem, quo modo optinw cognoscere possem,
flntue in his aUqua ) quae vero esse confentanea exiftimentur,. nec ne.
Qaoi etiam fuboluifle videtur Eu. 0)-toni in laud. Lib. Cng. dt vit»
Str'- w SuJfiieih c 6* $. $^ iii Tbel iur. T. V. p. i^^u ERRATVM..
liOt S- pn> : pnmis 0imij, lege: primct MH$r. yiRO V t
RO LITTERARVM AC VIRTVTVM LAVDE f FLORENTISSIMO
mANm GOTTHELP HORNEMANNO CHRIST. GOTTL. HAVBOLD ' iJwd
"QuinUUiafiut vmjtme tinftut, tum^am mi4tttm proffcij/e, ad CUero
ijatde plaeeai, idi» TEquidem, NOBILISSIME HORNE MAI^E-t totum eonueniret
vel hic TFi^S Ubetlus planijime^jlendit, t quo famiHaritas cum primipe
Romanae eloquentiae, eruditionis atquf venustatis tam arcte contracta
eiucet, vt eam in finguHf octijjimae difputationis partibus, ne dicim,
verhls, exprimtre videaris. Quae quemadmodum iamfota et ad iujium Jludiis
TP^I S pretium fiatuendum, et ad maiarem indies de ingenii TVJ excellentia
diligentiaeque adjiduitate D 2 fpem Grice: “If I were asked to name the most brutal death an Italian
philosopher ever suffered I am between Gentile and Cicero. The former was a
typical leftist mafia thing in the middle of Florence; the latter was commanded
by Marcantonio and committed by Erennio – il centurione – and Pompilio Lena –
il tribuno militare – the action was fast. Lena was careful to keep the head
and the right hand --. He brought them to Fulvia’s bedroom when Marcantonio was
there. A slave displayed the head and the right hand on a platter – the right
hand and the head were later displayed on the Rostro – Fulvia in the bedroom
took a pin from her coiffure and stuck it in Cicero’s tongue. Cicero had been
captured on his way to Greece – He could have saved his life, but the
housekeeper informed Lena what road in the wood he had taken. Cicero would have
left earlier, but his brother wanted to buy provisions for Greece (‘you never
know what the food is like there’). Cicero’s brother Quintus, along with his
son, were killed soon after. The prescriptions followed a rigorous order
declared by the ‘ragione di stato’ .. Cicero was first on the list. Mark told
Plutarco: “I would not engage in such cruelty – but Cicero was the most vile
serpent!” --. Giovanni
Botero. Keywords: Staatsräson, Ferrari, civil equita di Vico, civilis aequitas
di Cicerone, ragion di stato, Candarini, Macchiavelli, Grice, conversational
cooperation, conversational equality, pirotic generality, conceptual,
applicational, formal. Generality, universalizability, civilis aequitas,
aequitas, =, identity and aequitas, aequi-, justice as fairness, principle of
conversational reciprocity. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Botero” –
The Swimming-Pool Library.
Grice
e Botta: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del primo
filosofo italiano – fat philosopher, brave, addicted to general reflections
about life, greatest living, Continental -- ‘professional engaged in philosophical
research’ – Appio – scuola di Cavallermaggiore – filosofia piemontese -- filosofia
italiana – Luigi Speranza, pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice, The
Swimming-Pool Library (Cavallermaggiore). Filosofo piemontese. Filosofo italiano. Cavallermaggiore,
Cuneo, Piemonte. Grice: “The most relevant of his tracts is his ‘storia della
filosofia romana,’ – but he also played with Leopardi, and he is especially
loved in the Piemonte as a ‘dantista’! --
Grice: ““You’ve gotta love Botta – my favourite is his tract on
Alighieri as a philosopher – he applied all he had learned about philosophy at
Cuneo to Aligheri – the result is overwhelming!” Studia e insegna a Torino. Il suo palazzo divenne un
rinomato salotto culturale. Examina la filosofia italiana, Cavour,
Alighieri. Dizionario biografico degli
italiani. The rise of what Italians call philosophy ‘in the
volgare’ is contemporary with the Revival of Letters, when the hahit of
independent thought, gradually developing, asserted itself in opposition to Scholasticism.
The early establishment of the four Republics (Genova, Pisa, Venezia and
Amalfi), the growth of industry, commerce and wealth, the increasing
communication with the East, the propagation of Arabic Science, the influence
of the Schools of Roman Jurisprudence, the gradual formation of the ‘volgare’
out of the Roman language, and above all, the growing passion for the
literature of Ancient Rome, all combined to stimulate the human mind to free
itself from the servitude of prevailing methods and ideas. The Catharists
appeared in Lombardy, and extending throughout the Peninsula under various
names, such as the ‘Paterini’, the ‘Templari’, the ‘Albigesi,’ the ‘Publicani’,
and others, remained the unconqnered champions of intellectual liberty. A numerous
and powerful school of philosophers, embracing the most prominent
representatives of the Ghibelline party, laboured so persistently for freedom
of thought and expression, that it was denounced by the Roman Popist Church as
a School of Epicureans and Atheists. Foremost among these, according to
Aligheri, himself a Ghibelline, is the Emperor Frederick II., the patron of the
Arabian scholars, a poet, a statesman and
aphilosopher. His friend, CardinalUbaldini;Farinata degli Uberti, a hero in war
and peace; Latini, the teacher of Alighieri; and Cavalcanti, ‘the physicist,
the logician and Epicurean,’ as a contemporary biographer calls him. Meanwhile
Brescia strives to extend to the field of politics the philosophical revolution
which had so early begun, and which is now sustained by secret societies widely
spread throughout the Peninsula, alluded to in the early poem of St. Paul's
Descent to the Infernal Regions. To the same object of intellectual
emancipation are directed the religious and social movements headed by such
Reformers as Parma, San Douuino, Padova, Casale, Valdo, and Dolciuo. But- as a
promoter of freedom in philosophy as well as in political science, Aligheri stands
preeminent in the history of his country. He is sthe first to construct a philosophical
theory of the separation of the ‘lo stato fiorentino’ from the Pope’s Church in
his De Monarchia, in which he advocates the independence of the civil power
from all ecclesiastical control. Aligheri also opposes the Papal power in
immortal strains in the Divina Commedia; and, under the popular symbols of the
age, strive to enlarge the idea of Christianity far beyond the limits, to which
it wasconfined by the Scholastics. Petrara boldly attacked Scholasticism in
every form, denounced the Church of Rome as the impious Babylon which has lost
all shame and all truth, with his friend Boccaccio devoted himself to the
publication of ancient MSS., and laboured throughout his life to excite among
his contemporaries an enthusiasmfor Classical Ancient Roman Literaccure. His works
“DeVera Sapientia”; “De Remediis Utriunque Fortunes”; “De Vita, Solitaria”; “De
Contempu Mundi”;, blending Platonic ideas with the doctrines of Cicero and
Seneca, are the first philosophical protest against the metaphysical subtilties
of his age. Thus the fathers of Italian literature are also the fathers of the
revolution which give birth to the philosophy in ‘the volgare’. The study of the original writings of Plato and
Aristotle, and the introduction of an independent exegesis of the ancient
philosophers, soon produces a still more decided opposition to Scholasticism; a
movement aided by the arrival of Greek scholars in Italy before, and after
thefall of Constantinople. Prominent among these, were the Platonists Pletho
and Bessarion, and the Aristotelians Gaza and Trebizond, who place themselves at
the head of the philosophical revival in Italy. While Platonism becomes predominant
in Tuscany under the patronage of Medici, the influence of Ficino, and the
Platonic Academy founded by the former in Florence, Aristotelianism extends to
the Universities of Northern Italy and particularly to those of Padua and Bologna,
taking two distinct forms, according to the sources from which the interpretation
of Aristotle is derived. The Averroists followed the great commentary of
Averroes, and the Hellenists, or the Alexandrians, sought the spirit of the
Stagirite in the original, or in his Greek commentators, chiefamongwho m was Alexander
of Aphrodisias. The Averroistic School, mainly composed of physicists and
naturalists, was the most decided opponent of the Scholastic system in its
relation to theology. Indeed, medicine, Arahicphilos ophy,Averroism,astrology,
and infidelity, early in the Middle Ages hud become synonymous terms. Abano, who
may he considered as the founder of the Avcrroistic School in Italy, was one of
the first who asserts, under astrological forms, that religion has only a
relative value in accordance with the intellectual development of the people. He
was arrested by the order of the Inquisition; but he died before sentence was
passed upon him. His body was burnt, and his memory transmitted to posterity as
connected with infernal machinations. Ascoli, a professor at Bologna and a
friend of Petrarca, is condemned to burn all his books on astrology, and to
listen every Sunday to the sermons preached in the church of the Dominicans.
Later he was burnt at the stake, and his picture appears in one of the many
Infernos painted on the walls of the Italian churches by Orcagna. The eternity
of matter and the unity of human intellect are the two great principles of the
Averroistic doctrine. Hence the negation of creation, of permanent personality
and of the immortality of the soul became its principal characteristics.
Although some of the members of this School endeavour to reconcile its
doctrines with the dogmas of the Church, others accept the consequences of its
philosophy, and boldly assert the eternity of the imiverse and the destruction of
personality at death. Fra Urbano di Bologna, Paolo of Venice, Nicola da
Foligno, and many others, are among the first. Among the second may be
mentioned Nicoletto Verniaa, Cajetano and above all Pomponazzi, with whom began
a period in the development of Anti-Scholastic philosophy. Hitherto the
followers of Averroism confine their teaching to commentaries upon the great
Arabian philosopher; but with Pomponazzi philosophy assumes a more positive and
independent character and becomes the living organ of contemporary
thought. Indeed. while he adheres to the Averroists in his earnest opposition
to Scholasticism, he is a follower of the Alexandrians in certain specific doctrines.
Thus on the question of theimmortality of the sonl (‘l’animo’), which so agitated
the mind of the age, while the Averroists assert that the intellect after death
returns to God and in time losses its ndividuality, Pompouazzi with the
Alexandrians reject that compromise, and openly denies all future eexistence.
He holds that theorigin of man (‘l’uomo’) is due to the same causes which
produce other things in nature: that miracles a but illusions, and that the
rise and the decadence of religion depends on theinfluence of th estars. It is truet
hat he insists on the opposition of philosophy and faith, and thought that what
is true in the former might be false in the latter, and vice versa; a
subterfuge, into which many philosophers of the Middle Ages are forced by the
dangers, to which they are exposed. Pomponazzi is the author of many works, one
of which, De immortalitate animae, was burnt in public. His most celebrated
disciples are Gonzaga, Giovio, Porta, and Grattarolo. His opponents are
Achillini, Nifo, Castellani and Contarini, all moderate Averroists, who strive
to reconcile Christianity with natural philosophy; an effort, in which they are
joined by Zimara, Zabarella, Pendasio and Cremonini. Among the Hellenists, who
maintained in part the opinions of Pomponazzi, is Thomeo, a physician at Padua,
who, on account of the vivacity of his polemic against Scholasticism, the
Hippocratic character of his doctrines, and the beauty of his style, is considered
as the founder of Hellenic criticism and naturalism in the Age of the Renaissance.
To the same class of philosophers, although neither pure Hellenists nor
Averroists, belong PICO (si veda) and CARDANO (si veda), who strive to
substitute in place of scholasticism philosophic systems founded partly on christianity,
and partly on Platonic ideas, or on doctrines derived from the Cabala and
astrology; CESALPINO (si veda), who constructs a pantheistic philosophy on
Averroistic ideas, and VANINI (si veda), who for advocating a system of
naturalism is burnt at the stake. Other philosophers oppose contemporary philosophy
chiefly for the barbarous form, in which it is expressed, such as Valla,
Poliziano, Barbaro, Nizolio, and Vives. But a more effectual opposition to
Scholasticism is due to the introduction of the experimental method into
scientific investigations, which was first inaugurated by Vinci, who, within
the compass of a few pages anticipates almost all the discoveries which have
been made in science, from Galilei to thecontemporar ygeologists. Nizolio, Aconzio,
Erizzo, Mocenigo and Piccolomini continue the work of Vinci in insisting on the
application of the experimental method in philosophy. This application is partially
at least attempted by Telesio aud by Patrizi who oppose Scholasticism by
striving to create a philosophy founded on nature. Bruno boldly undertakes the
philosophical reconstruction of mind and nature on the basis of the unity and
the universality of substance; while Campanella establishes his philosophy on
experience and consciousness. To promote this scientific movement learned
associations everywhere arise; the "Acadeinia Secretorum Naturae” is
instituted at Naples by Porta; the Telesiana is established by Telesio in the
same city; the Lynchean is founded in Rome by Cesi, and the Academia del
Cimento in Florence. Meantime the opposition to Scholasticism extends to the
field of politics, where Machiavelli establishee the principles of that policy,
which is destined to triumph in the
establishment of Italian unity on the ruins of papal sovereignty, a policy
which found a powerful impulse in the religious revolution attempted by
Savonarola, a still more effectual aid in the invention of the art of printing,
and a pledge of its final triumph in the great Reformation. In vain the
sacerdotal caste persecute and imprison the philosophers and reformers, and
burn them at th e stake; in vain it strives to drown philosophical liberty in blood.
The opposition increases and reappears in th ewritingsof Gnicciardini and
Sarpi, the bold defender of the Republic of Venice against the encroachments of
the Papal See, the philosopher and the naturalist, to whom many discoveries in
science are attributed. The political writings of Giannoti, of Paruta, and
Bottero, which are devoted to the emancipation of society from the authority of
the Church, close the period which opens with the aspirations of Alighieri
aud Petrarch, and is now crowned by the martyrdom of Bruno and Vamni. For
the exposition of the doctrines of the Italian philosophers of the Renaissance,
the reader is referred to Ueberweg's statements. See further: Tiedemann,
Geistder Speculative/} Philosophic; John 6. Biihle, Gesch. der neueren Philos.;
Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophic; Ritter, GescMchU der Philos.;
Supplement) alia Storia delta Filosofia di Tennemann, by Romagnosi and Poli; Mamiani, Jiinnovamento delia Filmofm antica Italiana;
Spaventa, Carattere e sviluppo della Filosofia ItaliamidalSctxlo16"finoalnostrotempo.
On the philosophy of Aligheri, see A. F. Ozanam, Dante et la Philosophie
Cathdique. tranal. By Boissard, Lond; N.Tommaseo.La Commediadi Dante, G.Frap- porti,
SuMa Fiiosofia di Dante, UgoFoscolo, DiseorsomiltestodelPoemadiDante, G.
Rossetti, Commento analitico delta Diuina Commedia, Barlow, Critical,
Historical, and Philosophical Contributions to the Study of the.Dicina
Commedia, B., Dante as Philosopher, Patriot and Poet, New York; Rossetti, A
Shadow of Dante, Boston, and the valuable works written on the Italian poet by
Schlosser, Kopish, Wegele, Blanc, Goschel, Witte, and Philalethes (the present King
John of Saxony). On Petrarch, see Bonifas, De Petrarca Philosopho, and
Maggiolo, De la Philosophie morale de Petrarque. On the
opposition of Petrarch to Scholasticism cf. Renan's Averroes et VArenvisme. The
doctrines of Averroes were introduced into the Peninsula from Sicily, where
appeared the first translations of the commentary of the Arabian philosopher.
They soon became naturalizedi at Padua, Bologna, and Ferrara, and the absorbing
subject of lectures and discussions. The principal lecturers belonging to this
School are Abano, the author of “Conciliator differentiarum Philosophorum et
Medicorum”; Gonduno, whose Quastiones et
Comments on Aristotle, Averroes, and Abano are extant in the national library
of Paris, some of which were published in Venice; Urbano da Bologna who writes a
voluminous commentary of the work of Averroes on the book of Aristotle, De
Physico Audita. It was published in Venice with a preface of Vernias; Paolo di
Venezia, the author of “Summa totius Philosophiae”, who defends the doctrines of
Averroes in the presence of eight hundred Augustinians against Fava, the
Hellenist; Tiene, Bazilieri, Foligno, Siena, Santa Sofia, Forll, Vio, Vernias
and many others have left voluminous MSS. in the libraries of Venice, Padua,
and Bologna, as witnesses of their devotion to the ideas of the great Arabian
philosopher. Pomponazzi may be classed among the Averroists, as far as he
believes in the existence of a radical antithesis between religion and
philosophy. Pomponazzi, however, rejects the fundamental principle of
Averroism, the unity of the intellect, and in this respect he belongs to the Alexandrian
School. He is the author of several works: “De Immortalitate Animae”; De Fato; De
Libero Arbitrio; De Pmdes Unatione; De Providentia Dei; and De naturatium effectaum
admirandorum causis, scilicet de Incantationibus. Achillini is one of his opponents,
and the School o fPadua has left no record more celebrated, than that of the public
discussions held by those two philosophers. Achillini's works were published
inVenice. The two adversaries having been obliged to leave Padua, established
themselves in Bologna, where they continued their disputations till the occurrence
of their death. Nifo is another opponent of Pomponazzi. At the request of Leo
X. he writes his “De Anima”, which gives occasion to Pomponazzi to publish his “Defensorium
contra Niphum”. Nifo was also the author of “Dilucidarium Metaphyscarum
Disputationum.. Marta in his Apologia de Animae Immortalitate, Contarini in his
De Immortalitate Animae and several others strive to confute the doctrines of
Pomponazzi on the mortality of the soul. He is defended by several of his pupils,
and particularly by Porta in his “De Aniina, de Spcciebus inteUigibiUbus.” Porta
is also the author of De Humana Mente DispuUitU), De Merum Naluralium
Prindpiis, De Dolore; A n homo bonus vel malus vokns fiat. The Lattr. m
Council condemns both those, who taught that the human soul was not immortal, and
those who asserted that the soul is one and identical in all men. It condemns
also the philosophers who affirm that those opinions, although contrary to
faith, are philosophically true. It enjoins professors of philosophy to refute
all heretical doctrines to which they might allude, and prohibits the clergy to
study philosophy for a course longer than five years. Indeed, Averroism becomes
hostile to the doctrines of the Church, and it is condemned by Tempier,
archbishop of Paris, who causes its principles to be embodied in distinct propositions.
Among these were the following: Quod iermoi.est/ wologici sunt fundatiin fabulia.
QuodnUiilplussciturprop tersciretheologian. Quod Jobulmandfalsasuntinlege Christiana,
sic Pombainaliis. Quod lex Christianaimpeditaddiscere. Quod sapicntes in undi sunt
philosophitantum. Notwithstanding the condemnation of the Church, those ideas
seem to have taken hold of the philosophical mind of the age, and long continue
to find favour among teachers and students. There are, however, philosophers who,
adhering to the doctrines of Averroes, strive to blend them with the standard
of an orthodox creed. Among them Zimara in his “Solutiones contradictionum in
dicta Aristotelis et Aeerrois,” Antonio Posi di Monselice, Palamede, Bernandino
Tomi-tano di Feltre and several others. Meantime, new translations and new
editions of the works of Averroes, more correct and more complete, appear, due
to the labors of Bagolini of Verona, Oddo, Mantino, Balmes, Burana and others.
Zabarella, follows Averroes in his lectures at the University of Padua, and findsan
opponent in Piccolomini. Pendasio strives to blend Averroism with
Alexandrianism, and Cremonini, the last repre sentative of Averroism in Italy,
gives new forms and new tendencies to the doctrines of his master. His lectures
are preserved in the library of St.Marc in Venice, and form twenty-four large volumes.
Cf.PUtro Pomponacci, Studi Storicisulla Scuola di Bologna t di Padua by
Fiorentino, P. Pomponacci by B. Podesta; and P. Pomponacci e la Scienza by
Luigi Ferri, published in the Archivio Storico Italiano, Hellenic Aristotelianism,
not less than Averroism, was a step toward the emancipation of the human intellect.
The same object was greatly promoted by the Schoolof Humanists, represented by
Valla, Poliziano and Vives, and by the Platonic revival through the Academy of
Florence, and the translations and the works of Ficino; cf. Tiraboschi's Storia
delta, Letteratura Italiarut; Heeren's GeschkhU det Studiums der dassischen
LUeratur seitdem WiederauJ Uben der Wissensehaften, Renan's op. c.; I.
Burckhardt's Die Cultur der Renaissance in It/Uien, Von Alfred von Reumont's
Geschicht* der Stadl Home; I. Zeller's Italit et In Renaissance, and the
Edinburgh Review, Tiie Popes and Ute Italian Humanists. The Humanist revival, properly
speaking, commenced with the advent to Florence of Chrysoloras; and it is
promoted and illustrated by the researches and the writings of many scholars,
such as Poggio, Filelfo, Aretino, Valla, Traversari, Vegio, and Tommaso di
Sarzana, who afterwards became Pope under the name of Nicholas V. The Council
of Constance contains among its members several of the most learned humanists
of the age. and for a time the Papal See is at the head of the movement for the
revival of the study of classical literature. Prominent among the popes who
promoted that revival are Nicholas V., already mentioned, Martin V., Eugene
IV., Pius II., known under the name of Enea Silvio Piccolomini, and Leo X. To
this revival may also be referred the origin of the Academical bodies and
literary associations which formed so characteristic a feature of the literary life
of Italy of that time. Of these associations, those which held their meetings
in Florence, at the Camaldolese Convent degli Angeli and at the Augustine Convent
delloSpirito, are the most celebrated. The controversy between the Platonists
and Aristotelians of the Age of the Renaissance is described in De GeorgWs
Dmtriba by Leo Allatius in Script. Bizant.; in Boivin's QuereUe rtes Phibsophes
du XV. Hidcle (M/'tnoires de literature de l'Academie des Inscriptions), and in
Gcnnadius and Pletho, Aristotdismus und Platonismus in der Grieehixclien
Kirehe, by W. Gass. The following are the works of L. Thomeo, the Hellenist:
Arist'itelis Stagirita par&i owe vacant naturaUa, Dialogide Divinatione; Be
Animorum ImmorUtlitate; De Tribus Animorum Vehiculis; De Nominum Ineentione; De
Precibus; De Compescendo Luctii; De JEUitum. Moribus; De Belativorum Natura; De
Animorum Essentia. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola writes De Ente et Una: Twelve
book* against Judiciary Astrokigy; Ileptaplon, or a treatise on Mosaic
Phileisophy; Rtgu!* Oirigentis lwminem in pugna spirituali, and Nine hundred
Theses on Dialectics, moral, physical, and mathematical sciences, which he defends
in public in Rome. His nephew, Giovanni Francesco Pico, holds the same
doctrines, and writes in defence of the book De Ente et Uno. Cf. Das System des
John Pico von Mirandola by Dreydorff. Cardano writes many works, which are published
in ten volumes in quarto. The principal ones
are: “De Subttilitate librixx; De Rermn Varielate. Cardano is celebrated for his Formula for solving equations of the third
degree. Cardsano is also the author of an autobiography. His doctrines are refuted
by Scaligero in his Exereitalionesexotcrica. And defended by himself in his Apologia. Cf. Rixner's and
Siber's Beitrage zur Geschiehte der Physiologie im weiteren und engeren Sinne
[Ltben nnd Meinungenberuhmter Physiherim.). Cesalpino is the author of several
works on physiology and medicine, PerifHJtetiearum Quasii'w*m libriqvinque,and
“DtemonumInvestigatin Peripatetiea. Valla writes Etegas- tutrumlibrisex.DialeetiroyDixputatioiws,
and DeVeraBono. He translates also the Iliad, Herodotus, and Thucydides. Poliziano
translates the Manual of Epictectus, the Questions and Problems of Alexander of
Aphrodisias, the Aphorism of Hippocrates, and the Sayings and the Deeds of
Xenophon. He writes also Parepistomenon,in which he proposed to describe the tree
of human knowledge. Barbaro writes on Themistius, and on the Aristotelian
doctrine of the soul. Tives De Causis corruptarum
artium, De Initiis, SectisetLaudibus Philosop7tia, id.; De Anima et Vita. Of the numerous treatises of Vinci the greater part still remainin manuscript
in the Ambrosian library at Milan. They are written from right to left, and in
such manner that it is necessary to employ a glass in order to decipher them.
Extracts from his MSS. were published in Paris by Yenturi. Xizolio writes the Antibarbarusiseu
de veris principiis et vera rntviM philosophandi contra Pseudo-PhUosi/phos. Aconzio,
Metliodus, scilicet recta investigandarum tradendnrumque artium ac scientiarum
ratio. Sadoleto,
Phadrus, seu de laudibus Philosophia. Erizzo, De W Istrumentu e Via incentrice
degli Antichi. Mocenigo, De eo quod est paradoxa. Piccolomini, “L'Istrumento
della Filosofia”, Filo- «"Jin luiturale, and Istituzione morale. According to Tiraboschi, Piccolomini is the first philosopher who used
‘the volgare’ in his writings. He is however, preceded by T. Golferani, who
long before writes treatise in that language, Della Memoria locale. Piccolomini,
a nephew of Piccolomini, writes “De Rerum DefinUionibus;andUnicersa de Moribus Philotophia.
Here may also be mentioned Porta, the author of “De Humana Physiognomia” and Deoc-
eulti* Uterarum initio, seu De A rte animi sensi occulta aliis significandi”; Brisiani
Methodus Scientinram”; “Veneto, De Hdrmoaia ifundi”; Con tarini, De Perfectione
rerum, libri sex”; “Mazzoni, De TripUci Hominum Vita”, “De Consensu Aristotelis
et Ptatonis” and “In AristoteU*etPlatonis unitersam Philosophiam Praludia”, and
Valerii, “Opus aureum in quo omnia explicantur, qua Scientiarum omnium parens Lullus
tarn in Scientiarum arbore, quam arte gcnerali, tradit. Telesio writes “De
Rerum Natura juxta propria principia. Varii de naturalibus rebus libelli, “De hisquainaerefiuntetdeterra-motibus.
Quod aniirud universum ab unica anima substantia gubernatur, adversus Oalenum. Cf. Hixter's and Siber'sop.c.;alsoli.Telesio by Fiorentino. The method pursued
by Telesio he himself thus describes. “Sensum videlicet et nos et naturam,
aliud praterea nihil sequutis umus, qua summes ibiipsa concorsidem semper, et eo
demagit modo,a tque iilemsem perojteratur. Of the origin of the world he says
as follows. Liemotissimam scilicet obscurissimamque rem et minime naturali
ratione afferendam; cujus cognitio omnis a sensu peiulet, et de quanihilomninoasserendum
situnqumn, quod volnonipso, telipsiussimile perceperit sensu. Patrizi, a
Croatian, writes “Discussiones Peripatetica, Nonade L'niccrsis Pliilosuphia, in
qua Aristolelica methodo nun per m/itum, sed per lucem ad prima in causam ascenditur;
DeliaPoetica o la Decaistoriale. Cf.Rixner and
Siber op. cit. Of the works of Bruno some are written in the learned and some
in the vulgar. The latter are edited by Wagner, Leipzic, the former (only in
part) by Gefrorer, Stuttgart. The following is the complete catalogue of his
writings: “L’Area di N'ie”; “De Sphara”; “Dei Segni dei tempi”; “De Anima”;
“Claris magna”; “Dei Predieamenti di Dio”; “De Umbris Ideurnm”; “De Compendiosa
Architectura”; “II Candelajo, a Comedy, “Purgatorio dell’Inferno”; “Explicatio
tri- ginta S giU/irum, l a Cenadelle Ceneri, five dialogues; “Delta Causa,
Princi-fiio et Uno, De, flnfinito Unieerso e Mondi, Spaccio delta bestia
trionfante, Cabala dd cacallo Pegaseo con Fagyiunta de/F asino C'iUenico;Degli
heroici Furori”; “Figuratio AristoteliciAuditusphys”; “Dtalogiduode Fabriciimorden
tuSaUrnitanipropediritiaadinttntKmeadpeTftctam Cmmimttx impraiim. J$ri Brum
intomnium”; “De Lampade combirtaturia Lulliana”; “De Program a Lampade
cenatoria Logieorum, Acrotirmu*. teu ration** articuiorvat phyxiomm advertu*
Arisloteiieat, Oratio Valedictoria”; Yitemberga habiUi; De Sfxtrrum
ScruiinioetLampade eombinaVoria Raymondi Luilit.Centum ft Seragikt-i ArtieuU
adeem* hvju* tempettati* Mathtmatico» atque PhAutuplto*. Oratio «*»>
latoriahabitainobitu PriridpUJuUiBrun*ricen*ium D»ci*.IS"*!*; DtItnagiuum.S§**-
rumetIdearum Compomtiane, De Tripliee MinimaetMemura, DeMonadt.
NutneroetFigura. DererumImagmibut”; Libredew tette arti liberali”; “Liber
triginta Statuarum, Tempiam Mnemonidi”; “BeMuttipUciJfundi Vita, (unpublishedandlost);
DeSatmie gettibu*(id.); De Prindpii* Yeriiid.); De Attrobigia {.id); De Magia
pAgnca;Itt Phytica; Libretto di eongiurazioni; Surmna terminorum
metayJtysicorum, pubL W H; Artiftcium perorandi. pubL 1012. Cf. Bruno oder uber
da* uaturliche. and gi-ttlxit Prineipder Dinge,by Schelling.AlsotheintroductionofT.Mami.iiitothe
translation of Schelling's dialogue by the Marchioness M. Florenzi Waddington;Bax
ter's and Siber's op. cit Bruckerii Hutoria PhMonophia. L 6. Buhle, Commentat»
deOrtuetProgre**u Pantheimniindea Xenophane Cohfoiaoprimaeju* authtrreunptt ad
Spinozam; Nioeron, M'moiret pour »ercir a Chiatoire de* hmmnt* iiitutre*; C.
Stepo. Jordan,
Di*qui*itio de Jordano Bruno Nolano; Guil. F. Christiani. De Studii* Jordan Brunimathematicis; Kindervater,Beitrdgetur LebentgetchichU
de*Jord. Bruno. D. Lessman. Giordano Bruno in Cisalpinische Blatter. Tom. 1;
Fullebom. Beitr Aye tur G e*chiehte der PhUmoph., F. L Clemens, Bruno und
Nicheiae* t'/n Cusa, 1847; John A. Scartazzini, Ein BluUeuge de* Wittens, Ch.
Bar- tholmes, Jordano Bruno, George Henry Lewes, History of Philosophy, laBS:
Sigwart. Spinoza's neuentdeckter fractal von Gott, A. Debs, Jordani Bruni Vila
et Scripta, Lange, Geochiehtc de* Materialumus,
Donienico Berti, Vita di Bruno, which contains the proceedings of
Bruno's trial before the Inquisition of Venice, recently discovered in the
archives of that city., Tommaso Campanella's principal works are as follows:
L'nicersm PhilnsoyJiiaten Metaphyxicarum Rerum juxta propria dogmata, parte*
Ire*, Philoaephia teia&u demonttrata et in octo disputation** di*tincta,
advertu* eo* qui propria arbitral*, non autem semata duce natura, philosophati
aunt, ; Beak* Philosopher eptiegutit* parte* quatuor, hoc e*t de rerum natura,
hominum, moribus, etc. His Ciiitas Soli*, akindof Utopian romance, formspartofthe
latter work. Delibruproprii*etrecta ratione studendi Syntagma, De Seiuu rerum
et Mugia. De GentSesimo non retinendo; Atheismu» triumphatu*;Apologiapro Galihro;
DeMonarchU\Ui*pa*i- cti; Disputationum in quatuor partes PhUosophia BeaU* libri
quatuor; several philosophical poems in Latin and Italian. Cf. Baldachini, VitaeFilosofiadi
T.Campaneila, A. D. Ancona. Introduction to the new edition of Campanella's
works, Turin, 1854;S.Centofanti, an essay published in the Archirio Storico Italiano;
Spaventa and Mamiani, op. cit.; also Sigwart, Tit. Campaneila und Heine
poUtischen Idem, in the Preuss. Jahrb., Mile. Louise Colet, QSucrechoutie de
CampaneBa, Pierre Leroux, Encyclopedic nouveUe, and G. Ferrari, Corso sugli Scrittvri
pdititi Italiani. L. Vanini is the author of Amphitheatrum JEternai
Procidentia; De edau- randi* Natura;, Regina Detrque morlalium, arcatti», Dt
Vera Sapientia; Phytic- Magicum;DeContemneiida Gloria; Apolngiiipro Motaieaet Oirirtianalege.
Cf.W.D. Fuhrmann, Leben und Schicksale, Character und Meinungeii de* L. Yaumi, Emue
Waisse. L. Vantili, sa vie, sa doctrine, et sa mort; Bxtrait dea
mcmoires de P Aoadémie dea Sciences de Toulose. Arpe, Bayle,
and Voltaire in several of their works undertake the defence ofV anirò.
Cf.alsoLaVieetles SentimentsdeL.VanirtibyDavidDurand,and Rousselot CEuvres P/Ulosophiques
de L. Vanini. Of all the editions of Machiavelli's works, that of Florence, in 8
vols. 8vo. is the fullest and thebest. Aneweditionhas beenrecently publishedin Florencepartlyby
Lemmonier and partly by G.Barbera. Ofhiswritings,11Principe,writteninloll, Discorsi
sulle Decite di T. Livio, and Le Storie Fiorentine are the most celebrated. Cf.
Gesohichte der Staatswissensc/uiften, by B. von Mohi, Banke's zar Kritik
neuerer Gesc/iichts/icreiber; Macaulay's Essay on Machiavelli in his Critical
and Historical Essays. Ferrari in his Corso sugli Scrittoripolitici Italiani,
and Pasquale St.Mancini, Della Dottrinapolitica del Machiavelli. See also the life of Machiavelli published in the Florentine edition of his works. The principal work of Guicciardini is
“La Storia d'Italia”, extendingfrom1490to Its best edition is that of Pisa in 10
vols. An
edition of his unpublished works appeared in Florence,under the editorship of G.Canestrini.
This valuable publication contains “Le Considerazioni intorno al Discorso di
Nicolò Macliiavélli sopra la prima Deca di T.Livio; I Ricordi politici e civili;
I Discorsi politici; Il Trattato ei Discorsi sulla Costtuziome della Republica
Fiorentina e sulla riforma del suo governo; Im Storia di Firenze; Scelta dalla corrispondenza
ufficiile tenuta dal Guicciardinidurante le diverse sue Legazioni; and il
Carteggio, or his correspondence with Princes, Popes, Cardinals, Ambassadors, and
Statesmen of his time. Cf.Banke'sop.cit.;Thiers'Ilis- totre du Consulat et de
l'Empire — Avertissement; the Preface by Canestrini to the Opere inedite di Guicciardini,
and Storia della Letteratura Italiana, by Guidici. For the works of Savonarola,
Sarpi, Giannoti, Parata, and Bottero, cf. Ferrari, op.cit. Savonarola is the author
of Compendium totius philosopliimtarn naturalisquam moralit, and of Trattato circa
il reggimento e il governo della città di Firenze; cf.Storia di Savonarola by
Villari. Sarpi writes in the volgare “La Storia del Concilio Tridentino”, a
work which has been translated into the learned, also, “Opinione come debba
governarsi la Republica Veneziana”, and many other works, of which a full
catalogue may be found in the Biografia di FraPaoloSarpi bhyk.Bianchi-Giovini. The
principal writings of Giannoti are “Della Republica di Venezia”; “Della
RepubUca Fiorentina”, and Opuscoli; of Parata, Perfezione della vita politica,
Discorsi politici. Of G. Bottero, La Ragione di Stato; Republica Veneziana;
Cause della grandezza delle Città, and I Principi. The sun of philosophy in Italy rose with Galilei, a native o fPisa, and the chief
of the School, which a century before had begun with Vinci. At an early age,
Galileo is a professor at Pisa and Padua, and afterwards holds the office of
mathematician and philosopher at the Court of Tuscany. He is the true founder of
inductive philosophy. Regarding nature as the great object of science, the
autograph book of the Creator, Galilei holds that it cannot be read by
authority, nor by any process a priori, but only by means of observation,
experiment, measure and calculation. While, to aid his investigations, he
invents, the hydrostatic balance, the proportional compass, the thermoseope,
the compound microscope and the telescope, he borrows from mathematics the
formulas, the analyses, the transformation and development of his discoveries.
Applying this method to terrestrial and celestial mechanics, he makes important
discoveries in every branch of physical science, and places th eheliocentric system
on a scientific basis. Having thus given the death-blow to Scholasticism, he is
arrested by the Inquisition, forced publicly to recant, and to remain under its
surveillance for the rest of his life. Speaking of the comparative merit of
Galilei and Bacon, Brewster says that had Bacon never lived, the student of
nature would have found in the writings and the works of Galilei not only the
principles of inductive philosophy, but also its practical application to the
noblest efforts of invention and discovery. The eminent scientist Biot, while asserting
the uselesness of the Baconian method, insists upon the permanent validity of
that of Galilei; and Trouessart declares that in science we are all his pupils.
Galileo founds a School honoured by the names of Torricelli, Viviani, Castelli,
Borelli, Cavalieri, Malpighi, Spallaiizani, Morgani, Galvani, Volta and other
eminent scientific men, who, following his method successively, take the lead
in the scientific progress of Europe. It is due to this activity in science, that
the Italian soul is enabled to resist the oppressive influence of the political
and ecclesiastical servitude, under which Italy labored, and it is through the
example of Galilei, that physical science never becomes so predominant, as to
exclude the stndy of philosophy. Throughout hi sworks he loses no occasion to
insist n efficient and final causes, and on the infinite difference which
exists between the divine and the human intelligence; and while he deprecates
the scepticism, which denies the legitimate power of reason, Galieli rejects
pure rationalism, which knows no limit for human knowledge. Galilei asserts that
beyond all secondcauses, there must necessarily exist a First Cause, whose
omnipotent and allwise creative energy alone can explain the origin of the
world; and he professes faith in that Divine Providence which embraces the universe
as well as its atoms, like the sun which diffuses light and heat through all
our planetary system, while at the same time it matures a grain of wheat as perfectly,
as if that were the only object of its action. The works of Galilei
have een published in a complete edition, 10 vols., under the editorship of
Alberi. “Le
Opere dì Galileo Galilei, prima edizione completa,condutta sugli autentici Manoscritti
Palatini,Firenze. This edition contains the life of Galilei,written by hi
spupil Viviani. Among his biographers and critics may be mentioned Ghilini in his
Teatro di uomini letterati; Rossi in his Pinacotheca Nustnum Virorum, Frisi,
Eloggo di Galileo, which is inserted in the Supplement de L’Encyclopedic de
Diderot and D’Alembert; Andres in his history of literature and in Saggio delli
Filosofia di Galileo; Brenna, “Vita di
Galileo”, inserted in the work of Fabroni, “Vita Italorum doctrina excettentium
qui Saculis xvii. et xviii. Jloruerunt; Tozzetti, in his Notizie degli aggrandimenti
dette Scienze fisiche in Toscana, in which he publishes the life of Galileo
written by Gherardini, his contemporary; C. Nelli, Vita e Commercio letterario
di Galileo; Bailly, Histoire de l’Astronomie moderne; G. Tiraboschi, Storia
della Letteratura Italiana; Montucla, Histoire des Mathematiques, Libes, Histoire
Philosophique de Progrès de la Physique, IL T. Biot, Artide Galileo in
Biographie universelle, published by Michaud; Barbier in his Examen critique et
complement des Dictionnaires hlistoriques les plus repandus; Brougham, Life of
Galileo; Salii, in his continuation of
the Histoire Uttiraire d'Italie de Ginguenò; Cuvier,
Histoire des Sciences Naturelles; Libri, “Histoire des Sciences Mathematiques
en Italie”; Brewster, Lines of Copernicus and Galileo (Edinburgh Review), Life of
Newton, and the Martyrs of Science; Boncompagni, Intorno adalcani avanzamenti delibi
Fisica in Italia; Wbewell, History of the Inductive Sciences”; Marini, Galileoe
VInquisizione, D.Bezzi, in the Atti dell'Academia Pontificia dei nuovi Lincei; A.
de Keumont, Galilei und Rom, published in his “Beitrage zur lUiUeniscJten
Geschicltte; Chasles, Galileo Galilei, sa Vie, son Proeès et ses Contemporains,
Madden, Galileo and the Inquisition; Bertrand, in his Les Fon diteurs de l’Astronomie
moderne; Trouessart, in his “Galilee, sa Missionscientìfique, saVie ets
onProeès”; Panhappe, “Galilee, sa Vie, ses Découvertes et ses Travaux”; Epinois,
Galilee, son Proeès, sa Condam'nation, d'après des document» inédits, in the
Revue des Sciences Historiques; Rallaye, Galilee, la Science et l’Eglise, in
the Revue du Monde Catholique; Jagemann, “Geschichte des Lebens und der Schriften
des Galileo Galilei”; Drinkwater, “Life of Galileo”; Selmi, “Nel Trecentesimo
Natalizio di Galileo in Pisa”; Feliciani, “Filosofia Positiva di Galileo”; Wohlwill,
Der Inquisition — Process des G. G.”; “Galileo and his
Condemnation,Rambler(Lond.), Casc of Galileo, Dublin Rerietp.specially worthy
of consultation; The Martyrdom of Galileo, North British Review, in reply to Biot in the Joural des Savants; Castelnnu,
Vie, Trataux. Proeès, etc. de Galil, Paris; Martin, “Galilee et les Droits de la
Science; “Galileo's ''System of the World " was translated into English by
Thomas Salusbury, fol. Lond. --. Giovanni Battista Vico, as the founder of the
philosophy of history, stands foremost among the philosophers of modern times.
He was born in Naples, and early devotes himself to the study of law,
philosophy, philology and history. Living in an age when the philosophy of Descartes
had become popular in Italy, Vico attacks the psychological method as the
exclusive process of philosophic investigation, maintains the validity of
common sense, and upholds the importance of historic and philological studies.
Vico’s writings, “De Ratione Studiorum,” “De Antiquissiiiia Italorum
Sapientia”, and “Jus Universale”, containing his “De Una et Universi Juris Principio
et Fine”; his “De ConstantiaPkUosophiceandDC Constantia-Pht- luloyias, form a
sort of introduction to his “Priiicipii di Scienza Nuova”, in which he develops
his theoryof the historyof civilization. Of this work, twice re-written, he
publishes two editions. In his introductory writings, Vico discusses the
question of method, particularly as applied to moral and juridical science, and
strives to evolve a metaphysical theory from the analysis of the roots of the language
of the Ancient Romans and from the general study of philology, which, according
to him, embraces all the facts of historical experience. Knowledge consists essentially
in a relation of causality between the knowing principle and the knowable. Since
the mind can only know that which it can produce through its own activity; that
is to say, the mind can only know those data of experience, which it can
convert into truth by aprocess of reason. This conversion, in which, according
to Vico, lies the principle of all science, neither the psychological method,
nor the geometrical process introduced by Descartes, can effect. It can only be
produced by a method in which certainty and truth, authority and reason,
philology and philosophy become united and harmonized, so as to embrace the
necessary principles of nature as well as the contingent productions of human
activity. To establish a fact which may be converted into truth, to find a
principle which has its basis in experience and common sense, yet is in harmony
with the eternal order of the universe, is the problem of metaphysics. This factorthis
principle, according to Vico, is to be found in God alone. the only true “ens” who,
being an infinite cause, contains in himself all facts and allintelligence. Thus DivineProvidence,
acting inu» mysterious way, but through the spontaneous development of human
activity, is the basis of all history, which reveals itself in the evolution of
language, mythology, religion, law and government. Whether we accept the mosaic
account, which points ont a state of de-gradation as a consequence of the fall,
or admit a primitive condition of barbarism, it is certain that, at a remote
period, the human race is in a condition far above that of the brutes. Gigantic
in stature, their bodies covered with hair, men roam through the forests
which covered th eearth, without family, language, laws, or gods.
Tetwithin them, though latent, there are the principles of humanity, sympathy,
sociability, pudor, honour and liberty, which, call forth by extraordinary
events, gradually raise them from animalityto the first condition of human beings.
This awakening is caused by terrific phenomena of nature, which, stimulating
the mind to consciousness, brought a jxirtion of mankind under the influence of
a super-natural power, and induces a number of individuals to take refuge in
caverns and to commence the formation of families. From thi spoint the dynamic
process of civilization is subject to certain laws, which preside over the development
of all history. Prominent among these laws is that which produces the universal
belief of all people in the great principles of religion, marriage and burial,
which from the first beome the true./ter/tfra humanitatix. This lawm anifests itself
in all the progress of civilization, which is divided into three different
ages: the divine, the heroic, and the human. The divine age is the first stage
of civilization, when the chief of the family is king and priest, ruling over his
subordinates as the delegate of heaven. It is the age of the origin of language,
rude and concrete, the age of sacred or hieroglyphic characters, of right identified
with the will of the gods, and of a jurisprudence identified with theology, the
age of idolatry, divination, mythology, auspices and oracles. The heroic age
has its birth when that portion of mankind which remains in a savage condition,
seeks refuge from the violence of their companions, still more degraded than
themselves, in the homes of those families already established, and at the feet
of the altars erected on the heights. The newcomers are admitted into the
family on condition of becoming servants of their defenders, who now claim to
be the off-spring of the gods,and heroes by right of birth and power. Thus the primitive
families are the rulers of the community, enjoying rights which are not
accorded to slaves -- such as the solemnity of marriage, the possession of land,
etc. Gradually the number of slaves increases. They become restless under the
domination of their masters, who after long struggle are finally constrained to
grant them some of their rights. Hence the origin of agrarian laws, patronages,
serfs, patricians, vas sals, and plebeians, and with them the rise of cities,
subject to aristocratic government. Meantime language, losing some of its primitive
rudeness, becomes imaginative and mythologic; its characters become more
fantastic and universal. Law is no longer from the gods, but from the
heroes, though still identified with force; and the duel and retaliation take place
of sacerdotal justice. In this period the predominance of imagination is so
great that general types become represented bv proper names, and accepted as historical
characters. Thus the inventive genius of Egyptians finds a personification in
Hermes, the heroism of ancient Greece in Hercules, and its poetry in Homer. So Romulus
and the other kings of ancient Rome, in whom periods of civilization have been
personified, descend to posterity as historical characters. With the gradual
development of democracy the human age appears: and with it aristocratic or
democratic republics and modern monarchies, established more or less on the equality
of the people. Language becomes more and more positive, and prose and poetry
more natural and more philosophic. Religion loses a great part of its mythologic
alcharacter, and tends to morality and to refinement. Civil and political
equality is extended, natural right is considered superior to civil legality, and private right becomes distinguished from public.
In the pefection o fdemocratic governments there is only one exception to
equality, and that is wealth. But wealth is the cause of corruption in those
who possessit, and of envy and passion in those who desireit. Hence abuse of
power, discords, insurrections, and civil wars, from which monarchy often
arises as a guarantee of public order. Monarchy failing, the country which is
rent by corruption and anarchy will finally fall by conquest, or, in the
absence of conquest, it will relapse into a state of barbarism equal to that which
preceded the divine age, with the only difference that the first was a
barbarism of nature, the second will be a barbarism of reflection. The one is
ferocious and beastly, the other is perfidious and base. Only after a longp eriodof
decadence will that nation again begin the course of civilization, passing
through its different stages, liable again to fall and rise, thus revolving in
an indefinite series of “corsi” and “ricorsi”,
which express the static and the dynamic conditions of human society.
This theory is evolved by Vico from the history of Rome, making that the
typical history of mankind, whose principal features are repeated in the histories
of all nations. Thus the same law manifests itself again after the fall of the
Roman empire, when in the dark, the middle ages, and modern times, the divine,.the
heroic, and the human ages reappear. Civilization therefore in a given people,
that is to say, their progress from brutal force to right, from authority to
reason, and from selfishness to justice, is not the work of legislators
and philosophers, not the result of communication with other communities; but
it is the spontaneous growth of their own activity working under the influence
of exterior circumstances. The primitive elements of civilization are found
only in the structure of their language and mythology, their poetry and traditions.
The "Scienza Nuova," according to Vico, may he regarded as a natural
theology, for it shows the permanent action of Divine Providence in human
history; and as a philosophy, for it establishes the basis of the origin and
the development of human society, points out the origin of its fundamental
ideas, and distinguishes the real from the mythical in the history of nations.
This distinction, so far as it regards the history of Rome, is fully confirmed
by the more recent researches of Niebuhr, Schwegler, and Mommsen. The treatise
of Vico may also be regarded as the natural history of mankind and a philosophy
of law, for it gives the principles of ail historical development and the
genesis of the idea of natural right, as deduced from the common wisdom of the
people. The complete edition of the works of Vico in 6vols, was published in Milan,
under the editorship of Ferrari, the author of “La Mente di G. B. Vico”, an important
work on theNewScience.Giudice publishes “Scritti inediti diVico.” Vico's
philosophy gives birth to aconsiderablebranchof literature containing writings
of criticism and exegesis. Among his contemporary opponents may be mentioned Romano
in his “Difesa Storiai delleLeggi GrecJte venule a Roma, contro topinione
moderna del Signirr Vico”, and in his Lettere ml terzoprindpio della Scienza
Nvoua, in which he defends the Greek origin of the laws contained in the XII Tables,
and opposes the theory on spontaneous formation of language and civilization.
He is also the author of ScienzadelDirittoPublico, of the Origine della Societa
and other works, in which he holds doctrines antagonistic to those of Vico.
Finetti in his “De Principiis Juris Naturae et Gentium ad cerisuillobbeniuin,
Pufendorfium, Woljium et alios, and in his Sommario dell’ opposizione dd
sistema ferino, e la falsitddditstatoferineattacks thedoctrinesof Vico on the origin
of civilization. His
defense was undertaken by DUNI (si veda) in his Origineeprogramdelcittadino,
edelgovemo civile di Roma, 1703, and in his La Scienza del Costume oimia Sistema
del Diritlo Universale; also by Ganassoni in his Memoria in difesa del Prindpio
del VicosiilTe/riginedettexn. Tatole.; and Rogadei in his DeWanticostatoeldpopo
L’ItaliaCisliberina. Among Vico's followers and imitators may bementioned Stellini,
in his “De Ortu et Progreami morum” and in his “Ethica”; Pagano, the patriot
who suffers death for his adhesion to the Partbenopean Republic, in his Suggi
politici d d Prindpii, Progresso e Decadenza dtlle Soctetda”; Cuoco, in his “Platone
in Italia”; Filaugeri. in his “Scienza della legislazione”, who adopts many of
the principles of Vico, and particularly that of the original incommunicability
of primitive myths among different people, and spontaneous origin of historical
manifestations; and Delfico who, in his “Ricerclie mil rero carattere della
juriurisprudema Romana e de' suoi outtori exaggerates the principies of Vico and
falls into a system of historical scepticism. Foscolo in his “Discorso dflC
Origine e deS1 Uffizio delta Lettemtura adopted the doctrines of Vico on the
origin and the nature of language as well as society and civil government. Janelli,
one of the most eminent critics of Vico, in his SuUa Naturti e NeoettitA dfUa
ijcienza deUe Cose e delle Storie wnane gives the critical analysis of the
historical Synthesis, as expressed in the Scienza Nuova. of the original and
spontaneous growth of different civilizations. Jamelli introduces the three ages
of the senses, imagination and reason in history, corresponding to the divine,
heroic, and human ages of Vico, and characterises the last age by the
development of Telo&ifoi and Etiolngia, the former the science of finalities,
the latter that of causalities. Romagnosi I nhis OmerrasioM tnti Scitiaii
Nuota, and other works, examines the doctrines of Vico from a critical point of
view, and while he accepts some of his principles he rejects his fundamental
idea of the spontaneity of the growth of civilization, and holds that this is always
the result of a derivation from another people. LuigiTontiinhisSagyiv Htpra, la
Scienza Nvota, makes a philosophical exposition of the doctrines of Vico, and
dwells particularly on the relations existing between Vico, Machiavelli, Gravina.
Herder, and other jurists and philosophers. Predari undertakes the edition of
Vico's works, but he published only one volume, in which he gives an historical
analysis of Vico’s mind in relation to the science of civilization. Cattaneo in
his Vico e F Ittiliti in the PoHtecnito, holds that Vico succeeds in fusing together
Machiavelli's doctrine of the supremacy of self-interest with that of the supremacy
of reason, as denied by Grotius. Tommaso, in Studi critiei maintains that the
idea of progress is apparent in the Scienza Nuova, in which, although the
course of history is fixed within the limits of a certain orbit determined by
the law of the Corsi and Ricorsi, this orbit is not limited, and may become
wider and wider in the progress of time. Mamiani, in his “RinnocamentodettaFtiotnjiaantteaIaliaana”,
adopts the criterium of the conversion of fact into truth as expressed by Vico,
his doctrine on the unity, identity, and continuity of force, the spontaneity
of motion as belonging to a principle inherent to every atom independently of
the mass, and the idea of the indivisible, indefinite, and immovable, as
evolved from phenomenical reality. And so Rosmini and Gioberti have in their
various works endeavoured to bring hie authority to the support of their
theories, while Centofanti, in his “Formda logic* dellii Fifvsojia (IMa Storia”
follows Vico in considering historical reality in its ideal genesis, in
ascending from experience to the philosophical idea of history, and in connecting
under one principle the cosmic, psychologic, and social orders. Carmignani, in
his 8t/ma deW Oriffini e dei Progressi della Filosofia del Diritto”, attributes
to Vico the origin of a true philosophy of jurisprudence, and Amari in his “Critica
di una Scienza delle legislazioni comparate”, gives a complete analysis of
Vico’s doctrines having relation to the philosophical and historical department
of comparative legislation. Carlo, in his FUosofiatetondoiPrindpUdiVico and La
Mente (ClUttia e O. B. Vico; Fornari, in his Delhi Vita di Cntto; Zocchi, in his Studi sopra T. Jfenwi; Galasso,
in his Del Stulema Hegdiano, and Del Metoda Storico del Vico; Spaventa,
Florentine, Vera, Bertrai, Conti, Franchi, Mazzarella and others either adopt
some of the fundamental principles of Vico, or subject his doctrine to critical
examination. Siciliani, in his Sid Rinnotamento della FUo»ofin ponitiva in
Italia”, having examined all the principal systems of philosophy, rejects them
all, and contends that the reconciliation of modern positivism with ancient
idealism can only be effected throuch the doctrines of Vico, from which he
strives to develop not only a historical philosophy, but a logical and metaphysical
doctrine. Siciliani
isa lsotheauthor of “Dante, Galileo e Vico”. Other works of criticism on the
philosophy of Vico are Colangelo's “Consideraaoni sulla Scienza Nuova”, Cesare's
“Kmimario dcUe dottrine del Vico”; Gallotti's Principii di una Scderna Nuova di
G. B. Vico”; P. Jola'B Studio snl Vico”; Mancini's “Intorno alia Fihsofia d d
Diritto”, Valle's Stiggi nulla Scienza ddla Storia”; Rocco's Elogio Storico di Vico”;
Reggio's “Introduzioneai1rincipiidclleUinaneSucieta”; Marini'sG. B.Victo; Giani'sDeW
UnicoPrincipioedell'UnicoFine ddV Universo Diritto”; Fagnani's “Delia necessitd
e dcW uso ddla Ditinazione UntificatadallaScienzaNuova diVico”; Fontana's/>(FiUisofiuneJlaStoria”;
J. Merletta's “G. B. Vico e la sapienza antichissima degli Italiani”; Luca’s “Saggio
ontiilogico suVe dottrine deW Aquinute e del Vico”; Cantoni's G. B. Vico”. In Germany the philosophy of Vico finds interpreters in Savigny in his
NtebuJir, E. Gans in his preface to UegeVs Philosophy of HiMory; Jacoby in his Cantoni
uber Vico”; Wolff in the Museum dcr Alterthumswissenschaft”; OrelliinhisVicoandNiebuhr;
Weber, thetranslatoroftheScienzaNuova; Giischel in the Zerstreute Blatter; Cauer
in the Germanic Museum, and C.EiMiiller. thetranslatorofVico' s minor works. In
France, Michelethas interprets Vico’s doctrines in his Principe-i de la
Philosophie de CHi*toirc”; Ballanche, in his Prolegomenc* din Palingenesie
Sociale, and in his Orphee”; Cousin, in his Introduction a F'ITM'irt'delu
Philosophic”; Lerminior." in his Introduction generate a Fllistoire dn
Droit; Jouffroy, in his Melanges Philosophiques; Bouchez, in his Introduction, dla
Science deVllistoire; the anonymous author of la Science Nouvelle par Vico”; Franck,
in the Journal de* Savants”; Ferron, in his Theorie du Progres”; Vacherot, in
his Science et Conscience”; Laurent, in his Etudes sur l’histoiredeVHumanite”;
Barthlomess, in the Dictionnuire des Sciences PhUosophiques; Boullier in his
Histoire dela Philosophic Cartesienne”; Renouvier,in his “Manuel de la
Philosophie Moderne” and Comte in his letter to Mill. Cf. Littr6,A. C'ornteetla.PhilosophicPositire.
Among the English philosophers, Mill has given attention to the historical
principles of Vico in his “System of Logic”. Cf.Vico's "New Science and Ancient
Wisdom of Italians," in Foreign Review, Lond., Foreign Quarterly Review. The
philosophic revolution which began with Descartes in France, soon extends toItaly
and manifests itself in the two forms of psychologism (or idealism), and sensualism
-- represented by Descartes and Malebranehe on the one side, and by Locke and
Condillac on the other. Among the followers of the Psychologism of Descartes
are Cornelio, who in his “Progymnaxmata Physica” tries to blend the doctrines
of Telesio with the method of the French philosopher; Fardella, the friend of
Amauld and Malebranehe, and the author of Universe PhUosopliijt Systcma”; Doria, who in his “Difesa ddla Metafisica”
opposes the doctrines of Locke; Grimaldi, who in his Discussioni htoriclie, TetHugiche
e Filosofiehe” vindicates the Cartesian philosophy against the attacks of the
Aristotelians of his age; and Brescia, the authorof “Philosophia Mentis
methodice tractate”. Among the opponents of Aristotle may also be mentioned Basso,PluUmtphias
Natural!* adcersw Aristotelem, libri 12. The following writers belong to
the school of Descartes through the affinities with Malebranche: Gerdil who
held to the vision of ideas in the divine mind, and opposed the Sensualism of Locke,
the Ontologism of Wolff, and the Pantheism of Spinoza. Among his numerous works
the following relate to philosophical subjects: “L immateriality de Cdute
dimmlti coidre Locke”; “Defense du sentiment du P. Malebranclie— sur la nature
et Corigine da idee*contreteaamendeMr.Locke; “Anti-Emile,or,Reflexion*svrlatlteorieetlapra
tique tie l’education contre les principes de Rousseau”; Traite de* combat*
singnliert; Discours philosoplugue* nur Vhomme; Dintostrazione maternaltea
eontro CeferMtd deBa materia; Del? inflnito Assoluto consulerato iitUa
grandezza; Esame e coitfuUtzi-me dti principii deUa FHosofla WiAfiana; Introdtmone
alio Studio deUa Religion. Rossi, contemporary of Vico, and author of “La
Meitte Sorrana “; Mieeli. who strives to reconcile Christian idealism with the Eleatic
doctrines, and whose system may be found in Gioanni's work, “Mieeii. ovcerotldCEnte
I'noeRente; Palmieri, who defends Christianity against the materialistic doctrines
of Frerct and oother French writers; Carli, who in his “Elemesti di Morale”
attempts a philosophical confutation of Rousseau on the inequality of men; Falletti,who,
in his work on Condillac, establishes the principle of knowledge on the idea of
being as evolved from the ego; Draghetti, who founds his Psychology on moral
instinct and reason; Torelli, in his treatise “De Sihtl/t”; Chiavacci in his
Saggio sulla grandezza di Dio”; Orazi in his” MeJodo mi tersnle di filosofare”;
Pini, author of the “Protologia”, in which he establishes all principles of
knowledge and morality on the unity of the Divine Nature; Giovenale, who in his
“Soli* intdligentitr, cttinon nieeedit itox. lumen iiideficiensac
inextinguibile Muminan* omrtem hominem” seeks in divine illumination the source
of all science; Tellino, who in his “These*PhUosojiltiea1deInflnito.1(W1”
ascends to the idea of the Infinite as the principle of all knowledge; a
principle which was also regarded as transcendental by Pasqualigo in “Disputationes
Met'tphgxicae”. By M.TerralavoroinMetaphysial; and by Boschovich in
“SullaLeggediCo&- tinuitd”. While these philosophers are characterized by a
Platonic tendency, the following professed themselves disciples of Aristotle:
Liccto in his “De Ortu Aninur IJtiman^r”; “DeInteMectuAgente”; DeLurerni*aittiqitorninreeonditi*;DeAi,mili*a»ti-
qui*; Apologia pro AristoUU. Athei-tini aceunato; De, Pittate Aristotetis”;
Polizzo in his “Philosophical Disputationes”; Andrioli, in his “Plttlosophia
Erperimentale”; Langhi, in his “Xoriasima Philvsophia”; Jlorandi. in his Curm*
Ph&*np/ua”; Maso. in his Theatrum Pldlosophicum”; Scrbelloni. in his Phibtnphii”;
Spinola, in his “Korissima Plttlosophia”; Ambrosini, in his Method**
ineentiea”; Benedetti, in his Plttlosophia Peripatetica”; Rocco. in his
Esercitnzionifi'.otofiche”. As Empiricists more independent of scholastic influence
may be mentioned Borelli, the eminent scientist, in his great work, “De Motu
Animalium”, in which animal mechanics are established on scientific principles;
Magalotti, in his Lettere famigliari against Atheism”; Grandi, author of a
Logic in which he opposed Scholasticism, and of “Diacresi”, in which he refutes
the doctrines of Ceva, as expressed in his “PlttlosophiaNovo-Antigua”, a workwritten
in verse, intended as a confutation of Gassendi, Descartes, and Copernicus;
Severino, who in his “Pawofta”stives to investigate nature through the study of
ancient monuments. Magneno precedes Gassendi in the restoration oft he
atomistic philosophy in his “Democritus reviciscens” and in “De Re*tauraU'oite
Phitotopki Z>em. Epieurea”; Ciassi anticipates Leibnitz in the doctrine of
Monades, in his “Tntorno (die Forte Vice; and Algarotti calls the attention of
his contemporaries to the works of Newton in his “Netctonuinismo”. The philosophy
of Wolff finds an exponent in the author of “InstUutiones Pliilosophm
Wo'.fianae” and the doctrine of Leibnitz is interpreted in the works of
Trevisani and Cattanco. Meanwhile, the questions as to the soul of animals,
and the union of the soul with the body, are treated by Cadonici in
“Dissertazionc epistolare”, Fassoni, in “Libro suW anima delle bestie”, L.
Barbini, “Nuoro Sistema intorno all’anima dei bruti”, Sbaragli, “Enteleehia,
sen anima sensitiva brutorum demonstrate contra Cartesium”; Pino, “Trattato sojyra
l’essenza dtW anima ihlle bestie”, Vitale, “L'unione dell’anima col corpo”, Papi,
“Sull’anima delle bestie”, Monti, “Anima brutorum”; Corte, “Sul tempo in cui si
injbnde Vanima nelfeto. Empiricism is greatly extended. At first it remains independent,
but it soon falls under the influence of the doctrines of Locke and Condillac.
Among the early Empiricists of that age may bementioned Martini, “Logica, seu
Ars coffutandi”, Fuginelli, “Prina'pia Metaphysial gcomctriai
meUiodopertractata”, Visconti, “Theses ex Universa Philosophia”; Sanctis, “Delle
passioni e rizi drWintelktto”; Fromond, “NonaIntroductioadPMosophiam”, Spedalieri,
Dei Diritti dtW Homo”, Zanotti, philosophical works, Longano, Dell’uomo
naturale”; Boccalossi, “Sulla-liiflessione”, Amati, EtMca ex tem pore
conciitnata”, Verri, philosophical works, Baldinotti, “Tentaminum
Mttap/iyskorum, Libri 3, and “De Recta Humana! Mentis Institutione”, Tettoni, “Priacipii
del Diritto naturale”, Capocasale, “Cursxs PhUosophicus”, Bianchi,
“Meditozioni”, Muratori, the author of the Annals of Italy, and of DdleForzc
deWIntiiulimento, DeliaForzadeUaFantasia,and DaFilosofiaMorale”; Gravina, the
author of De Origine Juris Ronnini, and
La Ragione poetica”. The influence of the sensualistic school of France is
chiefly introduced into Italy through the translation of Locke's "Essay on
tlut Understanding" by Soave (il modo delle parole, la parola e segno
dell’idea, e l’idea e segno della cosa), a member of the Order of the Somaschi,
and the author of “Instituzioni di Logica, Metafisica e Morale” and of many
other philosophical works, all moulded on the philosophy o fLocke. His “Instituzioni”
have long been the text-book of philosophical instruction in the Colleges of
Northern Italy. The translations of the writings of Bonnet, D’Alembert,
Rousseau, Helvetius, Holbach, De Tracy, and, above all, the philosophical works
of Condillac give a powerful impulse to the doctrine, and the philosophy of the
senses became predominant in the universities and colleges of the Peninsula.
The personal influence of Condillac, who resided at theCourt of Parma as tutor to
a Bourbon prince, greatly contributes to this result. The philosophical text-books
written by Mako and Storcheneau also greatly added to the propagation of
Sensualism in the Italian Schools. Among the representatives of this philosophy
may be mentioned, besides Soave already named Bini, “Lettere Teologiehe e
MeUifisicliche”, Pavesi, “Elementa Logices, Meta- physicei, et Phil. Moralis”, F.
Barkovich, SaggiosuUe passioni”, Rezzonico, SuHa FUmofia”; Tomaio, InstituzionidiMetaj
Utiea”, Valdr.s- tri, Lezioni di analisi delle Idee”, Lomonaco, Analisi della
scnsibilita”, Schedoni, “Delle morali influenze”, Cestari, “Tentatiro secondo
delta rigenerazione delle Scienze”, Abba, “Elementa Logices et Metaphysices,
Delle Cognizioni umane and Letterea F Uomatomille credenze primitive,;and "Patio,Blemeata
PhilosophimMoralis. On the same basis Cicognara seeks to establish Aesthetics in
his “Del Bello”, Cesarotti, Philology, in his Sulla Filosofia deUe Scienze”, Costa,
Rhetoric, in his D d modo di comporre, le idee, and Borrelli, Psychology, in
his “Prineipii della Genealogia del Pensiero”. To
counteract these materialistic tendencies, some philosophers endeavour to
construct a philosophy ou the basis of revelation, while others seek refuge in
a kind of eclecticism. Among the first may bementioned Premoli, “De
etistentiaDei”, Riccioli, “De distinction sentium in Deo et in creaturis”, Sicco,
“Logica et Metaph.Institutiones”, Semery, Triennium Philosophicum”, Ferrari,
PJal<m>- phia Peripatetica adcersus teteres et recensiores prasertim
PhUosoplios, and Leti, “Nihil sub Sole Novum” and “De unico rerum naturalium
formali principio, ten de Spirita Materiali”. Among the second class are Ceva,alreadymentioned;
Corsini, Institution** Phtf.osofJiic* uè Matematico”, Gorini, Antropologia”, Luini,
Meditazione Filotvfie”, Ansaldi, Riflessioni sulla Filosofia Morale”, “De
traditioneprincipiorvm legis naturalis” and “Vindicim Maupertuisinnm”,
Scarella, “Element* Logica; Ontologia, Psycdnght et Teologia naturalis, and
above all, Genovesi in his “Elementa Mdaphysices”, “Elementorum Artis Logico-Critiar”,
“Instituzioni delle Scienze Metafisicli”, “Logica pei Giovanetti, “Diceosina or
moni science”, “MeditazioniFàosoficJie”, “Elementi di Fisica sperimentale” and in
his “Lezioni<& Commercio e di EeonAnia Citile”, which work contains his
lectures on political economy, delivered from the chair established at Naples by
his friend Interi, a wealthy Florentine who resided in that city. To this same
School may be referred Galiani, tne author of “Trattato della moneta” and tin
Dialogues stir le Commerce de Uè”, Bianchini, who, in his “Storia Unitersale”
strives to separate history from its legendary elements by a philosophic
interpretation of ancient monuments, Giannone, who, in his “Storia arile del
Regno di Napoli” puts in evidence the usurpations of the Church over the State,
and boldly asserted the independence of the latter; and Beccaria, the author of
“Dei Delitti e delle Pene”, a work which, more than any other, contributes to a
radical reform of penal law in Europe. Cf. StoriadellaLetteraturaItaliana di
G.Tiraboschi; Della Storia e detf Indole (fogni Filosofia di Buonafede, Delia Ristanrazione (Fogni
Filosofia nei Secoli 15°, 16°, 17°, by thesanv? writer, Dell’Origine e Progresso
d'ogni Letteratura, by Andres; /ecali della Letteratura Italiana, di Corniani
continuata da Ticozà e C. tigoni ls>5fi; Storiadella Letteratura Italiana di
Lombardi, HistoireUttérair' <fItalie, par Ginguène— eontinuée par Salfi; Storia
della Letteratura Italiana, di Maffei, Storia, della Letteratura Italiana, di
Giudici. Cf. also Supplementi alla Storia della Filosofia di Tennemann” by Bomagnosi
and Poli. OnGenovesi cf.Genovesi by Racciopi, and on Beccaria, “Beccar»
eilDirittoPenale” by Cantù. The predominance of French philosophy makes the
ideas of the French encyclopedists and sensualists popular among the more
advanced philosophers of Italy. The progress of natural science, of
jurisprudence and political economy contributes to foster the habit of mental
independence, while the national spirit which had penetrated the literature in
‘the volgare’ from the age of Aligheri, becomes more powerful than ever,
especially through the writings of VAlfieri, who, in his Misoyatto, earnestly
opposes the prevailing influence of French philosophy, and in his tragedies
strives to excite his countrymen to noble and independent deeds by the dramatic
representation of ancient Roman patriotism. This spirit is kept alive by the
poetry of Foscolo and Leopardi, the satires of Parini and Giusti, the political
writings of *.!;./.ini, the historical novels of Guerrazzi and Azeglio, the
tragedies of Manzoni and Niccolini, and the historical works of Troya,
Colletta, Hotta,SlidCesareBalbo. But no department of mental activity
contributes so powerfully to the advance of the national sentiment as
philosophy, which, embodying the aspirations of the people, aims to give them a
scientific basis and a rational direction. In its development it passes through
the same phases as in France, adjusting itself to the wants of the country, yet
keeping on the whole an independent character. The Italian contemporary
philosophy may be divided as follows: Empiricism, Criticism, Idealism,
Ontologism, Absolute Idealism or Hegelianism, Scholasticism, and Positivism. Of
the School of Empiricism Gioja is the first representative. He was born in Piacenza,
an dearly devoted himself to the cause of liberty and national independence.
Witht he advent of Napoleon in Italy he enters public life, and advocates a
Republican government. Under the Cisalpine Republic Gioja is appointed historiographer
and director of national statistics. With the fall of Napoleon Gioja retires
from office; and twice suffers imprisonment for his liberal views. Accepting
the doctrines of Locke and Condillac, Gioja strives to apply them to the social
and economic sciences in the defence of human rights, and the promotion of
wealth, and happiness among the people. In his “ElementidiFtlvsojin”, Gioja defines
the nature of external observation, and describes its methods its instruments,
its rules, and the other means through which its sphere may be extended. The foundation
of all science, according to him, lies in the science of Statistics, which
supplies the phenomena of scientitic investigation, classifies them, and brings
them under general laws. Thus, Statistic embraces nature and mind, man and
society; it originates in philosophy and ends in politics, to which it reveals
the economic resources of nations, wealth, poverty, education, ignorance,
virtue, andvice. This process he follows in his “FllosojiudtHaStatistioa”, in
which he reduces all economic and political phenomena to certain fundamental
categories, the bases of social science, and the criteria of productive forces in
society. Gioja follows the same method in defining the nature of social merit
in his “Del Merita e delle Ricompense”, fixing its constituent elements, he
verifies them in the history of nations, and by their presence or absence
traces the different degrees of their civilization. A follower of Condillac in psychology,
Gioja is the disciple of Bacon in his method, and of Bentham in hi smorals. The
general good constitutes the source of duty, right, and virtue; even self-
sacrifice springs from utility. Imagination and illusion play a great part in
human life, indeed it is only through these faculties that man excels other animals.
Through them man loves fame, wealth, and power, his greatest motives to action.
Virtue itself finds its bestcompensation in illusion, and religion has in the
eyes of a true statesman no other value than the influence it exerts on the
people. Gioja
writes also “Teoria Civile e Penale del Divorzio”, “Indole, Estenxione e
Vantaggi dfllaStatistical”, “Nuovo Prospctto delle Sciense Economise”, “Ideolo
gia” and “11Nuovo Gakitco. Gf. ElogioStorico di Gioja by Romagnosi, Discorso su
Gioja, by Falco, and Es*at sur PHistoire de la Philosophical Italieau Dix-Neuvieme
Sieclt,\^ Louis Ferri. Romagnosi, the eminent jurist, marks a step in advance
in the empiric philosophy. Romagnosi was born in Piacenza, supports the
government of Napoleon in Lombardy, and holds a professorship of jurisprudence
at Parma, Pisa, and Milan. He is tried for treason againstAustria, and acquitted.
His psychologic doctrines are contained in his “Che Cosa e la Mcnte Sana”, “La
Supremo, Economia deW Umano Sapcre”, Vcdutefondameiitali sulT Arte loyica”,
“Dottrine della Ragione. W'hile he admits the general tenets of Condillac,
Romagnosi rejects tho notion that our ideas are but transformed sensations. Lier
ecognizes in the mind a specific sense, the logical, to which he attributes the
formation of universal ideas and ideal syntheses. It is this faculty which perceives
differences and totalities, as well as all relations which form the chain
of creation. The harmony between the faculties of the mind and the forces of
nature is the foundation of all philosophy. It is through the logical sense
that that harmony is reached, and the connection and co-ordination of mind and
nature are effected. Its sphere, however, is limited to experience, and is therefore
essentially phenomenal. The reality of nature, cause, substance and force escapes
our mind. Moral obligation arises from the necessary conjunction of our actions
with the laws of nature, in reference to our own perfection. The ideal of this
perfection, formed from experience and reason, constitutes the rational necessity
of moral order. Right is thepower of doing whatever is in accordance with that
order; hence right is subordinate to duty. Hence, too, human rights are
inalienable and immutable; they are not created by law, but originate in
nature, and culminate in reason. Civil society is the child of nature and
reason, and not the offspring of an arbitrary contract, as Rousseau believed.
Civilization is thecreation of the collective intelligence, in the pursuit of
the ends established by nature. It is both internal and external; the first is the
result of the circumstances amidst which a nation may find itself, in relation
to its own perfection; the second is transmitted from one people to another,
and modified by local causes. As a general rule, civilization is always exteriorly
transmitted through colonies or conquest, or communicated by Thesmothetes (law-givers),
foreign or native. Romagnosi develops these ideas in his “Introduzione alio
Studio del Dlritto Publico Univer sale”, “Principii della Scienza del Diritto”;
“Delia Natura ed<?FattorideWIncivilimento”, “His Della Genesi del Diritto
Penale” in which he limits the right of punishment to the necessity of social
defence, has contributed, not less than the work of Becaria on crimes and
punishments, to the reform of penal law in Europe since the beginning of the
present century. A complete edition of Romagnosi's works is published in Milan
under the editorship of Giorgi. Cf. La Mente di Romagnosi by Ferrari, his
Biografia by Cantu, and Ferri, op. tit. The philosophic
scheme of Criticism proposes to establish the validity of knowledge by the analysis
of thought. Its chief Italian representative is Galuppi. Galuppi was born in
Calabria, and holds a professorship of philosophy at Naples. A student of
Descartes, Locke, Condillac, and Kant, Galuppi directs his attention chiefly to
psychology, which in connection with ideology constitutes, according to him, all
metaphysical science. Philosophy is the science of thought in its relation to
knowledge and to action; hence It is theoretical or practical. The former
embrace pure logic -- which occupies itself with thought, that is,with timjorM
ofknowledge which is independentofexperience.; Ideologyand Psychology -- the
science of thought and of its causes, and, third, Mixed Logic -- which
considers empiiic thoughts, the matter of knowledge, and unites the principles
of pure reason with the data given by sensations. A fourth branch, Practical
philosophy, or Ethics, considers thought in relation to the will,the
motivesandrulesofitsactions. To this a fifth branch, Natural Theology is added,
which from the conditional evolves the unconditional and from the relative the absolute.
Philosophy from another point of view may also be divided nto subjective and
objective, as its object is th emind itself, or th erelations which unite it to
the externalworld. The fundamental problem of philosophy is found in the
question of the reality of knowledge. Rejecting the solution of it given by Locke
and Condillac, Galuppi accepts the distinction of Kant between the form and the
matter, the pure and the empiric elements in human thought; but he insists that
by making the former the product of the mind, the philosopher of Konigsberg
renders it a merely subjective function, in a de knowledge entirely subjective,
and paved the way for the Scepticism of Hume. Realism in knowledge can only be
obtained from the assumption of two principles. First, the immediate
consciousness of the Ego; second, the objectivity of sensation. The consciousness
of the substantiality of the Ego is inseparable from the modifications of our
sensibility; at the same time sensation, either internal or external, is not
merely a modification of our existence, but is essentially objective; it affects
thesubject and contains the object. Our mindi s thus indirect communication
with itself and the external world through a relation which is not arbitrary,
as Reid supposes, but essential, necessary, and direct. This relation is expressed
in the immediate sentiment of the metaphysical unity of the Ego, which thus
becomes the foundation of knowledge. From the primitive consciousness of the Ego,
and of the non-Ego, the mind rises to distinct ideas through reflection, aided
by analysis and synthesis— the analysis preceding the synthesis— by distinguishing
the sensation both from the ego, and the object which produces it. Thus, an
idea is essentially an analytic product, although it may be considered a ssynthetic,iur
elation to the substantial unity of the
ego in which it is formed. Although all knowledge of reality is developed from
the consciousness of experience, there is a previous element in the mind which
renders that development possible. This element is subjective, that is, it is given
by th emind itself in its own activity, andc onsists in the immediate
perception of the identity of our ideas, from which arises metaphysical
evidence or logical necessity, which forms the basis of allphilosophicalreasoningandscientificcertainty.
Thuseveryjudg ment based on logical necessity proceeds from the principle of
iden tity, which in its negative form becomes the principle of contradic tion.
It is therefore analytical; indeed no synthetic; judgment d priori is
admissible, and those which were held as such by Kant may all be reduced to
analytical ones, in which the attribute is contained in the subject, and which
therefore are based on identity. General ideas are all the product of
comparison and abstraction; none of them are innate, although they are all
natural, that is to say, the product of mental activity. Thus from the perception
of another body than its own, the mind evolves the ideas of duality, plurality,
extension, and solidity; from these the idea of matter; and through further
analysis, those of substance, causality,time and space. They are all analytical,
subjective and objective; analytic because derived through analysis from
identity, subjective because elaborated by theactivity of the mind out of its own
consciousness, and objective because contained in the objective perceptions of
sensibility. A spiritualist in psychology, Galuppi maintains the unity, the
simplicity, the indivisibility and the immortality of the human soul, which he
considers as a substantial force, developing into various faculties as it
becomes modified by diverse surrounding circumstances, from the consciousness
of the Ego and of the non-Ego (or Tu) arising to abstract and universal principles.
Remaining, however, withinthe bonds of empiricism, though he places the human
mind above nature, yet Romagnosi also holds that it cannot attain to the
knowledge of its own essence, or of the essence of matter, nor understand the
origin of the universe, and the processes of its development. In Ethics,
Galuppi rejects both the doctrine of Helvetius, which founds morality on the
instinct of pleasure, and that of Wolff and Romagnosi, who derive its essence
from our natural longing for perfection. First among modern philosophers of
Italy, Galuppi establishes with Kant the absolute obligation of moral law, and
its pre-eminence above self-interest and self-perfection. Happiness is a motive
to our actions; it is not the essence of moral obligation, nor the source of virtue.
Absolute imperatives, or practical judgments a priori,such as "Do
thy rduty” are at thefoundationof moral law; they originate from the very
nature of practical reason, which contains also the principle of the final
harmony between virtue and happinesss -- expressed in the moral axiom, virtue
merits reward, and vice punishment. From this principle as well as from ou rown
consciousness, Galuppi demonstrates the freedom of the will, both as a psychological
and moral fact. Natural religion has for it sobject the existence of God, of
whom we may obtain the idea by rising from the conditional to the
unconditional, from the finite to the infinite, and from the relative to the absolute.
This idea is subjective: it is developed from that of identity, that,is, the one
isi ncluded in the other. But we reach also the existence of infinite reality
through the principle of causality, and in this sense the idea of God is objective.
Theism alone can reconcile the infinite goodness of God with the existence of
evil; a reconciliation, however, which is imperfect, from the very fact that
human reason cannot understand all the relations which exist between all beings.
God is incomprehensible, creation is amystery, miracles are a possibility, and
revealed religion is an important aid to our education. Cf. L.Ferri,op.cit.,and
It.Mariano,LaPhilosophicContemporaine en Ltalie. he following are the works of GALLUPPI
(si veda): “Saggio FUosqfico sulla Critlca della Conoseema”, “Letter? Fllosofiche
suite Vicende della FUosofia intorno ai Prineipii dtlla, Conoscenza Umana da
Cartesio fino a Kant, Elementi di Filosofia”; “Lezioni di Logica e di
Metajlsica”; Fili* sojuidellaVolontd”’ “ConsiderazionisuWIdealismotrascen-
dentala e sid Itazionalismo assoluto”. The following writers may be referred partly
to Empiricism, and partly to Criticism:P.Tamburini, “Introduzionealio Studwddla
FUosofiaMorale”; ElementaJitri*Xa- turce”, “Cennisiiila PerfettibiUtddtW Umana
Famiglia”, Ceresa.Prineipiit Leggigeneralidi FUosofiae Medieina”, Zantedeschi,
Elementi di Psieologia Empirica”, Poli, Saggio FUotofico sopra la Swola dei modernifilosofi
naturalisti”, “Saggio cFun Corso di Filosofia; and Primi Elementi di FUosofia”,
Ricci. in his C'ottsiuitmo (AntologiadiFirenze). Rivato, Ricobelli.and Devincenzi,
who wrote on theFrench Eclecticism in the CommentarideW Alencodi Brescia”, Lusverti,
Inxtituzioni Logico-lfetafisiche”, Gigli,AnalisidnUe.Idee”, Bini,LezioniLogieo-itfta-
fixieo Morali”, Pezzi, Lezioni di FUosofia della mente e del more; Accordino,
Elementi di FUosofia”, ZeUi, Elementi di Metafisim”, Alberi,DdXaciWe”, Gatti, PrineipiidiIdeologic”,
Passeri, Ddlanaturaumanasocietoie”, DeW umana perfezione”, Scaramuzza, Esame
analiUco ddUi facoliA di*»• tire, Bonfadini, Sulk Categoric di Kant”, Bruschelli,
Prdectiones Logico- Mctaphisicm”, Bellura, La Coseieiua”, Fagnani, Storia
naiurale ddla potenza umana”, Delle intime relazioni in cui progrediscono
la Filosofia, la Religione e la. Libertà”, Ocheda, Della Filosofia degli
Antichi”, Pizzolato, Introduzione allo Studio detta Filosofia”, DomowBki, a
Jesuit, In stitution!s Philosophica”, Testa, La Filosofia del Sentimento”, “La Filosofia
dell' Intelligenza”, “Esame e discussione della Critica della Ragione Pura ài
Kant, Critica del Nuovo Saggio suW Origine delle Idee di A. Rosmini, Grazia, “Saggio
sulla realtà della conoscenza umana”, I.ettieri, “Dialoghi filosofici suW intuizione”,
Introduzione alla Filosofia monde e al Liiilto razionale”, Longo, Pensieri
filosofici”, Teoria della conoscenza”, Dimostrazione analitica delle facoltà
dell' anima”, Tedeschi, Elementi di Filo sofia”, Mancini, Elementi di
Filosofia”, Mantovani, Traduzione della Critica della Ragione Pura di Kant”, Mazzarella,
Critica della Scienza”, Della Critica. Empiricism is applied to ^Esthetics by Delfico
in his Nuove Ricerche sid Bello, Talia, Princijni di Estetica, Ermes Visconti,
Saggi sul Bello, and Riflessioni
idcologicìie intorno al linguaggio grammaticale dei popoli colti”, Venanzio,
Callofilia”, Zuccaia, Principi! eMetici, Lichtenthal, Estetica”, Longhi,
Callografia” and Pasquali, lnsliluziind di Estetica”. Zuccaia and Lichtenthal, however, separate themselves from the empirical
School, and strive to find the essence of beauty in the idea. The same
principles of Empiricism are followed by writers who undertake to construct a
genealogy of sciences, such as Ferrarese in his “Saggio di una nuova classificazione
delle Scienze”. He
is also the author of “Delle diverse specie di follia”, “Ricerche intorno all'origine
diWistinto”, “Trattato della monomania suicida”, De Pamphilis in his Geografia
del'j> Scibile considerato nelXn sua unità di utile e di fine” and Rossetti in
his “DelloScibileedelsuoinsegnamento”. Amongthe writers on Pedagogy who follow
empirical doctrines may be mentioned Pasetti in his “Saggio suW Educazione
fisico-morale”, Raffaele, Opere Pedagogiche”, Boneschi, recetti di
Eilucazione”, Fontana, Manuale per l'Educa zione umana”, Parravicini in his
various educational works; Aporti, Manuale di Educazione e di Ammaestramento
per le Scuole infantile”, Assarotti, Istruzione dei Sordi-Muti”, Bazutti, Sullo
stato fisico intellettuale e morale deiSordi-Muti”, Renzi, SiuT indole dei
deciti, and Fantonetti, “Della Pazzia”. Among the historians who follow the
doctrines of historical criticism may be named Rossi in his ”StudiStorici”, Denina
in his “Rivoluzioni d'Italia”, Verri in his “Storia di Milano”, Gregorio in his
“ConsiderazionisullaStoriadiSicilia”, Colletta inhis “StoriadelRegnodiNapoli, Botta
in his Storia della Guerra dell' Indipendenza Americana” and “Storia d'Italia,
continued from that of Guicciardini”, Palmieri in his Saggio Storico e Politico
sulla Costituzione del Regno di Sicilia”, Cantù in his Storia Universale” and
Storia degli Italiani”. Also by Micali in his L'Italia avanti ilDominio de'
Romani”, Mazzoldi in his Delle Origini
Italiche”, Lamperdi in his Filosofia degli Etruschi”, Berchetti in his Filosofia
degli antichi pojioli”, “Sacchi in his Stona dilla Filosofia Greca, Roggero in
hisori. della Filosofia da Cartesio a Kant”, Raguisco, Storia delle Categorie
da Taletead Hegel”, Sclopis, Storia detta Legislazione Itidiana”, Farini, Stati
Romani” and Farina, Storia d'Italia”. Next is Idealism. Whatever
may be the value of the psychological investigations of Galuppi, and the
seeming "realism" by which his theory is characterized, his
doctrine, founded as it was on the subjective activity of the miiid in connection
with experience, could not supply an objective foundation for science. It therefore
left the problem of knowledge unsolved. To establish the objectivity of human thought
on an independent and absolute principle is the task which Rosmini, the founder
of modem Idealism in Italy, proposes to himself. Rosmini was born in Rovereto in
the ItalianTyrol, and receives hiseducation at Padua. He enters the priesthood,
and at a later period founds a religious institute of charity, whose members
devote themselves to the education of youth and the ecclesiastical ministry. He
is charged by King (Jharlcs Albert with a mission to Rome, the object of which
was to induce Pius IX. to join the Italian Confederation, and to allow the
citizens of the Roman States to participate in the W r of National
Independence. Rosmini’s efforts at first promised success. He is made a member
of the Papal Cabinet and is even invited to the honours of the Cardinalate. But
the influence of the reactionary party in the Church having become predominant,
the Pope withdraws from the liberal path on which he had entered, Rosmini's
proposal is rejected, and the ambassador himself dismissed in disgrace. He returns to his retreat
at Stress on the Lago Maggiore, where he again devotes himself to the work of
the restoration of philosophy, for which he had so long laboured. Philosophy,
according to Rosmini, is the science of the ultimate reasons; the product of
highest reflection, it is the basis of all sciences in the universal sphere of
the knowable, embracing ideality, reality and morality, the three forms under which
Being manifests itself. Hence there are three classes of philosophical
sciences. First, the Sciences of intuition, of which ideality is the object, such
as Ideology and Logic. Second, he Sciences of perception, the object of which
is reality, as given in the sensibility, such as Psychology and Cosmology.
Third, the Sciences of reason, whose object is not immediately perceived, but
is found through the inferences of reason, such as Ontology and Deontology; the
former considering Being in itself and in its three intrinsic rela tions; the
latter, Being in its ideal perfection, of which morality is the
highestcomplement. Ideology is the first science. It investigates the origin,
the nature, and the validity of ideas, and with Logic establishes the
principle, the method, and the object of philosophic investigation. His
Ideologic and Logical works, containing the fundamental principle of his
system, and the germ of all his doctrines, are as follows: “Sagyio sutt'
Origine delle Idee”, “Rliinnovamento ddla Filog<yia in Italia”, a
polemical work directed against Mamiani, “Introduzione alla Filosojia”, and
“LaLogioa”. Having reduced the problem of knowledge to the intellectual per
ception of reality, Rosmini examines and rejects the solutions given by the principal
philosophers of ancient and modern times. He however accepts the views of Kant
on the essence of that perception, and places it in a synthetic judgment a priori,
the subject of which is given by our sensibility, and the attribute by our mind;
the one being furnished by experience, the other having a transcendental origin.
But against Kant, Rosmini contends that this transcendental element is one and
objective, not plural and subjective. It is not evolved by the activity of the
mind, but although essentially united to it, it has an absolute, objective and independent
existence. This element, the objective form of the mind, to which all Kantian
forms may be reduced, is Being in its ideality (“l’esere ideale”), which contains
no real or ideal determinations, but is ideal activity itself, deprived of all
modes and outlines, the potential intelligibility of all things, native to the
mind, the light of reason, the source of all intelligence, the principle of all
objectivity, and the foundation of all knowledge. Essentially simple, one and
identical for all minds, universal, necessary, immutable and eternal, the idea of
being is the condition of every mental act. It cannot originate from
reflection, abstraction, or consciousness. It has a divine origin. Indeed, it is
the very intelligence of God, permanently communicated to the human mind under the
form of pure ideality. All transcendental ideas, logical principles, identity,
contradiction, substance, causality, the very idea of the Absolute, are
potentially contained within it, and become distinct through the process of
reflection. It is only through the synthesis of sensibility and ideality, that
man intellectually perceives the existence of realities. To think is to judge,
says Rosmini, and to think of reality is to judge that it is actually existent.
To this judgment sensibility gives the matter or the subject, mind the form or
the attribute, by applying to the former the attribute of existence; while the
substantial unity of our nature, at once sentient and intelligent, affords the
basis on which that synthesisi saccomplished. Thus reality, which is subjective,
that is to say, is essentially connected with sensibility, becomes objectively
known through the affirmation of its existence. Thus ideality alone is knowable
per se; while reality acting on our sensibility is perceived only through
ideality. Through the faculty of universalizing, separating the possibility, or
the intelligibility, or the essence (these terms have the same meaning) of the
objects so perceived, the fluid forms universal ideas, which are thus but
specific determinations of the infinite ideality. Logic establishes the truth
of knowledge and the foundation of its certainty. Now truth is aquality of knowledge;
that is to say, our knowledge is true when that which we know exists. Truth is,
accordingly, the same as existence, and as existence is the form of our
intelligence, so our mind, in its very structure, is in the posses sion of
truth. No error is possible on this subject; for the idea of existence is
affirmed in the very act of denying it. So delusion is possible as to its modes;
for that idea has no mode, or determination. So all specific ideas and logical principles
are free from error; for they represent mere possibilities, considered in
themselves and without relation to other things. The same may be said of the
primitive judgment, in which the existence of reality is affirmed. Confining
ourselves to the simple affirmation of the actual existence of the object as it
is given in sensibility, we cannot err; error beginswhen we undertake to affirm
more than we perceive, or when we assert relations between ideas which do not
exist. Error, therefore, is always voluntary, although not always a free act; it
may occur in the reflex, but never in the direct or primitive knowledge. On
these principles, Rosmini rejects the doctrine of Hume and Berkeley as to the
validity of our knowledge. Rosmini's psychological, cosmological, and
ontological ideas are contained in his Psicoloyia, Antropologia, Teodic&i, and TiMsofia. Psychology considers the human
sol in its essence, development, and destiny. A fundamental sensibility
(“sentimento fondamentale”), substantial and primitive, at once corporeal and
spiritual, having two terms, one of which is a force acting in space, the other
ideality itself, constitutes the essence of the soul. It is active and passive;
it is united with internal and external extension, and its body has double relation
to it, of subjectivity and of extra-subjectivity. It is one, simple and spiritual,
and by this quality it I sessentially distinguished from the souls of mere animals.
Having for its aim and end the potential ideality of all things, it will last
as long as this intuition: it is therefore immortal, although its term of
extension will perish with th edisorganization of the body. Life consists in fundamental
sensibility, the result of that double hypo-static relation, in which the
body partakes of the subjective life of the soul, and the soul of the
immortality of the infinite ideal. Cosmology considers the totality and the
order of the universe, its parts and their relations to the whole. As reality
is essentially connected with sensibility, so that the idea of the one involves
the idea of the other, Rosinini admits a primitive sensibility in matter, and
holds, with Campanella, that chemical atoms are endowed with a principle of
life. Hence a hierarchy of all beings exists in nature, from the primitive
elements to the highest organisms, a hierarchy founded on the basis of the
different degrees of sensibility, with which they are endowed. Hence, also,
Rosmini affirms the existenceof a universal soul in nature, much like that
admitted by BRUNO (si veda), whose sphere is indefinite space; a soul one in
itself, yet multiplied and individualized in the numberless existences of the
universe. Spontaneous generation is a natural consequence of the theory of
universal life. Ontology includes Theology; but while the former considers the
essence of Being, its unity and the trinity of its forms in the abstract, the
latter regards it in its substantial existence, as the absolute cause and
finality of the universe. The intelligibility of things, as revealed to the
human mind, being only potential and ideal, cannot properly be called ‘god’,
who is the absolute realization of the infinite essence of being, and therefore
contains in the unity of his eternal substance an infinite intelligibility, as
well as an infinite reality and morality, a reality which is essentially an
infinite sensibility, and a morality which is essentially an infinite love. It is
thereforenot through a natural intuition, but through the process of reasoning
that the mind acquires a knowledge of an existing God. It is by reflecting on
the logical necessity and the immutability which belong to ideality, on the
conditions required by the existence of contingent realities, and the nature of
moral obligation, that, by the process of integration, our reason is led to believe
in the existence of an absolute mind, the source of all intelligibility, reality,and
morality. Thus the idea of god is essentially negative, that is to say, affirms
his existence, but it excludes the comprehension of his nature. Creation is the
result of divine love. The Absolute Being cannot but love being, not only in itself,
but in all the possibilitiesof its mani festations. It is by an nfinitely wise
abstraction that the divine mind separates from it sown intelligibility the
ideal type of the univers; and it is by an infinitely sublime imagination that
it makes it blossom, as a grand reality in the space. Yet the universe is distinct
from the Creator, because it is necessarily limited and finite; and as such
it cannot be confounded with the Infinite and the Absolute, although it is
identi fied with it in its ideal type, which indeed flows from the very bosom
of the divine nature. Thus creation in its ideal essence is God; but it is not God
in its realization, which his essentially finite. In hisTefxii&sa, Rosmini
strives to show that the existence of evil does not stand in contradiction with
an all wise and omnipotent Providence. Man is necessarily limited, and evil is
a necessary consequence of his limitation. Perfect wisdom in its action must necessarily
follow immutable laws, which in their intrinsic development will come in
antagonism with partial forces, and produce discords in the universal harmony.
Such are thelaws of the maximum good to be obtained through the minimum, of action,
the exclusion of all superfluities, the graduation of all things and their
mutual dependence; the universal law of development; the existence of extremes
and their mutual antagonism; finally, the unity and the celerity of the divine
action, which presides over the government of the universe. The problem of the possibility
of a better world has no meaning: God may create numberless worlds, but each of
them will always be best in relation to its own object. As from a box full of
golden coins we can only draw golden coins, so the Creator can only draw from
his own mind thatwhichisbest. Deontology considers the archetypes of perfection
in all spheres, and the means through which they may be realized. Moral
science, including the philosophy of right, is one of its principal branches.
This is treated by Rosmini in the following works: “Princij_rii <lrl!<t
Seiema Mbrale, Storia Cumparativae CriticadeiSwtemiMorali, Antropologia, Trattato
delta Cosdema Morale” FilunojiadelDiritto, OpuscoliMorali”. The essence of
morality consists in the relation of the will to the intrinsic order of being,
as it reveals itself to our mind; hence the supreme moral principle is expressed
in the formula, recognize practically being as you know it, or rdapt your
reverence and love to the degree of worth of the being, and act accordingly. The
idea of being giving us the standard of this recognition, implies the first
moral law, which is tin; identified with the primum notum, the first truth, the
very light of reason. Hence moral good is essentially objective, consisting in the
relation of the will to ideal necessity. Thus morality is essentially distinct
from utility, the former being the cause, the latter the effect; hence
Eudemonology, the science of happiness, cannot be confounded with Ethics, of which
it is only a corollary. The relative worth of beings arises from the degree of
their participation in the Infinite; hence man, whose mind is allied with an
infinite ideality, has an infinite worth. It is through this union, not through
the moralautonomy of the will, as Kant maintains, that man is a “person” and not
a thing; and it is for this reason that actions, to be morally good, must have
for their object an intelligent being. Moral categories are therefore founded
on the gradations of intelligence and virtue, which is but the realization of intelligence.
The duties towards ourselves are derived from the Imperative, which commands
the respect and love of humanity, and we are the standard, by which we estimate
the faculties and the wants of our neighbours. Rights are found in the faculty of
acting according to our will, so far a sprotected by morall aw. Man has an
inalienable right to truth, virtue, and happiness, and his right to liberty and
property is founded on his very personality. Domestic societyis the basis of
all civil organization, and the authority of the State is limited to the
regulation of the modality of right, and never can place itself against rights given
by nature. Indeed its principal objectis the protection of those rights.
Liberal in almost all his doctrines, Rosmini’s ideas on the rights of the
Church betray a confusion of Catholicism with Christianity, indeed with
humanity. They are therefore extravagant as they are indefensible. It is true that
in his Le CinquePlayheildla C/tiesa, Rosmini strives to introduce intotheChurch
such reforms, as would have made it less antagonistic to the spiritof
Christianity. In that work Rosmini urges th enecessity of abolishing the use of
a dead language in the religious services, of raising the standard of clerical education,
of emancipating the episcopate from political ambitions and feudal pretensions,
and, above all, of intrusting the election of bishops to the people and the
clergy, as is required by the very nature of the Church. His essay is placed at
once in the “Index Expnrgatorius”. Rosmini applies also his philosophy to politics
in his filosojiu detta Politica, and to pedagogic science in his Principle Supremo
della Metodologia. Rosmini is also the author of Eponizione Critica della
Filosojia di Aristetele, “Gioberti e il Panteismo”, “Opuscoli Filosofi” and of
several volumes of correspondence. A complete edition
of Rosmlni's works has been published in Milan and inTurin. His posthumous work
published in Turin under the editorship of his disciple Paoli. ARJsumiof his system,
written by himself, may be found in the Storia universale di O. C'antil, in its
documentary part. Rosmini’s philosophy is early introduced into the
universities and colleges of Piedmont, through the labours of Sciolla, Corte and
Tarditi, the chief professors in the philosophical faculty at Turin. The two first
embody the doctrines of Rosmini in their text-books of mental and moral
philosophy, while the third, in his “Lettere di un Rosminiano”, undertakes to
refute the objections which Gioberti advances against that philosophy. It was this
work, which gives Gioberti occasion to publish his voluminous essay on SERBATI
(si veda). Meanwhile, Rosmini’s doctrines extend to the schools of Lombardy,
owing to the essays of Pestalozza. whose Element! di KUo-nyfiii, contain the best
exposition of Rosminianism. Pestalozza is also the author of “Difesa delle Dottrine
di Rosmini” and LuMenie di Rosmini, To the same School belong Manzoni, the
author of the “Promessi Sposi” who, in his Dialogo »>j2T /»- venzwne,
applies the Rosminian principles to the art of composition; Tommaseo, the
author of the “Dizionario Estetico”, the “Dizionario dei Sinonimi”, and of
several educational works, in his Espoxizione del Sistema Filosofico di
Rosmini, A. Rosmini. Studi Filosofici” and “Studi critici”. G. Cavour. the
brother of the statesman of that name, in his Fragment* Phitosopluquts; Bonghi,
translator of several works of Plato and Aristotle, and author of “Compendio di
Logica”, who gives an exposition of philosophical discussions held with Rosmini
in his Le Sresiane; Rayneri, in his “Primi Principii di Metodica”, and “Dlla
Pedagogia”; Berti, the author of “La Vita di Bruno”, Garelli, in his “Sulla
Filosofia Morale” and in “Biografia di Rosmini”, Villa, in his “Kant e Rosmini”;
Peyretti, in his “Ekmenti di FUosofui” and “Saggio di Logiea generate”; B. Monti, in his “Del
Fondamento, Progresso, e Sistema delle Conoteeme Umnne”; Imbriani, in his Sul
Fautsto di Goethe” and/Mr Organism)poeticio e delta Poetica popolare Itliana”, Minghetti,
the statesman and colleague of Cavour, whose work, Dell’Economia Publica, bears
the traces of the influence of Rosmini's doctrines; Allievo, in his “Jlegdinnismo,
la Scienza e hi Vita”, and P. Paganini, in his “Bella Natura delle Idee secondo
Platone”; “Considerazumi sulle profonde armonie della Filosofia Naturale”, tkiggio
Cosmologleo sullo fypazin. and Stiggio sopra S.Tommaso e il Rosmini. To this classification
may be referred Les Principes de Philosophic, of Caluso. ptranslated into Italian
by P.Corte,an published with notes of Rosmini. Corte is the author of “EkmentidiFilosqfla”, embracing logical, metaphysical,
and ethical sciences. He publishes also Anthologia ex M. T. Cicerone and L. A.
Seneca in usum Philiw/phi-r Studiosorumconcinnaia,The doctrine of Rosmini on the
nature of originalsin, as it was expressed in his Trattato delta C'oscienza”, having
been violently attacked by several ecclesiastical writers belonging to the Order
of the Jesuits, it is ablydefended by eminent theologians of the Catholic
Church, Bertolozzi, Fantozzi, Pagani. and by Gastaldi, a collegiate doctor of
divinity at Turin, and Archbishop of that See. On Rosmini's System, see
further.— Leydel, in “Zeitschrift f. Philosophic, Annales de Philos.
Chretiennr, Bonnetty, ed. Paris, on Rosmini and the decree of the Index. Also
same Annaks, Bartholmcss, Hist. critique des Doctrines Religieuses, Paris, Lockhard, “Life of Rosmini”, Lond, Ferri, op.
cit., and Ferrari in the Revue des Deux Monde. Next comes Ontologism. The ontologic
school places the "primum philosoophicum" not in simple ideal
existence, but in absolute reality, the cause of all things as well as theprinciple
of all knowledge. This doctrine, held by St. Augustine and Fidanza, and revived
by Malebranche, is developed under a new form by Gioberti. Gioberti was born in
Turin, receives his education in that city, and early becomes a priest.
Arrested as a sympathiser with the revolutionar schemes of Mazzini, he is
condemned to exile.While in France and Belgium he devotes himself to the work
of Italian regeneration, and endeavours to attach the clergy to this cause. In
his “Primato Morale e Civile degli Italiani” Gioberti urges upon the papacy the
necessity of placing itself at the head of the liberal movement, and becoming
the champion of Italian nationality and the centre of European civilization. In
his Prlegomeni, and “Il Jesuita Moderno”, Gioberti labours o crush the opposition
with which his views are received by the reactionary party of the Church and
exposes the dangers of its policy. With th eaccession of Pius IX, and the subsequent establishment of
constitutional governments in the Peninsula, Gioberti’s ideas seem to have
triumphed. Gioberti returns to Italy and enters at once into public life,
accepting a seat in the Parliament and in the Cabinet of Piedmont, where he
soon becomes a ruling spirit. After the battle of Novara he is sent to Paris as
ambassador, in the hope of obtaining aid for the national cause. Unable to accomplish
his mission, Gioberti resigns his office, and remaining in that city a voluntary
exile, he again devotes himself to philosophical studies. The philosophy of
Gioberti is embodied in the following works: “La Teoria del Supra-naturale”,
“Introduzione allo Studio della Filosofia”, “Trattato del Buono”, “Trattato del
Bello”, “Errori Filosofici di Rosmini”. Philosophy, according
to Gioberti, has long since ceased to exist; the last genuine philosophers are
Leibnitz, Malebranche, and Vico. By substituting psychologic for the ontologic
method and principles, Descartes renders all genuine philosophic development
impossible. Descartes does in regard to philosophy what Luther does in regard
to religion, by substituting private judgment for the authority of the Church.
Sensualism, subjectivism, scepticism, materialism and atheism are the
legitimate fruits of the doctrine of Descartes. To do away with these errors is
theobject of true philosophy. Rosmini's theory cannot attain it; for it is
founded on a psychologic process, assumes as a principle of knowledge a pure
abstraction, and thus falls into the very errors which it proposes to combat.
Through ideality, the mind cannot reach reality, nor from the fact of
consciousness can it ascend to universal and necessary ideas. We must therefore
invert the process, and look both for method and principles not in the subject,
but in the object. The object is the idea in its absolute reality, immanently
present to the mind under the form of a synthetic judgment, which comprehends
in itself all being and knowledge. This judgment, as it is produced through
reflection, finds its expres sion in the ideal formula, “Ens creat
existentias,” Being create existences — the supreme principle of Ontology and of
Philosophy. Through the intuition of this principle, mind is in possession at
once of the real and the ideal; for the first member of the formula (the “Ens”)
contains the object, Being, the absolute idea as well as the absolute substance
and cause; the second (“Existences”) gives the organic multiplicity of contingent
substances and causes and relative ideas; the third, The Creative Act, expresses
the relation existing between the absolute and the relative, the unconditional
and the conditional, and the production of real and ideal existences from the Absolute.
But although this intuition gives the power of intelligence to the mind, it is
in itself not yet an act of knowledge; as long as it is not reproduced by the mind,
it remains in a latent or germinal condition. It is only by a reflex judgment that
we affirm the contents of intuition; coming to the consciousness of its
elements, we become acquainted with their mutual bearing and relations. This reproduction
therefore is made through ontok>gi«ilreflection, by which the mind, so to
say, reflects itself upon the object, and through which alone it is capable of acquiring
the knowledge of that ideal organism, which is expressed in the intuition. Thus
the ontological method is the only true philosophical process, and stands in
opposition to the psychological method, which is founded on psychological
reflection, through which the mind turns its attention, not upon the object, but
upon itself. But to direct its reflection upon the object of its intuition, the
mind needs the stimulus of *language*, through which it may determine and limit
the object for its comprehension. Hence the necessity of a first divine
revelation, which by language supplies the instrument of our reflection, and
constitutes that relation which necessarily exists between the idea itself, and
the idea as it manifests itself to our rmind. Fo ralthough the idea in itself
is one and indivisible, in reference to the human mind it has two sides: the one
which is intelligible, the other incomprehensible— thus being antithetic towards
each other, and giving rise to all the apparent antinomies between Science and
Religion. The faculty of super-intelligence, which is inherent in all finite
minds, consists in the sense which reveals to the mind its own limitations, as to
the comprehension of theidea. It is through revelation that the mind acquires
some positive knowledge of the superi-ntelligibility of the idea, although
always limited and clouded in mystery. Science, being the reproduction of the
ideal formula, must therefore be divided into two branches, corresponding to
the intelligibility and the super-intelligibility of the idea;— the one
constituting the Rational Sciences, the other the Super-Rational, the last
being superior to the former from their more extensive comprehension of the
idea through positive revelation. The genesis of sciences from the ideal formula
is as follows: " Jfiia" or the subject of the formula, gives Ontology
and Theology. The copula (creat) demands a science which shall com prise the
double relation between “ens” and existences, in both an ascending and a
descending method. The descending process (from Jieuifj to faiatenees) originates
the science of time and space, or Mathe matics. The ascending (from Existences
to Being) the science of the true, the good, and the beautiful, that is, Logic,
Ethics, and AEsthetics. The predicate (Existences) gives rise to the spiritual
and material sciences. Oon the one side Psychology and Cosmology, on the other,
physical Science in its various branches. The super-natural sciences follow the
same division. As to the validity of the knowledge arising from this formula, its
first member expresses its own absolute reality and necessity. The intuitive
judgment in which this reality and necessity are pronounced, viz.. '"En*
*'•*," and ^Ens is necessary" do not originate in the human mind, but
are contained in the idea itself, while the mind in its primitive intuition
only listens to them — repeating them in its succeeding reflex judgments. So
that the validity of those judgments is not affected by the subjectivity of the
mind. Thus is it with the funda mental ideas of necessity, possibility, and
existence. The first being the relation of the En sto itself; the second the
relation of the necessary to the existing; and the third the relation of
possibility to necessity. To these ideas correspond three great realities. To thefirst, the
Absolute reality, God. To the second, infinite or continuous m agnitude, pure
time and pure space. To the third, actual and discrete magnitude, the universe an
dits contents. Time and space are ideas, at once pure and empirical, necessary
and contingent. As pure and necessary, they may be conceived as a circular
expansion growing out of a single centre and extending to the infinite; by this
centre, Ens (Being) is symbolized. As contingent and empirical, they may be
represented by a circumference which projects from the centre and develops in
successive degrees. In this projective development, we have the finite reality,
multiple and contingent in itself, but one and necessary, if considered as
existing in the central point from which it emerges. For existences have a necessary
relation to the Ens, and it is only in that relation that it is possible to
know them. The very word existences implies their derivation from the Absolute
reality. But the nature of that derivation cannot be reached through reasoning.
It manifests itself in the intuition, in which it is revealed in the creative
act. By considering the two extreme terms of the formula out of the relation of
its copula, they become identified, and philosophy at once falls into Pantheism.
Thus the creative act is the only basis of our knowledge of contingent existences.
It is by bringing the phenomenal elements of perception into their relations to
creative activity that the sensible becomes intelligible, and the
individualization is of the idea are brought in the concrete into our minds.
And as our own ideas are formed in witnessing the creative act, it follows that
that they may be considered as copies of the divine idea, created and limited,
yet stamped with the character of a divine origin. Thus the ideal formula
considered in relation to the universe becomes transformed into these other
formulas. The one creates the multiple. The multiple returns to the one. These
two formulas express the two cycles of creative development, viz., the one, by
virtue of which existences descend from Ens; the other, by which they return to
I -- a double movement, which is accomplished in the very bosom of the ens
itself, at once the efficient and the final cause of the universe. The first cycle,
however, is entirely divine, while the second is divine and human, because in
it human powers are brought into play. In the Garden of Eden ther&- tiini
of the mind to its Creator is perfect; reason predominant over passion, man's
reflection was in perfect accord with the organic intui tion; but theFallalteredthatorder,andman
puthimselfmoreorless intooppositionwiththeformula. Ileucetheerrorsofancient
theogonies and Mythologies, and their Pantheistic and Uualistic Philosophies.
Thus the Bralnuinicand Buddhistic doctrinesoftheEast absorbed the universe and
man himself in the first member of the formula; while the philosophical systems
of the Greeks reduced everything; to the third member, with the exception of
Pythagoreanism and Platonism, in which the condition of its organic order is
substantially preserved. Christianity restores that order through the
miraculous intervention by which God, becoming man, brings the human race back
to its primitive condition. In such a dispensation, the tradition which contains
the organic structure of the fomula was placed in the keeping of the Church; hence
its infallibility, and its right to preside over Theology, as well as the whole
development of Science. The idea as expressed in the formula becomes, in its
application to the will, the supreme moral law, the basis of Ethics. While its first
and second terms give us the idea of moral good, its first cause, law and
obligation, the third term supplies the moral agent, and contains the conditions
of moral development. It is through his free will that man can copy the creative
act by placing himself in accord with the will of God, as manifested in moral law.
Hence, moral law partakes of the character of absolute reality; it is
objective, apodeictic, and religious, because it is founded on the very
relation of God to the human will. From this relation arises an absolute right
in the Creator, to which an absolute duty in man corresponds, the source of all
the relative duties and rights, which spring from his relation to his fellow-creatures.
It is through this accord of the human with the divine will, that man attains
happiness, consisting in the voluntary union of his intellectual nature with the
divine. The supreme formula of ethics is this: Being creates moral good through
the free-will of man. Fom this two others follow, corresponding with the two
cycles of creation. The first: that free will produces virtue by the sacrifice
of passion to law. Second, that virtue produces happiness by the reconciliation
of passion to law. AEsthetic science likewise finds its principles in the ideal
formula. Creation, with the ideas of time, space, and force, gives us the idea
of the sublime, while Exigences, that is to say. the real in its relation to
the idea, contain the elements of the beautiful. Thus, as existences are
produced arid contained in the creative act, so the sublime creates and contains
the beautiful. Hence the formula, being creates the beautiful through the sublime.
The two ideas are co-related. They both consist in the union of the intelligible
with an imaginative element, but while, in the sublime, one element
predominates over the other, in the beautiful the harmony of the two is preserved.
Yet the two ideas are subject to the cycles already noticed in the development
of the formula: The Sublime creates the Beautiful, and the Beautiful returns to th eSublime. In the
history of art the sublime precedes the beautiful. The temple and the epic poem
are the oldest forms of art. The super-intelligibility of the idea gives rise to
th emarvellons, which, expressing itself in language, poetry, painting, and
music, becomes an element of AEsthetics. The first arts resting in the organic
structure of formula, it follows that only in orthodoxy can the full realization
of beauty be found. Heterodoxy, altering more or less that structure,
introduces an intrinsic disorder into the lield of AEsthetics, as well as into
that of science, morality, and religion. Gioberti at the time of his death was
preparing other works, in which his idea sseem to have undergone considerable
change. Imperfect and fragmentary as they are left, they were published under the
editorship of his friend Massari, and bear the follow ing titles, “La
Protologla”; “La Filosofia della Rivelazione”, “La Itifor-ma detta Chiesa. A
tendency to rationalism blended with Hegelian transcendentalism appears in
those works, although ostensibly founded on the idealformula ofthen'rst philosophy.
The idea here becomes the absolute thought, which creates by its very act of
thinking. Sensibility is thought undeveloped, as reason is thought developed;
and even the incomprehensible is but thought undeveloped, which becomes intelligible
through development. Language as the instrument of reflexion plays still a
conspicuous part in the woof of the absolute thought, as wrought out in
creation, but it has become a natural product: and even of supernatural
revelation itissaid, that it may be considered natural, as soon as it is received
into th emind. It is through the creative act that absolute thought appears in
the development of Nature and Mind, a development which proceeds under the logical
form of a sorites, the principle of which is inexhaustible, the progress continuous.
The members of this sorites are prop»>-r which rest on categories, or fundamental
ideas produced by the absolute thought in its union with the mind, and the
tinners which it creates. In the absolute, the categories are one and in<!
idea, but become, multiple through the creative act. These are < and trine.
The first express the opposite while the last reconcile the oppositions of the former.
The absolute thought is the concrete and supreme Category, out of which all
others receive existence through its creative activity. An existence which is
developed, according to a dialectic movement. The organic structure of the
Categories, which embraces the relations between the terms of each dual one,
and the relations between their couples, is moulded on the ideal formula.
Pantheism does not consist, in a substantial synthesis of God and the universe,
but in the confusion of the finite and the infinite, and of the different modes
of existence which belong to them. God is infinite,both actually and
potentially. The world is potentially infinite, but actually finite. With Cusa
and Giordano lining it may properly be said, that the universe is a potential
God or a limited or contracted God. Hence,God and the universe are one in the
infinite reality of the first, and in the infinite potentiality of the second; for
the potentiality of the universe exists in God. As to its finitude, it is given
as a term of the creative act; it is a primitive fact which is presupposed by
all mental acts, which therefore cannot be reduced to other categories and thus
to the unity of the absolute. Finite realities, however, have a double relation
to the absolute, which is determined by the metexis and the mimesis. Through
metexis they are phenomenal copies of the divine ideas.. Through the mimesis
they participate in the divine essence, the condition of their existence. The
change in Gioberti's metaphysical ideas manifests itself in his thoughts in relation
to the Church. Catholic philosophy rests nolonger on the authority of an
ecclesiastical organization, but on the universality and continuity of human
thought, in the history of mental evolution. Religion is no longer superior to philosophy;
but it is philosophy itself, enveloped in myths and symbols, so as to bring it
to the intelligence of the common people. All religions are effects of the
creativeact, having different degrees of moral value. Christianity, however, is
the complement of all religious forms, and Christ is the Pan-Idea, in which the
realization of the moral type fully corresponds its inner excellence.
Mysteries:ui lmiracles are facts, whichcannot considered as complete. Their
value consists in their relation to the;i!» phenomena which containtin; doctrinesof
Palingenesis. No can live which dm-s not follow the laws of ideal development;
•i i verse would perish, the moment it should cease to be subchange. The
modification introduced in his political doctrine, Gioberti himself
published a year before his death, in his “Rinnocamento Civile(VItalia”, where the
papacy no longer appears as the natural support of Italian regeneration, but as
its greatest obstacle. In Lois work, by far the best of all his voluminous
productions, Gioberti gives a new programme to Italian patriots; placing the
national cause under the hegemony of the king of Piedmont, he urges his country
men to rally around that throne, the only hope of the Peninsula. This
programme, carried out to the letter, brings the Italian States under one
national government, and finally made Rome the capital of th enation. No statesman,with
the exception of Cavour, has ever exerted for a time so great influence on the affairs
of Italy as Gioberti. His name is preserved in honuor among his countrymen for
the purity of his patriotism, the loftiness of his aspirations, and the
liberality of his views, rather than for the solidity and the permanent value of
hi sphilosophy. On the political relations o fGioberti to Cavour, cf. Life,
Character, and Policy of Count Cavour, B., New York. As a philosopher,
Gioberti does not succeed in forming a large school, although the following
writers doubtless derive their inspirations from his works: Fomari, “Dell'
Armonia Universale, Lezioni suW arte della parata”, G. Eomano, aJesuit, LaScknzadelTuomointerno«ituoirapporticollaNaturaeconDio;
“Elementi di Filosofi"-; Gioanni, Principii della Filosofia Prima, Micrti,
o dei- VEiaereUno e Reale”, Miceli o l'Apologia del Sistema” N. Garzilli, Saggioatti
rn]ypor(idella Formula idealeeoiproblemi importanti della Filosofia”, Acquisto,
“Sistema della Scienza universale”; “Elementi di Filosofia fondamentale”; “Corso
di Filosofia morale”; Corso di Diritto naturale”; “Necessità dtW autorità e
della legge”; “Saggio sulla- naturae sulla genesi del Diritto di proprietà,
Trattato(fIdeologia. In the United States of America. Gioberti finds a devoted
interpreter in Brownson, whose able exposition of the doctrine contained in the
ideal formula was published in in the Review bearing his name. To the
Ontological School, although independent of Gioberti, belong Bertóni, Idee di una
Filosofia della Vita, Questione Religiosa,;and La Filosofia Greca prima di
Socrate”; Centofanti, “Delia Filosofia detta Storia”; A. Conti, “Storia della Filosofia”;
“Evidenza, Amore e Fede, Dio e il male”; J. Puecinotti, Serilti Storici e
Filosofici, Storia della Medicina”, Baldacchini, Trattato sullo Scetticismo; La
Filosofia dopo Kant”; Corleo, Filosofia vnirermle”; Mangeri. Corso di Filosofia
e Sistema Pitico-Ontologico”; Labranca, Lezioni di Filosofia razionale, Mora
and Lavarino, in their Enciclopedia Scientifica, Turbiglio,” L'impero della
Logica” and “Analisi Storica delle FUo-vfie di Ix-rte e Leibnizio. On Gioberti, cf. h. Ferri, and R Mariano, op. cit.; Seydel in Zeit-
schrift fi Pftilosophie, C. B. Smyth, Christian Metaphysicians, Lond. Prominent
among the Ontologists is Mamiani. He was born in Pesaro. Mamiani joins the
revolutionary movement of the Romagnas, but was arrested and condemned to exile.
He takes up his residence in Paris, where he is engaged in literary and
philosophical pursuits. He returns to Italy, and gives his support to the liberal
reforms inaugurated by Pius IX. When the Pope abandons Rome, Mamiani, as a
member of the Constituent Assembly, opposes the proclamation of the Republic,
as contrary to the interest of the national cause. With the restoration of the papal
power by the aid of France, Mamiani retires to Piedmont, where he is elected
member of Parliament and appointed professor of philosophy at Turin. He is a staunch
supporter of the policy of Cavour, under whose administration he holds
successively the offices of minister of Public Instruction and that of minister
to Greece. He is member of the Senate and professor of the philosophy of
history atRome. In the early part of his philosophical career, represented by
his “Del RintwvameiUsi dtW antica Filusojw italiana”, Mamiaui holds the
doctrine of Empiricism founded on psychological investigations, in which he
strives to combine experience with reason. Mamiani maintainsthat the principal
question of philosophy is that of method; and that this can only be found in experience
and nature. It is this method which prevails among the philosophers of the
Renaissance, and to which science is indebted for its great achievements,
particularly through the teachings and the example of Galilei. This essay calls
forth the work of Rosmini, II Itinnovamento, etc., in which he controverts some
of Mamiani's statements, and tries to show that the experimental method alone
cannot philosophically reconstruct the science of Nature and Mind. Mamiani himself
soon becomes convinced of this, and in his works “Discorso sull’Ontologia e sul
Mt-todo” and Dialoghi di Sciema 1'riina”, he endeavours to find a philosophical
basis in common sense. In these essays appears for the first time his doctrine
on immediate perception as the only foundation of the knowledge of reality. The
last phase of his doctrine is containedin his “Confessioni di un Metafisico”.
It is divided into two parts: Ontology and Cosmology. In the first, Mamiani considers
theAbsolute, ideas, natural theology, and the creative act; in the second, the
finite, its relation to the Infinite, the co-ordinatiou of nature's means,
life, finality, and progress in the universe. Mamiani’s fundamental doctrines are
as follows. The knowledge of the real and the ideal is effected through two
faculties essentially distinct, although both acting in the subjective unity of
the mind: perception and intellection. The first does not consist in a
syntheticjudgment a priori, as Rosmini and GIOBERTI (si veda) hold after Kant,
but in a direct and immediate relation of the mind to finite realities, as Reid
and Galuppi maintains, although Reid and Galuppi overlook its intellectual
character. Intellection consists in the relation of the mind to ideas; and, as
these have an essential connection with Absolute reality, the mind may be said to
possess an intrinsic relation to the "entia realissima"— the most real
being. Ideas indeed are intellectual *symbols* of the Absolute reality in its
relation of causality; and they are supplied by the intellective faculty, when
the mind apprehends their realizations through perception. Tims our intelligence
attains to Absolute reality through the intermedium of ideal representations,
but it does not penetrate so far as to reach its essence; it remains on its surface.
A similar process occurs in perception, through which the mind reaches the
object given in sensibility, not in essence, but through the medium of sensation.
But while our ideas are mere *representative emblems* -- simbolo ed embolo -- in
the divine mind they are real objects in themselves. They are identical with
the absolute intelligibility, the possibility, the reason of all things. They
are therefore the foundation of all Unite realities, their common attributes
and final perfection. They are indeed the efficient and final causes of the
world, manifesting themselves under the triple relation of the true, the good, and
the beautiful. Hence our ideas, as *representations* and determinations of the
divine causality, are essentially objective and immutable representations, and
determinations of eternal truth. It follows that the existence of God is
founded on the very nature of primitive intuition, which includes the eternal
substantiality of truth, and that its demonstration a priori is a simple
process of deduction from the principle of identity. It follows also that every
ideal relation contains an eternal truth, to which an intelligible reality in
God corresponds. It is therefore independent of the human mind. Ideas however are
not innate. Threy originate in finite reality, from which they receive their
determinations, and have a necessary reference to absolute reality through
their *representative* character. It is only through reflection that the minddisc.
in itself its relation both to finite reality, contained in internal and
external perception, and to infinite reality, contained in the Infinity.
Creation is the result of the infinite good, which of necessity tends to
communicate itself. The idea of a God infinitely good implies the idea of a
creation, founded on the greatest good, as its outward manifestation and
ultimate end. This manifestation is brought forth by an infinite power, and an
infinite wisdom, under the forms of the laws of causality and finality. From the
very nature of the finite, and its opposition to the infinite, arises the
immense cosmic diversity. Hence the universe cannot be properly represented as
a sphere; it is rather to be regarded as a system of numberless spheres, moving
concentrically in various directions, and forming that universal harmonv, which
is the highest expression of the infinite good. As the cosmic diversity is
equal to its possibility, it follows that there is only one idea of the
universe in the divine mind as well as in the universe itself, although in a
continuous generation and development. The idea of a better world is impossible;
because the idea of the universe, which is in the act of developing, contains already
all possibilities. Evil is inherent in the finite; but it diminishes, as the
finite more and more approaches the infinite, and in this progressive union of
the one with the other lies the ultimate end of creation. In the achievement of
this end, the divine causality creates and determines the whole, the divine
intelligence pre-arranges the whole, while nature produces the whole under the
influence of that causality and intelligence. The finite is an aggregate of
monads or forces, which are brought together by their mutual attraction; thus a
communication arises between those, which have a diameter of similarity, a
participation between the diverse ones, and a co-ordination of all. Hence
arises the cosmic system, with its great divisions of nature, life, and mind.
Nature reveals itself first in the stellar order, in the ether in connection
with light, heat, and electricity, and in the order of chemical compounds, such
as water and twater. In the elaboration of the syntheses preparatory to the
final ones, the divine art is revealed in that wise co-ordination of means
which is produced by the union and separation, the action and reaction of
homogeneous, as well as heterogenons forces. But it is only in life (vita) that
finality (fine) appears, for life alone contains the possibility of receiving
the communication of JJIXK], which is the essence and the object of creation.
Life is the development through a suitable organization of the individual, in
reference to its participation in the good. At its lowest degree it is nothing but
a chemical compound – the amoeba --, enclosed in a cellular envelope and capable
of reproducing itself. At its highest point, life is an intellectual and
volitional activity which tends to an absolute object, and to this end co-ordinates
all the means at its disposal. Between the two extremes there are numberless
degrees of vital activity, each developing in accordance with its own end.
Vegetation, animality, and humanity or spirituality mark the principal degrees
in the scale of life. In these three manifestations, life is a specific force.
Bflchner and other Scientists, who give to matter the power of producing life,
deny the existence of this specific force, and attribute it to a cause, which
in itself has not the elements necessary to its development. So Darwin's theory
of the genesis of species involves the negation of the objective reality of the
idea or specific essence, containing a substantial fixedness of character and
form, and the power of producing itself within the limits of its own nature. It
confounds accidental varieties with substantial transformations, and artificial
means with natural processes. It is contrary to all historical experience, and
the constant fact of the sterility of hybrids. It stands in contradiction with
itself in the bearing of the two laws of the struggle for life, and natural
selection, which will restrict rather than widen the limits of development, and
keep the species within their own boundaries, rather than expand them into new
forms and modes of existence. The order of life in relation to the general end
of creation begins with plants. In plants, the living force has the specific
value of being the organ for life, or rather it is the laboratory in which its
elements are prepared. This passes over into animality, which has a real
relation of finality, although limited and relative, as are its senses and
instincts, through which it enjoys participation in the divine good. Man (Homo
sapiens sapiens) alone, whose life is partly the growth of vegetation and animality,
is an absolute finality, for he alone has a life, through which he can know and
act in accordance with the absolute. The law of indefinite progress is
universal and necessary, founded as it is in the very object of creation, in
the divine goodness, and the progressive union of the finite with the infinite.
This law, which embraces all the universe, is still more apparent in the development
of mankind. But in order that it may be verified in history, its application
must comprehend humanity as an organic and spiritual unit. It would fail if
applied to an isolated nation, or measured by the invariable Roman type, as Vico
insists. To see the full bearing of this law, mankind must be regarded in the
multitude of its nationalities, in the variety of their character, in the
multiplicity of the elements and of the ages of civilization. The law itself
must he viewed in its different aspects, and in the agencies which are at work to
carry it ont in history; such as the influence of a national aristocracy, the
subordination of lower to higher forms of civilization, the mingling of the
Italian three tribes, and the expansion of social forces, through which a kind
of polarity among the tree tribes is created. All these and other causes, while
they preserve the spiritual unity of mankind, maintain its growth and secure
its general advancement. Besides the works already mentioned, Mamiani writes also
“Meditazi- oniCarte&iane, and “Di un
Nuovo Diritto Europe”, in which he strives to establish international right on a
philosophical basis. In his “Iiinaacimento Cattolico”, Mamiani contemplates the
possibility of a reform in the Catholic Church, that should reconcile it with
the spirit of modern times. Mamiani is also the author of “Teoria
dclla Religions e dello Stato, e dei suoi raj/porti speciali con Roma e colle
Nazioni Cattoliche”, “Sei Lettere a Rosmini”, “Saggi di Filosofia Civile” and
“Saggi Politici”. Among the philosophers who have treated of Mamiani's
philosophy, the more prominent are Ferri, the author of the “Esmi sar CHUtoire
de la Philosophic en Ilalie au 19ine Steele”; Debrit, “Histoire de» Doctrine*
Philosophiqves daiu Vltalie Con- temporaine”. These two philosophers,
particularly the first, give a complete survey of the principal systems of
contemporary philosophy in Italy.) See also Lavarino, “La Logica e la Filosofia
di Mamiani” and Fiorentino, several articles in the Rivista di Bologna, under
the title of Positivismo e Platonismo in Italia; Brentazzoli, the author of “Di
uri1 ultcriore e deflnitico arplicamento della Filosofia Seokxttka”; Tagliaferri,
who writes on Mamiani's theory, and Bonatti, who discusses the ontological
argument of the existence of God as presented by Mamiani in Bonatti iand
Mamiani, Bonatelli is also the author of “La Concienza”, and of a sketch of
Italian philosophy published in the “Zeituchrift fiir Philorphie und Philosophische
Kritik” in Halle. To the Ontologic classification may also be reduced the “Dialoghi
Politico-Filosofici” di Buscarini; and “Sopra la Filosofia del Diritto Publico Interno
di L.C. di Montagnini; also,1stFUomfiadette Scuote Italiane, a philosophical review
supported by Mamiani, Berti, Bonghi, Barzellotti, and other members of an
association recently established in Rome for the promotion of philosophical
studies; Oerdil, a weekly periodical published in Turin, under the editorship
of Allievo, chiefly intended to reconcile philosophy with Christianity; and Il Campo
della FUosoflItaUani, a philosophical periodical published in Naples, and
edited by Milone. Next is Absolute Idealism or Hegelianism. Vera is the
recognized head of the Hegelian School in Italy. He was born in Amelia, a city
of Umbria, and early goes to Paris,
where he completed his education. Having spent some years in Switzerland,
he returned to Paris, and is appointed professor of philosophy in several colleges connected with the University of
France. He rreturns to Italy, where he is at once made professor of philosophy
at the Royal Academy of Milan. He ransfers to the University of Naples, where
he sholds the professorship of the history of philosophy and the philosophy of
history. Vera’s works are devoted to the interpretation and application of the
Hegelian pliilosophy.They include— ProW.me dela Certitude; VHcgiUanisme et la
Philosophit. Melanges Philono- phiques; Essais de Philosophic Hegelienr.e,
1804; Introduction a la Philasrqkfc cCHegel, Logique d Hegel; Philo»,plue de la
Nature d'Hegel; Phi losophic de CEsprit (VHegel; Philosophic de la Heligion
<THegel; Platonis Aristattiu el Hegelii de medio termino Doctrina; Inquiry
into Speculative and Experimental.Se»>v««. Lond; “Lezioni sulla filosofia
delta storia”; PrUusiovi alla Storia della Filosofia (epoca Socratica), ed alla
Filosofia delta -Storia; II Problema deff Avm-'iito; II Cataitr e la libera
Chiesa in Ubero Statot in which the doctrine of the separation of the Church
from the Stateheld by Cavour is opposed on philosophical and political grounds.
He also translated into English the History of Heligion and of the Christian
Church by Bretschneider, London. Vera not only interprets and expounds. Hegel's
philosophy, but develops it and expresses it in a more intelligible form, thus
rendering it accessible to students not familiar with Hegelian terminology. In his
Introduction dla Philosophica"Hegel he rejects the Trinity of being, thought,
and motion which Trendelenburg proposes to substitute to the Hegelian trinity of
being (thesis), not being (antithesis) and becoming (synthesis). Vera also
confutes French Eclecticism and the materialistic theories of Bilchner and
Moleschott. In his Inquiry into Spcndatice and Experimental Science, Vera refutes
the doctrines of Bacon, Locke, and other representatives of Empiricism. Vera’s
labours have been highly praised by eminent German Hegelians, among whom is Eoeenkranz in
"Der Gedanke" and in his Wissenschaft iter hyifchc Idee. See also an article
of Saisset in the ItecuedtsDeuxMonde. Among other Hegelians in Italy
maybementioned Spaveuta.who. in his “Filosofia di Gioberti” aims to show the
connection of the doctrines of this philosopher with the ideas of Hegel. Spaventa is
also the author of Introduzione alle Lezioni di Filosofia. Principii di
Filosofia, Saggi di Critiea filosofica, politca e religiata, Filosofia di Kant e
sua relatione colla filosofia Italiana. D H T intmoraW.ildel Vanimavmana;ltiiflcssionimlSodalitmoeComunismo.
Herebe longs also Fr. Fiorentino, the author of Pietro Pomponazzi— Ttlesio, and
Stvdj Stnriei sullaScuoladiBolognaep"PadomalSecolo16°. He also wrote on Positivism and Platonium in Italy (Rivista di Bologna).
Miriano
wrote La Philomphie Contemporaine en Italie; Lasalle e il sua Ernclito, II
Ilisnrgimcn Italiano secondo i principii della Filosofia della Storia di Hegel,
Il Problema Rdigioso in Italia. Among those who have
devoted themselves to the application of the Hegelian doctrine to the special branches
of science may be mentioned Meis, naturalist and physiologist; Sanctis, Mareelli,
Delzio, Salvetti, Gatti, Vitto, Camerim, and Trani, who applied it particularly
to literary and historical criticism, and to political, juridical and
aathetical sciences. Next is Scholasticism. The philosophical development of Italian philosophy is distinguished by its
national character, and the decided impulse it has given to the reconstruction
of Italy, on the basis of independence and liberty. An exception to this general
tendency is to be found in the writers who, labouring in the interests of the
Church, h a vestr iventore-establish Scholasticism, and with its a cerdotal domination
over national thought. Ventura is the principal representative of this School.
He was born in Palermo, and early becomes a amember of the Order of the
Theatins. He is soon elected Superior-General of the Order, and holds a high
position in the government of the Church. He is one of the most prominent supporters
of the reforms inaugurated by Pius IX.
In his eulogy on O'Connell, in his funeral oration on the victims of the revolution
of Vienna, and in his sermons delivered in the Chapel of the Tuileries, in
Paris, he continues to show himself a warm champion of popular rights. In his philosophical
works, howover, he constantly maintains the fundamental idea of scholasticism,
placing the authorityof the Church above reason and human conscience, indeed above
all sovereignty. Holding that philosophy was buta deduction from revelation, he asserts that the
ultimate criterion of truth lies in that authority. It is true, Ventura says, that
ideas originate in sensations, and in the subsequent images which are left by
them in the mind; but ideas have no value if not incorporated in language,
which is itself derived from revelation. Philosophy reaches its culminating
point in Aquino, and nothing is left to philosophers but to study, and to expound
the doctrines of that philosopher. Ventura is the author
of the following works: De Mctlwdo Philosophandi, De la Vraie et de la Fausse
Philosophie; La Tradition et Us Semipelagiens de la Philosophie, La Raison Philosophique
et Catholique, La Phil/jxophie Chretienne, Of. Le Pere Ventura et la Philosophie,
par Clis.deRemusatinLaRevuedesDeux Mondes,Fevrier;also,EtudesMoralesetLitteraircsparA.de
Broglie, SeealsoonVentura, Drownson's Quarterly Review, and Annates de
Philosophie Chretienne, Paris. To the same school belongs
Liberatore, a Jesuit, the author of Trwtitutlines Phllosophiaoe, Sitjjio aulta
Conoscenza Intellettuale, EthicaetJusNatural,Compendium LogicaletJfe-
taphy»ivc. Liberatore rejects the vision of God, as well as the doctrine of
pure tradition, as the principle of knowledge, and holds that human reason,
aided by the senses and the power of abstraction, can originate ideas, and
attain truth and certainty in the order of nature. But above nature and man
there is the authority of the Church, the only infallible guide in philosophy
as well as in theology. To the same School may bereferred Sanseverino, author of
Philosophia Christianacumantl'juaetnovacomparata, Crescenzio who wrote Seuole
di Filosofia; Capozza, author of Sulla Filosofia dei Padri e Dottori della
Chiesa e in ixpecialitd d’Aquino in opposizione alla filosofia moderna. Also Azeglio,
a Jesuit, brother of the statesman of the same name, the author of Etame
Crltlco dei Ooverni Jiapprefsentativi delle Sorieta Moderna, and Soggio teorico
del Diritto Naturale fondato sull’esperienza. La Clvilta Cattolica,
a monthly Review, literary, political, and phillosophical, published in Rome,
is the principal organ of this sect. Since its origin it has been chiefly edited
by writers belonging to the Order of the Jesuits, such as Liberatore, Perrone, Azeglio,
Bresciani, and Curci. The fundamental idea of this periodical is the
insufficiency of human reason in all questions which refer to religion, philosophy,
morality, jurisprudence, and politics. European civilization is the result of
Catholicism, and it is onlv in Catholicism that man and society can find a
basis for their develop ment. Protestantism, liberty of conscience and thought
are only sources of infidelity and revolution, and it is only by subjecting
itself to the authority of the Church, that the human mind can re-establish its
natural relations with God and man. The revolution which has made Italy one,
having been carried out against the interests of the Church, isa nti-Catholic and
anti-Christian. These doctrines have received the sanction of Piu sIX., who in his
Syllabus condemns as monstrous errors the following propositions. Moral science
and philosophy are independent of the authority of the Church. Philosophy may
be treated without regard to revelation. The principles and the method of the
Scholastics are not in accordance with the need, and the progress of science.
Everyone may embrace that religion,which he in his conscience may think true.
Protestantism is a form of Christianity, in which man may please God,
equally as well as if he were in the Catholic Church. Common schools ought to
be exempted from the authority of the Church. These and other propositions,
proclaimed as religious errors, received formal condemnation from the Church in
the Council of the Vatican, through the dogmatic definition of papal
infallibility, the logical consequence of genuine Catholicism and the highest
synthesis of Scholasticism. Positivism, or rationalistic naturalism, as
implying the negation of all metaphysical science, is represented by Ferrari. A
Lombard by birth, and a disciple of Romagnosi, he early visits Paris, where he
becoes connected with the University of France, as associate doctor, he afterwards
holds a professorship at Strasbourg, which he iss obliged to resign on account
of his radical opinions. He returns to Italy, enters Parliament, and is appointed
professor of philosophy successively in Turin, Milan, and Florence. Admitting
as insoluble the antinomies of reason in the sense of Kant, Ferrari holds that
experience is the only foundation of truth. There are two species of contradiction
into which the mind may fall: the positive and thecritical. The former arise from
faults of reasoning, and may disappear through a verification of the intellectual
process. The latter are theresults of a fatal law of the mind, and cannot be avoided.
Kant reduces these contradictions to the ideas having reference to God, the
world, and man; but in fact they are numberless. They are in us and out of us;
they manifest themselves in our ideas and actions, in both the theoretical and the
practical order. The universality is the law of mind and nature. Hegel with an effort
of genius attempts to reduce them to a rational unity. But he succeeds only in
giving us a philosophy of contradictions. Hegel’s failure shows the
impossibility of metaphysical science, and the futility of the labours of
metaphysicians to find a relation between Nature and Logic. Between the two there
is no relation; the former is founded on the law of con trastand change, the
latter on identity. Hence there is an essential opposition between them, which
renders it impossible to represent unity in accordance with mental ideality.
Indeed the mind itself is subject to the law of opposition, so that in reality
an absolute identity even in the logical order is an impossibility. The effort
therefore to reduce nature and mind to scientific unity must ine vitably result
in transforming the critical antimonies into positive ones, and thus in making
error a necessity. The mind is neither superior nor equal to nature; it is its
child; and it is only in sub mission to nature that it can co-ordinate its
thoughts, determine its knowledge,andfindabasisforspeculation.
Phenomenalism,there fore, with all the oppositions which are revealed in the
ever-chang ing movement of nature, is the object as well as the limit of our
intelligence. The ideal relations, such as the relations of quality and
substance, of effect and cause, of finite and infinite, and all others which
relate to the supreme laws of nature and thought, are so many oppositions which
predominate in the universe, and in all our analyses; they are the inexplicable
conditionsof our knowledge, and the insuperable limits of all science. An
impenetrable mystery envelopes them, and the mind cann either explain or.reconcile
them. Hence it follows that no absolute truth exists in the human mind, and
that philoophy is only so far true as it does not overstep the limits of a
phenomenal experience, the cause of which is an everlasting movement, and its
law a perpetual opposition. Led by these ideas, Ferrari attempts a
philosophical reconstruction of the political development of nations, founded
exclusively on experience and induction. Ferrari establishes therefore a general
and uniform type of this development, and divides I tinto four periods, each
comprising about thirty years. The first period is an epoch of preparation, in
which new ideas are manifested, and the genus of future events and laws deposited
in the soul of th epeople. This isfollowed by the period of explosion, in which
those germs, having reached their maturity, burst forth in explicit ideas, and
are transformed into politica laction. A phasis of reaction, next appears, by which
a temporary return is made to the ancient regime, and the new form of
civilization and the doctrines of revolution are momentarily suppressed. In this
phase the body politic finds itself in a kind of oscillation between the old
and the new, seeking its equilibrium. Finally, the last period completes the
movement through a solution, and it ends with ingrating the new ideas in the
minds of the people, and in the character of the government. Thus in France,
Louis X1Y. represents the first period, the revolution the second, the last
years of Napoleon and the kingdoms of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis
Philippe the third, while the fourth begins in the revolution, is interrupted
by thes econd empire, and recommences with its fall. Ferrari is the
author of “La Mente di G. B.Vico”, “La Mente di G.D.Romagnosi”; “De l’Erreur”;
“Vico e l’Italie”, “Idees&urlaPoiii 51o de Platon et d'Aristote”, “Essai
stir h Principe et lea Limites de la Philosophie dell’histoire”, Histoire de hi
RaisondeVEtat”; “Histoire des Revolutions oVItalie, “Corso di Lezioni swjli
Scrittori Politici Italiani, Filosofia della Rivoluzione. Bonavino is another representative of this School. In his youth he became
a priest, but soon renounces this position, and avows himself a rationalist and
a naturalist. He is professor of the philosophy of history at Pavia. In “La Filosofia
delle Scuole Italiane”, Bonavino attempts a criticism of the philosophies of
Rosmini, Gioberti, and Mamiani, and rejects them all as exponents of old
Scholasticism under new forms. Admitting the negative part of the doctrine of
Kant, Bonavino derives his positive ideas from the French philosophers of the
18th century. Nature and its phenomena are the limits of our knowledge, and time
and space its exclusive conditions. There is no other reality, which the mind
can reach; there is no substance, no truth in itself. The infinite is only the
indefinite, and even this is not real,bu tideal. In “Del Sentimento”, Bonavino
rests his psychology on sensation, and makes this the origin of all mental
faculties. Applying these ideas to religion in his “La Religione del Secolo
19°”, and in his “II Razionalismo del Popolo”, Bonavino borrows from Feuerbach,
from Comte and other positivists, the idea of humanity as the basis and the
object of a genuine rationalistic religion. In his Review, La Raaione, he
discussed the most important questions of philosophy, religion, and politics,
showing a decided tendency towards Socialism, yet maintain ing a proper regard
for the rights of property and the institution of thefamily. He is also the author
of “Lezioni sulla Storia della Filosofia Moderna” and of the work “Sulla
Teorica del Giudizio”. Moleschott, professor at Turin,in his “LaCirculation de
la Vie” and other numerous works on physiology, Tommasi, professor at Naples,
author of the Naturalismo Moderno, and other eminent physiologists and
scientists, contend that all knowledge is essentially relative and finite, and
that therefore all questions relating to the b solute and the Infinite are insoluble. Hence
they assert that the province of philosophy must be confined within the limits
of natural science. To this School, although from an entirely different
point of view, may be referred Villari, the authorof “La Storia di Savonarola,”
who in his “Saggi di Storia, Critica, e Politica” insists on the exclusive
application of the historical method to philosophical sciences, a method, the
adoption of which is urged by Lambruschini, the author of “Dell’Educazione e
dell'Istruzione”, “La Guida, dell’Educatore” and other valuable works on
education; cf. his La Filosofia Positiva esaminata secondo I Principii della Pedagogia,
in the Gioventù of Florence, a weekly paper devoted to the progress of education.
The following writers, under different aspects, illustrate the contemporary
history of Positive Philosophy in Italy. Bissolati, “Introduzione alle
Istituzioni Pirroniane”, Secchi, “Unità delle Forze Fisiche”; Pozzolini, “Induzione
delle Forz Fisiche”; Barbera, “La Legge
universale di rotazione, and “Newton e la Filosofia naturale”; A.Martinozzoli,
“La Teoria detta Filosofia”; Bianco, “La Rivoluzione nela Filosofia, ossia il
Vero ed il Lecito applicati al Materialismo”; Dandolo, “Storia del Pensiero nei
tempi moderni”; G. Coco-Zanghi, “Antropologia: l’uomo e la scimmia”; Angiulli,
“La Filosofia e la Ricerca Positiva”, P. Siciliani, “Sul Rinnovamento della
Filosofia Positiva in Italia”; Barzellotti, “La morale nella Filosofia
Positiva”; Lanciano, “Saggio di Scienza Prima, Universo,T'Astroe, L’Individuo”;
Panizza, “Il Positivismo Filosofico e il Positivismo Scientifico”, “Lettere ad Tclmholtz”.
Grice: “Botta uses ‘filosofo italiano’ too freely.
When we reflect on ‘filosofo italiano’ I can think of Heidegger, whom was
described as ‘the greatest living philosopher’ – or consider a ‘fat poem’ – In
what way is a fat philosopher not like a French poem? If Mr. Buddle is ‘our man
in nineteenth-century Continental philosophy’ – why is it that Puddle doesn’t
sound Continental enough. Bravery is usually the consequence of being addicted
to general reflections about life – I can think of Empedocles who threw himself
into the Etna to prove that he was a god – when
his sandal sprang up, the implicature was unequivocal!” Vincenzo Botta. Keywords: filosofia italiana, dall’A alla Z
– indice di nome della storia della filosofia italiana di Botta – Botta,
storico dela fiosofia italiana, Botta su Alighieri, Botta su Cavour,
empiricismo, positivismo, Vico, criticismo, idealismo, scolasticismo, ontologia,
psicologia filosofica. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Botta” – The
Swimming-Pool Library
Grice
e Bottiroli: la ragione conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale dela seduzione
di Ovidio – scuola di Novi Ligure – filosofia ligure -- filosofia italiana –
Luigi Speranza, pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice, The Swimming-Pool Library (Novi Ligure). Filosofo ligure. Filosofo italiano. Novi Ligure,
Liguria. Grice: “I like Bottiroli – he is an Italianist, rather than a
philosopher, but typically in the Italian fashion, he uses philosophical
vocabulary – my favourite are his tracts on ‘seduzione,’ ‘desiderio,’ ‘amore,’
‘sesso,’ which of course is all Plato’s symposium – but he has also explored
not just pragmatics, but semantics and syntax – notably with his
‘rigid/flexible’ distinction – Since he is associated with les belles lettres,
philosophers in Italy do not take him too seriously, though!” -- Giovanni
Bottiroli (Novi Ligure) è un filosofo e professore universitario italiano. Professore
di Teoria della letteratura, da molti anni, a Bergamo. Ha insegnato Retorica e
Narrazione, Teoria dell’interpretazione, Estetica, in questa Università.
Inoltre, è docente all’IRPA (Istituto di Ricerca di Psicoanalisi applicata),
diretto da Massimo Recalcati. È
direttore della rivista “Comparatismi" (rivista della Consulta del SSD
“Critica letteraria e Letterature Comparate”). Dal è Presidente della Consulta di questo settore. Fa parte del Comitato Scientifico di
“Enthymema” e di “Symbolon”, e della Direzione di “L’immagine Riflessa”.
Collabora alla rivista “Segnocinema”.
Pensiero Una filosofia della flessibilità Giovanni Bottiroli ha
elaborato una nuova prospettiva filosofica che si ispira alla nozione di
“flessibilità”, e che egli ha indicato con diverse espressioni: ragione
flessibile, pensiero della Metis, pensiero strategico. Questa prospettiva viene esposta nella forma
più ampia e sistematica in La ragione flessibile e La prova non-ontologica. Dalla filosofia
alla letteratura (come modo di pensare) In Teoria dello stile la letteratura
viene intesa come modo di pensare e ad essere privilegiato è il suo legame con
la filosofia. Il legamenon privo di conflittualitàtra letteratura e filosofia
richiede di essere analizzato mediante il concetto di stile, inteso sia come
invenzione linguistica sia come “stile di pensiero”. Esemplare, da questo punto
di vista, è l’analisi della “Lettera rubata” di Poe, proposta da Lacan negli
Scritti La teoria della letteratura In
Che cos'è la teoria della letteratura. Fondamenti e problemi, la teoria della
letteratura viene intesa come una disciplina ibrida che deve attingere alle
teorie del linguaggio, alle teorie del desiderio e alle teorie
dell’interpretazione, ispirandosi principalmente a tre fonti: Saussure, Freud,
Heidegger. L'interpretazione dei testi
come conflictual reading L’interpretazione del testo è intesa come un
conflictual reading capace di lasciare emergere la pluralità degli stili, il
problema dell’identità del soggetto e le dinamiche del desiderio. Il suo
orizzonte sono le estetiche conflittuali, a cuiin prospettive assai
diversehanno contribuito Nietzsche e Heidegger, Freud e Lacan, ma anche
Bachtin. Le riflessioni su questo tema sono confluite in diversi articoli tra
cui Il desiderio “effrayant” di Julien Sorel. Un “conflictual reading” per un
romanzo di formazione in “Enthymema”, . Altri saggi: Parodia Milano:
Scheiwiller (con prefazione di Cesare Segre)
La contraddizione e la differenza. Il materialismo dialettico e la
semiotica di Julia Kristeva, Giappichelli, Torino Interpretazione e strategia, Guerini e
associati, Milano Retorica della creatività. Per l'interpretazione e la
produzione di testi, Paravia, Torino Figure di pensiero. La svolta retorica in
filosofia, Paravia, Torino Retorica.
L'intelligenza figurale nell'arte e nella filosofia, Bollati Boringhieri,
Torino Il reggicalze. Come l'abbigliamento diventò seduzione, Gribaudo, Torino
Teoria dello stile, La nuova Italia, Firenze Problemi del personaggio
(curatela), Bergamo University Press, Bergamo Lacan. Arte linguaggio desiderio,
Bergamo University Press, Bergamo Le incertezze del desiderio. Scritti brevi su
strategia e seduzione, Ecig, Genova Che
cos'è la teoria della letteratura. Fondamenti e problemi, Einaudi, Torino La ragione flessibile. Modi d'essere e stili
di pensiero, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino
La prova non-ontologica. Per una teoria del Nulla e del “non”, Mimesis,
Milano-Udine Voci di Enciclopedia Enciclopedia Einaudi: Eros, Piacere, Pulsione,,
Soma/Psiche, (quest’articolo in collaborazione con Guido Ferraro). Enciclopedia
Treccani: Letteratura e psicoanalisi, in Appendice Manuale di letteratura
italiana. Storia per generi e problemi (diretta da Franco Brioschi e Costanzo
Di Girolamo): Il pensiero filosofico e scientifico e La prosa della filosofia e
della scienza, Letteratura europea
(Boitani e Fusillo): Letteratura e psicoanalisi, POMBA, Torino
Articoli di filosofia e di teoria della letteratura (una selezione) Bachtin, la parodia del possibile, in
"Strumenti critici", Il comico inesistente. I regimi figurali
nell’opera di Calvino in “Calvino e il comico” (L. Clerici e B. Falcetto),
Marcos Y Marcos Sinistra come "bêtise". Il problema degli attriti nel
"Dono” di Nabokov in "Strumenti critici” 1Il comico delle articolazioni, in Barbieri B.
Perissinotto “Il Comico: approcci semiotici”, Documenti di lavoro Centro
Internazionale di Semiotica e Linguistica, Urbino Introduzione a Flaubert, L’educazione
sentimentale, Einaudi, Torino, V-XXI
2003 Un sogno di Raskolnikov, in “Nel paese dei sogni” (V. Pietrantonio e F.
Vittorini), Le Monnier, Firenze, La logica del diviso in "William
Wilson" in Fantastico Poe (R. Cagliero, Ombre Corte, Verona) Non
sorvegliati e impuniti. Sulla funzione sociale dell’indisciplina, in Forme
contemporaneee del totalitarismo (Massimo Recalcati), Bollati Boringhieri,
Torino, Metaphors and Modal Mixtures in Metaphors (di Stefano Arduini),
Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Roma, L’identità modale nei romanzi di Kafka.
Descrizione di un progetto di ricerca in “Cultura tedesca”, In principio era la
bêtise, in Soggettivazione e destino. Saggi intorno al ‘Flaubert’ di Sartre (G.
Farina e R. Kirchmayr), Bruno Mondadori, Milano
Ibridare, problema per artisti. Alcune tesi, in “Enthymema”, Dalle
somiglianze alle differenze di famiglia, in L’immagine riflessa, L’inganno del
cortile centrale. Interpretazione della “Phèdre” come testo diviso, in
Ermeneutica letteraria, VIII
Introduzione a “La conversazione infinita” di M. Blanchot, Einaudi,
Torino Lost in styles. Perché nel
cognitivismo non c’è abbastanza intelligenza per capire l’intelligenza
figurale, in “Lo sguardo”, Il perturbante è l’identità divisa.
Un’interpretazione di “Der Sandmann” in Enthymema, The possibility of not
coinciding with oneself: a reading of Heidegger as a modal thinker, in The
Italian Psychoanalytic Annual, Cortina Editore
Le parole uccidono le cose oppure altre parole? Il linguaggio come
perdita e come articolazione agonistica in Per Enza Biagini (A. Brettoni, E.
Pellegrini, S. Piazzesi, D. Salvadori), Firenze University Press, Firenze Liberatore e incatenato: le aporie di Dioniso
(e del dionisiaco) da Euripide a Nietzsche in Enthymema, Return to literature. A manifesto in favour of theory and
against methodologically reactionary studies (cultural studies etc.) in
“Comparatismi”, 3, 1-37 What is alive and what is dead in Jakobson. From codes to styles in Roman Jakobson, linguistica e
poetica (E. Esposito, S. Sini e M. Castagneto), Ledizioni, Milano, Il desiderio “effrayant” di Julien Sorel. Un
“conflictual reading” per un romanzo di formazione in Enthymema, Shakespeare e
il teatro dell’intelligenza. Dagli errori di Bruto a quelli di René Girard in
Metodo, Il desiderio e i suoi destini:
dal rapporto ai modi del rapporto, in A. Badiou, Il sesso l’amore (Federico
Leoni e Silvia Lippi), Mimesis, Milano-Udine,
Sade e il desiderio di essere in “aut aut”; To be and not to be.
Hamlet’s Identity, in Enthymema, Heart of Darkness e la teoria lacaniana dei registri
in Anglistica pisana, The Turn of the Screw. A tale that “turns” in Enthymema, Articoli
di cinema (una selezione), I registi sono alleati preziosi. Un'interpretazione
di Mulholland Drive di David Lynch, in Segnocinema, Identità come identificazione
(nei film e non negli spettatori), in “Imago”, 2 Joe, o le disavventure di una ninfomane
(Nymphomaniac di Lars von Trier), in “Segnocinema” Non infantilizzate, vi
prego, Ingmar Bergman. Desideri senza magia in “Fanny e Alexander” in
Segnocinema, L’arte è un lusso, la fiction una necessità. Žižek e Hitchcock,
qualche anno dopo in “Segnocinema”, Scaffai, recensione a Che cos'è la teoria
della letteratura? Fondamenti e problemi, in Allegoria, Panella Giuseppe,
recensione a Che cos'è la teoria della letteratura? Fondamenti e problemi, in
Ermeneutica letterariam Franzini, recensione a La ragione flessibile, in
“Enthymema”, Dalmasso Gianfranco, recensione a La ragione flessibile, in
“Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica”, Marco, recensione a La prova
non-ontologica, in “Enthymema. B. (database Università degli Studi di Bergamo),
su 00.unibg. Docenti titolari di
materiaIrpa Milano, su istitutoirpa.
Comparatismi. Rivista della Consulta di Critica letteraria e Letterature
comparate, su ledizioni. Enthymema, su
riviste.unimi. Curriculum Vitae, su
unipa. Franzini, La ragione flessibile di B., in Enthymema, n. 9. Marco Carmello, Giovanni Bottiroli "La
prova non-ontologica. Per una teoria del nulla e del 'non' ", Enthymema,
Panella, A proposito di B., "Che cos'è la teoria della letteratura",
in Ermeneutica letteraria. Rivista internazionale, Scaffai, Giovanni
Bottiroli"Che cos'è la teoria della letteratura. Fondamenti e
problemi", in Allegoria, B., Il desiderio "effrayant" di Julien
Sorel, in Enthymema, Letteratura e psicoanalisi, su treccani. g00.unibg/ Biografie Biografie Letteratura Letteratura Psicologia Psicologia Filosofo, Filosofi italiani, Accademici
italiani, Accademici italiani Professore Novi Ligure. THE ART OF SEDUCTION. GREENE Choose
the Right Victim 2 Create a False Sense of Security-Approach Indirectly Send
Mixed Signals Appear to Be an Object of Desire- Create Triangles Create a
Need-Stir Anxiety and Discontent Master the Art of Insinuation 7 Enter Their
Spirit Create Temptation Keep Them in Suspense-What Comes Next? Use the Demonic
Power of Words to Sow Confusion Pay Attention to Detail A Penguin Book £
Psychology www.penguin.com THE ART OF SEDUCTION ROBERT GREENE rci A JOOST
ELFFERS. Get what you want by manipulating every one's greatest weakness: the
desire for pleasure. Seduction is the most subtle, elusive, and effective form
of power. It's as evident in John F. Kennedy's hold over the masses as it is in
Cleopatra's hold over Antony. Now, the author of the bestselling The 48 Lazes
of Pozeer has written a handbook synthesizing the classic literature of
seduction from Freud to Kierkegaard and Ovid to Casanova, with cunning
strategies illustrated by the successes and failures of characters throughout
history. And once again Robert Greene identifies the rules of a timeless,
amoral game and explores how to cast a spell, break down resistance, and,
ultimately, compel a target to surrender. The Art of Seduction takes us through
the characters and qualities of the ten archetypal figures of seduction
(including the Siren, the Ideal Lover, the Dandy, the Natural, the Charismatic,
and the Star) and the twenty-four maneuvers by which anyone can overcome a
victim's futile resistance to the practice of this devastating and timeless art
form. Every bit as essential as The 48 Lazes ofPozver, The Art of Seduction is
an indispensable primer of persuasion that reveals one of history's greatest
weapons and the ultimate form of power. ISBN Poeticize Your Presence Disarm
Through Strategic Weakness and Vulnerability Confuse Desire and Reality- The
Perfect Illusion i Isolate the Victim, 1 ( Prove Yourself 1 Effect a Regression
j 18 Stir Up the \ Transgressive and Taboo Use Spiritual Lures 2 ( Mix Pleasure
with Pain 21 Give Them Space to Fall-The ¦ Pursuer Is Pursued f I 22 Use
Physical j Lures 13 Master the Art of the Bold i Move Beware ' i of the
Aftereffects PENGUIN BOOKS THE ART OF SEDUCTION Robert Greene, author of The 48
Laws of Power, has a degree in classical literature. He lives in Los Angeles.
Visit his Web site: www.seductionbook.com Joost Elf fers is the producer of
Viking Studio's bestselling The Secret Language of Birthdays, The Secret
Language of Relationships, as well as Play with Your Food. He lives in New York
City. the art of seduction Robert Greene A Joost Elffers Book PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375
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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, a member of
Penguin Putnam Inc. 2001 Published in Penguin Books 2003 13579 10 8642
Copyright (c) Robert Greene and Joost Elffers, 2001 All rights reserved Every
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The art of seduction / Robert Greene, p. cm. "A Joost Elffers book." 1. Sexual excitement. 2. Sex instruction. 3.
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Falling in Love by Francesco Alberoni, translated by Lawrence Venuti. Reprinted
by permission of Random House, Inc. Seduction by Jean Baudrillard, translated
by Brian Singer. St. Martin's Press, 1990. Copyright (c) New World Perspectives.
1990. Reprinted by permission of Palgrave. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio,
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Copyright (c) G. H. McWilliam, Reprinted by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Warhol by David Bourdon, published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. All
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translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Copyright (c) 1987 by Princeton
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1630-1963 edited with a commentary by Oscar Mandel. Copyright (c) 1963 by the
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of Penn State University Press. Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant, translated by
Douglas Parmee (Penguin Classics, 1975). Copyright (c) Douglas Parmee. 1975.
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A. Knopf, 1976. Copyright (c) 1976 by Edward G. Seidensticker. Reprinted by
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Green (Penguin Classics, 1982). Copyright (c) Peter Green, 1982. Reprinted by
permission of Penguin Books Ltd. The Metamorphoses by Ovid, translated by Mary
M. Innes (Penguin Classics, 1955). Copyright (c) Mary M. Innes, 1955. Reprinted
by permission of Penguin Books Ltd. My Sister, My Spouse: A Biography of Lou
Andreas-Salome by H. F. Peters, W. W. Norton et Company, Inc., 1962. Reprinted
with permission. The. Symposium by Plato, translated by Walter Hamilton
(Penguin Classics, 1951). Copyright (c) Walter Hamilton. 1951. Reprinted by
permission of Penguin Books Ltd. The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives
by Plutarch, translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert (Penguin Classics, 1960).
Copyright (c) Ian Scott-Kilvert, 1960. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Hooks
Ltd. Love Declared by Denis de Rougemont, translated by Richard Howard.
Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc. The Wisdom of Life and Counsels
and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer, translated by T. Bailey
Saunders (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995). Reprinted by
permission of the publisher. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon by Sei Shonagon, translated
and edited by Ivan Morris, Columbia University Press. 1991.
Reprinted by permission of Columbia University Press. Liaison by
Joyce Wadler, published by Bantam Books, 1993. Reprinted by permission of the
author. Max Weber: Essays in Sociology by Max Weber,edited and
translated by H. H. Certh and C. Wright Mills. Copyright 1946, 1958 by H. H.
Gerth and C. Wright Mills. Used by permission of Oxford University
Press, Inc. The Game of Hearts: Harriette Wilson et Her Memoirs edited by
LesleyBlanch. Copyright (c) 1955 by Lesley Blanch. Reprinted with permission of
Simon et Schuster. To the memory ofmyfather Acknowledgments First, I would like
to thank Anna Biller for her countlesscontributions to this book: the research,
the many discussions, her invaluable help with the text itself, and, last but
not least, her knowledge of the art of seduction, of which I have been the
happy victim on numerous occasions. I must thank my mother, Laurette, for
supporting me so steadfastly throughout this project and for being my most
devoted fan. I would like to thank Catherine Leouzon, who some years ago
introduced me to Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the world of Valmont. I would
like to thank David Frankel, for his deft editing and for his much-appreciated
advice; Molly Stern at Viking Penguin, for overseeing the project and helping
to shape it; RadhaPancham, for keeping it all organized and being so patient;
and Brett Kelly, for moving things along. With heavy heart I would like to pay
tribute to my cat Boris, who for thirteen years watched over me as I wrote and
whose presence is sorely missed. His successor, Brutus, has proven to be a
worthy muse. Finally, I would like to honor my father. Words cannot express how
much I miss him and how much he has inspired my work.
Contents Acknowlegments • ix Preface • xix Part One The
Seductive Character The Siren A man is often secretly oppressed by
the role he has to play-by always having to be responsible, in control, and
rational. The Siren is the ultimate male fantasy figure because she offers a
total release from the limitations of his life. In her presence, which is
always heightened and sexually charged, the male feels transported to a realm
of pure pleasure. In a world where women are often too timid to project such an
image, learn to take control of the male libido by embodying hisfantasy. The
Rake page A woman never quite feels desired and appreciated enough. She wants
attention, but a man is too often distracted and unresponsive. The Rake is a
great female fantasy-figure -w hen he desires a woman, brief though that moment
may be, he will go to the ends of the earth for her. He may be disloyal,
dishonest, and amoral, but that only adds to his appeal. Stir a woman's
repressed longings by adapting the Rake's mix of danger and pleasure. The Ideal
Lover Most people have dreams in their youth that get shattered or worn down
with age. They find themselves disappointed by people, events, reality, which
cannot match their youthful ideals. Ideal Lovers thrive on people's broken dreams,
which become lifelong fantasies. You long for romance? Adventure? Lofty
spiritual communion? The Ideal Lover reflects your fantasy. He or she is an
artist in creating the illusion you require. In a world of disenchantment and
baseness, there is limitless seductive power in following the path of the Ideal
Lover. The Dandy Most of us feel trapped within the limited roles that the
world expects us to play. We are instantly attracted to those who are more
fluid than we are-those who create their own persona. Dandies excite us because
they cannot be categorized, and hint at a freedom we want for ourselves. They
play with masculinity and femininity; they fashion their own physical image,
which is always startling. Use the power of the Dandy to create an ambiguous,
alluring presence that stirs represseddesires. The Natural. Childhood is the
golden paradise we are always consciously or unconsciously trying to re-create.
The Natural embodies the longed-for qualities of childhood - spontaneity,
sincerity, unpretentiousness. In the presence of Naturals, wefeel at ease,
caught up in their playful spirit, transported back to that golden age. Adopt
the pose of the Natural to neutralize people's defensiveness and infect them
with helpless delight. The Coquette The ability to delay satisfaction is the
ultimate art of seduction-while waiting, the victim is held in thrall.
Coquettes are the grand masters of the game, orchestrating a back-and-forth
movement between hope and frustration. They bait with the promise of reward-the
hope of physical pleasure, happiness, fame by association, power-all of which,
however, proves elusive; yet this only makes their targets pursue them the
more. Imitate the alternating heat and coolness of the Coquette and you will
keep the seduced at your heels. The Charmer Charm is seduction without sex.
Charmers are consummate manipulators, masking their cleverness by creating a
mood of pleasure and comfort. Their method is simple: They deflect attention
from themselves and focus it on their target. They understand your spirit, feel
your pain, adapt to your moods. In the presence of a Charmer youfeel better
about yourself. Learn to cast the Charmer's spell by aiming at people's primary
weaknesses: vanity and self-esteem. The Charismatic Charisma is a presence that
excites us. It comes from an inner quality - self-confidence, sexual energy,
sense of purpose, contentment-that most people lack and want. This quality
radiates outward, permeating the gestures of Charismatics, making them seem
extraordinary and superior. They learn to heighten their charisma with a
piercing gaze, fiery oratory, an air of mystery. Create the charismatic
illusion by radiating intensity while remaining detached. The Star Daily life
is harsh, and most of us constantly seek escapefrom it infantasies and dreams.
Stars feed on this weakness; standing out from others through a distinctive and
appealing style, they make us want to watch them. At the same time, they are
vague and ethereal, keeping their distance, and letting us imagine more than is
there. Their dreamlike quality works on our unconscious. Learn to become an
object offascination by projecting the glittering but elusive presence of the
Star. The Anti-Seducer Seducers draw you in by the focused, individualized
attention they pay to you. Anti-seducers are the opposite: insecure,
self-absorbed, and unable to grasp the psychology of another person, they
literally repel Anti-Seducers have no self-awareness, and never realize when
they are pestering, imposing, talking too much. Root out anti-seductive
qualities in yourself and recognize them in others-there is no pleasure or
profit in dealing with the Anti-Seducer. The Seducer's Victims-The Eighteen
Types Part Two The Seductive Process Phase One: Separation-Stirring Interest
and Desire 1 Choose the Right Victim Everything depends on the target of your
seduction. Study your prey thoroughly, and choose only those who will prove
susceptible to your charms. The right victims are those for whom you can fill a
void, who see in you something exotic. They are often isolated or unhappy, or
can easily be made so-for the completely contented person is almost impossible
to seduce. The perfect victim has some quality that inspires strong emotions in
you, making your seductive maneuvers seem more natural and dynamic. The perfect
victim allows for the perfect chase. 2 Create a False Sense of
Security-Approach Indirectly If you are too direct early on, you risk stirring
up a resistance that will never be lowered. At first there must be nothing of the
seducer in your manner. The seduction should begin at an angle, indirectly, so
that the target only gradually becomes aware of you. Haunt the periphery of
your target's life-approach through a third party, or seem to cultivate a
relatively neutral relationship, moving gradually from friend to lover. Lull
the target into feeling secure, then strike. 3 Send Mixed
Signals Once people are aware of your presence, and perhaps vaguely
intrigued, you need to stir theirinterest before it settles on someone else. Most
of us are much too obvious - instead, be hard to figure out. Send mixed
signals: both tough and tender, both spiritual and earthly, both innocent and
cunning. A mix of qualities suggests depth, whichfascinates even as it
confuses. An elusive, enigmatic aura will make people want to know more,
drawing them into your circle. Create such a power by hinting at
something contradictory within you. 4 Appear to Be an Object of Desire-Create
Triangles Few are drawn to the person whom others avoid or neglect; people
gather around those who have already attracted interest. To draw your victims
closer and make them hungry to possess you, you must create an aura of
desirability-of being wanted and courted by many. It will become a point of
vanity for them to be the preferred object of your attention, to win you away
from a crowd of admirers. Build a reputation that precedes you: If many have
succumbed to your charms, there must be a reason. 5 Create a Need-Stir Anxiety
and Discontent pA perfectly satisfied person cannot be seduced. Tension and
disharmony must be instilled in your targets minds. Stir within them feelings
of discontent, an unhappiness with their circumstances and with themselves. The
feelings of inadequacy that you create will give you space to insinuate
yourself to make them see you as the answer to their problems. Pain and anxiety
are the proper precursors to pleasure. Learn to manufacture the need that you
can fill. 6 Master the Art of Insinuation Making your targets feel dissatisfied
and in need of your attention is essential, but if you are too obvious, they
will see through you and grow defensive. There is no known defense, however,
against insinuation-the art of planting ideas in people's minds by dropping
elusive hints that take root days later, even appearing to them as their own
idea. Create a sublanguage - bold statements followed by retraction and
apology, ambiguous comments, banal talk combined with alluring glances-that
enters the target's unconscious to convey your real meaning. Make everything
suggestive. 1 Enter Their Spirit Most people are locked in their own worlds,
making them stubborn and hard to persuade. The way to lure them out of their
shell and set up your seduction is to enter their spirit. Play by their rules,
enjoy what they enjoy, adapt yourself to their moods. In doing so you will
stroke their deep-rooted narcissism and lower their defenses. Indulge your
targets' every mood and whim, giving them nothing to react against or resist. 8
Create Temptation Lure the target deep into your seduction by creating the
proper temptation: a glimpse of the pleasures to come. As the serpent tempted
Eve with the promise offorbidden knowledge, you must awaken a desire in your
targets that they cannot control. Find that weakness of theirs, that fantasy
that has yet to be realized, and hint that you can lead them toward it. The key
is to keep it vague. Stimulate a curiosity stronger than the doubts and
anxieties that go with it, and they will follow you. Phase Two: Lead
Astray-Creating Pleasure and Confusion 9 Keep Them in Suspense-What Comes Next?
page 241 The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell
on them is broken. More: You have ceded them power. The only way to lead the
seduced along and keep the upper hand is to create suspense, a calculated
surprise. Doing something they do not expectfrom you will give them a
delightful sense of spontaneity-they will not be able to foresee what comes
next. You are always one step ahead and in control. Give the victim a thrill
with a sudden change of direction. Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow
Confusion It is hard to make people listen; they are consumed with their own
thoughts and desires, and have little time for yours. The trick to making them
listen is to say what they want to hear, to fill their ears with whatever is
pleasant to them. This is the essence of seductive language. Inflame people's
emotions with loaded phrases, flatter them, comfort their insecurities, envelop
them in sweet words and promises, and not only will they listen to you, they
will lose their will to resist you. 11 Pay Attention to Detail Lofty
words of love and grand gestures can be suspicious: Why are you trying so hard
to please? The details of a seduction-the subtle gestures, the offhand things
you do-are often more charming and revealing. You must learn to distract your
victims with a myriad of pleasant little rituals-thoughtful gifts tailored
justfor them, clothes and adornments designed to please them, gestures that
show the time and attention you are paying them. Mesmerized by what they see,
they will not notice what you are really up to. 12 Poeticize Your Presence
Important things happen when your targets are alone: The slightest feeling of
relief that you are not there, and it is all over. Familiarity and overexposure
will cause this reaction. Remain elusive, then. Intrigue your targets by
alternating an exciting presence with a cool distance, exuberant moments
followed by calculated absences. Associateyourselfwithpoeticimages and objects,
so that when they think of you, they begin to see you through an idealized
halo. The more you figure in their minds, the more they will envelop you in
seductive fantasies.Disarm Through Strategic Weakness and Vulnerability Too
much maneuvering on your part may raise suspicion. The best way to cover your
tracks is to make the other person feel superior and stronger. If you seem to
be weak, vulnerable, enthralled by the other person, and unable to control
yourself you will make your actions look more natural, less calculated.
Physical weakness -t ears, bashfulness, paleness-will help create the effect.
Play the victim, then transform your target's sympathy into love. 14 Confuse
Desire and Reality-The Perfect Illusion To compensate for the difficulties in
their lives, people spend a lot of their time daydreaming, imagining a future
full of adventure, success, and romance. Ifyou can create the illusion that
through you they can live out their dreams, you will have them at your mercy.
Aim at secret wishes that have been thwarted or repressed, stirring up
uncontrollable emotions, clouding their powers of reason. Lead the seduced to a
point of confusion in which they can no longer tell the difference
between illusion and reality. 15 Isolate the Victim page 309 An isolated person
is weak. By slowly isolating your victims, you make them more vulnerable to
your influence. Take them away from their normal milieu, friends, family, home.
Give them the sense of being marginalized, in limbo-they are leaving one world
behind and entering another. Once isolated like this, they have no outside
support, and in their confusion they are easily led astray. Lure the seduced
into your lair, where nothing is familiar. Phase Three: The Precipice-Deepening
the Effect Through Extreme Measures Prove Yourself page Most people want to be
seduced. If they resist your efforts, it is probably because you ham' not gone
far enough to allay their doubts-about your motives, the depth of your
feelings, and so on. One well-timed action that shows how far you are willing
to go to win them over will dispel their doubts. Do not worry about looking
foolish or making a mistake-any kind of deed that is self-sacrificing and for
your targets' sake will so overwhelm their emotions, they won't notice anything
else. 17 Effect a Regression page 333 People who have experienced a certain
kind of pleasure in the past will try to repeat or relive it. The
deepest-rooted and most pleasurable memories are usually those from earliest
childhood, and are often unconsciously associated with a parental figure. Bring
your targets back to that point by placing yourself in the oedipal triangle and
positioning them as the needy child. Unaware of the cause of their emotional
response, they will fall in love with you. 18 Stir Up the Transgressive and
Taboo There are always social limits on what one can do. Some of these, the
most elemental taboos, go back centuries; others are more superficial, simply
defining polite and acceptable behavior. Making your targets feel that you are
leading them past either kind of limit is immensely seductive. People yearn to
explore their dark side. Once the desire to transgress draws your targets to
you, it will be hard for them to stop. Take them farther than they imagined-the
shared feeling of guilt and complicity will create a powerful bond. 19 Use
Spiritual Lures Everyone has doubts and insecurities-about their body, their
self-worth, their sexuality. If your seduction appeals exclusively to the
physical, you will stir up these doubts and make your targets self-conscious.
Instead, lure them out of their insecurities by making them focus on something
sublime and spiritual: a religious experience, a lofty work of art, the occult.
Lost in a spiritual mist, the target will feel light and uninhibited. Deepen
the effect of your seduction by making its sexual culmination seem like the
spiritual union of two souls. 20 Mix Pleasure with Pain The greatest
mistake in seduction is being too nice. At first, perhaps, your kindness is
charming, but it soon grows monotonous; you are trying too hard to please, and
seem insecure. Instead of overwhelming your targets with niceness, try
inflicting some pain. Make them feel guilty and insecure. Instigate a
breakup-now a rapprochement, a return to your earlier kindness, will turn them
weak at the knees. The lower the lows you create, the greater the highs. To
heighten the erotic charge, create the excitement of fear. Phase Four: Moving
In for the Kill 21Give Them Space to Fall-The Pursuer Is Pursued If
your targets become too used to you as the aggressor, they will give less of
their own energy, and the tension will slacken. You need to wake them up, turn
the tables. Once they are under your spell, take a step bach and they will
start to come after you. Hint that you are growing bored. Seem interested in
someone else. Soon they will want to possess you physically, and restraint will
go out the window. Create the illusion that the seducer is being seduced. 22
Use Physical Lures Targets with active minds are dangerous: If they see through
your manipulations, they may suddenly develop doubts. Put their minds gently to
rest, and waken their dormant senses, by combining a nondefensive attitude with
a charged sexual presence. While your cool, nonchalant air is
loweringtheirinhibitions,yourglances,voice,and bearing-oozing sex and
desire-are getting under their skin and raising their temperature. Never force
the physical; instead infect your targets with heat, lure them into lust.
Morality, judgment, and concern for the future will all melt away. 23 Master
the Art of the Bold Move A moment has arrived: Your victim clearly desires you,
but is not ready to admit it openly, let alone act on it. This is the time
tothrow aside chivalry,kindness, and coquetry and to overwhelm with a bold
move. Don't give the victim time to consider the consequences. Showing
hesitation or awkwardness means you are thinking of yourself as opposed to
being overwhelmed by the victim's charms. One person must go on the offensive,
and it is you. 24 Beware the Aftereffects Danger follows in the aftermath of a
successful seduction. After emotions have reached a pitch, they often swing in
the opposite direction-toward lassitude, distrust, disappointment. If you are
to part, make the sacrifice swift and sudden. If you are to stay in a
relationship, beware a flagging of energy, a creeping familiarity that will
spoil the fantasy. A second seduction is required. Never let the other person
take you for granted-use absence, create pain and conflict, to keep the seduced
on tenterhooks. Seductive Environment/Seductive Time Soft Seduction:
How to Sell Anything to the Masses Thousands of years ago, power was mostly
gained through physical violence and maintained with brute strength. There was
little need for subtlety-a king or emperor had to be merciless. Only a select
few had power, but no one suffered under this scheme of things more than women.
They had no way to compete, no weapon at their disposal that could make a man
do what they wanted-politically, socially, or even in the home. Of course men
had one weakness: their insatiable desire for sex. A woman could always toy
with this desire, but once she gave in to sex the man was back in control; and
if she withheld sex, he could simply look elsewhere-or exert force. What good
was a power that was so temporary and frail?Yet women had no choice but to
submit to this condition. There were some, though, whose hunger for power was
too great, and who, over the years, through much cleverness and creativity,
invented a way of turning the dynamic around, creating a more lasting and
effective form of power. These women-among them Bathsheba, from the Old
Testament; Helen of Troy; the Chinese siren Hsi Shi; and the greatest of them
all, Cleopatra-invented seduction. First they would draw a man in with an
alluring appearance, designing their makeup and adornment to fashion the image
of a goddess come to life. By showing only glimpses of flesh, they would tease
a man's imagination, stimulating the desire not just for sex but for something
greater: the chance to possess a fantasy figure. Once they had their
victims' interest, these women would lure them away from the mascu line world
of war and politics and get them to spend time in the
feminine world-a world of luxury, spectacle, and pleasure. They
might also lead them astray literally, taking them on a journey, as
Cleopatra lured Julius Caesar on a trip down the Nile. Men would
grow hooked on these refined, sensual pleasures-they would fall in
love. But then, invariably, the women would turn cold and indifferent,
confusing their victims. Just when the men wanted more, they found their
pleasures withdrawn. They would be forced into pursuit, trying
anything to win back the favors they once had tasted and growing weak and
emotional in the process. Men who had physical force and all the social
power-men like King David, the Trojan Paris, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, King
Fu Chai-would find themselves becoming the slave of a woman. In the face of
violence and brutality, these women made seduction a Oppression and scorn,
thus, were and must have been generally the share of women in emerging
societies; this state lasted in all its force until centuries of experience
taught them to substitute skill for force. Women at last sensed that, since
they were weaker, their only resource was to seduce; they understood that if
they were dependent on men through force, men could become dependent on them
through pleasure. More unhappy than men, they must have thought and reflected
earlier than did men; they were the first to know that pleasure was always
beneath the idea that one formed of it, and that the imagination went farther
than nature. Once these basic truths were known, they learned first to veil
their charms in order to awaken curiosity; they practiced the difficult art of
refusing even as they wished to consent; from that moment on, they knew how to
set men's imagination afire, they knew how to arouse and direct desires as they
pleased: thus did beauty and love come into being; now the lot of women became
less harsh, not that they had managed to liberate themselves entirely from the
state of oppression to which their weakness condemned them; but, in the state
of perpetual war that continues to exist between women and men, one has seen
them, with the help of the caresses they have been able to invent, combat
ceaselessly, sometimes vanquish, and often more skillfully take advantage of
the forces directed against them; sometimes, too, men have turned against women
these weapons the women had forged to combat them, and their slavery has become
all the harsher for it. -CHODERLOS DE LACLOS, ON THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN, IN THE
LIBERTINE READER, FEHER Much more genius is needed to make love than
to command armies.-NINON DEL'ENCLOS Menelaus, if you are really going to kill
her, Then my blessing go with you, but you must do it now, Before her looks so
twist the strings of your heart That they turn your mind; for her eyes are like
armies, And where her glances fall, there cities burn, Until the dust of their
ashes is blown By her sighs. I know her, Men elans, \ And so do you. And all
those who know her suffer. - HECUBA SPEAKING ABOUT HELEN OF TROY IN EURIPIDES,
THE TROJAN WOMEN, sophisticated art, the ultimate form of power and persuasion.
They learned to work on the mind first, stimulating fantasies, keeping a man
wanting more, creating patterns of hope and despair-the essence of seduction.
Their power was not physical but psychological, not forceful but indirect and
cunning. These first great seductresses were like military generals planning
the destruction of an enemy, and indeed early accounts of seduction often
compare it to battle, the feminine version of warfare. For Cleopatra, it was a
means of consolidating an empire. In seduction, the woman was no longer a
passive sex object; she had become an active agent, a figure of power. With a
few exceptions-the Latin poet Ovid, the medieval troubadours-men did not much
concern themselves with such a frivolous art as seduction. Then, in the
seventeenth century came a great change; men grew interested inseductionasaway
to overcome a young woman's resistance to sex. History's first great male
seducers-the Duke de Lauzun, the different Spaniards who inspired the Don Juan
legend-began to adopt the methods traditionally employed by women. They learned
to dazzle with their appearance (often androgynous in nature), to stimulate the
imagination, to play the coquette. They also added a new, masculine element to
the game: seductive language, for they had discovered a woman's weakness for
soft words. These two forms of seduction-the feminine use of appearances and
the masculine use of language-would often cross gender lines; Casanova would
dazzle a woman with his clothes; Ninon de l'Enclos would charm a man with her
words. At the same time that men were developing their version of seduction,
others began to adapt the art for social purposes. As Europe's feudal system of
government faded into the past, courtiers needed to get their way in court
without the use of force. They learned the power to be gained by seducing their
superiors and competitors through psychological games, soft words, a little
coquetry. As culture became democratized, actors, dandies, and artists came to
use the tactics of seduction as a way to charm and win over their audience and social
milieu. In the nineteenth century another great change occurred; politicians
like Napoleon consciously saw themselves as seducers, on a grand scale. These
men depended on the art of seductive oratory, but they also mastered what had
once been feminine strategies: staging vast spectacles, using theatrical
devices, creating a charged physical presence. All this, they learned, was the
essence of charisma-and remains so today. By seducing the masses they could
accumulate immense power without the use of force. Today we have reached the
ultimate point in the evolution of seduction. Now more than ever, force or
bmtality of any kind is discouraged. All areas of social life require the
ability to persuade people in a way that does not offend or impose itself. Forms
of seduction can be found everywhere, blending male and female strategies.
Advertisements insinuate, the soft sell dominates. If we are to change people's
opinions-and affecting opinion is basic to seduction-we must act in subtle,
subliminal ways. Today no political campaign can work without seduction. Since
the era of John F. Kennedy, political figures are required to have a degree of
charisma, a fascinating presence to keep their audience's attention, which is
half the battle. The film world and media create a galaxy of seductive stars
and images. We are saturated in the seductive. But even if much has changed in
degree and scope, the essence of seduction is constant: never be forceful or
direct; instead, use pleasure as bait, playing on people's emotions, stirring
desire and confusion, inducing psychological surrender. In seduction as it is
practiced today, the methods of Cleopatra still hold. People are constantly
trying to influence us, to tell us what to do, and just as often we tune them
out, resisting their attempts at persuasion. There is a moment in our lives,
however, when weall act differently-when we are in love. We fall under a kind
of spell. Our minds are usually preoccupied with our own concerns; now they
become filled with thoughts of the loved one. We grow emotional, lose the
ability to think straight, act in foolish ways that we would never do
otherwise. If this goes on long enough something inside us gives way: we
surrender to the will of the loved one, and to our desire to possess them.
Seducers are peoplewho understand the tremendous power contained in such
moments of surrender. They analyze what happens when people are in love, study
the psychological components of the process-what spurs the imagination, what
casts a spell. By instinct and through practice they master the art of making
people fall in love. As the first seductresses knew, it is much more effective
to create love than lust. A person in love is emotional, pliable, and
easilymisled. (The origin of the word "seduction" is the Latin for
"to lead astray") A person in lust is harder to control and, once
satisfied, may easily leave you. Seducers take their time, create enchantment
and the bonds of love, so that when sex ensues it only further enslaves the
victim. Creating love and enchantment becomes the model for all
seductions-sexual, social, political. A person in love will surrender. It is
pointless to try to argue against such power, to imagine that you are not
interested in it, or that it is evil and ugly. The harder you try to resist the
lure of seduction-as an idea, as a form of power-the more you will find
yourself fascinated. The reason is simple: most of us have known the power of
having someone fall in love with us. Our actions, gestures, the things we say,
all have positive effects on this person; we may not completely understand what
we have done right, but this feeling of power is intoxicating. It gives us
confidence, which makes us more seductive. We may also experience this in a
social or work setting-one day we are in ait elevated mood and people seem more
responsive, more charmed by us. These moments of power are fleeting, but they
resonate in the memory with great intensity. We want them back. Nobody likes to
feel awkward or timid or unable to reach people. The siren call of seduction is
irresistible because power is irresistible, and nothing will bring you more
power in the modern world than the ability to seduce. Repressing the desire to
seduce is a kind of No man hath it in his power to over-rule the deceitfulness
of a woman. -MARGUERITE OF NAVARRE This important side-track, by which woman
succeeded in evading man's strength and establishing herself in power, has not
been given due consideration by historians. From the moment when the woman
detached herself from the crowd, an individual finished product, offering
delights which could not be obtained by force, but only by flattery .... the
reign of love's priestesses was inaugurated. It was a development of
far-reaching importance in the history of civilization. . . . Only by the
circuitous route of the art of love could woman again assert authority, and
this she did by asserting herself at the very point at which she would normally
be a slave at the man's mercy. She had discovered the might of lust, the secret
of the art of love, the daemonic power of a passion artificially aroused and
never satiated. The force tints unchained was thenceforth to count among the
most tremendous of the world's forces and at moments to have power even over
life and death. The deliberate spellbinding of man's senses was to have a
magical effect upon him, opening up an infinitely wider range of sensation and
spurring him on as if impelled by an inspired dream. -ALEXANDER VON GLEICHEN-
RUSSWURM, THE WORLD'S LURE. TRANSLATED BY HANNAH WALLER The first thing to get
in your head is that every single \ Girl can be caught-and that you'll catch
her if \ You set your toils right. Birds will sooner fall dumb in \ Springtime,
\ Cicadas in summer, or a hunting-dog \ Turn his back on a hare, than a lover's
bland inducements \ Can fail with a woman, Even one you suppose \ Reluctant
will want it. -OVID, THE ART OF LOVE, The combination of these two elements,
enchantment and surrender, is, then, essential to the love which we are
discussing. What exists in love is surrender due to enchantment. -JOSE ORTEGA Y
GASSET, ON LOVE, TRANSLATED BY TOBY TALBOT What is good?-All that heightens the
feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. • What is bad?-All
that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness?-The feeling that power
increases-that a resistance is overcome. -FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THE ANTI-CHRIST,
HOLLINGDALE hysterical reaction, revealing your deep-down fascination with the
process; you are only making your desires stronger. Some day they will come to
the surface. To have such power does not require a total transformation in your
character or any kind of physical improvement in your looks. Seduction is a
game of psychology, not beauty, and it is within the grasp of any person to
become a master at the game. All that is required is that you look at the world
differently, through the eyes of a seducer. A seducer does not turn the power
off and on-every social and personal interaction is seen as a potential
seduction. There is never a moment to waste. This is so for several reasons.
The power seducers have over a man or woman works in social environments
because they have learned how to tone down the sexual element without getting
rid of it. We may think we see through them, but they are so pleasant to be
around anyway that it does not matter. Trying to divide your life into moments
in which you seduce and others in which you hold back will only confuse and
constrain you. Erotic desire and love lurk beneath the surface of almost every
human encounter; better to give free rein to your skills than to try to use
them only in the bedroom. (In fact, the seducer sees the world as his or her
bedroom.) This attitude creates great seductive momentum, and with each
seduction you gain experience and practice. One social or sexual seduction
makes the nextone easier, your confidence growing and making you more alluring.
People are drawn to you in greater numbers as the seducer's aura descends upon
you. Seducers have a warrior's outlook on life. They see each person as a kind
of walled castle to which they are laying siege. Seduction is a process of
penetration: initially penetrating the target's mind, their first point of
defense. Once seducers have penetrated the mind, making the target fantasize
about them, it iseasyto lower resistance and create physical surrender.
Seducers do not improvise; they do not leave this process to chance. Like any
good general, they plan and strategize, aiming at the target's particular
weaknesses. The main obstacle to becoming a seducer is this foolish prejudice
we have of seeing love and romance as some kind of sacred, magical realm where
things just fall into place, if they are meant to. This might seem romantic and
quaint,but it is reallyjust a cover for our laziness. What will seduce a person
is the effort we expend on their behalf, showing how much we care, how much
they are worth. Leaving things to chance is a recipe for disaster, and reveals
that we do not take love and romance very seriously. It was the effort Casanova
expended, the artfulness he applied to each affair that made him so devilishly
seductive. Falling in love is a matter not of magic but of psychology. Once you
understand your target's psychology, and strategize to suit it, you will be
better able to cast a "magical" spell. A seducer sees love not as
sacred but as warfare, where all is fair. Seducers are never self-absorbed.
Their gaze is directed outward, not inward. When they meet someone their first
move is to get inside that person's skin, to see the world through their eyes.
The reasons for this are several. First, self-absorption is a sign of
insecurity; it is anti-seductive. Everyone has insecurities, but seducers
manage to ignore them, finding therapy for moments of self-doubt by being
absorbed in the world. This gives them a buoyant spirit-we want to be around
them. Second, getting into someone's skin, imagining what it is like to be
them, helps the seducer gather valuable information, leam what makes that
person tick, what will make them lose their ability to think straight and fall
into a trap. Armed with such information, they can provide focused and
individualized attention-a rare commodity in a world in which most people see
us only from behind the screen of their own prejudices. Getting into the targets'
skin is the first important tactical move in the war of penetration. Seducers
see themselves as providers of pleasure, like bees that gather pollen from some
flowers and deliver it to others. As children we mostly devoted our lives to
play and pleasure. Adults often have feelings of being cut off from this
paradise, of being weighed down by responsibilities. The seducer knows that
people are waiting for pleasure-they never get enough of it from friends and
lovers, and they cannot get it by themselves. A person who enters their lives
offering adventure and romance cannot be resisted. Pleasure is a feeling of
being taken past our limits, of being overwhelmed by another person, by an
experience. People are dying to be overwhelmed, to let go of their usual stubbornness.
Sometimes their resistance to us is a way of saying. Please seduce me. Seducers
know that the possibility of pleasure will make a person follow them, and the
experience of it will make someone open up, weak to the touch. They also train
themselves to be sensitive to pleasure, knowing that feeling pleasure
themselves will make it that much easier for them to infect the people around
them. A seducer sees all of life as theater, everyone an actor. Most people
feel they have constricted roles in life, which makes them unhappy. Seducers,
on the other hand, can be anyone and can assume many roles. (The archetype here
is the god Zeus, insatiable seducer of young maidens, whose main weapon was the
ability to assume the form of whatever person or animal would most appeal to
his victim.) Seducers take pleasure in performing and are not weighed down by
their identity, or by some need to be themselves, or to be natural. This
freedom of theirs, this fluidity in body and spirit, is what makes them
attractive. What people lack in life is not more reality but illusion, fantasy,
play. The clothes that seducers wear, the places they take you to, their words
and actions, are slightly heightened-not overly theatrical but with a
delightful edge of unreality, as if the two of you were living out a piece of
fiction or were characters in a film. Seduction is a kind of theater in real
life, the meeting of illusion and reality. Finally, seducers are completely
amoral in their approach to life. It is all a game, an arena for play. Knowing
that the moralists, the crabbed repressed types who croak about the evils of
the seducer, secretly envy their power, they do not concern themselves with
other people's opinions. They do not deal in moral judgments-nothing could be
less seductive. Everything is The disaffection, neurosis, anguish and
frustration encountered by psychoanalysis comes no doubt from being unable to
love or to be loved, from being unable to give or take pleasure, but the
radical disenchantment comes from seduction and its failure. Only those who lie
completely outside seduction are ill, even if they remain fully capable of
loving and making love. Psychoanalysis believes it treats the disorder of sex
and desire, but in reality it is dealing with the disorders of seduction. The
most serious deficiencies always concern charm and not pleasure, enchantment
and not some vital or sexual satisfaction. BAUDR1LLARD, SEDUCTION Whatever is
done from love always occurs beyond good and evil. -NIETZSCHE, BEYOND GOOD AND
EVIL, KAUFMANN Should anyone here in Rome lack finesse at love- making, \ Let
him \ Try me-read my book, and results are guaranteed! \ Technique is the
secret. Charioteer, sailor, pliant, fluid, like life itself. Seduction is a
form of deception, but people want to be led astray, they yearn to be seduced.
If they didn't, seducers would not find so many willing victims. Get rid of any
moralizing tendencies, adopt the seducer's playful philosophy, and you will
find the rest of the process easy and natural. oarsman, \ All need it.
Technique can control \ Love himself. - OVID, THE ART OF LOVE. GREEN The Art of
Seduction is designed to arm you with weapons of persuasion and charm, so that
those around you will slowly lose their ability to resist without knowing how
or why it has happened. It is an art of war for delicate times. Every seduction
has two elements that you must analyze and understand: first, yourself and what
is seductive about you; and second, your target and the actions that will
penetrate their defenses and create surrender. The two sides are equally
important. If you strategize without paying attention to the parts of your
character that draw people to you, you will be seen as a mechanical seducer,
slimy and manipulative. If you rely on your seductive personality without
paying attention to the other person, you will make terrible mistakes and limit
your potential. Consequently, The Art of Seduction is divided into two parts.
The first half, "The Seductive Character," describes the nine types
of seducer, plus the Anti-Seducer. Studying these types will make you aware of
what is inherently seductive in your character, the basic building block of any
seduction. The second half, "The Seductive Process," includes the
twenty- four maneuvers and strategies that will instruct you on how to create a
spell, break down people's resistance, give movement and force to your
seduction, and induce surrender in your target. As a kind of bridge between the
two parts, there is a chapter on the eighteen types of victims of a seduction-each
of them missing something from their lives, each cradling an emptiness you can
fill. Knowing what type you are dealing with will help you put into practice
the ideas in both sections. Ignore any part of this book and you will be an
incomplete seducer. The ideas and strategies in The Art of Seduction are based
on the writings and historical accounts of the most successful seducers in
history. The sources include the seducers' own memoirs (by Casanova, Errol
Flynn, Natalie Barney, Marilyn Monroe); biographies (of Cleopatra, Josephine
Bonaparte, John F. Kennedy, Duke Ellington); handbooks on the subject (most
notably Ovid's Art of Love); and fictional accounts of seductions (Choderlos de
Laclos's Dangerous Liaisons, Spren Kierkegaard's The Seducer's Diary, Murasaki
Shikibu's The Tale ofGenji). The heroes and heroines of these literary works
are generally modeled on real-life seducers. The strategies they employ reveal
the intimate connection between fiction and seduction, creating illusion and
leading a person along. In putting the book's lessons into practice, you will
be following in the path of the greatest masters of the art. Finally, the
spirit that will make you a consummate seducer is the spirit in which you
should read this book. The French writer Denis Diderot once wrote, "I give
my mind the liberty to follow the first wise or foolish idea that presents
itself, just as in the avenue de Foy our dissolute youths follow close on the
heels of some strumpet, then leave her to pursue another, attacking all of them
and attaching themselves to none. My thoughts are my strumpets." He meant
that he let himself be seduced by ideas, following whichever one caught his
fancy until a better one came along, his thoughts infused with a kind of sexual
excitement. Once you enter these pages, do as Diderot advised: let yourself be
lured by the stories and ideas, your mind open and your thoughts fluid. Slowly
you will find yourself absorbing the poison through the skin and you will begin
to see everything as a seduction, including the way you think and how you look
at the world. Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction. -NATALIE BARNEY
Part One Seductive Character W e all have the power of attraction-the ability
to draw people in and hold them in our thrall. Far from all of us, though, are
aware of this inner potential, and we imagine attractiveness instead as a
near-mystical trait that a select few are born with and the rest will never
command. Yet all we need to do to realize our potential is understand what it
is in a person's character that naturally excites people and develop these
latent qualities within us. Successful seductions rarely begin with an obvious
maneuver or strategic device. That is certain to arouse suspicion. Successful
seductions begin with your character, your ability to radiatesome quality that
attracts people and stirs their emotions in a way that is beyond their control.
Hypnotized by your seductive character, your victims will not notice your
subsequent manipulations. It will then be child's play to mislead and seduce
them. There are nine seducer types in the world. Each type has a particular
character trait that comes from deep within and creates a seductive pull.
Siren.': have an abundance of sexual energy and know how touse it. Rakes insatiably
adore the opposite sex, and their desire is infectious. Ideal Lovers have an
aesthetic sensibility that they apply to romance. Dandies like to play with
their image, creating a striking and androgynous allure. Naturals are
spontaneous and open. Coquettes are self-sufficient, with a fascinating cool at
their core. Charmers want and know how to please-they are social creatures.
Charismatics have an unusual confidence in themselves. Stars are ethereal and
envelop themselves in mystery. The chapters in this section will take you
inside each of the nine types. At least one of the chapters should strike a
chord-you will recognize part of yourself. That chapter will be the key to
developing your own powers of attraction. Let us say you have coquettish
tendencies. The Coquette chapter will show you how to build upon your own
self-sufficiency, alternating heat and coldness to ensnare your victims. It
will show you how to take your natural qualities further, becoming a grand
Coquette, the type we fight over. There is no point in being timid with a
seductive quality. We are charmed by an unabashed Rake and excuse his excesses,
but a halfhearted Rake gets no respect. Once you have cultivated your dominant
character trait, adding some art to what nature has given you, you can then
develop a second or third trait, adding depth and mystery to your persona.
Finally the section's tenth chapter, on the Anti-Se cluce r, w i 11 make you
aware of the opposite potential within you-the power of repulsion. At all cost
you must root out any anti-seductive tendencies you may have. Think of the nine
types as shadows, silhouettes. Only by stepping into one of them and letting it
grow inside you can you begin to develop the seductive character that will
bring you limitless power the iren man is often secretly oppressed by the role
he has to play-by always having to be responsible, in control, and rational.
The Siren is the ultimate male fantasy figure because she offers a total
release from the limitations of his life. In her presence, which is always
heightened and sexually charged, the male feels transported to a world of pure
pleasure. She is dangerous, and in pursuing her energetically the man can lose
control over himself something he yearns to do. The Siren is a mirage; she
lures men by cultivating a particular appearance and manner. In a world where
women are often too timid to project such an image, learn to take control of
the male libido by embodying his fantasy. The Spectacular Siren I n the year 48
B.C., Ptolemy XIV of Egypt managed to depose and exile his sister and wife.
Queen Cleopatra. He secured the country's borders against her return and began
to rule on his own. Later that year, Julius Caesar came to Alexandria to ensure
that despite the local power struggles, Egypt would remain loyal to Rome. One
night Caesar was meeting with his generals in the Egyptian palace, discussing
strategy, when a guard entered to report that a Greek merchant was at the door
bearing a large and valuable gift for the Roman leader. Caesar, in the mood for
a little fun, gave the merchant permission to enter. The man came in, carrying
on his shoulders a large rolled-up carpet. He undid the rope around the bundle
and with a snap of his wrists unfurled it-revealing the young Cleopatra, who
had been hidden inside, and who rose up half clothed before Caesar and his
guests, like Venus emerging from the waves. Everyone was dazzled at the sight
of the beautiful young queen (only twenty-one at the time) appearing before
them suddenly as if in a dream. They were astounded at her daring and
theatricality-smuggled into the harbor at night with only one man to protect
her, risking everything on a bold move. No one was more enchanted than Caesar.
According to the Roman writer Dio Cassius, "Cleopatra was in the prime of
life. She had a delightful voice which could not fail to cast a spell over all
who heard it. Such was the charm of her person and her speech that they drew
the coldest and most determined misogynist into her toils. Caesar was
spellbound as soon as he set eyes on her and she opened her mouth to
speak." That same evening Cleopatra became Caesar s lover. Caesar had had
numerous mistresses before, to divert him from the rigors of his campaigns. But
he had always disposed of them quickly to return to what really thrilled
him-political intrigue, the challenges of warfare, the Roman theater. Caesar
had seen women try anything to keep him under their spell. Yet nothing prepared
him for Cleopatra. One night she would tell him howtogethertheycould revive the
glory of Alexander the Great, and rule the world like gods. The next she would
entertain him dressed as the goddess Isis, surrounded by the opulence of her
court. Cleopatra initiated Caesar in the most decadent revelries, presenting
herself as the incarnation of the Egyptian exotic. His life with her was a
constant game, as challenging as warfare, for the moment he felt secure with
her she In the mean time our good ship, with that perfect wind to drive her,
fast approached the Sirens' Isle. But now the breeze dropped, some power lulled
the waves, and a breathless calm set in. Rising from their seats my men drew in
the sail and threw it into the hold, then sat down at the oars and churned the
water white with their blades of polished pine. Meanwhile I took a large round
of wax, cut it up small with my sword, and kneaded the pieces with all the
strength of my fingers. The wax soon yielded to vigorous treatment and grew
warm, for I had the rays of my Lord the Sun to help me. I took each of my men
in turn and plugged their ears with it. They then made me a prisoner on my ship
by binding me hand and foot, standing me up by the step of the mast and tying
the rope's ends to the mast itself. This done, they sat down once more and
struck the grey water with their oars. We made good progress and had just come
within call of the shore when the Sirens became aware that a ship was swiftly
bearing down upon them, and broke into their liquid song. "Draw
near," they sang, "illustrious Odysseus, flower of Achaean chivalry,
and bring your ship to rest so that you may hear our voices. No seaman ever
sailed his black ship past this spot without listening to the sweet tones that
flow from our lips . . • The lovely voices came to me across the water, and my
heart was filled with such a longing to listen that with nod and frown I signed
to my men to set me free. - HOMER, THE ODYSSEY, BOOK XII, TRANSLATED BY E.V.
RIEU The charm of [Cleopatra's ] presence was irresistible, and there was an
attraction in her person and talk, together with a peculiar force of character,
which pervaded her every word and action, and laid all who associated with her
under its spell. It was a delight merely to hear the sound of her voice, with
which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to
another. -PLUTARCH, MAKERS OF ROME, SCOTT-KILVERT The immediate attraction of a
song, a voice, or scent. The attraction of the panther with his perfumed scent
. . . According to the ancients, the panther is the only animal who emits a
perfumed odor. It uses this scent to draw and capture its victims. But what is
it that seduces in a scent? What is it in the song of the Sirens that seduces
us, or in the beauty of a face, in the depths would suddenly turn cold or angry
and he would have to find a way to regain her favor. The weeks went by. Caesar
got rid of all Cleopatra's rivals and found excuses to stay in Egypt. At one
point she led him on a lavish historical expedition down the Nile. In a boat of
unimaginable splendor-towering fifty-four feet out of the water, including
several terraced levels and a pillared temple to the god Dionysus-Caesar became
one of the few Romans to gaze on the pyramids. And while he stayed long in
Egypt, away from his throne in Rome, all kinds of turmoil erupted throughout the
Roman Empire. When Caesar was murdered, in 44 B.C., he was succeeded by a
triumvirate of rulers including Mark Antony, a brave soldier who loved pleasure
and spectacle and fancied himself a kind of Roman Dionysus. A few years later,
while Antony was in Syria, Cleopatra invited him to come meet her in the
Egyptian town of Tarsus. There-once she had made him wait for her-her
appearance was as startling in its way as her first before Caesar. A
magnificent gold barge with purple sails appeared on the river Cydnus. The
oarsmen rowed to the accompaniment of ethereal music; all around the boat were
beautiful young girls dressed as nymphs and mythological figures. Cleopatra sat
on deck, surrounded and fanned by cupids and posed as the goddess Aphrodite,
whose name the crowd chanted enthusiastically. Like all of Cleopatra's victims,
Antony felt mixed emotions. The exotic pleasures she offered were hard to
resist. But he also wanted to tame her-to defeat this proud and illustrious
woman would prove his greatness. And so he stayed, and, like Caesar, fell
slowly under her spell. She indulged him in all of his weaknesses-gambling,
raucous parties, elaborate rituals, lavish spectacles. To get him to come back
to Rome, Octavius, another member of the Roman triumvirate, offered him a wife:
Octavius's own sister, Octavia, one of the most beautiful women in Rome. Known
for her virtue and goodness, she could surely keep Antony away from the
"Egyptian whore." The ploy worked for a while, but Antony was unable
to forget Cleopatra, and after three years he went back to her. This time it
was for good: he had in essence become Cleopatra's slave, granting her immense
powers, adopting Egyptian dress and customs, and renouncing the ways o/Rome.
Only one image of Cleopatra survives-a barely visible profile on a coin- but we
have numerous written descriptions. She had a long thin face and a somewhat
pointed nose; her dominant features were her wonderfully large eyes. Her
seductive power, however, did not lie in her looks-indeed many among the women
of Alexandria were considered more beautiful than she. What she did have above
all other women was the ability to distract a man. In reality, Cleopatra was
physically unexceptional and had no political power, yet both Caesar and
Antony, brave and clever men, saw none of this. What they saw was a woman who
constantly transformed herself before their eyes, a one-woman spectacle. Her
dress and makeup changed from day to day, but always gave her a heightened,
goddesslike appearance. Her voice, which all writers talk of, was lilting and
intoxicating. Her words could be banal enough, but were spoken so sweetly that
listeners would find themselves remembering not what she said but how she said
it. Cleopatra provided constant variety-tributes, mock battles, expeditions,
costumed orgies. Everything had a touch of drama and was accomplished with
great energy. By the time your head lay on the pillow beside her, your mind was
spinning with images and dreams. And just when you thought you had this fluid,
larger-than-life woman, she would turn distant or angry, making it clear that
everything was on her terms. You never possessed Cleopatra, you worshiped her.
In this way a woman who had been exiled and destined for an early death managed
to turn it all around and rule Egypt for close to twenty years. From Cleopatra
we leam that it is not beauty that makes a Siren but rather a theatrical streak
that allows a woman to embody a man's fantasies. A man grows bored with a
woman, no matter how beautiful; he yearns for different pleasures, and for
adventure. All a woman needs to turn this around is to create the illusion that
she offers such variety and adventure. A man is easily deceived by appearances;
he has a weakness for the visual. Create the physical presence of a Siren
(heightened sexual allure mixed with a regal and theatrical manner) and he is
trapped. He cannot grow bored with you yet he cannot discard you. Keep up the
distractions, and never let him see who you really are. He will follow you
until he drowns. The Sex Siren N orma Jean Mortensen, the future Marilyn
Monroe, spent part of her childhood in Los Angeles orphanages. Her days were
filled with chores and no play. At school, she kept to herself, smiled rarely,
and dreamed a lot. One day when she was thirteen, as she was dressing for
school, she noticed that the white blouse the orphanage provided for her was
torn, so she had to borrow a sweater from a younger girl in the house. The
sweater was several sizes too small. That day, suddenly, boys seemed to gather
around her wherever she went (she was extremely well-developed for her age).
She wrote in her diary, "They stared at my sweater as if it were a gold
mine." The revelation was simple but startling. Previously ignored and
even ridiculed by the other students, Norma Jean now sensed a way to gain
attention, maybe even power, for she was wildly ambitious. She started to smile
more, wear makeup, dress differently. And soon she noticed something equally
startling: without her having to say or do anything, boys fell passionately in
love with her. "My admirers all said the same thing in different
ways," she wrote. "It was my fault, their wanting to kiss me and hug
me. Some said it was the way I looked at them-with eyes full of passion. Others
said it was my voice that lured them on. Still others said I gave off
vibrations that floored them." of an abyss? Seduction lies in the
annulment of signs and their meaning, in pure appearance. The eyes that seduce
have no meaning, they end in the gaze, as the face with makeup ends in only
pure appearance. The scent of the panther is also a meaningless message-and
behind the message the panther is invisible, as is the woman beneath her
makeup. The Sirens too remained unseen. The enchantment lies in what is hidden. BAUDRILLARD, DE LA SEDUCTION We're dazzled by
feminine adornment, by the surface, \ All gold and jewels: so little of what we
observe \ Is the girl herself And where (you may ask) amid such plenty \ Can
our object of passion be found? The eye's deceived \ By Love's smart
camouflage. - OVID, CURES FOR LOVE. GREEN He was herding his cattle on Mount
Gargarus, the highest peak of Ida, when Hermes, accompanied by Hera, Athene,
and Aphrodite delivered the golden apple and Zeus's message: "Paris, since
you are as handsome as you are wise in affairs of the heart, Zeus commands you
to judge which of these goddesses is the fairest. " "So be it,"
sighed Paris. "But first I beg the losers not to be vexed with me. I am
only a human being, liable to make the stupidest mistakes." The goddesses
all agreed to abide by his decision. • "Will it be enough to judge them as
they are?" Paris asked Hermes, "or they he naked?" • "The
rules of the contest are for you to decide," Hermes answered with a
discreet smile. • "In that case, will they kindly disrobe?" • Hermes
told the goddesses to do so, and politely turned his back.Aphrodite was soon
ready, but Athene insisted that she should remove the famous magic girdle,
which gave her an unfair advantage by making everyone fall in love withthe wearer.
"Very well" said Aphrodite spitefully. "/ will, on condition
thatyou remove your helmet-you look hideous without it. " "Now, if
you please, 1 must judge you one at a time" announced Paris. . . . Come
here, Divine Hera! Will you other two goddesses be good enough to leave us for
a while?" • "Examine me conscientiously," said Hera, turning
slowly around, and displaying her magnificent figure, "and remember that
if you judge me the fairest, 1 will make you lord of all Asia, and the richest
man alive. " • "/ am not to be bribed my Lady . . . Very well, thank
you. Now I have seen all that I need to see. Come, Divine Athene!" •
"Here I am," said Athene, striding purposefully forward.
"Listen, Paris, if you have enough common sense to award me the prize, I
will make you victorious in all your battles, as well as the handsomest and
wisest man in the world." • "/ am a humble A few years later Marilyn
was trying to make it in the film business. Producers would tell her the same
thing: she was attractive enough in person, but her face wasn't pretty enough
for the movies. She was getting work as an extra, and when she was
on-screen-even if only for a few seconds-the men in the audience would go wild,
and the theaters would erupt in catcalls. But nobody saw any star quality in
this. One day in 1949, only twenty-three at the time and her career at a
standstill, Monroe met someone at a diner who toldher that a producer casting a
new Groucho Marx movie. Love Happy, was looking for an actress for the part of
a blond bombshell who could walk by Groucho in a way that would, in his words,
"arouse my elderly libido and cause smoke to issue from my ears."
Talking her way into an audition, she improvised this walk. "It's Mae
West, Theda Bara, and Bo Peep all rolled into one," said Groucho after
watching her saunter by. "We shoot the scene tomorrow morning." And
so Marilyn created her infamous walk, a walk that was hardly natural but
offered a strange mix of innocence and sex. Over the next few years, Marilyn
taught herself through trial and error how to heighten the effect she had on
men. Her voice had always been attractive-it was the voice of a little girl.
But on film it had limitations until someone finally taught her to lower it,
giving it the deep, breathy tones that became her seductive trademark, a mix of
the little girl and the vixen. Before appearing on set, or even at a party,
Marilyn would spend hours before the mirror. Most people assumed this was
vanity-she was in love with her image. The truth was that image took hours to
create. Marilyn spent years studying and practicing the art of makeup. The
voice, the walk, the face and look were all constructions, an act. At the
height of her fame, she would get a thrill by going into bars in New York City
without her makeup or glamorous clothes and passing unnoticed. Success finally
came, but with it came something deeply annoying to her: the studios would only
cast her as the blond bombshell. She wanted serious roles, but no one took her
seriously for those parts, no matter how hard she downplayed the siren
qualities she had built up. One day, while she was rehearsing a scene from The
Cherry Orchard, her acting instructor, Michael Chekhov, asked her, "Were
you thinking of sex while we played the scene?" When she said no, he
continued, "All through our playing of the scene I kept receiving sex
vibrations from you. As if you were a woman in the grip of passion. ... I
understand your problem with your studio now, Marilyn. You are a woman who
gives off sex vibrations-no matter what you are doing or thinking. The whole
world has already responded to those vibrations. They come off the movie
screens when you are on them." Marilyn Monroe loved the effect her body
could have on the male libido. She tuned her physical presence like an
instrument, making herself reek of sex and gaining a glamorous,
larger-than-life appearance. Other women knewjust as many tricks for
heightening their sexual appeal, but what separated Marilyn from them was an
unconscious element. Her background had deprived her of something critical:
affection. Her deepest need was to feel loved and desired, which made her seem
constantly vulnerable, like a little girl craving protection. She emanated this
need for love before the camera; it was effortless, coming from somewhere real
and deep inside. A look or gesture that she did not intend to arouse desire
would do so doubly powerfully just because it was unintended-its innocence was
precisely what excited a man. The S ex Siren has a more urgent and immediate
effect than the Spectacular Siren does. The incarnation of sex and desire, she
does not bother to appeal to extraneous senses, or to create a theatrical
buildup. Her time never seems to be taken up by work or chores; she gives the
impression that she lives for pleasure and is always available. What separates
the Sex Siren from the courtesan or whore is her touch of innocence and
vulnerability. The mix is perversely satisfying: it gives the male the critical
illusion that he is a protector, the father figure, although it is actually the
Sex Siren who controls the dynamic. A woman doesn't have to be born with the
attributes of a Marilyn Monroe to fill the role of the Sex Siren. Most of the
physical elements are a construction; the key is the air of schoolgirl
innocence. While one part of you seems to scream sex, the other part is coy and
naive, as if you were incapable of understanding the effect you are having.
Your walk, your voice, your manner are delightfully ambiguous-you are both the
experienced, desiring woman and the innocent gamine. Your next encounter will
be with the Sirens, who bewitch every man that approaches them. For with the
music of their song the Sirens cast their spell upon him, as they sit there in
a meadow piled high with the moldering skeletons of men, whose withered skin
still hangs upon their bones. -CIRCE TO ODYSSEUS, THE ODYSSEY, BOOK XII Keys to
the Character The Siren is the most ancient seductress of them all. Her
prototype is the goddess Aphrodite-it is her nature to have a mythic quality
about her-but do not imagine she is a thing of the past, or of legend and
history: she represents a powerful male fantasy of a highly sexual, supremely
confident, alluring female offering endless pleasure and a bit of danger. In
today's world this fantasy can only appeal the more strongly to the male
psyche, for now more than ever he lives in a world that circumscribes his
aggressive instincts by making everything safe and secure, a world that offers
less chance for adventure and risk than ever before. In the past, a man had
some outlets for these drives-warfare, the high seas, political intrigue. In
the sexual realm, courtesans and mistresses were practically a social institu-
herdsman, not a soldier," said Paris. . . . ".But I promise to
consider fairly your claim to the apple. Now you are at liberty to put on your
clothes and helmet again. Is Aphrodite ready?" • Aphrodite sidled up to
him, and Paris blushed because she came so close that they were almost
touching. • "Look carefully, please, pass nothing over. ... By the way, as
soon as I saw you, I said to myself: 'Upon my word, there goes the handsomest
young man in Phrygia! Why does he waste himself here in the wilderness herding
stupid cattle?' Well, why do you, Paris? Why not move into a city and lead a
civilized life? What have you to lose by marrying someone like Helen of Sparta,
who is as beautiful as I am, and no less passionate? ... I suggest now that you
tour Greece with my son Eros as your guide. Once you reach Sparta, he and I
will see that Helen falls head over heels in love with you." • "Would
you swear to that?" Paris ashed excitedly. • Aphrodite uttered a solemn
oath, and Paris, without a second thought, awarded her the golden apple.
GRAVES, THE GREEK MYTHS To whom aw I compare the lovely girl, so blessed by
fortune, if not to the Sirens, who with their lodestone draw the ships towards
them? Thus, I imagine, did Isolde attract many thoughts and hearts that deemed
themselves safe from love's disquietude. And indeed these two-anchorless ships
and stray thoughts - provide a good comparison. They are both so seldom on a
straight course, lie so often in unsure havens, pitching and tossing and
heaving to and fro. Just so, in the same way, do aimless desire and random
love-longing drift like an anchorless ship. This charming young princess,
discreet and courteous Isolde, drew thoughts from the hearts that enshrined
them as a lodestone draws in ships to the sound of the Sirens' song. She sang
openly and secretly, in through ears and eyes to where many a heart was stirred.
The song which she sang openly in this and other places was her own sweet
singing and soft sounding of strings that echoed for all to hear through the
kingdom of the ears deep down into the heart. But her secret song was her
wondrous beauty that stole with its rapturous music hidden and unseen through
the windows of the eyes into many noble hearts and smoothed on the magic which
took thoughts prisoner suddenly, and, taking them, fettered them with desire!
-GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG, TRISTAN. HATTO tion, and offered him the variety and
the chase that he craved. Without any outlets, his drives turn inward and gnaw
at him, becoming all the more volatile for being repressed. Sometimes a
powerful man will do the most irrational things, have an affair when it is
least called for, just for a thrill, the danger of it all. The irrational can
prove immensely seductive, even more so for men, who must always seem so
reasonable. If it is seductive power you are after, the Siren is the most
potent of all. She operates on a man's most basic emotions, and if she plays
her role properly, she can transform a normally strong and responsible male
into a childish slave. The Siren operates well on the rigid masculine type-the
soldier or hero-just as Cleopatra overwhelmed Mark Antony and Marilyn Monroe
Joe DiMaggio. But never imagine that these are the only types the Siren can
affect. Julius Caesar was a writer and thinker, who had transferred his
intellectual abilities onto the battlefield and into the political arena; the
playwright Arthur Miller fell as deeply under Monroe's spell as DiMaggio. The
intellectual is often the one most susceptible to the Siren call of pure
physical pleasure, because his life so lacks it. The Siren does not have to
worry about finding the right victim. Her magic works on one and all. First and
foremost, a Siren must distinguish herself from other women. She is by nature a
rare thing, mythic, only one to a group; she is also a valuable prize to be
wrested away from other men. Cleopatra made herself different through her sense
of high drama; the Empress Josephine Bonaparte's device was her extreme
languorousness; Marilyn Monroe's was her little-girl quality. Physicality
offers the best opportunities here, since a Siren is preeminently a sight to
behold. A highly feminine and sexual presence, even to the point of caricature,
will quickly differentiate you, since most women lack the confidence to project
such an image. Once the Siren has made herself stand out from others, she must
have two other critical qualities: the ability to get the male to pursue her so
feverishly that he loses control; and a touch of the dangerous. Danger is
surprisingly seductive. To get the male to pursue you is relatively simple: a
highly sexual presence will do this quite well. But you must not resemble a
courtesan or whore, whom the male may pursue only to quickly lose interest in
her. Instead, you are slightly elusive and distant, a fantasy come to life.
During the Renaissance, the great Sirens, such as Tullia d'Aragona, would act
and look like Grecian goddesses-the fantasy of the day. Today you might model
yourself on a film goddess-anything that seems larger than life, even awe
inspiring. These qualities will make a man chase you vehemently, and the more
he chases, the more he will feel that he is acting on his own initiative. This
is an excellent way of disguising how deeply youare manipulating him. The
notion of danger, challenge, sometimes death, might seem outdated, but danger
is critical in seduction. It adds emotional spice and is particularly appealing
to men today, who are normally so rational and repressed. Danger is present in
the original myth of the Siren. In Homer's Odyssey, the hero Odysseus must sail
by the rocks where the Sirens, strange female creatures, sing and beckon
sailors to their destruction. They sing of the glories of the past, of a world
like childhood, without responsibilities, a world of pure pleasure. Their
voices are like water, liquid and inviting. Sailors would leap into the water
to join them, and drown; or, distracted and entranced, they would steer their
ship into the rocks. To protect his sailors from the Sirens, Odysseus has their
ears filled with wax; he himself is tied to the mast, so he can both hear the
Sirens and live to tell of it-a strange desire, since the thrill of the Sirens
is giving in to the temptation to follow them. Just as the ancient sailors had
to row and steer, ignoring all distractions, a man today must work and follow a
straight path in life. The call of something dangerous, emotional, unknown is
all the more powerful because it is so forbidden. Think of the victims of the
great Sirens of history: Paris causes a war for the sake of Helen of Troy,
Caesar risks an empire and Antony loses his power and his life for Cleopatra, Napoleon
becomes a laughingstock over Josephine, DiMaggio never gets over Marilyn, and
Arthur Miller can't write for years. A man is often ruined by a Siren, yet
cannot tear himself away. (Many powerful men have a masochistic streak.) An
element of danger is easy to hint at, and will enhance your other Siren
characteristics-the touch of madness in Marilyn, for example, that pulled men
in. Sirens are often fantastically irrational, which is immensely attractive to
men who are oppressed by their own reasonableness. An element of fear is also
critical: keeping a man at a proper distance creates respect, so that he
doesn't get close enough to see through you or notice your weaker qualities.
Create such fear by suddenly changing your moods, keeping the man off balance,
occasionally intimidating him with capricious behavior. The most important
element for an aspiring Siren is always the physical, the Siren's main
instrument of power. Physical qualities-a scent, a heightened femininity evoked
through makeup or through elaborate or seductive clothing-act all the more
powerfully on men because they have no meaning. hi their immediacy they bypass
rational processes, having the same effect that a decoy has on an animal, or
the movement of a cape on a bull. The proper Siren appearance is often confused
with physical beauty, particularly the face. But a beautiful face does not a
Siren make: instead it creates too much distance and coldness. (Neither
Cleopatra nor Marilyn Monroe, the two greatest Sirens in history, were known
for their beautiful faces.) Although a smile and an inviting look are
infinitely seductive, they must never dominate your appearance. They are too
obvious and direct. The Siren must stimulate a generalized desire, and the best
way to do this is by creating an overall impression that is both distracting
and alluring. It is not one particular trait, but a combination of qualities:
Falling in love with statues and paintings, even making love to them is an
ancient fantasy, one of which the Renaissance was keenly aware. Giorgio Vasari,
writing in the introductory section of the Lives about art in antiquity, tells
how men violated the laws, going into the temples at night and making love with
statues of Venus. In the morning, priests would enter the sanctuaries to find
stains on the marble figures. -LYNNE LAWNER, LIVES OF THE COURTESANS The voice.
Clearly a critical quality, as the legend indicates, the Siren's voice has an
immediate animal presence with incredible suggestive power. Perhaps that power
is regressive, recalling the ability of the mother's voice to calm or excite
her child even before the child understood what she was saying. The Siren must
have an insinuating voice that hints at the erotic, more often subliminally
than overtly. Almost everyone who met Cleopatra commented on her delightful,
sweet-sounding voice, which had a mesmerizing quality. The Empress Josephine,
one of the great seductresses of the late eighteenth century, had a languorous
voice that men found exotic, and suggestive of her Creole origins. Marilyn
Monroe was born with her breathy, childlike voice, but she learned to lower to
make it truly seductive. Lauren Bacall's voice is naturally low; its seductive
power comes from its slow, suggestive delivery. The Siren never speaks quickly,
aggressively, or at a high pitch. Her voice is calm and unhurried, as if she
had never quite woken up-or left her bed. Body and adornment. If the voice must
lull, the body and its adornment must dazzle. It is with her clothes that the
Siren aims to create the goddess effect that Baudelaire described in his essay
"In Praise of Makeup": "Woman is well within her rights, and
indeed she is accomplishing a kind of duty in striving to appear magical and
supernatural. She must astonish and bewitch; an idol, she must adorn herself
with gold in order to be adored. She must borrow from all of the arts in order
to raise herself above nature, the better to subjugate hearts and stir
souls." A Siren who was a genius of clothes and adornment was Pauline
Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon. Pauline consciously strove for a goddess effect,
fashioning hair, makeup, and clothes to evoke the look and air of Venus, the
goddess of love. No one in history could boast a more extensive and elaborate
wardrobe. Pauline's entrance at a ball in 1798 created an astounding effect.
She asked the hostess, Madame Permon, if she could dress at her house, so no
one would see her clothes as she came in. When she came down the stairs,
everyone stopped dead in stunned silence. She wore the headdress of a bacchante-clusters
of gold grapes interlaced in her hair, which was done up in the Greek style.
Her Greek tunic, with its gold- embroidered hem, showed off her goddesslike
figure. Below her breasts was a girdle of burnished gold, held by a magnificent
jewel. "No words can convey the loveliness of her appearance," wrote
the Duchess d'Abrantes. "The very room grew brighter as she entered. The
whole ensemble was so harmonious that her appearance was greeted with a buzz of
admiration which continued with utter disregard of all the other women."
The key: everything must dazzle, but must also be harmonious, so that no single
ornament draws attention. Your presence must be charged, larger than life, a
fantasy come true. Ornament is used to cast a spell and distract. The Siren can
also use clothing to hint at the sexual, at times overtly but more often by
suggesting it rather than screaming it-that would make you seem manipulative.
Related to this is the notion of selective disclosure, the revealing of only a
part of the body-but a part that will excite and stir the imagination. In the
late sixteenth century. Marguerite de Valois, the infamous daughter of Queen
Catherine de Medicis of France, was one of the first women ever to incorporate
decolletage in her wardrobe, simply because she had the most beautiful breasts
in the realm. For Josephine Bonaparte it was her arms, which she carefully
always left bare. Movement and demeanor. In the fifth century B.C., King Kou
Chien chose the Chinese Siren Hsi Shih from among all the women of his realm to
seduce and destroy his rival Fu Chai, King of Wu; for this purpose, he had the
young woman instructed in the arts of seduction. Most important of these was
movement-how to move gracefully and suggestively. Hsi Shih learned to give the
impression of floating across the floor in her court robes. When she was
finally unleashed on Fu Chai, he quickly fell under her spell. She walked and
moved like no one he had ever seen. He became obsessed with her tremulous
presence, her manner and nonchalant air. Fu Chai fell so deeply in love that he
let his kingdom fall to pieces, allowing Kou Chien to march in and conquer it
without a fight. The Siren moves gracefully and unhurriedly. The proper
gestures, movement, and demeanor for a Siren are like the proper voice: they
hint at something exciting, stirring desire without being obvious. Your air
must be languorous, as if you had all the time in the world for love and
pleasure. Your gestures must have a certain ambiguity, suggesting something both
innocent and erotic. Anything that cannot immediately be understood is
supremely seductive, and all the more so if it permeates your manner. Symbol:
Water. The song of the Siren is liquid and enticing, and the Siren herself is
fluid and un- graspable. Like the sea, the Siren lures you with the promise of
infinite adventure and pleasure. Forgetting past and future, men follow her far
out to sea, where they drown. Dangers. N o matter how enlightened the age, no
woman can maintain the image of being devoted to pleasure completely
comfortably. And no matter how hard she tries to distance herself from it, the
taint of being easy always follows the Siren. Cleopatra was hated in Rome as
the Egyptian whore. That hatred eventually lead to her downfall, as Octavius and
the Roman army sought to extirpate the stain on Roman manhood that she came to
represent. Even so, men are often forgiving when it comes to the Siren's
reputation. But danger often lies in the envy she stirs up among other women;
much of Rome's hatred for Cleopatra originated in the resentment she provoked
among the city's stern matrons. By playing up her innocence, by making herself
seem the victim of male desire, the Siren can somewhat blunt the effects of
feminine envy. But on the whole there is little she can do-her power comes from
her effect on men, and she must learn to accept, or ignore, the envy of other
women. Finally, the intense attention that the Siren attracts can prove
irritating and worse. Sometimes she will pine for relief from it; sometimes,
too, she will want to attract an attention that is not sexual. Also,
unfortunately, physical beauty fades; although the Siren effect depends not on
a beautiful face but on an overall impression, past a certain age that
impression gets hard to project. Both of these factors contributed to the
suicide of Marilyn Monroe. It takes a genius on the level of Madame de
Pompadour, the Siren mistress of King Louis XV, to make the transition into the
role of the spirited older woman who continues to seduce with her nonphysical
charms. Cleopatra had such an intellect, and had she lived long enough, she
would have remained a potent seductress for many years. The Siren must prepare
for age by paying attention early on to the more psychological, less physical
forms of coquetry that can continue to bring her power once her beauty starts
to fade. the A woman never quite feels desired and appreciated enough. She
wants attention, but a man is too often distracted and unresponsive. The Rake
is a great female fantasy figure-when he desires a woman, brief though that
moment may be, he will go to the ends of the earth for her. He may be disloyal,
dishonest, and amoral, but that only adds to his appeal. Unlike the normal,
cautious male, the Rake is delightfully unrestrained, a slave to his love of
women. There is the added lure of his reputation: so many women have succumbed
to him, there has to be a reason. Words are a woman's weakness, and the Rake is
a master of seductive language. Stir a woman's repressed longings by adapting the
Rake's mix of danger and pleasure. The Ardent Rake. F or the court of Louis
XIV, the king's last years were gloomy-he was old, and had become both
insufferably religious and personally unpleasant. The court was bored and
desperate for novelty. So in 1710, the arrival of a fifteen-year-old lad who
was both devilishly handsome and charming had a particularly strong effect on
the ladies. His name was Fronsac, the future Duke de Richelieu (his granduncle
being the infamous Cardinal Richelieu). He was impudent and witty. The ladies
would play with him like a toy, but he would Mss them on the lips in return,
his hands wandering far for an inexperienced boy. When those hands strayed up
the skirts of a duchess who was not so indulgent, the king was furious, and
sent the youth to the Bastille to teach him a lesson. But the ladies who had
found him so amusing could not endure his absence. Compared to the stiffs in
court, here was someone incredibly bold, his eyes boring into you, his hands
quicker than was safe. Nothing could stop him, his novelty was irresistible.
The court ladies pleaded and his stay in the Bastille was cut short. Several
years later, the young Mademoiselle de Valois was walking in a Paris park with
her chaperone, an older woman who never left her side. De Valois's father, the
Duke d'Orleans, was determined to protect her, his youngest daughter, from all
the court seducers until she could be married off, so he had attached to her
this chaperone, a woman of impeccable virtue and sourness. In the park,
however, de Valois saw a young man who gave her a look that set her heart on
fire. He walked on by, but the look was intense and clear. It was her chaperone
who told her his name: the now infamous Duke de Richelieu, blasphemer, seducer,
heartbreaker. Someone to avoid at all cost. A few days later, the chaperone
took de Valois to a different park, and lo and behold, Richelieu crossed their
path again. This time he was in disguise, dressed as a beggar, but the look in
his eye was unforgettable. Mademoiselle de Valois returned his gaze: at last
something exciting in her drab life. Given her father's sternness, no man had
dared approach her. And now this notorious courtier was pursuing her, instead
of all the other ladies at court-what a thrill! Soon he was smuggling
beautifully written notes to her expressing his uncontrollable desire for her.
She responded timidly, but soon the notes were all she was living for. In one
of them he promised to arrange everything if she would spend the night with
him; imagining it was [After an accident at sect, Don Juan finds himself washed
up on a beach, where he is discovered by a young woman.] • TISBEA: Wake up,
handsomest of all men, and be yourself again. • D 0 N JUAN: If the sea gives me
death, you give me life. But the sea really saved me only to be killed by you.
Oh the sea tosses me from one torment to the other, for I no sooner pulled
myself from the water than I met this siren - yourself. Why fill my ears with
wax, since you kill me with your eyes? I was dying in the sea, but from today I
shall die of love. • TISBEA: YOU have abundant breath for a man almost drowned.
You suffered much, but who knows what suffering you are preparing for me? . . I
found you at my feet all water, and now you are all fire. If you burn when
you are so wet, what will you do when you're dry again? You promise
a scorching flame; I hope to God you're not lying. • D O N JUAN: Dear girl, God
should have drowned me before I could be charred by you. Perhaps love was wise
to drench me before I felt your scalding touch. But your fire is such that even
in water I burn. • TISBEA: So cold and yet burning? • DON JUAN: So much fire is
in you. • TISBEA: How well you talk! • D O N JUAN: How well you understand! •
TISBEA: I hope to God you're not lying. -TIRSO DE MOLINA, THE PLAYBOY OF
SEVILLE, SCHIZZANO. MANDEL Pleased with my first success, I determined to
profit by this happy reconciliation. I called them impossible to bring such a
thing to pass, she did not mind playing along and agreeing to his bold proposal.
Mademoiselle de Valois had a chambermaid named Angelique, who dressed her for
bed and slept in an adjoining room. One night as the chaperone was knitting, de
Valois looked up from the book she was reading to see Angelique carrying her
mistress's nightclothes to her room, but for some strange reason Angelique
looked back at her and smiled-it was Richelieu,expertly dressed as the maid! De
Valois nearly gasped from fright, but caught herself, realizing the danger she
was in: if she said anything her family would find out about the notes, and
about her part in the whole affair. What could she do? She decided to go to her
room and talk the young duke out of his ridiculously dangerous maneuver. She
said good night to her chaperone, but once she was in her bedroom, the words
she had planned were useless. When she tried to reason with Richelieu, he
responded with that look in his eye, and then with his arms around her. She
could not yell, but now she was unsure what to do. His impetuous words, his
caresses, the danger of it all-her head was whirling, she was lost. What was
virtue and her prior boredom compared to an evening with the court's most
notorious rake? So while the chaperone knitted away, the duke initiated her
into the my dear wives, my faithful rituals of libertinage. companions, the two
bemgs Months later, de Valois's father had reason to suspect that Richelieu had
chosen to make me happy. i sought to turn their broken through his lines of
defense. The chaperone was fired, the precau- heads, and to rouse in tions were
doubled. D'Orleans did not realize that to Richelieu such mea- them desires the
strength of which I knew and which would drive away any reflections contrary to
my plans. The skillful man who knows how to communicate gradually the heat of love
to the senses of the most virtuous woman is quite certain of soon being
absolute master of her mind and her person; you cannot reflect when you have
lost your head; and, moreover, principles of wisdom, however deeply engraved
they may be on the mind, are effaced in that moment when the heart yearns only
for pleasure: pleasure alone then commands and is obeyed. The man who has had
experience of conquests nearly always succeeds where he who is only timid and
in love fails. When I had brought my two belles to the state of abandonment in
which I sures were a challenge, and he lived for challenges. He bought the
house next door under an assumed name and secretly tunneled a trapdoor through
the wall adjoining the duke's kitchen cupboard. In this cupboard, over the next
few months-until the novelty wore off-de Valois and Richelieu enjoyed endless
trysts. Everyone in Paris knew of Richelieu's exploits, for he made it a point
to publicize them as loudly as possible. Every week a new story would circulate
through the court. A husband had locked his wife in an upstairs room at night,
worried the duke was after her; to reach her the duke had crawled in darkness
along a thin wooden plank suspended between two upper-floor windows.Two women
who lived in the same house, one a widow, the other married and quite
religious, had discovered to their mutual horror that the duke was having an
affair with both of them at the same time, leaving one in the middle of the
night to be with the other. When they confronted him, the duke, always on the
prowl for something novel, and a devilish talker, had neither apologized nor
backed down, but proceeded to talk them into a menage a trois, playing on the
wounded vanity of each woman, who could not stand the thought of him preferring
the other. Year after year, the stories of his remarkable seductions spread.
One woman admired his audacity and bravery, another his gallantry in thwarting
a husband. Women competed for his attention: if he did not want to seduce you,
there had to be something wrong with you. To be the target of his attentions
became a great fantasy. At one point two ladies fought a pistol duel over the
duke, and one of them was seriously wounded. The Duchess d'Orleans, Richelieu's
most bitter enemy, once wrote, "If I believed in sorcery I should think
that the Duke possessed some supernatural secret, for I have never known a
woman to oppose the very least resistance to him." In seduction there is
often a dilemma: to seduce you need planning and calculation, but if your victim
suspects that you have ulterior motives, she will grow defensive. Furthermore,
if you seem to be in control, you will inspire fear instead of desire. The
Ardent Rake solves this dilemma in the most artful manner. Of course he must
calculate and plan-he has to find a way around the jealous husband, or whatever
the obstacle is. It is exhausting work. But by nature, the Ardent Rake also has
the advantage of an uncontrollable libido. When he pursues a woman, he really
is aglow with desire; the victim senses this and is inflamed, even despite
herself. How can she imagine that he is a heartless seducer who will abandon
her when he so ardently braves all dangers and obstacles to get to her? And
even if she is aware of his rakish past, of his incorrigible amorality, it doesn't
matter, because she also sees his weakness. He cannot control himself; he
actually is a slave to all women. As such he inspires no fear. The Ardent Rake
teaches us a simple lesson: intense desire has a distracting power on a woman,
just as the Siren's physical presence does on a man. A woman is often defensive
and can sense insincerity or calculation. But if she feels consumed by your
attentions, and is confident you will do anything for her, she will notice
nothing else about you, or will find a way to forgive your indiscretions. This
is the perfect cover for a seducer. The kej| is to show no hesitation, to
abandon all restraint, to let yourself go, to show that you cannot control
yourself and are fundamentally weak. Do not worry about inspiring mistrust; as
long as you are the slave to her charms, she will not think of the aftermath.
The Demonic Rake. I n the early 1880s, members of Roman high society began to
talk of a young journalist who had arrived on the scene, a certain Gabriele
D'Annunzio. This was strange in itself, for Italian royalty had only the
deepest contempt for anyone outside their circle, and a newspaper society
reporter was almost as low as you could go. Indeed well-born men paid
D'Annunzio little attention. He had no money and few connections, coming from a
strictly middle-class background. Besides, to them he was downright ugly-short
and stocky, with a dark, splotchy complexion and bulging eyes. The men thought
him so unappealing they gladly let him mingle with their wives and daughters,
certain that their women would be safe with this gargoyle and happy to get this
gossip hunter off their hands. No, it was not the men who talked of D'Annunzio;
it was their wives. wanted them, I expressed a more eager desire; their eyes
lit up; my caresses were returned; and it was plain that their resistance would
not delay for more than a few moments the next scene I desired them to play. I
proposed thateach should accompany me in turn into a charming closet, next to
the room in which we were, which I wanted them to admire. They both remained
silent. • "You hesitate?" I said to them. "I will see which of
you is the more attached to me. The one who loves me the more will be the first
to follow the lover she wishes to convince of her affection. . . I knew my
puritan, and I was well aware that, after a few Struggles, she gave herself up
completely to the present moment. 'This one appeared to be as agreeable to her
as the others we had previously spent together; she forgot that she was sharing
me [with Madame Renaud].[When her turn came ] Madame Renaud responded with a
transport that proved her contentment, and she left the sitting only after
having repeated continually: "What a man! What a man! He is astonishing!
How often you could be happy with him if he were only faithful!" - THE
PRIVATE LIFE OF THE MARSHAL DUKE OF RICHELIEU, TRANSLATED BY F. S. FLINT His
very successes in love, even more than the marvellous voice of this little,
bald seducer with a nose like Punch, swept along in his train a whole procession
of enamoured women, both opulent and tormented. D'Annunzio had successfully
revived the Byronic legend: as he passed by full-breasted women, standing in
his way as Boldoni would paint them, strings of pearls anchoring them to
life-princesses and actresses, great Russian ladies and even middle- class
Bordeaux housewives-they would offer themselves up to him. -PHILIPPE JULLIAN,
PRINCE OF AESTHETES: COUNT ROBERT DE MONTESQUIEOU, HAYLOCK AND FRANCIS KING In
short, nothing is so sweet as to triumph over the Resistance of a beautiful
Person; and in that I have the Ambition of Conquerors, who fly Introduced to
D'Annunzio by their husbands, these duchesses and marchionesses would find
themselves entertaining this strange-looking man, and when he was alone with
them, his manner would suddenly change. Within minutes these ladies would be
spellbound. First, he had the most magnificent voice they had ever heard-soft
and low, each syllable articulated, with a flowing rhythm and inflection that
was almost musical. One woman compared it to the ringing of church bells in the
distance. Others said his voice had a "hypnotic" effect. The words
that voice spoke were interesting as well-alliterative phrases, charming
locutions, poetic images, and a way of offering praise that could melt a
woman's heart. D'Annunzio had mastered the art of flattery. He seemed to know
each woman's weakness: one he would call a goddess of nature, another an
incomparable artist in the making, another a romantic figure out of a novel. A
woman's heart would flutter as he described the effect she had on him.
Everything was suggestive, hinting at sex or romance. That night she would
ponder his words, recalling little in particular that he had said, because he
never said anything concrete, but rather the feeling it had given her. The next
day she would receive from him a poem that seemed to have been written
specifically for her. (In fact he wrote dozens of very similar poems, slightly
tailoring each one for its intended victim.) A few years after D'Annunzio began
work as a society reporter, he married the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of
Gallese. Shortly thereafter, with the unshakeable support of society ladies, he
began publishing novels and books of poetry. The number of his conquests was
remarkable, and also the quality-not only marchionesses would fall at his feet,
but great artists, such as the actress Eleanor Duse, who helped him become a
respected dramatist and literary celebrity. The dancer Isadora Duncan, another
who eventually fell under his spell, explained his magic: "Perhaps the
perpetually from victory to m0 st remarkable lover of our time is Gabriele
D'Annunzio. And this Victory and can never prevail with themselves to put a
bound to their Wishes. Nothing can restrain the Impetuosity of my Desires; I
have an Heart for the whole Earth; and like Alexander, I could wish for New
Worlds wherein to extend my Amorous Conquests. -MOLIERE, DON JOHN OR THE
LIBERTINE. OZELL notwithstanding that he is small, bald, and, except when his
face lights up with enthusiasm, ugly But when he speaks to a woman he likes,
his face is transfigured, so that he suddenly becomes Apollo. . . . His effect
on women is remarkable. The lady he is talking to suddenly feels that her very
soul and being are lifted." At the outbreak of World War I, the
fifty-two-year-old D'Annunzio joined the army. Although he had no military
experience, he had a flair for the dramatic and a burning desire to prove his
bravery. He learned to fly and led dangerous but highly effective missions. By
the end of the war, he was Italy's most decorated hero. His exploits made him a
beloved national figure, and after the war, crowds would gather outside his
hotel wherever in Italy he went. He would address them from a balcony,
discussing politics, railing against the current Italian government. A witness
of one of these speeches, the American writer Walter Starkie, was initially
disappointed at the appearance of the famous D'Annunzio on a balcony in Venice;
he was short, and looked grotesque. "Little by little, however, I began to
sink under the fascination of the voice, which penetrated into my
consciousness. . . . Never a hurried, jerky gesture. ... He played upon the
emotions of the crowd as a supreme violinist does upon a Stradivarius. The eyes
of the thousands were fixed upon him as though hypnotized by his power."
Once again, it was the sound of the voice and the poetic connotations of the
words that seduced the masses. Arguing that modern Italy should reclaim the
greatness of the Roman Empire, D'Annunzio would craft slogans for the audience
to repeat, or would ask emotionally loaded questions for them to answer. He
flattered the crowd, made them feel they were part of some drama. Everything
was vague and suggestive. The issue of the day was the ownership of the city of
Fiume, just across the border in neighboring Yugoslavia. Many Italians believed
that Italy's reward for siding with the Allies in the recent war should be the
annexation of Fiume. D'Annunzio championed this cause, and because of his status
as a war hero the army was ready to side with him, although the government
opposed any action. In September of 1919, with soldiers rallying around him,
D'Annunzio led his infamous march on Fiume. When an Italian general stopped him
along the way, and threatened to shoot him, D'Annunzio opened his coat to show
his medals, and said in his magnetic voice, "If you must kill me, fire
first on this!" The general stood there stunned, then broke into tears. He
joined up with D'Annunzio. When D'Annunzio entered Fiume, he was greeted as a
liberator. The next day he was declared leader of the Free State of Fiume. Soon
he was giving daily speeches from a balcony overlooking the town's main square,
holding tens of thousands of people spellbound without benefit of loudspeakers.
He initiated all kinds of celebrations and rituals harking back to the Roman
Empire. The citizens of Fiume began to imitate him, particularly his sexual
exploits; the city became like a giant bordello. His popularity was so high
that the Italian government feared a march on Rome, which at that point, had
D'Annunzio decided to do it-and he had the support of a large part of the
military-might actually have succeeded; D'Annunzio could have beaten Mussolini
to the punch and changed the course of history. (He was not a Fascist but a
kind of aesthetic socialist.) He decided to stay in Fiume, however, and ruled
there for sixteen months before the Italian government finally bombed him out
of the city. Seduction is a psychological process that transcends gender,
except in a few key areas where each gender has its own weakness. The male is
traditionally vulnerable to the visual. The Siren who can concoct the right
physical appearance will seduce in large numbers. For women the weakness is
language and words: as was written by one of D'Annunzio's victims, the French
actress Simone, "How can one explain his conquests except by his
extraordinary verbal power, and the musical timbre of his voice, put to the
service of exceptional eloquence? For my sex is susceptible to words, bewitched
by them, longing to be dominated by them." The Rake is as promiscuous with
words as he is with women. He chooses words for their ability to suggest,
insinuate, hypnotize, elevate, in- Among the many modes of handling Don Juan's
effect on women, the motif of the irresistible hero is worth singling out, for
it illustrates a curious change in our sensibility. Don Juan did not become
irresistible to women until the Romantic age, and I am disposed to think that
it is a trait of the female imagination to make him so. When the female voice
began to assert itself and even, perhaps, to dominate in literature, Don Juan
evolved to become the women's rather than the man's ideal. . . . Don Juan is
now the woman's dream of the perfect lover, fugitive, passionate, daring. He
gives her the one unforgettable moment, the magnificent exaltation of the flesh
which is too often denied her by the real husband, who thinks that men are
gross and women spiritual. To be the fatal Don Juan may be the dream of a few
men; but to meet him is the dream of many women. -OSCAR MANDEL,"THE LEGEND
OF DON JUAN," THE THEATRE OF DON JUAN feet. The words of the Rake are the
equivalent of the bodily adornment of the Siren: a powerful sensual
distraction, a narcotic. The Rake's use of language is demonic because it is
designed not to communicate or convey information but to persuade, flatter,
stir emotional turmoil, much as the serpent in the Garden of Eden used words to
lead Eve into temptation. The example of D'Annunzio reveals the link between
the erotic Rake, who seduces women, and the political Rake, who seduces the
masses. Both depend on words. Adapt the character of the Rake and you will find
that the use of words as a subtle poison has infinite applications. Remember:
it is the form that matters, not the content. The less your targets focus on
what you say, and the more on how it makes them feel, the more seductive your
effect. Give your words a lofty, spiritual, literary flavor the better to
insinuate desire in your unwitting victims. But what is this force, then, by
which Don Juan seduces? It is desire, the energy of sensuous desire. He desires
in every woman the whole of womanhood. The reaction to this gigantic passion
beautifies and develops the one desired, who flushes in enhanced beauty by his
reflection. As the enthusiast's fire with seductive splendor illumines even
those who stand in a casual relation to him, so Don Juan transfigures in afar
deeper sense every girl. KIERKEGAARD, EITHER/OR Keys to the Character A t first
it may seem strange that a man who is clearly dishonest, disloyal, and has no
interest in marriage would have any appeal to a woman. But throughout all of
history, and in all cultures, this type has had a fatal effect. What the Rake
offers is what society normally does not allow women: an affair of pure
pleasure, an exciting brush with danger. A woman is often deeply oppressed by
the role she is expected to play She is supposed to be the tender, civilizing
force in society, and to want commitment and lifelong loyalty. But often her
marriages and relationships give her not romance and devotion but routine and
an endlessly distracted mate. It remains an abiding female fantasy to meet a
man who gives totally of himself, who lives for her, even if only for a while.
This dark, repressed side of female desire found expression in the legend of
Don Juan. At first the legend was a male fantasy: the adventurous knight who
could have any woman he wanted. But in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, Don Juan slowly evolved from the masculine adventurer to a more
feminized version: a man who lived only for women. This evolution came from
women's interest in the story, and was a result of their frustrated desires.
Marriage for them was a form of indentured servitude; but Don Juan offered
pleasure for its own sake, desire with no strings attached. For the time he
crossed your path, you were all he thought about. His desire for you was so
powerful that he gave you no time to think or to worry about the consequences.
He would come in the night, give you an unforgettable moment, and then vanish.
He might have conquered a thousand women before you, but that only made him
more interesting; better to be abandoned than undesired by such a man. The
great seducers do not offer the mild pleasures that society condones. They
touch a person's unconscious, those repressed desires that cry out for
liberation. Do not imagine that women are the tender creatures that some people
would like them to be. Like men, they are deeply attracted to the forbidden,
the dangerous, even the slightly evil. (Don Juan ends by going to hell, and the
word "rake" comes from "rakehell," a man who rakes the
coals of hell; the devilish component, clearly, is an important part of the
fantasy.) Always remember: if you are to play the Rake, you must convey a sense
of risk and darkness, suggesting to your victim that she is participating in
something rare and thrilling-a chance to play out her own rakish desires. To
play the Rake, the most obvious requirement is the ability to let yourself go,
to draw a woman into the kind of purely sensual moment in which past and future
lose meaning. You must be able to abandon yourself to the moment. (When the
Rake Valmont-a character modeled after the Duke de Richelieu-in Laclos'
eighteenth-century novel Dangerous Liaisons writes letters that are obviously
calculated to have a certain effect on his chosen victim, Madame de Tourvel,
she sees right through them; but when his letters really do burn with passion,
she begins to relent.) An added benefit of this quality is that it makes you
seem unable to control yourself, a display of weakness that a woman enjoys. By
abandoning yourself to the seduced, you make them feel that you exist for them
alone-a feeling reflecting a truth, though a temporary one. Of the hundreds of
women that Pablo Picasso, consummate rake, seduced over the years, most of them
had the feeling that they were the only one he truly loved. The Rake never
worries about a woman's resistance to him, or for that matter about any other
obstacle in his path-a husband, a physical barrier. Resistance is only the spur
to his desire, enflaming him all the more. When Picasso was seducing Fran£oise
Gilot, in fact, he begged her to resist; he needed resistance to add to the
thrill. In any case, an obstacle in your way gives you the opportunity to prove
yourself, and the creativity you bring to matters of love. In the
eleventh-century Japanese novel The Tale ofGenji, by the court lady Murasaki
Shikibu, the Rake Prince Niou is not disturbed by the sudden disappearance of
Ukifune, the woman he loves. She has fled because although she is interested in
the prince, she is in love with another man; but her absence allows the prince
to go to extreme lengths to track her down. His sudden appearance to whisk her
away to a house deep in the woods, and the gallantry he displays in doing so,
overwhelm her. Remember: if no resistances or obstacles face you, you must
create them. No seduction can proceed without them. The Rake is an extreme personality.
Impudent, sarcastic, and bitingly witty, he cares nothing for what anyone
thinks. Paradoxically, this only makes him more seductive. In the courtlike
atmosphere of studio-era Hollywood, when most of the actors behaved like
dutiful sheep, the great Rake Errol Flynn stood out in his insolence. He defied
the studio chiefs, engaged in the most extreme pranks, reveled in his
reputation as Hollywood's supreme seducer-all of which enhanced his popularity.
The Rake needs abackdrop of convention-a stultified court, a humdrum marriage,
a conservative culture-to shine, to be appreciated for the breath of fresh air
he provides. Never worry about going too far: the Rake's essence is that he
goes further than anyone else. When the Earl of Rochester, seventeenth-century
England's most notorious Rake and poet, abducted Elizabeth Malet, one of the
most sought- after young ladies of the court, he was duly punished. But lo and
behold, a few years later young Elizabeth, though wooed by the most eligible
bachelors in the country, chose Rochester to be her husband. In demonstrating
his audacious desire, he made himself stand out from the crowd. Related to the
Rake's extremism is the sense of danger, taboo, perhaps even the hint of
cruelty about him. This was the appeal of another poet Rake, one of the
greatest in history: Lord Byron. Byron disliked any kind of convention, and
happily played this up. When he had an affair with his half sister, who bore a
child by him, he made sure that all of England knew about it. He could be
uncommonly cruel, as he was to his wife. But all of this only made him that
much more desirable. Danger and taboo appeal to a repressed side in women, who
are supposed to represent a civilizing, moralizing force in culture. Just as a
man may fall victim to the Siren through his desire to be free of his sense of
masculine responsibility, a woman may succumb to the Rake through her yearning
to be free of the constraints of virtue and decency. Indeed it is often the
most virtuous woman who falls most deeply in love with the Rake. Among the
Rake's most seductive qualities is his ability to make women want to reform
him. How many thought they would be the one to tame Lord Byron; how many of
Picasso's women thought they would finally be the one with whom he would spend
the rest of his life. You must exploit this tendency to the fullest. When
caught red-handed in rakishness, fall back on your weakness-your desire to
change, and your inability to do so. With so many women at your feet, what can
you do? You are the one who is the victim. You need help. Women will jump at
this opportunity; they are uncommonly indulgent of the Rake, for he is such a
pleasant, dashing figure. The desire to reform him disguises the true nature of
their desire, the secret thrill they get from him. When President Bill Clinton
was clearly caught out as a Rake, it was women who rushed to his defense,
finding every possible excuse for him. The fact that the Rake is so devoted to
women, in his own strange way, makes him lovable and seductive to them.
Finally, a Rake's greatest asset is his reputation. Never downplay your bad
name, or seem to apologize for it. Instead, embrace it, enhance it. It is what
draws women to you. There are several things you must be known for: your
irresistible attractiveness to women; your uncontrollable devotion to pleasure
(this will make you seem weak, but also exciting to be around); your disdain
for convention; a rebellious streak that makes you seem dangerous. This last
element can be slightly hidden; on the surface, be polite and civil, while
letting it be known that behind the scenes you are incorrigible. Duke de
Richelieu made his conquests as public as possible, exciting other women's
competitive desire to join the club of the seduced. It was by reputation that
Lord Byron attracted his willing victims. A woman may feel ambivalent about
President Clinton's reputation, but beneath that ambivalence is an underlying
interest. Do not leave your reputation to chance or gossip; it is your life's
artwork, and you must craft it, hone it, and display it with the care of an
artist. Symbol: Fire. The Rake burns with a desire that enflames the woman he
is seducing. It is extreme, uncontrollable, and dangerous. The Rake may end in
hell, but the flames surrounding him often make him seem that much more
desirable to women. Dangers ";e the Siren, the Rake faces the most danger
from members of his J _/Dwn sex, who are far less indulgent than women are of
his constant skirt chasing. In the old days, a Rake was often an aristocrat,
and no matter how many people he offended or even killed, in the end he would
go unpunished. Today, only stars and the very wealthy can play the Rake with
impunity; the rest of us need to be careful. Elvis Presley had been a shy young
man. Attaining early stardom, and seeing the power it gave him over women, he
went berserk, becoming a Rake almost overnight. Like many Rakes, Elvis had a
predilection for women who were already taken. He found himself cornered by an
angry husband or boyfriend on numerous occasions, and came away with a few cuts
and bruises. This might seem to suggest that you should step lightly around
husbands and boyfriends, especially early on in your career. But the charm of
the Rake is that such dangers don't matter to them. You cannot be a Rake by
being fearful and prudent; the occasional pummeling is part of the game. Later
on, in any case, at the height of Elvis's fame, no husband would dare touch
him. The greater danger for the Rake comes not from the violently offended
husband but from those insecure men who feel threatened by the Don Juan figure.
Although they will not admit it, they envy the Rake's life of pleasure, and
like everyone envious, they will attack in hidden ways, often masking their
persecutions as morality. The Rake may find his career endangered by such men
(or by the occasional woman who is equally insecure, and who feels hurt because
the Rake does not want her). There is little the Rake can do to avoid envy; if
everyone was as successful in seduction, society would not function. So accept
envy as a badge of honor. Don't be naive, be aware. When attacked by a moralist
persecutor, do not be taken in by their cmsade; it is motivated by envy, pure
and simple. You can blunt it by being less of a Rake, asking forgiveness,
claiming to have reformed, but this will damage your reputation, making you
seem less lovably rakish. In the end, it is better to suffer attacks with
dignity and keep on seducing. Seduction is the source of your power; and you
can always count on the infinite indulgence of women. the Ideal lover Most
people have dreams in their youth that get shattered or worn down with age.
They find themselves disappointed by people, events, reality, which cannot
match their youthful ideals. Ideal Lovers thrive on people's broken dreams,
which become lifelong fantasies. You long for romance ? Adventure? Lofty
spiritual communion? The Ideal Lover reflects your fantasy. He or she is an
artist in creating the illusion you require, idealizing your portrait. In a
world of disenchantment and baseness, there is limitless seductive power in
following the path of the Ideal Lover. The Romantic Ideal O ne evening around
1760, at the opera in the city of Cologne, a beautiful young woman sat in her
box, watching the audience. Beside her was her husband, the town burgomaster-a
middle-aged man and amiable enough, but dull. Through her opera glasses the
young woman noticed a handsome man wearing a stunning outfit. Evidently her
stare was noticed, for after the opera the man introduced himself: his name was
Giovanni Gi- if at first sight a girl does acomo Casanova. The stranger kissed
the woman's hand. She was going to a ball the following night, she told him;
would he like to come? "If I might dare to hope, Madame," he replied,
"that you will dance only with me." The next night, after the ball,
the woman could think only of Casanova. He had seemed to anticipate her
thoughts-had been so pleasant, and yet so bold. A few days later he dined at
her house, and after her husband had retired for the evening she showed him
around. In her boudoir she pointed out a wing of the house, a chapel, just
outside her window. Sure enough, as if he had read her mind, Casanova came to
the chapel the next day to attend Mass, and seeing her at the theater that evening
he mentioned to her that he had noticed a door there that must lead to her
bedroom. She not make such a deep impression on a person that she awakens the
ideal, then ordinarily the actuality is not especially desirable; but if she
does, then no matter how experienced a person is he usually is rather
overwhelmed. KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY. HONG AND HONG laughed, and
pretended to be surprised. In the most innocent of tones, he said that he would
find a way to hide in the chapel the next day-and almost without thinking, she
whispered she would visit him there after everyone had gone to bed. So Casanova
hid in the chapel's tiny confessional, waiting all day and evening. There were
rats, and he had nothing to lie upon; yet when the burgomaster's wife finally
came, late at night, he did not complain, but quietly followed her to her room.
They continued their trysts for several days. By day she could hardly wait for
night: finally something to live for, an adventure. She left him food, books,
and candles to ease his long and tedious stays in the chapel-it seemed wrong to
use a place of worship for such a purpose, but that only made the affair more
exciting. A few days later, however, she had to take a journey with her
husband. By the time she got back, Casanova had disappeared, as quickly and
gracefully as he had come. Some years later, in London, a young woman named
Miss Pauline noticed an ad in a local newspaper. A gentleman was looking for a
lady lodger to rent a part of his house. Miss Pauline came from Portugal, and
was of the nobility; she had eloped to London with a lover, but he had been A
good lover will behave as elegantly at dawn as at any other time. He drags
himself out of bed with a look of dismay on his face. The lady urges him on:
"Come, my friend, it's getting light. You don't want anyone to find you
here." He gives a deep sigh, as if to say that the night has not been
nearly long enough and that it is agony to leave. Once up, he does not
instantly pull on his trousers. Instead he comes close to the lady and whispers
whatever was left unsaid during the night. Even when he is dressed, he still
lingers, vaguely pretending to be fastening his sash. • Presently he raises the
lattice, and the two lovers stand together m the side door while he tells her
how he dreads the coining day, which will keep them apart; then he slips away.
The lady watches him go, and this moment of parting will remain among her most
charming memories. • Indeed, one's attachment to a man depends largely on the
elegance of his leave- taking; When he jumps out of bed, scurries about the
room, tightly fastens his trouser sash, rolls up the sleeves of his court
cloak, overrobe, or hunting costume, stuffs his belongings into the breast of
his robe and then briskly secures the outer sash-one really begins to hate him.
PILLOW fBML iO F SEI SHONAGON. TRANSLATED AND forced to return home and she had
had to stay on alone for some while before she couldjoin him. Now she was
lonely, and had little money, and was depressed by her squalid circumstances-after
all, she had been raised as a lady. She answered the ad. The gentleman turned
out to be Casanova, and what a gentleman he was. The room he offered was nice,
and the rent was low; he asked only for occasional companionship. Miss Pauline
moved in. They played chess, went riding, discussed literature. He was so
well-bred, polite, and generous. A serious and high-minded girl, she came to
depend on their friendship; here was a man she could talk to for hours. Then
one day Casanova seemed changed, upset, excited: he confessed that he was in
love with her. She was going back to Portugal soon, to rejoin her lover, and
this was not what she wanted to hear. She told him he should go riding to calm
down. Later that evening she received news: he had fallen from his horse.
Feeling responsible for his accident, she rushed to him, found him in bed, and
fell into his arms, unable to control herself. The two became lovers that
night, and remained so for the rest of Miss Pauline's stay in London. Yet when
it came time for her to leave for Portugal, he did not try to stop her;
instead, he comforted her, reasoning that each of them had offered the other
the perfect, temporary antidote to their loneliness, and that they would be
friends for life. Some years later, in a small Spanish town, a young and
beautiful girl named Ignazia was leaving church after confession. She was
approached by Casanova. Walking her home, he explained that he had a passion
for dancing the fandango, and invited her to a ball the following evening. He
was so different from anyone in the town, which bored her so-she desperately
wanted to go. Her parents were against the arrangement, but she persuaded her
mother to act as a chaperone. After an unforgettable evening of dancing (and he
danced the fandango remarkably well for a foreigner), Casanova confessed that
he was madly in love with her. She replied (very sadly, though) that she
already had a fiance. Casanova did not force the issue, but over the next few
days he took Ignazia to more dances and to the bullfights. On one of these
occasions he introduced her to a friend of his, a duchess, who flirted with him
brazenly; Ignazia was terribly jealous. By now she was desperately in love with
Casanova, but her sense of duty and religion forbade such thoughts. Finally,
after days of torment, Ignazia sought out Casanova and took his hand: "My
confessor tried to make me promise to never be alone with you again," she
said, "and as I could not, he refused to give me absolution. It is the first
time in my life such a thing has happened to me. I have put myself in God's
hands. I have made up my mind, so long as you are here, to do all you wish.
When to my sorrow you leave Spain, I shall find another confessor. My fancy for
you is, after all, only a passing madness." Casanova was perhaps the most
successful seducer in history; few women could resist him. His method was
simple: on meeting a woman, he would study her, go along with her moods, find
out what was missing in her life, and provide it. He made himself the Ideal
Lover. The bored burgomaster's wife needed adventure and romance; she wanted
someone who would sacrifice time and comfort to have her. For Miss Pauline what
was missing was friendship, lofty ideals, serious conversation; she wanted a
man of breeding and generosity who would treat her like a lady. For Ignazia,
what was missing was suffering and torment. Her life was too easy; to feel
truly alive, and to have something real to confess, she needed to sin. In each
case Casanova adapted himself to the woman's ideals, brought her fantasy to
life. Once she had fallen under his spell, a littleruse or calculation would
seal the romance (a day among rats, a contrived fall from a horse, an encounter
with another woman to make Ignazia jealous). The Ideal Lover is rare in the
modern world, for the role takes effort. You will have to focus intensely on
the other person, fathom what she is missing, what he is disappointed by.
People will often reveal this in subtle ways: through gesture, tone of voice, a
look in the eye. By seeming to be what they lack, you will fit their ideal. To
create this effect requires patience and attention to detail. Most people are
so wrapped up in their own desires, so impatient, they are incapable of the
Ideal Lover role. Let that be a source of infinite opportunity. Be an oasis in
the desert of the self-absorbed; few can resist the temptation of following a
person who seems so attuned to their desires, to bringing to life their
fantasies. And as with Casanova, your reputation as one who gives such pleasure
will precede you and make your seductions that much The cultivation of the
pleasures of the senses was ever my principal aim in life. Knowing that I was
personally calculated to please the fair sex, 1 always strove to make myself agreeable
to it. -CASANOVA The Beauty Ideal I n 1730, when Jeanne Poisson was a mere nine
years old, a fortune-teller predicted that one day she would be the mistress of
Louis XV. The prediction was quite ridiculous, since Jeanne came from the
middle class, and it was a tradition stretching back for centuries that the
king's mistress be chosen from among the nobility. To make matters worse,
Jeanne's father was a notorious rake, and her mother had been a courtesan.
Fortunately for Jeanne, one of her mother's lovers was a man of great wealth
who took a liking to the pretty girl and paid for her education. Jeanne learned
to sing, to play the clavichord, to ride with uncommon skill, to act and dance;
she was schooled in literature and history as if she were a boy. The playwright
Crebillon instructed her in the art of conversation. During the early 1970s,
against a turbulent political backdrop that included the fiasco of American
involvement in the Vietnam War and the downfall of President Richard Nixon's
presidency in the Watergate scandal, a "me generation" sprang to
prominence-and [Andy] Warhol was there to hold up its mirror.Unlike the
radicalized protesters of the 1960s who wanted to change all the ills of
society, the self- absorbed "me" people sought to improve their
bodies and to "get in touch" with their own feelings. They cared
passionately about their appearance, health, lifestyle, and bank accounts. Andy
catered to their self- centeredness and inflated pride by offering his services
as a portraitist. By the end of the decade, he would be internationally
recognized as one of the leading portraitists of his era. Warhol offered his
clients an irresistible product: a stylish and flattering portrait by a famous
artist who was himself a certified celebrity. Conferring an alluring star
presence upon even the most celebrated of faces, he transformed his subjects
into glamorous apparitions, presenting their faces as he thought they wanted to
be seen and remembered. By filtering his sitters' good features through his silkscreens
and exaggerating their vivacity, he enabled them to gain entree to a more
mythic and rarefied level of existence. The possession of great wealth and
power might do for everyday life, but the commissioning of a portrait by Warhol
was a sure indication that the sitter intended to secure a posthumous fame as
well. Warhol's portraits were not so much realistic documents of contemporary
faces as they were designer icons awaiting future devotions. -DAVID BOURDON,
WARHOL Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the
magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its
natural size. -VIRGINIA WOOLF, A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN On top of it all, Jeanne was
beautiful, and had a charm and grace that set her apart early on. In 1741, she
married a man of the lower nobility. Nowknown as Madame d'Etioles, she could
realize a great ambition: she opened a literary salon. All of the great writers
and philosophers of the time frequented the salon, many because they were
enamored of the hostess. One of these was Voltaire, who became a lifelong
friend. Through all Jeanne's success, she never forgot the fortune-teller's
prediction, and still believed that she would one day conquer the king's heart.
It happened that one of her husband's country estates bordered on King Louis's
favorite hunting grounds. She would spy on him through the fence, or find ways
to cross his path, always while she happened to be wearing an elegant, yet
fetching outfit. Soon the king was sending her gifts of game. When his official
mistress died, in 1744, all of the court beauties vied to take her place; but
he began to spend more and more time with Madame d'Etioles, dazzled by her
beauty and charm. To the astonishment of the court, that same year he made this
middle-class woman his official mistress, ennobling her with the title of the
Marquise de Pompadour. The king's need for novelty was notorious: a mistress
would beguile him with her looks, but he would soon grow bored with her and
find someone else. After the shock of his choice of Jeanne Poisson wore off,
the courtiers reassured themselves that it could not last-that he had only
chosen her for the novelty of having a middle-class mistress. Little did they
know that Jeanne s first seduction of the king was not the last seduction she
had in mind. As time went by, the king found himself visiting his mistress more
and more often. As he ascended the hidden stair that led from his quarters to
hers in the palace of Versailles, anticipation of the delights that awaited him
at the top would begin to turn his head. First, the room was always warm, and
was filled with delightful scents. Then there were the visual delights: Madame
de Pompadour always wore a different costume, each one elegant and surprising
in its own way. She loved beautiful objects-fine porcelain, Chinese fans,
golden flowerpots-and every time he visited, there would be something new and
enchanting to see. Her manner was always lighthearted; she was never defensive
or resentful. Everything for pleasure. Then there was their conversation: he
had never been really able to talk with a woman before, or to laugh, but the
marquise could discourse skillfully on any subject, and her voice was a
pleasure to hear. And if the conversation waned, she would move to the piano,
play a tune, and sing wonderfully. If ever the king seemed bored or sad, Madame
de Pompadour would propose some project-perhaps the building of a new country
house. He would have to advise in the design, the layout of the gardens, the
decor. Back at Versailles, Madame de Pompadour put hersell in charge of the
palace amusements, building a private theater for weekly performances under her
direction. Actors were chosen from among the courtiers, but the female lead was
always played by Madame de Pompadour, who was one of the finest amateur
actresses in France. The king became obsessed with this theater; he could
barely wait for its performances. Along with this interest came an increasing
expenditure of money on the arts, and an involvement in philosophy and
literature. A man who had cared only for hunting and gambling was spending less
and less time with his male companions and becoming a great patron of the arts.
Indeed he stamped a whole era with an aesthetic style, which became known as
"Louis Quinze," rivaling the style associated with his illustrious
predecessor, Louis XTV. Lo and behold, year after year went by without Louis
tiring of his mistress. In fact he made her a duchess, and her power and
influence extended well beyond culture into politics. For twenty years, Madame
de Pompadour ruled both the court and the king's heart, until her untimely
death, in 1764, at the age of forty-three. Louis XV had a powerful inferiority
complex. The successor to Louis XTV, the most powerful kingin French history,
he had been educated and trained for the throne-yet who could follow his
predecessor's act? Eventually he gave up trying, devoting himself instead to
physical pleasures, which came to define how he was seen; the people around him
knew they could sway him by appealing to the basest parts of his character.
Madame de Pompadour, genius of seduction, understood that inside Louis XV was a
great man yearning to come out, and that his obsession with pretty young women
indicated a hunger for a more lasting kind of beauty. Her first step was to
cure his incessant bouts of boredom. It is easy for kings to be
bored-everything they want is given to them, and they seldom learn to be
satisfied with what they have. The Marquise de Pompadour dealt with this by
bringing all sorts of fantasies to life, and creating constant suspense. She
had many skills and talents, and just as important, she deployed them so
artfully that he never discovered their limits. Once she had accustomed him to
more refined pleasures, she appealed to the crushed ideals within him; in the
mirror she held up to him, he saw his aspiration to be great, a desire that, in
France, inevitably included leadership in culture. His previous series of
mistresses had tickled only his sensual desires. In Madame de Pompadour he
found a woman who made him feel greatness in himself. The other mistresses
could easily be replaced, but he could never find another Madame de Pompadour.
Most people believe themselves to be inwardly greater than they outwardly
appear to the world. They are full of unrealized ideals; they could be artists,
thinkers, leaders, spiritual figures, but the world has crushed them, denied
them the chance to let their abilities flourish. This is the key to their
seduction-and to keeping them seduced over time. The Ideal Lover knows how to
conjure up this kind of magic. Appeal only to people's physical side, as many
amateur seducers do, and they will resent you for playing upon their basest
instincts. But appeal to their better selves, to a higher standard of beauty,
and they will hardly notice that they have been seduced. Make them feel
elevated, lofty, spiritual, and your power over them will be limitless. Love
brings to light a lover's noble and hidden qualities - his rare and exceptional
traits: it is thus liable to be deceptive as to his normal character. NIETZSCHE
Keys to the Character E ach of us carries inside us an ideal, either of what we
would like to become, or of what we want another person to be for us. This
ideal goes back to our earliest years-to what we once felt was missing in our
lives, what others did not give to us, what we could not give to ourselves.
Maybe we were smothered in comfort, and we long for danger and rebellion. If we
want danger but it frightens us, perhaps we look for someone who seems at home
with it. Or perhaps our ideal is more elevated-we want to be more creative,
nobler, and kinder than we ever manage to be. Our ideal is something we feel is
missing inside us. Our ideal may be buried in disappointment, but it lurks underneath,
waiting to be sparked. If another person seems to have that ideal quality, or
to have the ability to bring it out in us, we fall in love. That is the
response to Ideal Lovers. Attuned to what is missing inside you, to the fantasy
that will stir you, they reflect your ideal-and you do the rest, projecting on
to them your deepest desires and yearnings. Casanova and Madame de Pompadour
did not merely seduce their targets into a sexual affair, they made them fall
in love. The key to following the path of the Ideal Lover is the ability to
observe. Ignore your targets' words and conscious behavior; focus on the tone
of their voice, a blush here, a look there-those signs that betray what their
words won't say. Often the ideal is expressed in contradiction. King Louis XV
seemed to care only about chasing deer and young girls, but that in fact
covered up his disappointment in himself; he yearned to have his nobler
qualities flattered. Never has there beenabettermoment than now to play the
Ideal Lover. That is because we live in a world in which everything must seem
elevated and well-intentioned. Power is the most taboo topic of all: although
it is the reality we deal with every day in our struggles with people, there is
nothing noble, self-sacrificing, or spiritual about it. Ideal Lovers make you
feel nobler, make the sensual and sexual seem spiritual and aesthetic. Like all
seducers, they play with power, but they disguise their manipulations behind
the facade of an ideal. Few people see through them and their seductions last
longer. Some ideals resemble Jungian archetypes-they go back a long way in our
culture, and their hold is almost unconscious. One such dream is that of the
chivalrous knight. In the courtly love tradition of the Middle Ages, a troubadour/knight
would find a lady, almost always a married one. and would serve as her vassal.
He would go through terrible trials on her behalf, undertake dangerous
pilgrimages in her name, suffer awful tortures to prove his love. (This could
include bodily mutilation, such as tearing off of fingernails, the cutting of
an ear, etc.) He would also write poems and sing beautiful songs to her, for no
troubadour could succeed without some kind of aesthetic or spiritual quality to
impress his lady. The key to the archetype is a sense of absolutedevotion. A
man who will not let matters of warfare, glory, or money intrude into the
fantasy of courtship has limitless power. The troubadour role is an ideal
because people who do not put themselves and their own interests first are
truly rare. For a woman to attract the intense attention of such a man is
immensely appealing to her vanity. In eighteenth-century Osaka, a man named
Nisan took the courtesan Dewa out walking, first taking care to sprinkle the
clover bushes along the path with water, which looked like morning dew. Dewa
was greatly moved by this beautiful sight. "I have heard," she said,
"that loving couples of deer are wont to lie behind clover bushes. How I
should like to see this in real life!" Nisan had heard enough. That very
day he had a section of her house torn down and ordered the planting of dozens
of clover bushes in what had once been a part of her bedroom. That night, he
arranged for peasants to round up wild deer from the mountains and bring them
to the house. The next day Dewa awoke to precisely the scene she had described.
Once she appeared overwhelmed and moved, he had the clover and deer taken away
and the house rebuilt. One of history's most gallant lovers, Sergei Saltykov,
had the misfortune to fall in love with one of history's least available women:
the Grand Duchess Catherine,future empress of Russia. Catherine's every move
was watched over by her husband, Peter, who suspected her of trying to cheat on
him and appointed servants to keep an eye on her. She was isolated, unloved,
and unable to do anything about it. Saltykov, a handsome young army officer,
was determined to be her rescuer. In 1752 he befriended Peter, and also the
couple in charge of watching over Catherine. In this way he was able to see her
and occasionally exchange a word or two with her that revealed his intentions.
He performed the most foolhardy and dangerous maneuvers to be able to see her
alone, including diverting her horse during a royal hunt and riding off into
the forest with her. He told her how much he sympathized with her plight, and
that he would do anything to help her. To be caught courting Catherine would
have meant death, and eventually Peter came to suspect that something was up
between his wife and Saltykov, though he was never sure. His enmity did not
discourage the dashing officer, who just put still more energy and ingenuity
into finding ways to arrange secret trysts. The couple were lovers for two
years, and Saltykov was undoubtedly the father of Catherine's son Paul, later
the emperor of Russia. When Peter finally got rid of him by sending him off to
Sweden, news of his gallantry traveled ahead of him, and women swooned to be Ms
next conquest. You may not have to go to as much trouble or risk, but you will
always be rewarded for actions that reveal a sense of self- sacrifice or
devotion. The embodiment of the Ideal Lover for the 1920s was Rudolph
Valentino, or at least the image created of him in film. Everything he did-the
gifts, the flowers, the dancing, the way he took a woman's hand-showed a
scrupulous attention to the details that would signify how much he was thinking
of her. The image was of a man who made courtship take time, transforming it
into an aesthetic experience. Men hated Valentino, because women now expected
them to match the ideal of patience and attentiveness that he represented. Yet
nothing is more seductive than patient attentiveness. It makes the affair seem
lofty, aesthetic, not really about sex. The power of a Valentino, particularly
nowadays, is that people like this are so rare. The art of playing to a woman's
ideal has almost disappeared-which only makes it that much more alluring. If
the chivalrous lover remains the ideal for women, men often idealize the
Madonna/whore, a woman who combines sensuality with an air of spirituality or
innocence. Think of the great courtesans of the Italian Renaissance, such as
Tullia d'Aragona-essentially a prostitute, like all courtesans, but able to
disguise her social role by establishing a reputation as a poet and
philosopher. Tullia was what was then known as an "honest courtesan."
Honest courtesans would go to church, but they had an ulterior motive: for men,
their presence at Mass was exciting. Their houses were pleasure palaces, but
what made these homes so visually delightful was their artworks and shelves
full of books, volumes of Petrarch and Dante. For the man, the thrill, the
fantasy, was to sleep with a woman who was sexual yet had the ideal qualities
of a mother and the spirit and intellect of an artist. Where the pure
prostitute excited desire but also disgust, the honest courtesan made sex seem
elevated and innocent, as if it were happening in the Garden of Eden. Such
women held immense power over men. To tMs day they remain an ideal, if for no other
reason than that they offer such a range of pleasures. The key is ambiguity-to
combine the appearance of sensitivity to the pleasures of the flesh with an air
of innocence, spirituality, a poetic sensibility. This mix of the high and the
low is immensely seductive. The dynamics of the Ideal Lover have limitless
possibilities, not all of them erotic. In politics, Talleyrand essentially
played the role of the Ideal Lover with Napoleon, whose ideal in both a cabinet
minister and a friend was a man who was aristocratic, smooth with the
ladies-allthe things that Napoleon Mmself was not. In 1798, when Talleyrand was
the French foreign minister, he hosted a party in Napoleon's honor after the
great general's dazzling military victories in Italy. To the day Napoleon died,
he remembered tMs party as the best he had ever attended. It was a lavish
affair, and Talleyrand wove a subtle message into it by placing Roman busts
around the house, and by talking to Napoleon of reviving the imperial glories
of ancient Rome. This sparked a glint in the leader's eye, and indeed, a few
years later, Napoleon gave himself the title of emperor-a move that only made
Talleyrand more powerful. The key to Talleyrand's power was his ability to
fathom Napoleon's secret ideal: his desire to be an emperor, a dictator.
Talleyrand simply held up a mirror to Napoleon and let him glimpse that
possibility. People are always vulnerable to insinuations like this, which
stroke their vanity, almost everyone's weak spot. Hint at something for them to
aspire to, reveal your faith in some untapped potential you see in them, and
you will soon have them eating out of your hand. If Ideal Lovers are
masters at seducing people by appealing to their higher selves, to something
lost from their childhood, politicians can benefit by applying this skill on a
mass scale, to an entire electorate. This was what John F. Kennedy quite
deliberately did with the American public, most obviously in creating the
"Camelot" aura around himself. The word "Camelot" was
applied to his presidency only after his death, but the romance he consciously
projected through his youth and good looks was fully functioning during his
lifetime. More subtly, he also played with America's images of its own
greatness and lost ideals. Many Americans felt that with the wealth and comfort
of the late 1950s had come great losses; ease and conformity had buried the
country's pioneer spirit. Kennedy appealed to those lost ideals through the
imagery of the New Frontier, which was exemplified by the space race. The
American instinct for adventure could find outlets here, even if most of them
were symbolic. And there were other calls for public service, such as the
creation of the Peace Corps. Through appeals like these, Kennedy resparked the
uniting sense of mission that had gone missing in America during the years
since World War II. He also attracted to himself a more emotional response than
presidents commonly got. People literally fell in love with him and the image.
Politicians can gain seductive power by digging into a country's past, bringing
images and ideals that have been abandoned or repressed back to the surface.
They only need the symbol; they do not really have toworry about re-creating
the reality behind it. The good feelings they stir up are enough to ensure a
positive response. Symbol: The Portrait Painter. Under his eye, all of
yourphysicalimperfectionsdisappear.Hebrings out noble qualities in you, frames
you in a myth, makes you godlike, immortalizes you. For his ability to create
such fantasies, he is rewarded with great power. Dangers T he main dangers in
the role of the Ideal Lover are the consequences that arise if you let reality
creep in. You are creating a fantasy that involves an idealization of your own
character. And this is a precarious task, for you are human, and imperfect. If
your faults are ugly enough, or intrusive enough, they will burst the bubble
you have blown, and your target will revile you. Whenever Tullia d'Aragona was
caught acting like a common prostitute (when, for instance, she was caught
having an affair just for money), she would have to leave town and establish
herself elsewhere. The fantasy of her as a spiritual figure was broken.
Casanova too faced this danger, but was usually able to surmount it by finding
a clever way to break off the relationship before the woman realized that he
was not what she had imagined: he would find some excuse to leave town, or,
better still, he would choose a victim who was herself leaving town soon, and
whose awareness that the affair would be short-lived would make her idealizing
of him all the more intense. Reality and long intimate exposure have a way of
dulling a person's perfection. The nineteenth-century poet Alfred de Musset was
seduced by the writer George Sand, whose larger-than-life character appealed to
his romantic nature. But when the couple visited Venice together, and Sand came
down with dysentery, she was suddenly no longer an idealized figure but a woman
with an unappealing physical problem. De Musset himself showed a whiny, babyish
side on this trip, and the lovers separated. Once apart, however, they were
able to idealize each other again, and reunited a few months later. When
reality intrudes, distance is often a solution. In politics the dangers are
similar. Years after Kennedy's death, a string of revelations (his incessant
sexual affairs, his excessively dangerous brinkmanship style of diplomacy,
etc.) belied the myth he had created. His image has survived this tarnishing;
poll after poll shows that he is still revered. Kennedy is a special case,
perhaps, in that his assassination made him a martyr, reinforcing the process
of idealization that he had already set in motion. But he is not the only
example of an Ideal Lover whose attraction survives unpleasant revelations;
these figures unleash such powerful fantasies, and there issuchahunger for the
myths and ideals they have to sell, that they are often quickly forgiven.
Still, it is always wise to be prudent, and to keep people from glimpsing the
less-than-ideal side of your character. the Dandy Most of us feel trapped
within the limited roles that the world expects us to play. We are instantly
attracted to those who are more fluid, more ambiguous, than we are-those who
create their own persona. Dandies excite us because they cannot be categorized,
and hint at afreedom we wantfor ourselves. They play with masculinity and
femininity; they fashion their own physical image, which is always startling;
they are mysterious and elusive. They also appeal to the narcissism of each
sex: to a woman they are psychologically female, to a man they are male.
Dandies fascinate and seduce in large numbers. Use the power of the Dandy to
create an ambiguous, alluring presence that stirs repressed desires. The
Feminine Dandy W hen the eighteen-year-old Rodolpho Guglielmi emigrated from
Italy to the United States in 1913, he came with no particular skills apart
from his good looks and his dancing prowess. To put these qualities to
advantage, he found work in the thes dansants, the Manhattan dance halls where
young girls would go alone or with friends and hire a taxi dancer for a brief
thrill. The taxi dancer would expertly twirl them around the dance floor,
flirting and chatting, all for a small fee. Guglielmi soon made a name as one of
the best-so graceful, poised, and pretty. In working as a taxi dancer,
Guglielmi spent a great deal of time around women. He quickly learned what
pleased them-how to mirror them in subtle ways, how to put them at ease (but
not too much). He began to pay attention to his clothes, creating his own
dapper look: he danced with a corset under his shirt to give himself a trim
figure, sported a wristwatch (considered effeminate in those days), and claimed
to be a marquis. In 1915, he landed a job demonstrating the tango in fancy
restaurants, and changed his name to the more evocative Rodolpho di Valentina.
A year later he moved to Los Angeles: he wanted to try to make it in Hollywood.
Now known as Rudolph Valentino, Guglielmi appeared as an extra in several
low-budget pictures. He eventually landed a somewhat larger role in the 1919
film Eyes of Youth, in which he played a seducer, and caught women's attention
by how different a seducer he was: his movements were graceful and delicate,
his skin so smooth and his face so pretty that when he swooped down on his
victim and drowned her protests with a kiss, he seemed more thrilling than
sinister. Next came The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in which Valentino
played the male lead, Julio the playboy, and became an overnight sex symbol
through a tango sequence in which he seduced a young woman by leading her
through the dance. The scene encapsulated the essence of his appeal: his feet
smooth and fluid, his poise almost feminine, combined with an air of control.
Female members of the audience literally swooned as he raised a married woman's
hands to his lips, or shared the fragrance of a rose with his lover. He seemed
so much more attentive to women than other men did; but mixed in with this
delicacy was a hint of cruelty and menace that drove women wild. In his most
famous film. The Sheik, Valentino played an Arab prince (later revealed to be a
Scottish lord abandoned in the Sahara as a baby) who rescues a proud English
lady in the desert, then conquers her in a manner Once a son was born to
Mercury and the goddess Venus, and he was brought up by the naiads in Ida's
caves. In his features, it was easy to trace resemblance to his father and to
his mother. He was called after them, too, for his name was Hermaphroditus. As
soon as he was fifteen, he left his native hills, and Ida where he had been
brought up, andfor the sheer joy of travelling visited remote places. . . .He
went as far as the cities of Lycia, and on to the Carians, who dwell nearby. In
this region he spiedapool of water, so clear that he could see right to the
bottom. The water was like crystal, and the edges of the pool were ringed with
fresh turf and grass that was always green. A nymph [Salmacis] dwelt there.
Often she would gather flowers, and it so happened that she was engaged in this
pastime when she caught sight of the boy, Hermaphroditus. As soon as she had
seen him, she longed to possess him. She addressed him: "Fair boy, you
surely deserve to be thought a god. If you are, perhaps you may be Cupid? ...
If there is such a girl [engaged to you], let me enjoy your love in secret: but
if there is not, then 1 pray that I may be your bride, and that we may enter
upon marriage together." The naiad said no more; but a blush stained the
boy's cheeks, for he did not know what love was. Even blushing became him: his
cheeks were the colour of ripe apples, hanging in a sunny orchard, like painted
ivory or like the moon when, in eclipse, she shows a reddish hue beneath her
brightness. . . . Incessantly the nymph demanded at least sisterly kisses, and
tried to put her arms round his ivory neck. "Will you stop!" he
cried, "orI shall run away and leave this place and you!" Salmacis
was afraid: "I yield the spot to you, stranger, I shall not intrude,"
she said; and, turningfrom him, pretended to go away. . . . The boy, meanwhile,
thinking himself unobserved and alone, strolled this way and that on the grassy
sward, and dipped his toes in the lapping water-then his feet, up to the
ankles. Then, tempted by the enticing coolness of the waters, he quickly
stripped his young body of its soft garments. At the sight, Salmacis was
spell-bound. She was on fire with passion to possess his naked beauty, and her
very eyes flamed with abrilliance like that of the dazzling sun, when his bright
disc is reflected in a mirror. . . . She longed to embrace him then, and with
difficulty restrained her frenzy. Hermaphroditus, clapping his hollow palms
against that borders on rape. When she asks, "Why have you brought me
here?," he replies, "Are you not woman enough to know?" Yet she
ends up falling in love with him, as indeed women did in movie audiences all
over the world, thrilling at his strange blend of the feminine and the
masculine. In one scene in The Sheik, the English lady points a gun at
Valentino; his response is to point a delicate cigarette holder back at her.
She wears pants; he wears long flowing robes and abundant eye makeup. Later
films would include scenes of Valentino dressing and undressing, a kind of
striptease showing glimpses of his trim body. In almost all of his films he
played some exotic period character-a Spanish bullfighter, an Indian rajah, an
Arabsheik, a French nobleman-and he seemed to delight in dressing up in jewels
and tight uniforms. In the 1920s, women were beginning to play with a new
sexual freedom. Instead of waiting for a man to be interested in them, they
wanted to be able to initiate the affair, but they still wanted the man to end
up sweeping them off their feet. Valentino understood this perfectly. His off-screen
life corresponded to his movie image: he wore bracelets on his arm, dressed
impeccably, and reportedly was cruel to his wife, and hit her. (His adoring
public carefully ignored his two failed marriages and his apparently
nonexistent sex life.) When he suddenly died-in New York in August 1926, at the
age of thirty-one, from complications after surgery for an ulcer-the response
was unprecedented: more than 100,000 people filed by his coffin, many female
mourners became hysterical, and the whole nation was spellbound. Nothing like
this had happened before for a mere actor. There is a film of Valentino's,
Monsieur Beciucciire, in which he plays a total fop, a much more effeminate
role than he normally played, and without his usual hint of dangerousness. The
film was a flop. Women did not respond to Valentino as a swish. They were
thrilled by the ambiguity of a man who shared many of their own feminine
traits, yet remained a man. Valentinodressed and played with his physicality
like a woman, but his image was masculine. He wooed as a woman would woo if she
were a man-slowly, attentively, paying attention to details, setting a rhythm
instead of hurrying to a conclusion. Yet when the time came for boldness and
conquest, his timing was impeccable, overwhelming his victim and giving her no
chance to protest. In his movies, Valentino practiced the same gigolo's art of
leading a woman on that he had mastered as a teenager on the dance floor-
chatting, flirting, pleasing, but always in control. Valentino remains an enigma
to this day. His private life and his character are wrapped in mystery; his
image continues to seduce as it did during his lifetime. He served as the model
for Elvis Presley, who was obsessedwith this star of the silents, and also for
the modern male dandy who plays with gender but retains an edge of danger and
cruelty. Seduction was and will always remain the female form of power and
warfare. It was originally the antidote to rape and violence. The man who uses
this form of power on a woman is in essence turning the game around. employing
feminine weapons against her; without losing his masculine identity, the more
subtly feminine he becomes the more effective the seduction. Do not be one of
those who believe that what is most seductive isbeingdevastatingly masculine.
The Feminine Dandy has a much more sinister effect. He lures the woman in with
exactly what she wants-a familiar, pleasing, graceful presence. Mirroring
feminine psychology, he displays attention to his appearance, sensitivity to
detail, a slight coquettishness-but also a hint of male cruelty. Women are
narcissists, in love with the charms of their own sex. By showing them feminine
charm, a man can mesmerize and disarm them, leaving them vulnerable to a bold,
masculine move. The Feminine Dandy can seduce on a mass scale. No single woman
really possesses him-he is too elusive-but all can fantasize about doing so.
The key is ambiguity: your sexuality is decidedly heterosexual, but your body
and psychology float delightfully back and forth between the two poles. I am a
woman. Every artist is a woman and should have a taste for other women. Artists
who are homosexual cannot be true artists because they like men, and since they
themselves are women they are reverting to normality. PICASSO The Masculine
Dandy I n the 1870s, Pastor Henrik Gillot was the darling of the St. Petersburg
intelligentsia. He was young, handsome, well-read in philosophy and literature,
and he preached a kind of enlightened Christianity. Dozens of young girls had
crushes on him and would flock to his sermons just to look at him. In 1878,
however, he met a girl who changed his life. Her name was Lou von Salome (later
known as Lou Andreas-Salome), and she was seventeen; he was forty-two. Salome
was pretty, with radiant blue eyes. She had read a lot, particularly for a girl
her age, and was interested in the gravest philosophical and religious issues.
Her intensity, her intelligence, her responsiveness to ideas cast a spell over
Gillot. When she entered his office for her increasingly frequent discussions
with him, the place seemed brighter and more alive. Perhaps she was flirting
with him, in the unconscious manner of a young girl-yet when Gillot admitted to
himself that he was in love with her, and proposed marriage, Salome was
horrified. The confused pastor never quite got over Lou von Salome, becoming
the first of a long string of famous men to be the victim of a lifelong
unfulfilled infatuation with her. In 1882, the German philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche was wandering around Italy alone. In Genoa he received a letter from
his friend Paul Ree, a Prussian philosopher whom he admired, recounting his
discussions with a remarkable young Russian woman, Lou von Salome, in Rome.
Salome was his body, dived quickly into the stream. As he raised first one arm
and then the other, his body gleamed in the clear water, as if someone had
encased anivory statue or white lilies in transparent glass. "I have won!
He is mine!" cried the nymph, and flinging aside her garments, plunged
into the heart of the pool. The boy fought against her, but she held him, and
snatched kisses as he struggled, placing her hands beneath him, stroking his
unwilling breast, and clinging to him, now on this side, and now on
that. Finally, in spite of ail his efforts to slip from her grasp,
she twined around him, like a serpent when it is being carried off into the air
by the king of birds: for, as it hangs from the eagle's beak, the snake coils
round his head and talons and with its tail hampers his beating wings. "You may fight, you rogue, but you will
not escape. May the gods grant me this, may no time to come ever separate him
from me, or me from him!" Her prayers found favour with the gods: for, as
they lay together, their bodies were united and from being two persons they
became one. As when a gardener grafts a branch on to a tree, and sees the two
unite as they grow, and come to maturity together, so when their limbs met in
that clinging embrace the nymph and the boy were no longer two, but a single
form, possessed of a dual nature, which could not be called male or female, but
seemed to be atonce both and neither. - OVID,METAMORPHOSES, INNES Dandyism is
not even, as many unthinking people seem to suppose, an immoderate interest in
personal appearance and material elegance. For the true dandy these things are
only a symbol oj the aristocratic superiority of his personality. ..."
What, then, is this ruling passion that has turned into a creed and created its
own skilled tyrants? What is this unwritten constitution that has created so
haughty a caste? It is, above all, a burning need to acquire originality,
within the apparent bounds of convention. It is a sort of cult of oneself,
which can dispense even with what are commonly called illusions. It is the
delight in causing astonishment, and the proud satisfaction of never oneself
being astonished. BAUDELAIRE, THE DANDY, QUOTED IN VICE: DAVENPORT-HINES In the
midst of this display of statesmanship, eloquence, cleverness, and exalted
ambition, Alcibiades lived a life of prodigious luxury, drunkenness,
debauchery, and insolence. He was effeminate in his dress and would walk
through the market-place trailing his long purple robes, and he spent
extravagantly. He had the decks of his triremes cut away to allow him to sleep
more comfortably, and his bedding was slung on cords, rather than spread on the
hard planks. He had a golden shield made for him, which was emblazoned not with
any there on holiday with her mother; Ree had managed to accompany her on long
walks through the city, unchaperoned, and they had had many conversations. Her
ideas on God and Christianity were quite similar to Nietzsche's, and when Ree
had told her that the famous philosopher was a friend of his, she had insisted
that he invite Nietzsche to join them. In subsequent letters Ree described how
mysteriously captivating Salome was, and how anxious she was to meet Nietzsche.
The philosopher soon went to Rome. When Nietzsche finally met Salome, he was
overwhelmed. She had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, and during their
first long talk those eyes lit up so intensely that he could not help feeling
there was something erotic about her excitement. Yet he was also confused:
Salome kept her distance, and did not respond to his compliments. What a
devilish young woman. A few days later she read him a poem of hers, and he
cried; her ideas about life were so like his own. Deciding to seize the moment,
Nietzsche proposed marriage. (He did not know that Ree had done so as well.)
Salome declined. She was interested in philosophy, life, adventure, not
marriage. Undaunted, Nietzsche continued to court her. On an excursion to Lake
Orta with Ree, Salome, and her mother, he managed to get the girl alone,
accompanying her on a walk up Monte Sacro while the others stayed behind.
Apparently the views and Nietzsche's words had the proper passionate effect; in
a later letter to her, he described this walk as "the most beautiful dream
of my life." Now he was a man possessed: all he could think about was
marrying Salome and having her all to himself. A few months later Salome
visited Nietzsche in Germany. They took long walks together, and stayed up all
night discussing philosophy. She mirrored his deepest thoughts, anticipated his
ideas about religion. Yet when he again proposed marriage, she scolded him as
conventional: it was Nietzsche, after all, who had developed a philosophical
defense of the superman, the man above everyday morality, yet Salome was by
nature far less conventional than he was. Her firm, uncompromising manner only
deepened the spell she cast over him, as did her hint of cruelty When she
finally left him, making it clear that she had no intention of marrying him,
Nietzsche was devastated. As an antidote to his pain, he wrote Thus Spake
Zarathustra, a book full of sublimated eroticism and deeply inspired by his
talks with her. From then on Salome was known throughout Europe as the woman
who had broken Nietzsche's heart. Salome moved to Berlin. Soon the city's
greatest intellectuals were falling under the spell of her independence and
free spirit. The playwrights Gerhart Hauptmann and Franz Wedekind became
infatuated with her; in 1897, the great Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke fell
in love with her. By that time her reputation was widely known, and she was a
published novelist. This certainly played a part in seducing Rilke, but he was
also attracted by a kind of masculine energy he found in her that he had never
seen in a woman. Rilke was then twenty-two, Salome thirty-six. He wrote her
love letters and poems, followed her everywhere, and began an affair with her
that was to last several years. She corrected his poetry, imposed discipline on
Ms overly romantic verse, inspired ideas for new poems. But she was put off by
Ms childish dependence on her, Ms weakness. Unable to stand weakness of any
kind, she eventually left him. Consumed by her memory, Rilke long continued to
pursue her. In 1926, lying on Ms deathbed, he begged Ms doctors, "Ask Lou
what is wrong with me. She is the only one who knows." One man wrote of Salome,
"There was something terrifying about her embrace. Looking at you with her
radiant blue eyes, she would say, 'The reception of the semen is for me the
height of ecstasy.' And she had an insatiable appetite for it. She was
completely amoral ... a vampire."TheSwedish psychotherapist Poul Bjerre,
one of her later conquests, wrote, "I think Nietzsche was right when he
said that Lou was a thoroughly evil woman. Evil however in the Goethean sense:
evil that produces good. She may have destroyed lives and marriages but her
presence was exciting." The two emotions that almost every male felt in
the presence of Lou Andreas-Salome were confusion and excitement-the two
prerequisite feelings for any successful seduction. People were intoxicated by
her strange mix of the masculine and the feminine; she was beautiful, with a
radiant smile and a graceful, flirtatious manner, but her independence and her
intensely analytical nature made her seem oddly male. This ambiguity was
expressed in her eyes, which were both coquettish and probing. It was confusion
that kept men interested and curious: no other woman was like this. They wanted
to know more. The excitement stemmed from her ability to stir up repressed
desires. She was a complete nonconformist, and to be involved with her was to
break all kinds of taboos. Her masculinity made the relationship seem vaguely
homosexual; her slightly cruel, slightly domineering streak could stir up
masochistic yearnings, as it did in Nietzsche. Salome radiated a forbidden
sexuality. Her powerful effect on men-the lifelong infatuations, the
suicides(there were several), the periods of intense creativity, the
descriptions of her as a vampire or a devil-attest to the obscure depths of the
psyche that she was able to reach and disturb. The Masculine Dandy succeeds by
reversing the normal pattern of male superiority in matters of love and
seduction. A man's apparent independence, Ms capacity for detachment, often
seems to give him the upper hand in the dynamic between men and women. A purely
feminine woman will arouse desire, but is always vulnerable to the man's
capricious loss of interest; a purely masculine woman, on the other hand, will
not arouse that interest at all. Follow the path of the Masculine Dandy,
however, and you neutralize all a man's powers. Never give completely of
yourself; while you are passionate and sexual, always retain an air of
independence and self-possession. You might move on to the next man, or so he
will think. You have other, more important matters to concern yourself with,
such as your work. Men do not know how to fight women who use their own weapons
against them; they are intrigued, aroused, and disarmed. Few men can resist the
taboo pleasures offered up to them by the Masculine Dandy. ancestral device,
but with the figure of Eros armed with a thunderbolt. The leading men of Athens
watched all this with disgust andindignation and they were deeply disturbed by
his contemptuous and lawless behaviour, which seemed to them monstrous and
suggested the habits of a tyrant. The people's feelings towards him have been
very aptly expressed by Aristophanes in the line: "They long for him, they
hate him, they cannot do without him. . . • The fact was that his voluntary
donations, the public shows he supported, his unrivalled to the state, the fame
of his ancestry, the power of his oratory and his physical strength and beauty
... all combined to make the Athenians forgive him everything else, and they
were constantly finding euphemismsfor his lapses and putting them down to youthful
high spirits and honourable ambition. -PLUTARCH, "THE LIFE OF
ALCIBIADES," THE RISE AND FALL OF ATHENS: NINE GREEK LIVES, SCOTT-KILVERT
Further light-a whole flood of it-is thrown upon this attraction of the male in
petticoats for the female, in the diary of the Abbe de Choisy, one of the most
brilliant men- women of history, of whom we shall hear a great deal more later.
The abbe, a churchman of Paris, was a constant masquerader in female attire. He
lived in the days of Louis XIV, and was a great friend of Louis' brother, also
addicted to women's clothes. A young girl, Mademoiselle Charlotte, thrown
muchinto his company, fell desperately in love with the abbe, and when the
affair had progressed to a liaison, the abbe asked her how she came to be won .
. . • "/ stood in no need of caution as I should have with a man. I saw
nothing but a beautiful woman, and why should I beforbidden to love you? What
advantages a woman's dress gives you! The heart of a man is there, and that
makes a great impression upon us, and on the other hand, all the charms of the
fair sex fascinate us, and prevent us from taking precautions. "
-C.J.BULLIET, VENUS CASTINA Beau Brummell was regarded as unbalanced in his
passion for daily ablutions. His ritualistic morning toilet took upward of five
hours, one hour spent inching himself into his skin-tight buckskin breeches, an
hour with the hairdresser and another two hours tying and "creasing
down" a series of starched cravats until perfection was achieved. But first
of all two hours were spent scrubbing himself with fetish zeal from head to toe
in milk, water and eau de Cologne. Beau Brummell said he used only the froth of
champagne to polish his Hessian boots. He had 365 snuff boxes, those suitable
for summer wear being quite unthinkable in winter, and the fit of hisgloves was
achieved by entrusting their cut to two firms-one for the fingers, the other
for the thumbs. The seduction emanating from a person of uncertain or
dissimulated sex is powerful. -COLETTE Keys to the Character M any of us today
imagine that sexual freedom has progressed in recent years-that everything has
changed, for better or worse. This is mostly an illusion; a reading of history
reveals periods of licentiousness (imperial Rome, late-seventeenth-century
England, the "floating world" of eighteenth-century Japan) far in
excess of what we are currently experiencing. Gender roles are certainly
changing, but they have changed before. Society is in a state of constant flux,
but there is something that does not change: the vast majority of people
conform to whatever is normal for the time. They play the role allotted to
them. Conformity is a constant because humans are social creatures who are
always imitating one another. At certain points in history it may be fashionable
to be different and rebellious, but if a lot of people are playing that role,
there is nothing different or rebellious about it. We should never complain
about most people's slavish conformity, however, for it offers untold
possibilities of power and seduction to those who are up for a few risks.
Dandies have existed in all ages and cultures ( Al- cibiades in ancient Greece,
Korechika in late-tenth-century Japan), and wherever they have gone they have
thrived on the conformist role playing ofothers.The Dandy displays a true and
radical difference from other people, a difference of appearance and manner.
Since most of us are secretly oppressed by our lack of freedom, we are drawn to
those who are more fluid and flaunt their difference. Dandies seduce socially
as well as sexually; groups form around them, their style is wildly imitated,
an entire court or crowd will fall in love with them. In adapting the Dandy
character for your own purposes, remember that the Dandy is by nature a rare
and beautiful flower. Be different in ways that are both striking and
aesthetic, never vulgar; poke fun at current trends and styles, go in a novel
direction, and be supremely uninterested in what anyone else is doing. Most
people are insecure; they will wonder what you are up to, and slowly they will
come to admire and imitate you, because you express yourself with total
confidence. The Dandy has traditionally been defined by clothing, and certainly
most Dandies create a unique visual style. Beau Brummel, the most famous Dandy
of all, would spend hours on his toilette, particularly the inimitably styled
knot in his necktie, for which he was famous throughout early-
nineteenth-century England. But a Dandy's style cannot be obvious, for Dandies
are subtle, and never try hard for attention-attention comes to them. The
person whoseclothes are flagrantly different has little imagination or taste.
Dandies show their difference in the little touches that mark their disdain for
convention: Theophile Gautier's red vest, Oscar Wilde's green velvet suit, Andy
Warhol's silver wigs. The great English Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had
two magnificent canes, one for morning, one for evening; at noon he would
change canes, no matter where he was. The female Dandy works similarly. She may
adopt male clothing, say, but if she does, a touch here or there will set her
tmly apart: no man ever dressed quite like George Sand. The overtall hat, the
riding boots worn on the streets of Paris, made her a sight to behold.
Remember, there must be a reference point. If your visual style is totally
unfamiliar, people will think you at best an obvious attention-getter, at worst
crazy. Instead, create your own fashion sense by adapting and altering
prevailing styles to make yourself an object of fascination. Do this right and
you will be wildly imitated. The Count d'Orsay, a great London dandy of the
1830s and 1840s, was closely watched by fashionable people; one day, caught in
a sudden London rainstorm, he bought a paltrok, a kind of heavy, hooded duffle
coat, off the back of a Dutch sailor. The paltrok immediately became the coat
to wear. Having people imitate you, of course, is a sign of yourpowers of
seduction. The nonconformity of Dandies, however, goes far beyond appearances.
It is an attitude toward life that sets them apart; adopt that attitude and a
circle of followers will form around you. Dandies are supremely impudent. They
don't give a damn about other people, and never try to please. In the court of
Louis XTV, the writer La Bruyere noticed that courtiers who tried hard to
please were invariably on the way down; nothing was more anti-seductive. As
Barbey d'Aurevilly wrote, "Dandies please women by displeasing them."
Impudence was fundamental to the appeal of Oscar Wilde. In a London theater one
night, after the first performance of one of Wilde's plays, the ecstatic
audience yelled for the author to appear onstage. Wilde made them wait and
wait, then finally emerged, smoking a cigarette and wearing an expression of
total disdain. "It may be bad manners to appear here smoking, but it is
far worse to disturb me when I am smoking," he scolded his fans. The Count
d'Orsay was equally impudent. At a London club one night, a Rothschild who was
notoriously cheap accidentally dropped a gold coin on the floor, then bent down
to look for it. The count immediately whipped out a thousand-franc note (worth
much more than the coin), rolled it up, lit it like a candle, and got down on
all fours, as if to help light the way in the search. Only a Dandy could get
away with such audacity. The insolence of the Rake is tied up with his desire
to conquer a woman; he cares for nothing else. The insolence of the Dandy, on
the other hand, is aimed at society and its conventions. It is not a woman he
cares to conquer but a whole group, an entire social world. And since people
are generally oppressed by the obligation of always being polite and
self-sacrificing, they are delighted to spend time around a person who disdains
such niceties. Dandies are masters of the art of living. They live for
pleasure, not for work; they surround themselves with beautiful objects and eat
and drink Sometimes, however, the tyranny of elegance became altogether
insupportable. A Mr. Boothby committed suicide and left a note saying he could
no longer endure the ennui of buttoning and unbuttoning. - THE GAME OF HEARTS:
HARRIETTE WILSON'S MEMOIRS. LESLEY BLANCH This royal manner which [the dandy]
raises to the height of true royalty, the dandy has taken this from women, who
alone seem naturally made for such a role. It is a somewhat by using the manner
and the method of women that the dandy dominates. And this usurpation of
femininity, he makes women themselves approve of this. . . . The dandy has
something antinaturaland androgynous about him, which is precisely how he is
able to endlessly seduce. LEMAlTRE, LES CONTEMPORAINS with the same relish they
show for their clothes. This was how the great Roman writer Petronius, author
of the Satyricon, was able to seduce the emperor Nero. Unlike the dull Seneca,
the great Stoic thinker and Nero's tutor, Petronius knew how to make every
detail of life a grand aesthetic adventure, from a feast to a simple
conversation. This is not an attitude you should impose on those around you-you
can't make yourself a nuisance- but if you simply seem socially confident and
sure of your taste, people will be drawn to you. The key is to make everything
an aesthetic choice. Your ability to alleviate boredom by making life an art
will make your company highly prized. The opposite sex is a strange country we
can never know, and this excites us, creates the proper sexual tension. But it
is also a source of annoyance and frustration. Men do not understand how women
think, and vice versa; each tries to make the other act more like a member of their
own sex. Dandies may never try to please, but in this one area they have a
pleasing effect: by adopting psychological traits of the opposite sex, they
appeal to our inherent narcissism. Women identified with Rudolph Valentino's
delicacy and attention todetailin courtship; men identified with Lou
Andreas-Salome's lack of interest in commitment. In the Heian court of
eleventh-century Japan, Sei Shonagon, the writer of The Pillow Book, was
powerfully seductive for men, especially literary types. She was fiercely
independent, wrote poetry with the best, and had a certain emotional distance.
Men wanted more from her than just to be her friend or companion, as if she
were another man; charmed by her empathy for male psychology, they fell in love
with her. This kind of mental transvestism-the ability to enter the spirit of
the opposite sex, adapt to their way of thinking, mirror their tastes and
attitudes-can be a key element in seduction. It is a way of mesmerizing your
victim. According to Freud, the human libido is essentially bisexual; most
people are in some way attracted to people of their own sex, but social
constraints (varying with culture and historical period) repress these
impulses. The Dandy represents a release from such constraints. In several of
Shakespeare's plays, a young girl (back then, the female roles in the theater
were actually played by male actors) has to go into disguise and dresses up as
a boy, eliciting all kinds of sexual interest from men, who later are delighted
to find out that the boy is actually a girl. (Think, for example, of Rosalind
in As You Like It.)Entertainers such as Josephine Baker (known as the Chocolate
Dandy) and Marlene Dietrich would dress up as men in their acts, making
themselves wildly popular-among men. Meanwhile the slightly feminized male, the
pretty boy, has always been seductive to women. Valentino embodied this
quality. Elvis Presley had feminine features (the face, the hips), wore frilly
pink shirts and eye makeup, and attracted the attention of women early on. The
filmmaker Kenneth Anger said of Mick Jagger that it was "a bisexual charm
which constituted an important part of the attraction he had over young girls
and which acted upon their unconscious." In Western culture for centuries,
in fact, feminine beauty has been far more fetishized than male beauty, so it
is understandable that a feminine-looking face like that of Montgomery Clift
would have more seductive power than that of John Wayne. The Dandy figure has a
place in politics as well. John F. Kennedy was a strange mix of the masculine
and feminine, virile in his toughness with the Russians, and in his White House
lawn football games, yet feminine in his graceful and dapper appearance. This
ambiguity was a large part of his appeal. Disraeli was an incorrigible Dandy in
dress and manner; some were suspicious of him as a result, but his courage in
not caring what people thought of him also won him respect. And women of course
adored him, for women always adore a Dandy. They appreciated the gentleness of his
manner, his aesthetic sense, his love of clothes-in other words, his feminine
qualities. The mainstay of Disraeli's power was in fact a female fan: Queen
Victoria. Do not be misled by the surface disapproval your Dandy pose may
elicit. Society may publicize its distrust of androgyny (in Christian theology,
Satan is often represented as androgynous), but this conceals its fascination;
what is most seductive is often what is most repressed. Leam aplayful dandyism
and you will become the magnet for people's dark, unrealized yearnings. The key
to such power is ambiguity. In a society where the roles everyone plays are
obvious, the refusal to conform to any standard will excite interest. Be both
masculine and feminine, impudent and charming, subtle and outrageous. Let other
people worry about being socially acceptable; those types are a dime a dozen,
and you are after a power greater than they can imagine. Symbol: The Orchid.
Its shape and color oddly suggest both sexes, its odor is sweet and decadent
-it is a tropical flower of evil. Delicate and highly cultivated, it is
prizedfor its rarity; it is unlike any other flower. Dangers T he Dandy's
strength, but also the Dandy's problem, is that he or she often works through
transgressive feelings relating to sex roles. Although this activity is highly
charged and seductive, it is also dangerous, since it touches on a source of
great anxiety and insecurity. The greater dangers will often come from your own
sex. Valentino had immense appeal for women, but men hated him. He was
constantly dogged with accusations of being perversely unmasculine, and this
caused him great pain. Salome was equally disliked by women; Nietzsche's
sister, and perhaps his closest friend, considered her an evil witch, and led a
virulent campaign against her in the press long after the philosopher's death.
There is little to be done in the face of resentment like this. Some Dandies
try to fight the image they themselves have created, but this is unwise: to
prove his masculinity, Valentino would engage in a boxing match, anything to
prove his masculinity. He wound up looking only desperate. Better to accept
society's occasional gibes with grace and insolence. After all, the Dandies'
charm is that they don't really care what people think of them. That is how
Andy Warhol played the game: when people tired of his antics or some scandal
erupted, instead of trying to defend himself he would simply move on to some
new image-decadent bohemian, high-society portraitist, etc.-as if to say, with
a hint of disdain, that the problem lay not with him but with other people's
attention span. Another danger for the Dandy is the fact that insolence has its
limits. Beau Brummel prided himself on two things: his trimness of figure and
his acerbic wit. His main social patron was the Prince of Wales, who, in later
years, grew plump. One night at dinner, the prince rang for the butler, and
Brummel snidely remarked, "Do ring. Big Ben." The prince did not
appreciate the joke, had Brummel shown out, and never spoke to him again.
Without royal patronage, Brummel fell into poverty and madness. Even a Dandy,
then, must measure out his impudence. A true Dandy knows the difference between
a theatrically staged teasing of the powerful and a remark that will truly
hurt, offend, or insult. It is particularly important to avoid insulting those
in a position to injure you. In fact the pose may work best for those who can
afford to offend-artists, bohemians, etc. In the work world, you will probably
have to modify and tone down your Dandy image. Be pleasantly different, an
amusement, rather than a person who challenges the group's conventions and
makes others feel insecure. the Natural. Childhood is the golden paradise we
are always consciously or unconsciously trying to re-create. The Natural
embodies the longed- for qualities of childhood - spontaneity, sincerity,
unpretentiousness. In the presence of Naturals, we feel at ease, caught up in
their playful spirit, transported back to that golden age. Naturals also make a
virtue out of weakness, eliciting our sympathy for their trials, making us want
to protect them and help them. As with a child, much of this is natural, but
some of it is exaggerated, a conscious seductive maneuver. Adopt the pose of
the Natural to neutralize people's natural defensiveness and infect them with
helpless delight. Psychological Traits of the Natural. C hildren are not as
guileless as we like to imagine. They suffer from feelings of helplessness, and
sense early on the power of their naturalcharm to remedy their weakness in the
adult world. They learn to play a game: if their natural innocence can persuade
a parent to yield to their desires in one instance, then it is something they
can use strategically in another instance, laying it on thick at the right moment
to get their way. If their vulnerability and weakness is so attractive, then it
is something they can use for effect. Why are we seduced by children's
naturalness? First, because anything natural has an uncanny effect on us. Since
the beginning of time, natural phenomena-such as lightning storms or
eclipses-have instilled in human beings an awe tinged with fear. The more
civilized we become, the greater the effect such natural events have on us; the
modern world surrounds us with so much that is manufactured and artificial that
something sudden and inexplicable fascinates us. Children also have this
natural power, but because they are unthreatening and human, they are not so
much awe inspiring as charming. Most people try to please, but the pleasantness
of the child comes effortlessly, defying logical explanation-and what is
irrational is often dangerously seductive. More important, a child represents a
world from which we have been forever exiled. Because adult life is full of
boredom and compromise, we harbor an illusion of childhood as a kind of golden
age, even though it can often be a period of great confusion and pain. It
cannot be denied, however, that childhood had certain privileges, and as
children we had a pleasurable attitude to life. Confronted with a particularly
charming child, we often feel wistful: we remember our own golden past, the
qualities we have lost and wish we had again. And in the presence of the child,
we get a little of that goldenness back. Natural seducers are people who somehow
avoided getting certain childish traits drummed out of them by adult
experience. Such people can be as powerfully seductive as any child, because it
seems uncanny and marvelous that they have preserved such qualities. They are
not literally like children, of course;that would make them obnoxious or
pitiful. Rather it is the spirit that they have retained. Do not imagine that
this childishness is something beyond their control. Natural seducers learn
early on the value of retaining a particular quality, and the seductive power
it contains; they Long-past ages have a great and often puzzling attraction for
men's imagination. Whenever they are dissatisfied with their present
surroundings-and this happens often enough-they turn back to the past and hope
that they will now be able to prove the truth of the inextinguishable dream of
a golden age. They are probably still under the spell of their childhood, which
is presented to them by their not impartial memory as a time of uninterrupted
bliss. -FREUD. When Hermes was born on Mount Cyllene his mother Maia laid him
in swaddling bands on a winnowing fan, but he grew with astonishing quickness
into a little boy, and as soon as her back was turned, slipped off and went
looking for adventure. Arrived at Pieria, where Apollo was tending a fine herd
of cows, he decided to steal them. But, fearing to betrayed by their tracks, he
quickly made a number oj shoes from the bark of a fallen oak and tied
themuntilplaitedgrassto the feet of the cows, which he then drove off by night
the road. Apollo discovered the loss, but Hermes's trick deceived him, and
though he went as far as Pylus in his westward search, and to Onchestus in his
eastern, he was forced, in the end, to offer a reward for the apprehension of
the thief. Silenus and his satyrs, greedy of reward, spread out in different
directions to track him down but, for a long while, without success. At last,
as a party of them passed through Arcadia, they heard the muffled sound of
music such as they had never heard before, and the nymph a cave, told them that
a most gifted child had recently been born there, to whom she was acting as
nurse: he had constructed an ingenious musical toy from the shell of a tortoise
and some cow-gut, with which he had lulled his mother to sleep. • "And
from whom did he get the cow-gut?" asked the alert satyrs, noticing two
hides stretched outside the cave. "Do you charge the poor child with
theft?" asked Cyllene. Harsh words were exchanged. • At that moment Apollo
came up, having discovered the thief s identity by observing the suspicious
behaviour of a long-winged bird. Entering the cave, he awakened Maia and told
her severely that Hermes must restore the stolen cows. Maia pointed to the
child, still wrapped in his adapt and build upon those childlike traits that
they managed to preserve, exactly as the child learns to play with its natural
charm. This is the key. It is within your power to do the same, since there is
lurking within all of us a devilish child straining to be let loose. To do this
successfully, you have to be able to let go to a degree, since there is nothing
less natural than seeming hesitant. Remember the spirit you once had; let it
return, without self- consciousness. People are much more forgiving of those
who go all the way, who seem uncontrollably foolish, than the halfhearted adult
with a childish streak. Remember who you were before you became so polite and
self-effacing. To assume the role of the Natural, mentally position yourself in
any relationship as the child, the younger one. The following are the main
types of the adult Natural. Keep in mind that the greatest natural seducers are
often a blend of more than one of these qualities. The innocent. The primary
qualities of innocence are weakness and misunderstanding of the world.
Innocence is weak because it is doomed to vanish in a harsh, cruel world; the
child cannot protect or hold on to its innocence. The misunderstandings come
from the child's not knowing about good and evil, and seeing everything through
uncorrupted eyes. The weakness of children elicits sympathy, their
misunderstandings make us laugh, and nothing is more seductive than a mixture
of laughter and sympathy. The adult Natural is not truly innocent-it is
impossible to grow up in this world and retain total innocence. Yet Naturals
yearn so deeply to hold on to their innocent outlook that they manage to
preserve the illusion of innocence. They exaggerate their weakness to elicit
the proper sympathy. They act like they still see the world through innocent
eyes, which in an adult proves doubly humorous. Much of this is conscious, but
to be effective, adult Naturals must make it seem subtle and effortless-if they
are seen as trying to act innocent, it will come across as pathetic. It is
better for them to communicate weakness indirectly, through looks and glances,
or through the situations they get themselves into, rather than anything
obvious. Since this type of innocence is mostly an act, it is easily adaptable
foryour own purposes. Leam to play up any natural weaknesses or flaws. The imp.
Impish children have a fearlessness that we adults have lost. That is because
they do not see the possible consequences of their actions-howsome people might
be offended, how they might physically hurt themselvesin the process. Imps are
brazen, blissfully uncaring. They infect you with their lighthearted spirit.
Such children have not yet had their natural energy and spirit scolded out of
them by the need to be polite and civil. Secretly, we envy them; we want to be
naughty too. Adult imps are seductive because of how different they are from
the rest of us. Breaths of fresh air in a cautious world, they go full
throttle, as if their impishness were uncontrollable, and thus natural. If you
play the part, do not worry about offending people now and then-you are too
lovable and inevitably they will forgive you. Just don't apologize or look
contrite, for that would break the spell. Whatever you say or do, keep a glint
in your eye to show that you do not take anything seriously. The wonder. A
wonder child has a special, inexplicable talent: a gift for music, for
mathematics, for chess, for sport. At work in the field in which they have such
prodigal skill, these children seem possessed, and their actions effortless. If
they are artists or musicians, Mozart types, their work seems to spring from
some inborn impulse, requiring remarkably little thought. If it is a physical
talent that they have, they are blessed with unusual energy, dexterity, and
spontaneity. In both cases they seem talented beyond their years. This
fascinates us. Adult wonders are often former wonder children who have managed,
remarkably, to retain their youthful impulsiveness and improvisational skills.
True spontaneity is a delightful rarity, for everything in life conspires to
rob us of it-we have to leam to act carefully and deliberately, to think about
how we look in other people's eyes. To play the wonder you need some skill that
seems easy and natural, along with the ability to improvise. If in fact your
skill takes practice, you must hide this and leam to make your work appear
effortless. The more you hide the sweat behind what you do, the more natural
and seductive it will appear. The undefensive lover. As people get older, they
protect themselves against painful experiences by closing themselves off. The
price for this is that theygrow rigid, physically and mentally. But children
are by nature unprotected and open to experience, and this receptiveness is
extremely attractive. In the presence of children we become less rigid,
infected with their openness. That is why we want to be around them.
Undefensive lovers have somehow circumvented the self-protective process,
retaining the playful, receptive spirit of the child. They often manifest this
spirit physically: they are graceful, and seem to age less rapidly than other
people. Of all the Natural's character qualities, this one is the most useful.
Defensiveness is deadly in seduction; act defensive and you'll bring out
defensiveness in other people. The undefensive lover, on the other hand, lowers
the inhibitions of his or her target, a critical part of seduction. It is
important to leam to not react defensively: bend instead of resist, be open to
influence from others, and they will more easily fall under your spell. swaddling
bands and feigning sleep. "What an absurd charge!" she cried. But
Apollo had already recognized the hides. He picked up Hermes, carried him to
Olympus, and there formally accused him oftheft, offering the hides as
evidence. Zeus, loth to believe that his own newborn son was a thief encouraged
him to plead not guilty, but Apollo would not be put off and Hermes, at last,
weakened and confessed. • "Very, come with me," he said, "and
you may have your herd. I slaughtered only two, and those I cut up into twelve
equal portions as a sacrifice to the twelve gods" • "Twelve
gods?" asked Apollo. "Who is the twelfth?" • "Your servant,
sir" replied Hermes modestly. "I ate no more than my share, though I
was very hungry, and duly burned the rest. " The two gods [ Hermes and
Apollo] returned to Mount Cyllene, where Hermes greeted his mother and
retrieved something that he had hidden underneath a sheepskin. • "What
have you there?" asked Apollo. • In answer, Hermes showed his newly-
invented tortoise-shell lyre, and played such a ravishing tune on it with the
plectrum he had also invented, at the same time singing in praise of Apollo's
nobility, intelligence, and generosity, that he was forgiven at once. He led
the surprised and delighted Apollo to Pylus, playing all the way, and there
gave him the remainder of the cattle, which he had hidden in a cave. • "A
bargain!" cried Apollo. "You keep the cows, and I take the lyre.
" "Agreed," said Hermes, and they shook hands on it. • . . .
Apollo, taking the child back to Olympus, told Zeus all that had happened. Zeus
warned Hermes that henceforth he must respect the rights oj property and
refrain from telling downright lies; but he could not help being amused.
"You seem to be a very ingenious, eloquent, and persuasive godling,"
he said. • "Then make me your herald, Father," Hermes answered,
"and I will he responsible for the safety of all divine property, and
never tell lies, though I cannot promise always to tell the whole truth ."
• "That would not be expected of you," said Zeus with a smile. . . .
Zeus gave him a herald's staff with white ribbons, which everyone was ordered
to respect; a round hat against the rain, and winged golden sandals which
carried him about with the swiftness of the wind. -GRAVES, THE GREEK MYTHS. A
man may meet a woman and be shocked by her ugliness. Soon, if she is natural
and unaffected, her expression makes him overlook the fault of her features. He
begins to find her charming, it enters his head that she might be loved, and a
week later he is living in hope. The following week he has been snubbed into
despair, and the week afterwards he has gone mad. -STENDHAL, LOVE. SALE
Examples of Natural Seducers 7. As a child growing up in England, Charlie
Chaplin spent years in dire poverty, particularly after his mother was
committed to an asylum. In his early teens, forced to work to live, he landed
ajob in vaudeville, eventually gaining some success as a comedian. But Chaplin
was wildly ambitious, and so, in 1910, when he was only nineteen, he emigrated
to the United States, hoping to break into the film business. Making his way to
Hollywood, he found occasional bit parts, but success seemed elusive: the
competition was fierce, and although Chaplin had a repertoire of gags that he
had learned in vaudeville, he did not particularly excel at physical humor, a
critical part of silent comedy. He was not a gymnast like Buster Keaton. In
1914, Chaplin managed to get the lead in a film short called Making a Living.
His role was that of a con artist. In playing around with the costume for the
part, he put on a pair of pants several sizes too large, then added a derby
hat, enormous boots that he wore on the wrong feet, a walking cane, and a
pasted-on mustache. With the clothes, a whole new character seemed to come to
life-first the silly walk, then the twirling of the cane, then all sorts of
gags. Mack Sennett, the head of the studio, did not find Making a Living very
funny, and doubted whether Chaplin had a future in the movies, but a few
critics felt otherwise. A review in a trade magazine read, "The clever
player who takes the role of a nervy and very nifty sharper in this picture is
a comedian of the first water, who acts like one of Nature's own
naturals." And audiences also responded-the film made money. What seemed
to touch a nerve in Making a Living, setting Chaplin apart from the horde of
other comedians working in silent film, was the almost pathetic naivete of the
character he played. Sensing he was onto something, Chaplin shaped the role
further in subsequent movies, rendering him more and more naive. The key was to
make the character seem to see the world through the eyes of a child. In The
Bank, he is the bank janitor who daydreams of great deeds while robbers are at
work in the building; in The Pawnbroker, he is an unprepared shop assistant who
wreaks havoc on a grandfather clock; in Shoulder Arms, he is a soldier in the
bloody trenches of World War I, reacting to the horrors of war like an innocent
child. Chaplin made sure to cast actors in his films who were physically larger
than he was,subliminally positioning them as adult bullies and himself as the
helpless infant. And as he went deeper into his character, something strange
happened: the character and the real-life man began to merge. Although he had
had a troubled childhood, he was obsessed with it. (For his film Easy Street he
built a set in Hollywood that duplicated the London streets he had known as a
boy.) He mistrusted the adult world, preferring the company of the young, or
the young at heart: three of his four wives were teenagers when he married
them. More than any other comedian, Chaplin aroused a mix of laughter and
sentiment. He made you empathize with him as the victim, feel sorry for him the
way you would for a lost dog. You both laughed and cried. And audiences sensed
that the role Chaplin played came from somewhere deep inside-that he was
sincere, that he was actually playing himself. Within a few years after Making
a Living, Chaplin was the most famous actor in the world. There were Chaplin
dolls, comic books, toys; popular songs and short stories were written about
him; he became a universal icon. In 1921, when he returned to London for the
first time since he had left it, he was greeted by enormous crowds, as if at
the triumphant return of a great general. The greatest seducers, those who
seduce mass audiences, nations,theworld,haveaway of playing on people's
unconscious, making them react in a way they can neither understand nor
control. Chaplin inadvertently hit on this power when he discovered the effect
he could have on audiences by playing up his weakness, by suggesting that he
had a child's mind in an adult body. In the early twentieth century, the world
was radically and rapidly changing. People were working longer and longer hours
at increasingly mechanicaljobs; life was becoming steadily more inhuman and
heartless, as the ravages of World War I made clear. Caught in the midst of
revolutionary change, people yearned for a lost childhood that they imagined as
a golden paradise. An adult child like Chaplin has immense seductive power, for
he offers the illusion that life was once simpler and easier, and that for a
moment, or for as long as the movie lasts, you can win that life back. In a
cruel, amoral world, naivete has enormous appeal. The key is to bring it off
with an air of total seriousness, as the straight man does in stand-up comedy.
More important, however, is the creation of sympathy. Overt strength and power
is rarely seductive-it makes us afraid, or envious. The royal road to seduction
is to play up your vulnerability and helplessness. You cannot make this
obvious; to seem to be begging for sympathy is toseemneedy,whichisentirely
anti-seductive. Do not proclaim yourself a victim or underdog, but reveal it in
your manner, in your confusion. A display of "natural" weakness will
make you instantly lovable, both lowering people's defenses and making them
feel delightfully superior to you. Put yourself in situations that make you
seem weak, in which someone else has the advantage; they are the bully, you are
the innocent lamb. Without any effort on your part, people will feel sympathy
for you. Once people's eyes cloud over with sentimental mist, they will not see
how you are manipulating them. "Geographical" escapism has been rendered
ineffective by the spread of air routes. What remains is
"evolutionary" escapism - a downward course in one's development,
back to the ideas and emotions of "golden childhood," which may well
be defined as "regress towards infantilism," escape to a personal world
of childish ideas. • In a strictly- regulated society, where life follows
strictly-defined canons, the urge to escape from the chain of things
"established once and for all" must be felt particularly strongly.
And the most perfect of them [ comedians] does this with utmost perfection, for
he [ Chaplin ] serves this principle . . . through the subtlety of his method
which, offering the spectactor an infantile pattern to be imitated,
pscyhologically infects him with infantilism and draws him into the "golden
age" of the infantile paradise of childhood. EISENSTEIN, "CHARLIE THE
KID," FROM NOTES OF A FILM DIRECTOR 2. Emma Crouch, born in 1842 in
Plymouth, England, came from a respectable middle-class family. Her father was
a composer and music professor who dreamed of success in the world of light
opera. Among his many children, Emma was his favorite: she was a delightful
child, lively and flirtatious, with red hair and a freckled face. Her father
doted on her, and promised her a brilliant future in the theater. Unfortunately
Mr. Crouch had a Prince Gortschakojf used to say that she [Cora Pearl] was the
last word in luxury, and that he would have tried to steal the sun to satisfy
one of her whims. -GUSTAVE CLAUDIN, CORA PEARL CONTEMPORARY Apparently the possession
of humor implies the possession of a number of typical habit-systems. The first
is an emotional one: the habit of playfulness. Why should one be proud of being
playful? For a double reason. First, playfulness connotes childhood and youth.
If one can be playful, one still possesses something of the vigor and the joy
of young life ..." But there is a deeper implication. To be playful is, in
a sense, to befree. When a person is playful, he momentarily disregards the
bindingnecessities which compel him, in business and morals, in domestic and
community life. What galls us is that the binding necessities do not permit us
to shape our world as we please. What we most deeply desire, however, is to
create our world for ourselves. Whenever we can do that, even in the slightest
degree, we are happy. Now in play we create our own world. OVERSTREET,
INFLUENCING HUMAN BEHAVIOR dark side: he was an adventurer, a gambler, and a
rake, and in 1849 he abandoned his family and left for America. The Crouches
were now in dire straits. Emma was told that her father had died in an accident
and she was sent off to a convent. The loss of her father affected her deeply,
and as the years went by she seemed lost in the past, acting as if he still
doted on her. One day in 1856, when Emma was walking home from church, a well-
dressed gentleman invited her home for some cakes. She followed him to his
house, where he proceeded to take advantage of her. The next morning this man,
a diamond merchant, promised to set her up in a house of her own, treat her
well, and give her plenty of money. She took the money but left him, determined
to do what she had always wanted: never see her family again, never depend on
anyone, and lead the grand life that herfatherhadpromised her. With the money
the diamond merchant had given her, Emma bought nice clothes and rented a cheap
flat. Adopting the flamboyant name of Cora Pearl, she began to frequent
London's Argyll Rooms, a fancy gin palace where harlots and gentlemen rubbed
elbows. The proprietor of the Argyll, a Mr. Bignell, took note of this newcomer
to his establishment- she was so brazen for a young girl. At forty-five, he was
much older than she was, but he decided to be her lover and protector,
lavishing her with money and attention. The following year he took her to
Paris, which was at the height of its Second Empire prosperity. Cora was
enthralled by Paris, and of all its sights, but what impressed her the most was
the parade of rich coaches in the Bois de Boulogne. Here the fashionable came
to take the air-the empress, the princesses, and, not least the grand
courtesans, who had the most opulent carriages of all. This was the way to lead
the kind of life Cora's father had wanted for her. She promptly told Bignell
that when he went back to London, she would stay on alone. Frequenting all the
right places, Cora soon came to the attention of wealthy French gentlemen. They
would see her walking the streets in a bright pink dress, to complement her
flaming red hair, pale face, and freckles. They would glimpse her riding wildly
through the Bois de Boulogne, cracking her whip left and right. They would see
her in cafes surrounded by men, her witty insults making them laugh. They also
heard of her exploits-of her delight in showing her body to one and all. The
elite of Paris society began to court her, particularly the older men who had
grown tired of the cold and calculating courtesans, and who admired her girlish
spirit. As money began to pour in from her various conquests (the Due de
Mornay, heir to the Dutch throne; Prince Napoleon, cousin to the Emperor), Cora
spent it on the most outrageous things-a multicolored carriage pulled by a team
of cream-colored horses, a rose-marble bathtub with her initials inlaid in
gold. Gentlemen vied to be the one who would spoil her the most. An Irish lover
wasted his entire fortune on her, in only eight weeks. But money could not buy
Cora's loyalty; she would leave a man on the slightest whim. Cora Pearl's wild
behavior and disdain for etiquette had all of Paris on edge. In 1864, she was
to appear as Cupid in the Offenbach operetta Orpheus in the Underworld. Society
was dying to see what she would do to cause a sensation, and soon found out:
she came on stage practically naked, except for expensive diamonds here and there,
barely covering her. As she pranced on stage, the diamonds fell off, each one
worth a fortune; she didnot stoop to pick them up, but let them roll off into
the footlights. The gentlemen in the audience, some of whom had given her those
diamonds, applauded her wildly. Antics like this made Cora the toast of Paris,
and she reigned as the city's supreme courtesan for over a decade, until the
Franco- Prussian War of 1870 put an end to the Second Empire. People often
mistakenly believe that what makes a person desirable and seductive is physical
beauty, elegance, or overt sexuality. Yet Cora Pearl was not dramatically
beautiful; her body was boyish, and her style was garish and tasteless. Even
so, the most dashing men of Europe vied for her favors, often ruining
themselves in the process. It was Cora's spirit and attitude that enthralled
them. Spoiled by her father, she imagined that spoiling her was natural-that
all men should do the same. The consequence was that, like a child, she never
felt she had to try to please. It was Cora's powerful air of independence that
made men want to possess her, tame her. She never pretended to be anything more
than a courtesan, so the brazenness that in a lady would have been uncivil in
her seemed natural and fun. And as with a spoiled child, a man's relationship
with her was on her terms. The moment he tried to change that, she lost
interest. This was the secret of her astounding success. Spoiled children have
an undeservedly bad reputation: while those who are spoiled with material
things are indeed often insufferable, those who are spoiled with affection know
themselves to be deeply seductive. This becomes a distinct advantage when they
grow up. According to Freud (who was speaking from experience, since he was his
mother's darling), spoiled children have a confidence that stays with them all
their lives. This quality radiates outward, drawing others to them, and, in a
circular process, making people spoil them still more. Since their spirit and
natural energy were never tamed by a disciplining parent, as adults they are
adventurous and bold, and often impish or brazen. The lesson is simple: it may
be too late to be spoiled by a parent, but it is never too late to make other
people spoil you. It is all in your attitude. People are drawn to those who
expect a lot out of life, whereas they tend to disrespect those who are fearful
and undemanding. Wild independence has a provocative effect on us: it appeals
to us, while also presenting us with a challenge-we want to be the one to tame
it, to make the spirited person dependent on us. Half of seduction is stirring
such competitive desires. 3. In October of 1925, Paris society was all excited
about the opening of the Revue Negre. Jazz, or in fact anything that came from
black America, All was quiet again. (Genji slipped the latch open and tried the
doors. They had not been bolted. A curtain had been set up just inside, and in
the dim light he could make out Chinese chests and otherfurniture scattered in
some disorder. He made his way through to her side. She lay by herself, a
slight littlefigure. Though vaguely annoyed at being disturbed, she evidently
took him forthe woman Chujo until he pulled back the covers. His manner was so
gently persuasive thatdevils and demons could not have gainsaid him. She was so
small that he lifted her easily. As he passed through the doors to his own
room, he came upon Chujo who had been summoned earlier. He called out in
surprise. Surprised in turn, Chujo peered into the darkness. The perfume that
came from his robes like a cloud of smoke told her who he was. [Chujo] followed
after, but Genji was quite unmoved by her pleas. • "Come for her in the
morning," he said, sliding the doors closed. • The lady was bathed in
perspiration and quite beside herself at the thought of what Chujo, and the
others too, would be thinking. Genji had to feel sorry for her. Yet the sweet
words poured forth, the whole gam ut of pretty devices for making a woman
surrender. . . . • One may imagine that he found many kind promises with which
to comfort her. SHIKIBUTHE TALE OF GENJI. SEIDENSTICKER was the latest fashion,
and the Broadway dancers and performers who made up the Revue Negre were
African-American. On opening night, artists and high society packed the hall.
The show was spectacular, as they expected, but nothing prepared them for the
last number, performed by a somewhat gawky long-legged woman with the prettiest
face: Josephine Baker, a twenty-year-old chorus girl from East St. Louis. She
came onstage bare-breasted, wearing a skirt of feathers over a satin bikini
bottom, with feathers around her neck and ankles. Although she performed her
number, called "Dame Sauvage," with another dancer, also clad in
feathers, all eyes were riveted on her: her whole body seemed to come alive in
a way the audience had never seen before, her legs moving with the litheness of
a cat, her rear end gyrating in patterns that one critic likened to a
hummingbird's. As the dance went on, she seemed possessed, feeding off the
crowd's ecstatic reaction. And then there was the look on her face: she was
having such fun. She radiated a joy that made her erotic dance oddly innocent,
even slightly comic. By the following day, word had spread: a star was born.
Josephine became the heart of the Revue Negre, and Paris was at her feet.
Within a year, her facewas on posters everywhere; there were Josephine Baker
perfumes, dolls, clothes; fashionable Frenchwomen were slicking their hair back
a la Baker, using a product called Bakerfix. They were even trying to darken
their skin. Such sudden fame represented quite a change, for just a few years
earlier, Josephine had been a young girl growing up in East St. Louis, one of
America's worst slums. She had gone to work at the age of eight, cleaning
houses for a white woman who beat her. She had sometimes slept in a rat-
infested basement; there had never been heat in the winter. (She had taught
herself to dance in her wild fashion to help keep herself warm.) In 1919,
Josephine had run away and become a part-time vaudeville performer, landing in
New York two years later without money or connections. She had had some success
as a clowning chorus girl, providing comic relief with her crossed eyes and
screwed-up face, but she hadn't stood out. Then she was invited to Paris. Some
other black performers had declined, fearing things might be still worse for
them in France than in America, but Josephine jumped at the chance. Despite her
success with the Revue Negre, Josephine did not delude herself: Parisians were
notoriously fickle. She decided to turn the relationship around. First, she
refused to be aligned with any club, and developed a reputation for breaking
contracts at will, making it clear that she was ready to leave in an instant.
Since childhood she had been afraid of dependenceon anyone; now no one could
take her for granted. This only made impresarios chase her and the public
appreciate her the more. Second, she was aware that although black culture had
become the vogue, what the French had fallen in love with was a kind of
caricature. If that was what it took to be successful, so be it, but Josephine
made it clear that she did not take the caricature seriously; instead she
reversed it, becoming the ultimate Frenchwoman of fashion, a caricature not of
blackness but of whiteness. Everything was a role to play-the comedienne, the
primitive dancer, the ultrastylish Parisian. And everything Josephine did, she
did with such a light spirit, such a lack of pretension, that she continued to
seduce the jaded French for years. Her funeral, in 1975, was nationally
televised, a huge cultural event. She was buried with the kind of pomp normally
reserved only for heads of state. From very early on, Josephine Baker could not
stand the feeling of having no control over the world. Yet what could she do in
the face of her unpromising circumstances? Some young girls put all their hopes
on a husband, but Josephine's father had left her mother soon after she was
born,and she saw marriage as something that would only make her more miserable.
Her solution was something children often do: confronted with a hopeless
environment, she closed herself off in a world of her own making, oblivious to
the ugliness around her. This world was filled with dancing, clowning, dreams
of great things. Let other people wail and moan; Josephine would smile, remain
confident and self-reliant. Almost everyone who met her, from her earliest
years to her last, commented on how seductive this quality was. Her refusal to
compromise, or to be what she was expected to be, made everything she did seem
authentic and natural. A child loves to play, and to create a little
self-contained world. When children are absorbed in make believe, they are
hopelessly charming. They infuse their imaginings with such seriousness and
feeling. Adult Naturals do something similar, particularly if they are artists:
they create their own fantasy world, and live in it as if it were the real one.
Fantasy is so much more pleasant than reality, and since most people do not
have the power or courage to create such a world, they enjoy being around those
who do. Remember: the role you were given in life is not the role you have to
accept. You can always live out a role of your own creation, a role that fits
your fantasy. Learn to playwithyourimage,nevertaking it too seriously. The key
is to infuse your play with the conviction and feeling of a child, making it
seem natural. The more absorbed you seem in your ownjoy-filled world, the more
seductive you become. Do not go halfway: make the fantasy you inhabit as radical
and exotic as possible, and you will attract attention like a magnet. 4. It was
the Festival of the Cherry Blossom at the Heian court, in late- tenth-century
Japan. In the emperor's palace, many of the courtiers were drunk, and others
were fast asleep, but the young princess Oborozukiyo, the emperor's
sister-in-law, was awake and reciting a poem: "What can compare with a
misty moon of spring?" Her voice was smooth and delicate. She moved to the
door of her apartment to look at the moon. Then, suddenly, she smelled
something sweet, and a hand clutched the sleeve of her robe. "Who are
you?" she said, frightened. "There is nothing to be afraid of,"
came a man's voice, and continued with a poem of his own: "Late in the
night we enjoy a misty moon. There is nothing misty about the bond between
us." Without another word, the man pulled the princess to him and picked
her up, carrying her into a gallery outside her room, sliding the door closed
behind him. She was terrified, and tried to call for help. In the darkness she
heard him say, a little louder now, "Itwilldo you no good. I am always
allowed my way. Just be quiet, if you will, please." Now the princess
recognized the voice, and the scent: it was Genji, the young son of the late
emperor's concubine, whose robes bore a distinctive perfume. This calmed her
somewhat, since the man was someone she knew, but on the other hand she also
knew of his reputation: Genji was the court's most incorrigible seducer, a man
who stopped at nothing. He was drunk, it was near dawn, and the watchmen would
soon be on their rounds; she did not want to be discovered with him. But then
she began to make out the outlines of his face-so pretty, his look so sincere,
without a trace of malice. Then came more poems, recited in that charming
voice,the words so insinuating. The images he conjured filled her mind, and
distracted her from his hands. She could not resist him. As the light began to
rise, Genji got to his feet. He said a few tender words, they exchanged fans,
and then he quickly left. The serving women were coming through the emperor's
rooms by now, and when they saw Genji scurrying away, the perfume of his robes
lingering after him, they smiled, knowing he was up to his usual tricks; but
they never imagined he would dare approach the sister of the emperor's wife. In
the days that followed, OborozukiyocouldonlythinkofGenji.She knew he had other
mistresses, but when she tried to put him out of her mind, a letter from him
would arrive, and she would be back to square one. In truth, she had started
the correspondence, haunted by his midnight visit. She had to see him again.
Despite the risk of discovery, and the fact that her sister Kokiden, the
emperor's wife, hated Genji, she arranged for further trysts in her apartment.
But one night an envious courtier found them together. Word reached Kokiden,
who naturally was furious. She demanded that Genji be banished from court and
the emperor had no choice but to agree. Genji went far away, and things settled
down. Then the emperor died and his son took over. A kind of emptiness had come
to the court: the dozens of women whom Genji had seduced could not endure his
absence, and flooded him with letters. Even women who had never known him
intimately would weep over any relic he had left behind-a robe, for instance,
in which his scent still lingered. And the young emperor missed his jocular
presence. And the princesses missed the music he had played on the koto. And
Oborozukiyo pined for his midnight visits. Finally even Kokiden broke down, realizing
that she could not resist him. So Genji was summoned back to the court. And not
only was he forgiven, he was given a hero's welcome; the young emperor himself
greeted the scoundrel with tears in his eyes. The story of Genji's life is told
in the eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu, a
woman of the Heian court. The character was most likely based on a real-life
man, Fujiwara no Korechika. Indeed another book of the period. The Pillow Book
of Sei Shonagon, describes an encounter between the female author and
Korechika, and reveals his incredible charm and his almost hypnotic effect on
women. Genji is a Natural, an undefensive lover, a man who has a lifelong
obsession with women but whose appreciation of and affection for them makes him
irresistible. As he says to Oborozukiyo in the novel, "I am always allowed
my way." This self-belief is half of Genji's charm. Resistance does not
make him defensive; he retreats gracefully, reciting a little poetry, and as he
leaves, the perfume of his robes trailing behind him, his victim wonders why
she has been so afraid, and what she is missing by spurning him, and she finds
a way to let him know that the next time things will be different. Genji takes
nothing seriously or personally, and at the age of forty, an age at which most
men of the eleventh century were already looking old and worn, he still seems
like a boy. His seductive powers never leave him. Human beings are
immenselysuggestible;theirmoods will easily spread to the people around them.
In fact seduction depends on mimesis, on the conscious creation of a mood or
feeling that is then reproduced by the other person. But hesitation and
awkwardness are also contagious, and are deadly to seduction. If in a key
moment you seem indecisive or self- conscious, the other person will sense that
you are thinking of yourself, instead of being overwhelmed by his or her
charms. The spell will be broken. As an undefensive lover, though, you produce
the opposite effect: your victim might be hesitant or worried, but confronted
with someone so sure and natural, he or she will be caught up in the mood. Like
dancing with someone you lead effortlessly across the dance floor, it is a
skill you can leam. It is a matter of rooting out the fear and awkwardness that
have built up in you over the years, of becoming more graceful with your
approach, less defensive when others seem to resist. Often people's resistance
is a way of testing you, and if you show any awkwardness or hesitation, you not
only will fail the test, but you will risk infecting them with your doubts.
Symbol: The Lamb. So soft and endearing. At two days old the lamb can gambol
gracefully; within a week it is playing "Follow the Leader." Its
weakness is part of its charm. The Lamb is pure innocence, so innocent we want
to possess it, even devour it. Dangers A childish quality can be charming but
it can also be irritating; the innocent have no experience of the world, and
their sweetness can prove cloying. In Milan Kundera's novel The Book of Laughter
and Forgetting, the hero dreams that he is trapped on an island with a group of
children. Soon their wonderful qualities become intensely annoying to him;
after a few days of exposure to them he cannot relate to them at all. The dream
turns into a nightmare, and he longs to be back among adults, with real things
to do and talk about. Because total childishness can quickly grate, the most
seductive Naturals are those who, like Josephine Baker, combine adult
experience and wisdom with a childlike manner. It is this mixture of qualities
that is most alluring. Society cannot tolerate too many Naturals. Given a crowd
of Cora Pearls or Charlie Chaplins, their charm would quickly wear off. In any
case it is usually only artists, or people with abundant leisure time, who can
afford to go all the way. The best way to use the Natural character type is in
specific situations when a touch of innocence or impishness will help lower
your target's defenses. A con man plays dumb to make the other person trust him
and feel superior. This kind of feigned naturalness has countless applications
in daily life, where nothing is more dangerous than looking smarter than the
next person; the Natural pose is the perfect way to disguise your cleverness.
But if you are uncontrollably childish and cannot turn it off, you run the risk
of seeming pathetic, earning not sympathy but pity and disgust. Similarly, the
seductive traits of the Natural work best in one who is still young enough for
them to seem natural. They are much harder for an older person to pull off.
Cora Pearl did not seem so charming when she was still wearing her pink flouncy
dresses in her fifties. The Duke of Buckingham, who seduced everyone in the
English court in the 1620s (including the homosexual King James I himself), was
wondrously childish in looks and manner; but this became obnoxious and
off-putting as he grew older, and he eventually made enough enemies that he
ended up being murdered. As you age, then, your natural qualities should
suggest more the child's open spirit, less an innocence that will no longer
convince anyone. the Coquette The ability to delay satisfaction is the ultimate
art of seduction-while waiting, the victim is held in thrall. Coquettes are the
grand masters of this game, orchestrating a back-and-forth movement between
hope and frustration. They bait with the promise of reward-the hope of physical
pleasure, happiness, fame by association, power-all ofwhich,however,proves
elusive; yet this only makes their targets pursue them the more. Coquettes seem
totally self-sufficient: they do not need you, they seem to say, and their
narcissism proves devilishly attractive. You want to conquer them but they hold
the cards. The strategy of the Coquette is never to offer total satisfaction.
Imitate the alternating heat and coolness of the Coquette and you will keep the
seduced at your heels. The Hot and Cold Coquette I n the autumn of 1795, Paris
was caught up in a strange giddiness. The Reign of Terror that had followed the
French Revolution had ended; the sound of the guillotine was gone. The city
breathed a collective sigh of relief, and gave way to wild parties and endless
festivals. The young Napoleon Bonaparte, twenty-six at the time, had no
interest in such revelries. He had made a name for himself as a bright,
audacious general who had helped quell rebellion in the provinces, but his
ambition was boundless and he burned with desire for new conquests. So when, in
October of that year, the infamous thirty-three-year-old widow Josephine de
Beauhamais visited his offices, he couldn't help but be confused. Josephine was
so exotic, and everything about her was languorous and sensual. (She
capitalized on her foreignness-she came from the island of
Martinique.)Ontheotherhandshehadareputationasaloose woman, and the shy Napoleon
believed in marriage. Even so, when Josephine invited him to one of her weekly
soirees, he found himself accepting. At the soiree he felt totally out of his
element. All of the city's great writers and wits were there, as well as the
few of the nobility who had survived-Josephine herself was a vicomtesse, and
had narrowly escaped the guillotine. The women were dazzling, some of them more
beautiful than the hostess, but all the men congregated around Josephine, drawn
by her graceful presence and queenly manner. Several times she left the men
behind and went to Napoleon's side; nothing could have flattered his insecure
ego more than such attention. He began to pay her visits. Sometimes she would
ignore him, and he would leave in a fit of anger. Yet the next day a passionate
letter would arrive from Josephine, and he would rush to see her. Soon he was
spending most of his time with her. Her occasional shows of sadness, her bouts
of anger or of tears, only deepened his attachment. In March of 1796, Napoleon
married Josephine. Two days after his wedding, Napoleon left to lead a campaign
in northern Italy against the Austrians. "You are the constant object of
my thoughts," he wrote to his wife from abroad. "My imagination exhausts
itself in guessing what you are doing." His generals saw him distracted:
hewould leave meetings early, spend hours writing letters, or stare at the
miniature of Josephine he wore around his neck. He had been driven to this
state by the unbearable distance between them and by a slight coldness he now
detected There are indeed men who are attached more by resistance than by
yielding and who unwittingly prefer a variable sky, now splendid, now black and
vexed by lightnings, to love's unclouded blue. Let us not forget that Josephine
had to deal with a conqueror and that love resembles war. She did not
surrender, she let herself be conquered. Had she been more tender, more
attentive, more loving, perhaps Bonaparte would have loved her less. -IMBERT DE
SAINT-AMAND, QUOTED IN THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE: NAPOLEON'S ENCHANTRESS. SERGEANT
Coquettes know how to please; not how to love, which is why men love them so
much. -PIERRE MARIVAUX An absence, the declining of an invitation to dinner, an
unintentional, unconscious harshness are of more service than all the cosmetics
and fine clothes in the world. -MARCEL PROUST There's also nightly, to the
unintiated, \ A peril-not indeed like love or marriage, \ But not the less for
this to he depreciated: \ It is-I meant and mean not to disparage \ The show of
virtue even in the vitiated - \ Itaddsanoutwardgraceuntotheircarriage - \ But
to denounce the amphibious sort of harlot, \ Couleur de rose, who's neither
white nor scarlet. \ Such is your cold coquette, who can't say say
"no," \And won't say "yes," and keeps you on- and off-ing \
On a lee shore, till it begins to blow - \ Then sees your heart wreck'd with an
in her-she wrote infrequently, and her letters lacked passion; nor did she join
him in Italy. He had to finish his war fast, so that he could return to her
side. Engaging the enemy with unusual zeal, he began to make mistakes. "To
live for Josephine!" he wrote to her. "I work to get near you; I kill
myself to reach you." His letters became more passionate and erotic; a
friend of Josephine's who saw them wrote, "The handwriting [was] almost
indecipherable, the spelling shaky, the style bizarre and confused .... What a
position for a woman to find herself in-being the motivating force behind the
triumphal march of an entire army." Months went by in which Napoleon
begged Josephine to come to Italy and she made endless excuses. But finally she
agreed to come, and left Paris for Brescia, where he was headquartered. A near
encounter with the enemy along the way, however, forced her to detour to Milan.
Napoleon was away from Brescia, in battle; when he returned to find her still
absent, he blamed his foe GeneralWiirmser and swore revenge. For the next few
months he seemed to pursue two targets with equal energy: Wiirmser and
Josephine. His wife was never where she was supposed to be: "I reach
Milan, rush to your house, having thrown aside everything in order to clasp you
in my arms. You are not there!" Napoleon would turn angry and jealous, but
when he finally caught up with Josephine, the slightest of her favors melted
his heart. He took long rides with her in a darkened carriage, while his
generals fumed-meetings were missed, orders and strategies improvised.
"Never," he later wrote to her, "has a woman been in such
complete mastery of another's heart." And yet their time together was so
short. During a campaign that lasted almost a year, Napoleon spent a mere
fifteen nights with his new bride. inward scoffing. \ This works a world of
sentimental woe, \ And sends new Werters yearly to the coffin; \ But yet is
merely innocent flirtation, \ Not quite adultery, but adulteration. -LORD
BYRON, THE COLD COQUETTE Napoleon later heard rumors that Josephine had taken a
lover while he was in Italy. His feelings toward her cooled, and he himself
took an endless series of mistresses. Yet Josephine was never really concerned
about this threat to her power over her husband; a few tears, some theatrics, a
little coldness on her part,andheremained her slave. In 1804, he had her
crowned empress, and had she born him a son, she would have remained empress to
the end. When Napoleon lay on his deathbed, the last word he uttered was
"Josephine." There is a way to represent one's cause and in doing so
to treat the audience in such a cool and condescending manner that they are
bound to notice one is not doing it to please them. The principle should always
be not to makeconcessions to those who don't have anything to give but who have
everything to gain from us. We can wait During the French Revolution, Josephine
had come within minutes of losing her head on the guillotine. The experience
left her without illusions, and with two goals in mind: to live a life of
pleasure, and to find the man who could best supply it. She set her sights on
Napoleon early on. He was young, and had a brilliant future. Beneath his calm
exterior, Josephine sensed, he was highly emotional and aggressive, but this
did not intimidate her-it only revealed his insecurity and weakness. He would
be easy to enslave. First, Josephine adapted to his moods, charmed him with her
feminine grace, warmed him with her looks and manner. He wanted to possess her.
And once she had aroused this desire, her power lay in postponing its
satisfaction, withdrawing from him, frustrating him. In fact
thetortureofthechasegave Napoleon a masochistic pleasure. He yearned to subdue
her independent spirit, as if she were an enemy in battle. People are
inherently perverse. An easy conquest has a lower value than a difficult one;
we are only really excited by what is denied us, by what we cannot possess in
full. Your greatest power in seduction is your ability to turn away, to make
others come after you, delaying their satisfaction. Most people miscalculate
and surrender too soon, worried that the other person will lose interest, or
that giving the other what he or she wants will grant the giver a kind of
power. The truth is the opposite: once you satisfy someone, you no longer have
the initiative, and you open yourself to the possibility that he or she will
lose interest at the slightest whim. Remember: vanity is critical in love. Make
your targets afraid that you may be withdrawing, that you may not really be
interested, and you arouse their innate insecurity, their fear that as you have
gotten to know them they have become less exciting to you. These insecurities
are devastating. Then, once you have made them uncertain of you and of
themselves, reignite their hope, making them feel desired again. Hot and cold,
hot and cold-such coquetry is perversely pleasurable, heightening interest and keeping
the initiative on your side. Never be put off by your target's anger; it is a
sure sign of enslavement. She who would long retain her power must use her
lover ill. -OVID The Cold Coquette I n 1952, the writer Truman Capote, a recent
success in literary and social circles, began to receive an almost daily
barrage of fan mail from a young man named Andy Warhol. An illustrator for shoe
designers, fashion magazines, and the like, Warhol made pretty, stylized
drawings, some of which he sent to Capote, hoping the author would include them
in one of his books. Capote did not respond. One day he came home to find
Warhol talking to his mother, with whom Capote lived. And Warhol began to
telephone almost daily. Finally Capote put an end to all this: "He seemed
one of those hopeless people that you just know nothing's ever going to happen
to. Just a hopeless, born loser," the writer later said. Ten years later,
Andy Warhol, aspiring artist, had his first one-man show at the Stable Gallery
in Manhattan. On the walls were a series of silkscreened paintings based on the
Campbell's soup can and the Coca-Cola bottle. At the opening and at the party
afterward, Warhol stood to the side, staring blankly, talking little. What a
contrast he was to the older generation of artists, the abstract
expressionists-mostly hard-drinking womanizers full of bluster and aggression,
big talkers who had dominated the art scene for theprevious fifteen years. And
what a change from the Warhol who had badgered Capote, and art dealers and patrons
as well. The critics were both until they are begging on their knees even if it
takes a very long time. -FREUD, IN A LETTER TO A PUPIL, QUOTED IN PAUL ROAZEN,
FREUD AND HIS FOLLOWERS When her time was come, that nymph most fair
broughtforth a child with whom one could have fallen in love even in his
cradle, and she called him Narcissus. Cephisus's child had reached his
sixteenth year, and could be counted as at once boy and man. Many lads and many
girls fell in love with him, but his soft young body housed a pride so
unyielding that none of those boys or girls dared to touch him. One day, as he
was driving timid deer into his nets, he was seen by that talkative nymph who
cannot stay silent when another speaks, but yet has not learned to speak first
herself. Her name is Echo, and she always answers back. So when she saw
Narcissus wandering through the lonely countryside, Echo fell in love with him
and followed secretly in his steps. The more closely she followed, the nearer
was the fire which scorched her: just as sulphur, smeared round the tops of
torches, is quickly kindled when aflame is brought near it. How often she
wished to make flattering overtures to him,to approach him with tender pleas! •
The boy, by chance, had wandered away from his faithful band of comrades, and
he called out: "Is there anybody here?" Echo answered:
"Here!" Narcissus stood still in astonishment. looking round in every
direction. He looked behind him, and when no one appeared, cried again:
"Why are you avoiding me?" But all he heard were his own words echoed
back. Still he persisted, deceived by what he took to be another's voice, and
said, "Come here, and let us meet!" Echo answered: "Let us
meet!" Never again would she reply more willingly to any sound. To make
good her words she came out of the wood and made to throw her arms round the
neck she loved: but he fled from her, crying as he did so, "Away with
these embraces! I would die before I would have you touch me!" Thus
scorned, she concealed herself in the woods, hiding her shamedface in the
shelter of the leaves, and ever since that day she dwells in lonely caves. Yet
still her love remained firmly rooted in her heart, and was increased by the
pain of having been rejected. Narcissus had played with her affections, treating
her as he had previously treated other spirits of the waters and the woods, and
his male admirers too. Then one of those he had scorned raised up his hands to
heaven and prayed: "May he himselffall in lovewith another, as we have
done with him! May he too be unable to gain his loved one!" Nemesis heard
and granted his righteous prayer. Narcissus, wearied with hunting in the heat
of the day, lay down here [by a clear pool]: for he was attracted by the beauty
of the place, and by the spring. While he sought to quench his thirst, another
thirst grew baffled and intrigued by the coldness of Warhol's work; they could
not figure out how the artist felt about his subjects. What was his position?
What was he trying to say? When they asked, he would simply reply, "I just
do it because I like it," or, "I love soup." The critics went
wild with their interpretations: "An art like Warhol's is necessarily
parasitic upon the myths of its time," one wrote; another, "The
decision not to decide is a paradox that is equal to an idea which expresses
nothing but then gives it dimension." The show was a huge success,
establishing Warhol as a leading figure in a new movement, pop art. In 1963,
Warhol rented a large Manhattan loft space that he called the Factory, and that
soon became the hub of a large entourage-hangers-on, actors, aspiring artists.
Here, particularly at night, Warhol would simply wander about, or stand in a
corner. People would gather around him, fight for his attention, throw
questions at him, and he would answer, in his noncommittal way. But no one
could get close to him, physically or mentally; he would not allow it. At the
same time, if he walked by you without giving you his usual "Oh, hi,"
you were devastated. He hadn't noticed you; perhaps you were on the way out.
Increasingly interested in filmmaking, Warhol cast his friends in his movies.
In effect he was offering them a kind of instant celebrity (their "fifteen
minutes of fame"-the phrase is Warhol's). Soon people were competing for
roles. He groomed women in particular for stardom; Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Nico.
Just being around him offered a kind of celebrity by association. The Factory
became the place to be seen, and stars like Judy Garland and Tennessee Williams
would go to parties there, rubbing elbows with Sedgwick, Viva, and the bohemian
lower echelons whom Warhol had befriended. People began sending limos to bring
him to parties of their own; his presence alone was enough to turn a social
evening into a scene- even though he would pass through in near silence,
keeping to himself and leaving early. In 1967, Warhol was asked to lecture at
various colleges. He hated to talk, particularly about his own art; "The
less something has to say," he felt, "the more perfect it is."
But the money was good and Warhol always found it hard to say no. His solution
was simple; he asked an actor, AllenMidgette, to impersonate him. Midgette was
dark-haired, tan, part Cherokee Indian. He did not resemble Warhol in the
least. But Warhol and friends covered his face with powder, sprayed his brown
hair silver, gave him dark glasses, and dressed him in Warhol's clothes. Since
Midgette knew nothing about art, his answers to students' questions tended to
be as short and enigmatic as Warhol's own. The impersonation worked. Warhol may
have been an icon, but no one really knew him, and since he often wore dark
glasses, even his face was unfamiliar in any detail. The lecture audiences were
far enough away to be teased by the thought of his presence, and no one got
dose enough to catch the deception. He remained elusive. Early on in life, Andy
Warhol was plagued by conflicting emotions: he desperately wanted fame, but he
was naturally passive and shy "I've always had a conflict," he later
said, "because I'm shy and yet I like to take up a lot of personal space.
Mom always said, 'Don't be pushy, but let everyone know you're around.' "
At first Warhol tried to make himself more aggressive, straining to please and
court. It didn't work. After ten futile years he stopped trying and gave in to
his own passivity-only to discover the power that withdrawal commands. Warhol
began this process inhisartwork,whichchangeddramaticallyintheearly1960s.His new
paintings of soup cans, green stamps, and other widely known images did not
assault you with meaning; in fact their meaning was totally elusive, which only
heightened their fascination. They drew you in by their immediacy, their visual
power, their coldness. Having transformed his art, Warhol also transformed
himself: like his paintings, he became pure surface. He trained himself to hold
himself back, to stop talking. The world is full of people who try, people who
impose themselves aggressively. They may gain temporary victories, but the
longer they are around, the more people want to confound them. They leave no
space around themselves, and without space there can be no seduction. Cold
Coquettes create space by remaining elusive and making others pursue them.
Their coolness suggests a comfortable confidence that is exciting to be around,
even though it may not actually exist; their silence makes you want to talk.
Their self-containment, their appearance of having no need for other people,
only makes us want to do things for them, hungry for the slightest sign of
recognition and favor. Cold Coquettes may be maddening to deal with-never
committing but never saying no, never allowing closeness-but more often than
not we find ourselves coming back to them, addicted to the coldness they
project. Remember; seduction is a process of drawing people in, making them
want to pursue and possess you. Seem distant and people will go mad to win your
favor. Humans, like nature, hate a vacuum, and emotional distance and silence
make them strain to fill up the empty space with words and heat of their own.
Like Warhol, stand back and let them fight over you. [Narcissistic] women have
the greatest fascination for men. The charm of a child lies to a great extent
in his narcissism, his self-sufficiency and inaccessibility, just as does the
charm of certain animals which seem not to concern themselves about us, such as
cats. ... It is as if we envied them their power of retaining a blissful state
of mind-an unassailable libido-position which we ourselves have since
abandoned. FREUD in him, and as he drank, he was enchanted by the beautiful
reflection that he saw. He fell in love with an insubstantial hope, mistaking a
mere shadow for a real body. Spellbound by his own self, he remained there
motionless, with fixed gaze, like a statue carved from Parian marble.
Unwittingly, he desired himself, and was himself the object of his own
approval, at once seeking and sought, himself kindling the flame with which he
burned. How often did he vainly kiss the treacherous pool, how often plunge his
arms deep in the waters, as he tried to clasp the neck he saw! But he could not
lay hold upon himself. He did not know what he was looking at, but was fired by
the sight, and excited by the very illusion that deceived his eyes. Poor
foolish boy, why vainly grasp at the fleeting image that eludes you? The thing
you are seeking does not exist: only turn aside and you will lose what you
love. What you see is but the shadow cast by your reflection; in itself it is
nothing. It comes with you, and lasts while you are there; it will go when you
go, if go you can. He laid down his weary head on the green grass, and death
closed the eyes which so admired their owner's beauty. Even then, when he was
received into the abode of the dead, he kept looking at himself in the waters
of the Styx. His sisters, the nymphs of the spring, mourned for him, and cut
off their hair in tribute to their brother. The wood nymphs mourned him too,
and Echo sang her refrain to their lament. The pyre, the tossing torches, and
the bier, were now being prepared, but his body was nowhere to be found.
Instead of his corpse, they discovered a flower with a circle of white petals
round a yellow centre. - OVID .METAMORPHOSES, INNES Selfishness is one of the
qualities apt to inspire love. -NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE The Socrates whom you see
has a tendency to fall in love with good-looking young men, and is always in
their society and in an ecstasy about them...but once you see beneath the
surface you will discover a degree of self-control of which you can hardly form
a notion, gentlemen. He spends his whole life pretending and playing with
people, and I doubt whether anyone has ever seen the treasures which are
revealed when he grows serious and exposes what he keeps inside. Believing that
he was serious in his admiration of my charms, I supposed that a wonderful
piece ofgood luck had befallen me; I should now be able, in return for my
favours, to find out all that Socrates knew; for you must know that there was
no limit to the pride that I felt in my good looks. With this end in view I
sent away my attendant, whom hitherto I had always kept with me in my
encounters with Socrates, and left myself alone with him. I must tell you the
whole truth; attend carefully, and do you, Keys to the Character A ccording to
the popular concept, Coquettes are consummate teases, experts at arousing
desire through a provocative appearance or an alluring attitude. But the real
essence of Coquettes is in fact their ability to trap people emotionally, and
to keep their victims in their clutches long after that first titillation of
desire. This is the skill that puts them in the ranks of the most effective
seducers. Their success may seem somewhat odd, since they are essentially cold
and distant creatures; should you ever get to know one well, you will sense his
or her inner core of detachment and self- love. It may seem logical that once
you become aware of this quality you will see through the Coquette's
manipulations and lose interest, but more often we see the opposite. After
years of Josephine's coquettish games, Napoleon was well aware of how
manipulative she was. Yet this conqueror of kingdoms, this skeptic and cynic,
could not leave her. To understand the peculiar power of the Coquette, you must
first understand a critical property of love and desire: the more obviously you
pursue a person, the more likely you are to chase them away. Too much attention
can be interesting for a while, but it soon grows cloying and finally becomes
claustrophobic and frightening. It signals weakness and neediness, an
unseductive combination. How often we make this mistake, thinking our
persistent presence will reassure. But Coquettes have an inherent understanding
of this particular dynamic. Masters of selective withdrawal, they hint at
coldness, absenting themselves at times to keep their victim off balance,
surprised, intrigued. Their withdrawals make them mysterious, and we build them
up in our imaginations. (Familiarity, on the other hand, undermines what we
have built.) A bout of distance engages the emotions further; instead of making
us angry, it makes us insecure. Perhaps they don't really like us, perhaps we
have lost their interest. Once our vanity is at stake, we succumb to the Coquette
just to prove we are still desirable. Remember: the essence of the Coquette
lies not in the tease and temptation but in the subsequent step back, the
emotional withdrawal. That is the key to enslaving desire. To adopt the power
of the Coquette, you must understand one other quality: narcissism. Sigmund
Freud characterized the "narcissistic woman" (most often obsessed
with her appearance) as the type with the greatest effect on men. As children,
he explains, we pass through a narcissistic phase that is immensely
pleasurable. Happily self-contained and self-involved, we have little psychic
need of other people. Then, slowly, we are socialized and taught to pay
attention to others-but we secretly yearn for those blissful early days. The
narcissistic woman reminds a man of that period, and makes him envious. Perhaps
contact with her will restore that feeling of selfinvolvement. A man is also
challenged by the female Coquette's independence-he wants to be the one to make
her dependent, to burst her bubble. It is far more likely, though, that he will
end up becoming her slave, givingher incessant attention to gain her love, and
failing. For the narcissistic woman is not emotionally needy; she is
self-sufficient. And this is surprisingly seductive. Self-esteem is critical in
seduction. (Your attitude toward yourself is read by the other person in subtle
and unconscious ways.) Low self-esteem repels, confidence and self-sufficiency
attract. The less you seem to need other people, the more likely others will be
drawn to you. Understand the importance of this in all relationships and you
will find your neediness easier to suppress. But do not confuse self-absorption
with seductive narcissism. Talking endlessly about yourself is eminently
anti-seductive, revealing not self-sufficiency but insecurity. The Coquette is
traditionally thought of as female, and certainly the strategy was for
centuries one of the few weapons women had to engage and enslave a man's
desire. One ploy of the Coquette is the withdrawal of sexual favors, and we see
women using this trick throughout history: the great seventeenth-century French
courtesan Ninon de l'Enclos was desired by all the preeminent men of France,
but only attained real power when she made it clear that she would no longer sleep
with a man as part of her duty. This drove her admirers to despair, which she
knew how to make worse by favoring a man temporarily, granting him access to
her body for a few months, then returning him to the pack of the unsatisfied.
Queen Elizabeth I of England took coquettishness to the extreme, deliberately
arousing the desires of her courtiers but sleeping with none of them. Long a
tool of social power for women, coquettishness was slowly adapted by men,
particularly the great seducers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who
envied the power of such women. One seventeenth-century seducer, the Due de
Lauzun, was a master at exciting a woman, then suddenly acting aloof. Women
went wild over him. Today, coquetry is genderless. In a world that discourages
direct confrontation, teasing, coldness, and selective aloofness are a form of
indirect power that brilliantly disguises its own aggression. The Coquette must
first and foremost be able to excite the target of his or her attention. The
attraction can be sexual, the lure of celebrity, whatever it takes. At the same
time, the Coquette sends contrary signals that stimulate contrary responses,
plunging the victim into confusion. The eponymous heroine of Marivaux's
eighteenth-century French novel Marianne is the consummate Coquette. Going to
church, she dresses tastefully, but leaves her hair slightly uncombed. In the
middle of the service she seems to notice this error and starts to fix it,
revealing her bare arm as she does so; such things were not to be seen in an
eighteenth-century church, and all male eyes fix on her for that moment. The
tension is much more powerful than if she were outside, or were tartily
dressed. Remember: obvious flirting will reveal your intentions too clearly.
Better to be ambiguous and even contradictory, frustrating at the same time
that you stimulate. The great spiritual leader liddu Krishnamurti was an
unconscious coquette. Revered by theosophists as their "World
Teacher," Krishnamurti was also a dandy. He loved elegant clothing and was
devilishly handsome. At the Socrates, pull me up if anything I say is false. I
allowed myself to be alone with him, I say, gentlemen, and I naturally supposed
that he would embark on conversation of the type that a lover usually addresses
to his darling when they are tete-a-tete, and I was glad. Nothing of the kind;
he spent the day with me in the sort of talk which is habitual with him, and
then left me and went away. Next I invited him to train with me in the
gymnasium, and I accompanied him there, believing that I should succeed with
him now. He took exercise and wrestled with me frequently, with no one else
present, but I need hardly say that I was no nearer my goal. Finding that this
was no good either, I resolved to make a direct assault on him, and not to give
up what I had onceundertaken;I felt that I must get to the bottom of the
matter. So I invited him to dine with me, behaving just like a lover who has
designs upon his favourite. He was in no hurry to accept this invitation, but
at last he agreed to come. The first time he came he rose to go away
immediately after dinner, and on that occasion I was ashamed and let him go.
But I returned to the attack, and this time I kept him in conversation after
dinnerfar into the night, and then, when he wanted to be going, I compelled him
to stay, on the plea that it was too late for him to go. • So he betook himself
to rest, using as a bed the couch on which he had reclined at dinner, next to
mine, and there was nobody sleeping in the room but ourselves. •... I swear by
all the gods in heaven thatfor anything that had happened between us when I got
up after sleeping with Socrates, I might have been sleeping with my father or
elder brother. • What do you suppose to have been my state of mind after that?
On the one hand 1 same time, he practiced celibacy, and had a horror of being
touched. In 1929 he shocked theosophists around the world by proclaiming that
he was not a god or even a guru, and did not want any followers. This only
heightened his appeal: women fell in love with him in great numbers, and his
advisers grew even more devoted. Physically and psychologically, Krishnamurti
was sending contrary signals. While preaching a generalized love and
acceptance, in his personal life he pushed people away His attractiveness and
his obsession with his appearance might have gained him attention but by
themselves would not have made women fall in love with him; his lessons of
realized that I had been slighted, but on the other I felt a reverence for
Socrates' character, his self-control and couragehe result was that I could
neither bring myself to be angry with him and tear myself away from his
society, nor find a way of subduing him to my will. ... I was utterly
disconcerted, and wandered about in a state celibacy and spiritual virtue would
have created disciples but not physical love. The combination of these traits,
however, both drew people in and frustrated them, a coquettish dynamic that
created an emotional and physical attachment to a man who shunned such things.
His withdrawal from the world had the effect of only heightening the devotion
of his followers. Coquetry depends on developing a pattern to keep the other
person off balance. The strategy is extremely effective. Experiencing a
pleasure once, we yearn to repeat it; so the Coquette gives us pleasure, then
withdraws it.The alternation of heat and cold is the most
commonpattern,andhasseveralvariations.TheeighthcenturyChineseCoquetteYang
Kuei-Fei to- of enslavement to the man tally enslaved the Emperor Ming Huang
through a pattern of kindness and the like of which has never bitterness:
having charmed him with kindness, she would suddenly get angry, blaming him
harshly for the slightest mistake. Unable to live without alcibiades, quoted in
^ p] easure s b e gave him, the emperor would turn the court upside down PLATO,
THE SYMPOSIUM to please her when she was angry or upset. Her tears had a
similar effect: what had he done, why was she so sad? He eventually ruined
himself and his kingdom trying to keep her happy. Tears, anger, and the
production of guilt are all the tools of the Coquette. A similar dynamic
appears in a lover's quarrel: when a couple fights, then reconciles, the joys
of reconciliation only make the attachment stronger. Sadness of any sort is
also seductive, particularly if it seems deep-rooted, even spiritual, rather
than needy or pathetic-it makes people come to you. Coquettes are never
jealous-that would undermine their image of fundamental self-sufficiency. But
they are masters at inciting jealousy: by paying attention to a third party,
creating a triangle of desire, they signal to their victims that they may not
be that interested. This triangulation is extremely seductive, in social
contexts as well as erotic ones. Interested in narcissistic women, Freud was a
narcissist himself, and his aloofness drove his disciples crazy. (They even had
a name for it-his "god complex.") Behaving like a kind of messiah,
too lofty for petty emotions, Freud always maintained a distance between himself
and his students, hardly ever inviting them over for dinner, say, and keeping
his private life shrouded in mystery. Yet he would occasionally choose an
acolyte to confide in-Carl Jung, Otto Rank, Lou Andreas-Salome. The result was
that his disciples went berserk trying to win his favor, to be the one he
chose. Their jealousy when he suddenly favored one of them only increased his
power over them. People's natural insecurities are heightened in group
settings; by maintaining aloofness, Coquettes start a competition to win their
favor. If the ability to use third parties to make targets jealous is a
critical seductive skill, Sigmund Freud was a grand Coquette. All of the
tactics of the Coquette have been adapted by political leaders to make the
public fall in love. While exciting the masses, these leaders remain inwardly
detached, which keeps them in control. The political scientist Roberto Michels
has even referred to such politicians as Cold Coquettes. Napoleon played the
Coquette with the French: after the grand successes of the Italian campaign had
made him a beloved hero, he left France to conquer Egypt, knowing that in his
absence the government would fall apart, the people would hunger for his
return, and their love would serve as the base for an expansion of his power.
After exciting the masses with a rousing speech, Mao Zedong would disappear
from sight for days on end, making himself an object of cultish worship. And no
one was more of a Coquette than Yugoslav leader losef Tito, who alternated
between distance from and emotional identification with his people. All of
these political leaders were confirmed narcissists. In times of trouble, when
people feel insecure, the effect of such political coquetry is even more
powerful. It is important to realize that coquetry is extremely effective on a
group, stimulatingjealousy, love, and intense devotion. If you play such a role
with a group, remember to keep an emotional and physical distance. This will
allow you to cry and laugh on command, project self-sufficiency, and with such
detachment you will be able play people's emotions like a piano. Symbol: The
Shadow. It cannot be grasped. Chase your shadow and it will flee; turn your
back on it and it will follow you. It is also a person's dark side, the thing
that makes them mysterious. After they have given us pleasure, the shadow
oftheir withdrawal makes us yearn for their return, much as clouds make us
yearn for the sun. Dangers C oquettes face an obvious danger: they play with
volatile emotions. Every time the pendulum swings, love shifts to hate. So they
must orchestrate everything carefully. Their absences cannot be too long, their
bouts of anger must be quickly followed by smiles. Coquettes can keep their
victims emotionally entrapped for a long time, but over months or years the
dynamic can begin to prove tiresome. Jiang Qing, later known as Madame Mao,
used coquettish skills to capture the heart of Mao Tse-tung, but after ten
years the quarreling, the tears and the coolness became intensely irritating,
and once irritation proved stronger than love, Mao was able to detach.
Josephine, a more brilliant Coquette, was able to adapt, by spending a whole
year without playing coy or withdrawing from Napoleon. Timing is everything. On
the other hand, though, the Coquette stirs up powerful emotions, and breakups
often prove temporary. The Coquette is addictive: after the failure of the
social plan Mao called the Great Leap Forward, Madame Mao was able to
reestablish her power over her devastated husband. The Cold Coquette can stimulate
a particularly deep hatred. Valerie Solanas was a young woman who fell under
Andy Warhol's spell. She had written aplay that amused him, and she was given
the impression he might turn it into a film. She imagined becoming a celebrity.
She also got involved in the feminist movement, and when, in June 1968, it
dawned on her that Warhol was toying with her, she directed her growing rage at
men on him and shot him three times, nearly killing him. Cold Coquettes may
stimulate feelings that are not so much erotic as intellectual, less passion
and more fascination. The hatred they can stir up is all the more insidious and
dangerous, for it may not be counterbalanced by a deep love. They must realize
the limits of the game, and the disturbing effects they can have on less stable
people. the Charmer Charm is seduction without sex. Charmers are consummate
manipulators, masking their cleverness by creating a mood of pleasure and
comfort. Their method is simple: they deflect attentionfrom themselves andfocus
it on their target. They understand your spirit, feel your pain, adapt to your
moods. In the presence of a Charmer you feel better about yourself. Charmers do
not argue or fight, complain, or pester -w hat could be more seductive? By
drawing you in with their indulgence they make you dependent on them, and their
power grows. Learn to cast the Charmer's spell by aiming at people's primary
weaknesses: vanity and self-esteem. The Art of Charm S exuality is extremely
disruptive. The insecurities and emotions it stirs up can often cut short a
relationship that would otherwise be deeper and longer lasting. The Charmer's
solution is to fulfill the aspects of sexuality that are so alluring and
addictive-the focused attention, the boosted self-esteem, the pleasurable
wooing, the understanding (real or illusory)-but subtract the sex itself. It's
not that the Charmer represses or discourages sexuality; lurking beneath the
surface of any attempt at charm is a sexual tease, a possibility. Charm cannot
exist without a hint of sexual tension. It cannot be maintained, however,
unless sex is kept at bay or in the background. The word "charm"
comes from the Latin carmen, a song, but also an incantation tied to the
casting of a magical spell. The Charmer implicitly grasps this history, casting
a spell by giving people something that holds their attention, that fascinates
them. And the secret to capturing people's attention, while lowering their
powers of reason, is to strike at the things they have the least control over:
their ego, their vanity, and their selfesteem. As Benjamin Disraeli said,
"Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours." The
strategy can never be obvious; subtlety is the Charmer's great skill. If the
target is to be kept from seeing through the Charmer's efforts, and
fromgrowingsuspicious, maybe even tiring of the attention, a light touch is
essential. The Charmer is like a beam of light that doesn't play directly on a
target but throws a pleasantly diffused glow over it. Charm can be applied to a
group as well as to an individual: a leader can charm the public. The dynamic
is similar. The following are the laws of charm, culled from the stories of the
most successful charmers in history. Birds are taken with pipes that imitate
their own voices, and men with those sayings that are most agreeable to their
own opinions. BUTLER Make your target the center of attention. Charmers fade
into the background; their targets become the subject of their interest. To be
a Charmer you have to leam to listen and observe. Let your targets talk,
revealing themselves in the process. As you find out more about them-their
strengths, and more important their weaknesses-you can individualize your
attention, appealing to their specific desires and needs, tailoring your flatteries
to their insecurities. By adapting to their spirit and empathizing with their
woes, you can make them feel bigger and better, validating their sense of
self-worth. Make them the star of the show and they will become Go with the
bough, you'll bend it; \ Use brute force, it'll snap. \ Go with the current:
that's how to swimacross rivers -\Fightingupstream's no good. \ Goeasy with
lions or tigers ifyou aim to tame them; \ The bull gets inured to the plough by
slow degrees. So, yield if she shows resistance: \ That way you'll win in the
end. fust be sure to play The part she allots you. Censure the things she
censures, \ Endorse her endorsements, echo her every word, \ Pro or con, and
laugh whenever she laughs; remember, \ If she weeps, to weep too: take your cue
\ From her every expression. Suppose she's playing a board game, \ Then throw
the dice carelessly, move \ Your pieces all wrong. Don't jib at a slavish task
like holding \ Her mirror: slavish or not, such attentions please. . . . -OVID,
THE ART OF LOVE. addicted to you and grow dependent on you. On a mass level,
make gestures of self-sacrifice (no matter how fake) to show the public that
you share their pain and are working in their interest, self-interest being the
public form of egotism. Disraeli was asked to dinner, and came in green velvet
trousers, with a canary waistcoat, buckle shoes, and lace cuffs. His appearance
at first proved disquieting, but on leaving the table the guests remarked to
each other that the wittiest talker at the luncheon-party was the man in the
yellow waistcoat. Benjamin had made great advances in social conversation since
the days of Murray's dinners. Faithful to his method, he noted the stages:
"Do not talk too much at present; do not try to talk. But whenever you
speak, speak with self-possession. Speak in a subdued tone, and always look at
the person whom you are addressing. Before one can engage in general
conversation with any effect, there is a certain acquaintance with trifling but
amusing subjects which must be first attained. You will soon pick up sufficient
by listening and observing. Never argue. In society nothing must be discussed;
give only results. If any person differ from you, bow turn the conversation. In
society never think; always be on the watch, or you will miss many and say many
disagreeable things. Talk to women, talk to women as much as you can. This is
the best school. This is the way to gain fluency, because you need not care
what you say, and had better not be sensible. They, too, will rally you on many
points, Be a source of pleasure. No one wants to hear about your problems and
troubles. Listen to your targets' complaints, but more important, distract them
from their problems by giving them pleasure. (Do this often enough and they
will fall under your spell.) Being lighthearted and fun is always more charming
than being serious and critical. An energetic presence is likewise more
charming than lethargy, which hints at boredom,an enormous social taboo; and
elegance and style will usually win out over vulgarity, since most people like
to associate themselves with whatever they think elevated and cultured. In
politics, provide illusion and myth rather than reality. Instead of asking
people to sacrifice for the greater good, talk of grand moral issues. An appeal
that makes people feel good will translate into votes and power. Bring
antagonism into harmony. The court is a cauldron of resentment and envy, where
the sourness of a single brooding Cassius can quickly turn into a conspiracy.
The Charmer knows how to smooth out conflict. Never stir up antagonisms that
will prove immune to your charm; in the face of those who are aggressive,
retreat, let them have their little victories. Yielding and indulgence will
charm the fight out of any potential enemies. Never criticize people
overtly-that will make them insecure, and resistant to change. Plant ideas,
insinuate suggestions. Charmed by your diplomatic skills, people will not
notice your growing power. Lull your victims into ease and comfort. Charm is
like the hypnotist's trick with the swinging watch: the more relaxed the
target, the easier it is to bend him or her to your will. The key to making
your victims feel comfortable is to mirror them, adapt to their moods. People
are narcissists- they are drawn to those most similar to themselves. Seem to
share their values and tastes, to understand their spirit, and they will fall
under your spell. This works particularly well if you are an outsider: showing
that you share the values of your adopted group or country (you have learned
their language, you prefer their customs, etc.) is immensely charming, since
for you this preference is a choice, not a question of birth. Never pester or
be overly persistent-these uncharming qualities will disrupt the relaxation you
need to cast your spell. Show calm and self-possession in the face of
adversity. Adversity and setbacks actually provide the perfect setting for
charm. Showing a calm, un- mffled exterior in the face of unpleasantness puts
people at ease. You seem patient, as if waiting for destiny to deal you a
better card-or as if you were confident you could charm the Fates themselves.
Never show anger, ill temper, or vengefulness, all disruptive emotions that
will make people defensive. In the politics of large groups, welcome adversity
as a chance to show the charming qualities of magnanimity and poise. Let others
get flutered and upset-the contrast will redound to your favor. Never whine,
never complain, never try to justify yourself. Make yourself useful. If done
subtly, your ability to enhance the lives of others will be devilishly
seductive. Your social skills will prove important here: creating a wide
network of allies will give you the power to link people up with each other,
which will make them feel that by knowing you they can make their lives easier.
This is something no one can resist. Follow-through is key: so many people will
charm by promising a person great things-a better job, a new contact, a big
favor-but if they do not follow through they make enemies instead of friends.
Anyone can make a promise; what sets you apart, and makes you charming, is your
ability to come through in the end, following up your promise with a definite
action. Conversely, if someone does you a favor, show your gratitude concretely.
In a world of bluff and smoke, real action and true helpfulness are perhaps the
ultimate charm. Examples of Charmers 1. In the early 1870s, Queen Victoria of
England had reached a low point in her life. Her beloved husband. Prince
Albert, had died in 1861, leaving her more than grief stricken. In all of her
decisions she had relied on his advice; she was too uneducated and
inexperienced to do otherwise, or so everyone made her feel. In fact, with
Albert's death, political discussions and policy issues had come to bore her to
tears. Now Victoria gradually withdrew from the public eye. As a result, the
monarchy became less popular and therefore
lesspowerful.In1874,theConservativeParty came to power, and its leader, the
seventy-year-old Benjamin Disraeli, became prime minister. The protocol of his
accession to his seat demanded that he come to the palace for a private meeting
with the queen, who was fifty-five at the time. Two more unlikely associates
could not be imagined: Disraeli, who was Jewish by birth, had dark skin and
exotic features by English standards; as a young man he had been a dandy, his
dress bordering on the flamboyant, and he had written popular novels that were
romantic or even Gothic in style. The queen, on the other hand, was dour and
stubborn, formal in manner and simple in and as they are women you will not be
offended. Nothing is of so much importance and of so much use to a young man
entering life as to be well criticised by women." -ANDRE MAUROIS,
DISRAELI. MILES You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without
having asked any clear question.CAMUS A speech that carries its audience along
with it and is applauded is often less suggestive simply because it is clear
that it sets out to be persuasive. People talking together influence each other
in close proximity by means of the tone of voice they adopt and the way they
look at each other and not only by the kind oflanguage they use. We are right
to call a good conversationalist a charmer in the magical sense of the word. -TARDE,
L'OPINION ET LA FOULE. QUOTED IN SERGE MOSCOVICI, THE AGE OF THE CROWD Wax, a
substance naturally hard and brittle, can be made soft by the application of a
little warmth, so that it will take any shape you please. In the same way, by
being polite andfriendly, you can make people pliable and obliging, even though
they are apt to be crabbed and malevolent. Hence politeness is to human nature
what warmth is to wax. - SCHOPENHAUER, COUNSELS AND MAXIMS, SAUNDERS Never
explain. Never complain. -DISRAELI taste. To please her, Disraeli was advised,
he should curb his natural elegance; but he disregarded what everyone had told
him and appeared before her as a gallant prince, falling to one knee, taking
her hand, and kissing it, saying, "I plight my troth to the kindest of
mistresses." Disraeli pledged that his work now was to realize Victoria's
dreams. He praised her qualities so fulsomely that she blushed; yet strangely
enough, she did not find him comical or offensive, but came out of the
encounter smiling. Perhaps she should give this strange man a chance, she
thought, and she waited to see what he would do next. Victoria soon began
receiving reports from Disraeli-on parliamentary debates, policy issues, and so
forth-that were unlike anything other ministers had written. Addressing her as
the "Faery Queen," and giving the monarchy's various enemies all
kinds of villainous code names, he filled his notes with gossip. In a note
about a new cabinet member, Disraeli wrote, "He is more than six feet four
inches in stature; like St. Peter's at Rome no one is at first aware of his
dimensions. But he has the sagacity of the elephant as well as its form."
The minister's blithe, informal spirit bordered on disrespect, but the queen
was enchanted. She read his reports voraciously, and almost without her
realizing it, her interest in politics was rekindled. At the start of their
relationship, Disraeli sent the queen all of his novels as a gift. She in
return presented him with the one book she had written. Journal of Our Life in
the Highlands. From then on he would toss out in his letters and conversations
with her the phrase, "We authors." The queen would beam with pride.
She would overhear him praising her to others- her ideas, common sense, and
feminine instincts, he said, made her the equal of Elizabeth I. He rarely
disagreed with her. At meetings with other ministers, he would suddenly turn
and ask her for advice. In 1875, when Disraeli managed tofinagle the purchase
of the Suez Canal from the debt- ridden khedive of Egypt, he presented his
accomplishment to the queen as if it were a realization of her own ideas about
expanding the British Empire. She did not realize the cause, but her confidence
was growing by leaps and bounds. Victoria once sent flowers to her prime minister.
He later returned the favor, sending primroses, a flower so ordinary that some
recipients might have been insulted; but his gift came with a note: "Of
all the flowers, the one that retains its beauty longest, is sweet
primrose." Disraeli was enveloping Victoria in a fantasy atmosphere in
which everything was a metaphor, and the simplicity of the flower of course
symbolized the queen-and also the relationship between the two leaders.
Victoria fell for the bait; primroses were soon her favorite flower. In fact
everything Disraeli did now met with her approval. She allowed him to sit in
her presence, an unheard- of privilege. The two began to exchange valentines
every February. The queen would ask people what Disraeli had said at a party;
when he paid a little too much attention to Empress Augusta of Germany, she
grew jealous. The courtiers wondered what had happened to the stubborn, formal
woman they had known-she was acting like an infatuated girl. In 1876, Disraeli
steered through Parliament a bill declaring Queen Victoria a
"Queen-Empress." The queen was beside herself with joy. Out of
gratitude and certainly love, she elevated this Jewish dandy and novelist to
the peerage, making him Earl of Beaconsfield, the realization of a lifelong
dream. Disraeli knew how deceptive appearances can be: people were always
judging him by his face and by his clothes, and he had learned never to do the
same to them. So he was not deceived by Queen Victoria's dour, sober exterior.
Beneath it, he sensed, was a woman who yearned for a man to appeal to her
feminine side, a woman who was affectionate, warm, even sexual. The extent to
which this side of Victoria had been repressed merely revealed the strength of
the feelings he would stir once he melted her reserve. Disraeli's approach was
to appeal to two aspects of Victoria's personality that other people had
squashed: her confidence and her sexuality. He was a master at flattering a
person's ego. As one English princess remarked, "When I left the dining
room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in
England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest
woman in England." Disraeli worked his magic with a delicate touch,
insinuating an atmosphere of amusement and relaxation, particularly in relation
to politics. Once the queen's guard was down, he made that mood a little
warmer, a little more suggestive, subtly sexual- though of course without overt
flirtation. Disraeli made Victoria feel desirable as a woman and gifted as a
monarch. How could she resist? How could she deny him anything? Our
personalities are often molded by how we are treated: if a parent or spouse is
defensive or argumentative in dealing with us, we tend to respond the same way.
Never mistake people's exterior characteristics for reality, for the character
they show on the surface may be merely a reflection of the people with whom
they have been most in contact, or a front disguising its own opposite. A gruff
exterior may hide a person dying for warmth; a repressed, sober-looking type
may actually be struggling to conceal uncontrollable emotions. That is the key
to charm-feeding what has been repressed or denied. By indulging the queen, by
making himself a source of pleasure, Disraeli was able to soften a woman who
had grown hard and cantankerous. Indulgence is a powerful tool of seduction: it
is hard to be angry or defensive with someone who seems to agree with your
opinions and tastes. Charmers may appear to be weaker than their targets but in
the end they are the more powerful side because they have stolen the ability to
resist. 2. In 1971, the American financier andDemocratic Party
power-playerAverell Harriman saw his life drawing to a close. He was
seventy-nine, his wife of many years, Marie, had just died, and with the
Democrats out of office Ms political career seemed over. Feeling old and
depressed, he resigned himself to spending his last years with Ms grandchildren
in quiet retirement. A few months after Marie's death, Harriman was talked into
attending a Washington party. There he met an old friend, Pamela ChurcMll, whom
he had known during World War II, in London, where he had been sent as a
personal envoy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was twenty-one at the
time, and was the wife of Winston Churchill's son Randolph. There had certainly
been more beautiful women in the city, but none had been more pleasant to be
around: she was so attentive, listening to Ms problems, befriending Ms daughter
(they were the same age), and calming him whenever he saw her. Marie had
remained in the States, and Randolph was in the army, so wMle bombs rained on
London Averell and Pamela had begun an affair. And in the many years since the
war, she had kept in touch with Mm: he knew about the breakup of her marriage,
and about her endless series of affairs with Europe's wealthiest playboys. Yet
he had not seen her since Ms return to America, and to Ms wife. What a strange
coincidence to run into her at this particular moment in Ms life. At the party
Pamela pulled Harriman out of his shell, laughing at Ms jokes and getting him
to talk about London in the glory days of the war. He felt Ms old power
returning-it was as if he were charming her. A few days later she dropped in on
him at one of Ms weekend homes. Harriman was one of the wealthiest men in the
world, but was no lavish spender; he and Marie had lived a Spartan life. Pamela
made no comment, but when she invited him to her own home, he could not help
but notice the brightness and vibrancy of her life-flowers everywhere,
beautiful linens on the bed, wonderful meals (she seemed to know all of Ms
favorite foods). He had heard of her reputation as a courtesan and understood
the lure of Ms wealth, yet being around her was invigorating, and eight weeks
after that party, he married her. Pamela did not stop there. She persuaded her
husband to donate the art that Marie had collected to the National Gallery. She
got him to part with some of Ms money-a trust fund for her son Winston, new
houses, constant redecorations. Her approach was subtle and patient; she made
him somehow feel good about giving her what she wanted. Within a few years,
hardly any traces of Marie remained in their life. Harriman spent less time
with Ms childrenandgrandchildren. He seemed to be going through a second youth.
In Washington, politicians and their wives viewed Pamela with suspicion. They
saw through her, and were immune to her charm, or so they thought. Yet they
always came to the frequent parties she hosted, justifying themselves with the
thought that powerful people would be there. Everything at these parties was
calibrated to create a relaxed, intimateatmosphere. No one felt ignored: the
least important people would find themselves talking to Pamela, opening up to
that attentive look of hers. She made them feel powerful and respected.
Afterward she would send them a personal note or gift, often referring to
something they had mentioned in conversation. The wives who had called her a
courtesan and worse slowly changed their minds. The men found her not only
beguiling but useful- her worldwide contacts were invaluable. She could put
them in touch with exactly the right person without them even having to ask.
The Harrimans' parties soon evolved into fundraising events for the Democratic
Party. Put at their ease, feeling elevated by the aristocratic atmosphere
Pamela created and the sense of importance she gave them, visitors would empty
their wallets without realizing quite why. This, of course, was exactly what
all the men in her life had done. In 1986, Averell Harriman died. By then
Pamela was powerful and wealthy enough that she no longer needed a man. In
1993, she was named the U.S. ambassador to France, and easily transferred her
personal and social charm into the world of political diplomacy. She was still
working when she died, in 1997. We often recognize Charmers as such; we sense
their cleverness. (Surely Harriman must have realized that his meeting with
Pamela Churchill in 1971 was no coincidence.) Nevertheless, we fall under their
spell. The reason is simple: the feeling that Charmers provide is so rare as to
be worth the price we pay. The world is full of self-absorbed people. In their
presence, we know that everything in our relationship with them is directed
toward themselves- their insecurities, their neediness, their hunger for
attention. That reinforces our own egocentric tendencies; we protectively close
ourselves up. It is a syndrome that only makes us the more helpless with
Charmers. First, they don't talk much about themselves, which heightens their
mystery and disguises their limitations. Second, they seem to be interested in
us, and their interest is so delightfully focused that we relax and open up to
them. Finally, Charmers are pleasant to be around. They have none of most
people's ugly qualities-nagging, complaining, self-assertion. They seem to know
what pleases. Theirs is a diffused warmth; union without sex. (You may think a
geisha is sexual as well as charming; her power, however, lies not in the
sexual favors she provides but in her rare self-effacing attentiveness.)
Inevitably, we become addicted, and dependent. And dependence is the source of
the Charmer's power. People who are physically beautiful, and who play on their
beauty to create a sexually charged presence, have little power in the end; the
bloom of youth fades, there is always someone younger and more beautiful, and
in any case people tire of beauty without social grace. But they never tire of
feeling their self-worth validated. Leam the power you can wield by making the
other person feel like the star. The key is to diffuse your sexual presence:
create a vaguer, more beguiling sense of excitement through a generalized
flirtation, a socialized sexuality that is constant, addictive, and never
totally satisfied. 3. In December of 1936, Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the
Chinese Nationalists, was captured by a group of his own soldiers who were
angry with his policies: instead of fighting the Japanese, who had just invaded
China, he was continuing his civil war against the Communist armies of Mao
Zedong. The soldiers saw no threat in Mao-Chiang had almost annhilated the
Communists. In fact, they believed he should join forces with Mao against the
common enemy-it was the only patriotic thing to do. The soldiers thought by
capturing him they could compel Chiang to change his mind, but he was a
stubborn man. Since Chiang was the main impediment to a unified war against the
Japanese, the soldiers contemplated having him executed, or turned over to the
Communists. As Chiang lay in prison, he could only imagine the worst. Several
days later he received a visit from Zhou Enlai-a former friend and now a
leading Communist. Politely and respectfully, Zhou argued for a united front:
Communists and Nationalists against the Japanese. Chiang could not begin to
hear such talk; he hated the Communists with a passion, and became hopelessly
emotional. To sign an agreement with the Communists in these circumstances, he
yelled, would be humiliating, and would lose me all honor among my own army.
It's out of the question. Kill me if you must. Zhou listened, smiled, said
barely a word. As Chiang's rant ended he told the Nationalist general that a
concern for honor was something he understood, but that the honorable thing for
them to do was actually to forget their differences and fight the invader.
Chiang could lead both armies. Finally, Zhou said that under no circumstances
would he allow his fellow Communists, or anyone for that matter, to execute
such a great man as Chiang Kai-shek. The Nationalist leader was stunned and
moved.The next day, Chiang was escorted out of prison by Communist guards,
transferred to one of his own army's planes, and sent back to his own
headquarters. Apparently Zhou had executed this policy on his own, for when
word of it reached the other Communist leaders, they were outraged: Zhou should
have forced Chiang to fight the Japanese, or else should have ordered his
execution-to release him without concessions was the height of pusillanimity,
and Zhou would pay. Zhou said nothing and waited. A few months later, Chiang
signed an agreement to halt the civil war and join with the Communists against
the Japanese. He seemed to have come to his decision on his own, and his army
respected it-they could not doubt his motives. Working together, the
Nationalists and the Communists expelled the Japanese from China. But the
Communists, whom Chiang had previously almost destroyed, took advantage of this
period of collaboration to regain strength. Once the Japanese had left, they
turned on the Nationalists, who, in 1949, were forced to evacuate mainland
China for the island of Formosa, now Taiwan. Now Mao paid a visit to the Soviet
Union. China was in terrible shape and in desperate need of assistance, but
Stalin was wary of theChinese, and lectured Mao about the many mistakes he had
made. Mao argued back. Stalin decided to teach the young upstart a lesson; he
would give China nothing. Tempers rose. Mao sent urgently for Zhou Enlai who
arrived the next day and went right to work. In the long negotiating sessions,
Zhou made a show of enjoying his hosts' vodka. He never argued, and in fact
agreed that the Chinese had made many mistakes, had much to learn from the more
experienced Soviets: "Comrade Stalin," he said, "we are the
first large Asian country tojoin the socialist camp under your guidance."
Zhou had come prepared with all kinds of neatly drawn diagrams and charts,
knowing the Russians loved such things. Stalin warmed up to him. The
negotiations proceeded, and a few days after Zhou's arrival, the two parties
signed a treaty of mutual aid- a treaty far more useful to the Chinese than to
the Soviets. In 1959, China was again in deep trouble. Mao's Great Leap
Forward, an attempt to spark an overnight industrial revolution in China, had
been a devastating failure. The people were angry: they were starving while
Beijing bureaucrats lived well. Many Beijing officials, Zhou among them,
returned to their native towns to try to bring order. Most of them managed by
bribes-by promising all kinds of favors-but Zhou proceeded differently: he
visited his ancestral graveyard, where generations of his familywere buried,
and ordered that the tombstones be removed and the coffins buried deeper. Now
the land could be farmed for food. In Confucian terms (and Zhou was an obedient
Confucian), this was sacrilege, but everyone knew what it meant: Zhou was
willing to suffer personally. Everyone had to sacrifice, even the leaders. His
gesture had immense symbolic impact. When Zhou died, in 1976, an unofficial and
unorganized outpouring of public grief caught the government by surprise. They
could not understand how a man who had worked behind the scenes, and had
shunned the adoration of the masses, could have won such affection. The capture
of Chiang Kai-shek was a turning point in the civil war. To execute him might
have been disastrous: it had been Chiang who had held the Nationalist army
together, and without him it could have broken up into factions, allowing the
Japanese to overrun the country. To force him to sign an agreement would have
not helped either: he would have lost face before his army, would never have
honored the agreement, and would have done everything he could to avenge his
humiliation. Zhou knew that to execute or compel a captive will only embolden
your enemy, and will have repercussions you cannot control. Charm, on the other
hand, is a manipulative weapon that disguises its own manipulativeness, letting
you gain a victory without stirring the desire for revenge. Zhou worked on
Chiang perfectly, paying him respect, playing the inferior, letting him pass
from the fear of execution to the relief of unexpected release. The general was
allowed to leave with his dignity intact. Zhou knew all this would soften him
up, planting the seed of the idea that perhaps the Communists were not so bad
after all, and that he could change Ms mind about them without looking weak,
particularly if he did so independently rather than while he was in prison.
Zhou applied the same philosophy to every situation: play the inferior, unthreatening
and humble. What will this matter if in the end you get what you want: time to
recover from a civil war, a treaty, the good will of the masses. Time is the
greatest weapon you have. Patiently keep in mind a longterm goal and neither
person nor army can resist you. And charm is the best way of playing for time,
of widening your options in any situation. Through charm you can seduce your
enemy into backing off, giving you the psychological space to plot an effective
counterstrategy. The key is to make other people emotional while you remain
detached. They may feel grateful, happy, moved, arrogant-it doesn't matter, as
long as they feel. An emotional person is a distracted person. Give them what
they want, appeal to their self-interest, make them feel superior to you. When
a baby has grabbed a sharp kmfe, do not try to grab it back; instead, stay
calm, offer candy, and the baby will drop the kmfe to pick up the tempting
morsel you offer. 4. In 1761, Empress Elizabeth of Russia died, and her nephew
ascended to the throne as Czar Peter III. Peter had always been a little boy at
heart-he played with toy soldiers long past the appropriate age-and now, as
czar, he could finally do whatever he pleased and the world be damned. Peter
concluded a treaty with Frederick the Great that was Mghly favorable to the
foreign ruler (Peter adored Frederick, and particularly the disciplined way Ms
Prussian soldiers marched). This was a practical debacle, but in matters of
emotion and etiquette, Peter was even more offensive: he refused to properly
mourn Ms aunt the empress, resuming his war games and parties a few days after
the funeral. What a contrast he was to Ms wife, Catherine. She was respectful
during the funeral, was still wearing black months later, and could be seen at
all hours beside Elizabeth's tomb, praying and crying. She was not even
Russian, but a German princess who had come east to marry Peter in 1745 without
speaking a word of the language. Even the lowest peasant knew that Catherine
had converted to the Russian Orthodox Church, and had learned to speak Russian
with incredible speed, and beautifully. At heart, they thought, she was more
Russian than all of those fops in the court. During these difficult months,
wMle Peter offended almost everyone in the country, Catherine discreetly kept a
lover, Gregory Orlov, a lieutenant in the guards. It was through Orlov that
word spread of her piety, her patriotism, her worthiness for rule; how much
better to follow such a woman than to serve Peter. Late into the night,
Catherine and Orlov would talk, and he would tell her the army was behind her
and would urge her to stage a coup. She would listen attentively, but would
always reply that tMs was not the time for such things. Orlov wondered to
himself: perhaps she was too gentle and passive for such a great step. Peter's
regime was repressive, and the arrests and executions piled up. He also grew
more abusive toward his wife, threatening to divorce her and marry his
mistress. One drunken evening, driven to distraction by Catherine's silence and
his inability to provoke her, he ordered her arrest. The news spread fast and
Orlov hurried to warn Catherine that she would be imprisoned or executed unless
she acted fast. This time Catherine did not argue; she put on her simplest
mourning gown, left her hair half undone, followed Orlov to a waiting carriage,
and rushed to the army barracks. Here the soldiers fell to the ground, kissing
the hem of her dress-they had heard so much about her but had never seen her in
person, and she seemed to them like a statue of the Madonna come to life. They
gave her an army uniform, marveling at how beautiful she looked in men's
clothes, and set off under Orlov's command for the Winter Palace. The
procession grew as it passed through the streets of St. Petersburg. Everyone
applauded Catherine, everyone felt that Peter should be dethroned. Soon priests
arrived to give Catherine their blessing, making the people even more excited.
And through it all, she was silent and dignified, as if all were in the hands
of fate. When news reached Peter of this peaceful rebellion, he grew
hysterical, and agreed to abdicate that very night. Catherine became empress
without a single battle or even a single gunshot. As a child, Catherine was
intelligent and spirited. Since her mother had wanted a daughter who was
obedient rather than dazzling, and who would therefore make a better match, the
child was subjected to a constant barrage of criticism, against which she
developed a defense: she learned to seem to defer to other people totally as a
way to neutralize their aggression. If she was patient and did not force the
issue, instead of attacking her they would fall under her spell. When Catherine
came to Russia-at the age of sixteen, without a friend or ally in the country-she
applied the skills she had learned in dealing with her difficult mother. In the
face of all the court monsters- the imposing Empress Elizabeth, her own
infantile husband, the endless schemers and betrayers-she curtseyed, deferred,
waited, and charmed. She had long wanted to rule as empress, and knew how
hopeless her husband was. But what good would it do to seize power violently,
laying a claim that some would certainly see as illegitimate, and then have to
worry endlessly that she would be dethroned in turn? No, the moment had to be
ripe, and she had to make the people carry her into power. It was a feminine
style ofrevolution: by being passive and patient, Catherine suggested that she
had no interest in power. The effect was soothing-charming. There will always
be difficult people for us to face-the chronically insecure, the hopelessly
stubborn, the hysterical complainers. Your ability to disarm these people will
prove an invaluable skill. You do have to be careful, though: if you are
passive they will run all over you; if assertive you will make their monstrous
qualities worse. Seduction and charm are the most effective counterweapons.
Outwardly, be gracious. Adapt to their every mood. Enter their spirit.
Inwardly, calculate and wait: your surrender is a strategy, not a way of life.
When the time comes, and it inevitably will, the tables will turn. Their
aggression will land them in trouble, and that will put you in a position to
rescue them, regaining superiority. (You could also decide that you had had
enough, and consign them to oblivion.) Your charm has prevented them from
foreseeing this or growing suspicious. A whole revolution can be enacted
without a single act of violence, simply by waiting for the apple to ripen and
fall. Symbol: The Mirror. Your spirit holds a mirror up to others. When they
see you they see themselves: their values, their tastes, even their flaws.
Their lifelong love affair with their own image is comfortable and hypnotic; so
feed it. No one ever sees what is behind the mirror. Dangers T here are those
who are immune to a Charmer; particularly cynics, and confident types who do
not need validation. These people tend to view Charmers as slippery and
deceitful, and they can make problems for you. The solution is to do what most
Charmers do by nature: befriend and charm as many people as possible. Secure
your power through numbers and you will not have to worry about the few you
cannot seduce. Catherine the Great's kindness to everyone she met created a
vast amount ofgood will that paid off later. Also, it is sometimes charming to
reveal a strategic flaw. There is one person you dislike? Confess it openly, do
not try to charm such an enemy, and people will think you more human, less
slippery. Disraeli had such a scapegoat with his great nemesis, William
Gladstone. The dangers of political charm are harder to handle; your
conciliatory, shifting, flexible approach to politics will make enemies out of
everyone who is a rigid believer in a cause. Social seducers such as Bill Clinton
and Henry Kissinger could often win over the most hardened opponent with their
personal charm, but they could not be everywhere at once. Many members of the
English Parliament thought Disraeli a shifty conniver; in person his engaging
manner could dispel such feelings, but he could not address the entire
Parliament one-on-one. In difficult times, when people yearn for something
substantial and firm, the political charmer may be in danger. As Catherine the
Great proved, timing is everything. Charmers must know when to hibernate and
when the times are ripe for their persuasive powers. Known for their
flexibility, they should sometimes be flexible enough to act inflexibly. Zhou
Enlai, the consummate chameleon, could play the hard-core Communist when it
suited him. Never become the slave to your own powers of charm; keep it under
control, something you can turn off and on at will. Charisma is a presence that
excites us. It comes from an inner quality - self-confidence, sexual energy,
sense ofpurpose, contentment-that most people lack and want. This quality
radiates outward, permeating the gestures of Charismatics, making them seem
extraordinary and superior, and making us imagine there is more to them than
meets the eye: they are gods, saints, stars. Charismatics can learn to heighten
their charisma with a piercing gaze, fiery oratory, an air of mystery. They can
seduce on a grand scale. Learn to create the charismatic illusion by radiating
intensity while remaining detached. Charisma and Seduction C harisma is seduction
on a mass level. Charismatics make crowds of people fall in love with them,
then lead them along. The process of making them fall in love is simple and
follows a path similar to that of a one-on-one seduction. Charismatics have
certain qualities that are powerfully attractive and that make them stand out.
This could be their selfbelief, their boldness, their serenity. They keep the
source of these qualities mysterious. They do not explain where their
confidence or contentment comes from, but it can be felt by everyone; it
radiates outward, without the appearance of conscious effort. The face of the
Charismatic is usually animated,full of energy, desire, alertness-the look of a
lover, one that is instantly appealing, even vaguely sexual. We happily follow
Charismatics because we like to be led, particularly by people who promise
adventure or prosperity. We lose ourselves in their cause, become emotionally
attached to them, feel more alive by believing in them-we fall in love.
Charisma plays on repressed sexuality, creates an erotic charge. Yet the
origins of the word lie not in sexuality but in religion, and religion remains
deeply embedded in modern charisma. Thousands of years ago, people believed in
gods and spirits, but few could ever say that they had witnessed a miracle, a
physical demonstration of divine power. A man, however, who seemed possessed by
a divine spirit-speaking in tongues, ecstatic raptures, the expression of
intense visions-would stand out as one whom the gods had singled out. And this
man, a priest or a prophet, gained great power over others. What made the
Hebrews believe in Moses, follow him out of Egypt, and remain loyal to him
despite their endless wandering in the desert? The look in his eye, his
inspired and inspiring words, the face that literally glowed when he came down
from Mount Sinai-all these things gave him the appearance of having direct
communication with God, and were the source of his authority. And these were
what was meant by "charisma," a Greek word referring to prophets and
to Christ himself. In early Christianity, charisma was a gift or talent
vouchsafed by God's grace and revealing His presence. Most of the great
religions were founded by a Charismatic, a person who physically displayed the
signs of God's favor. Over the years, the world became more rational.
Eventually people came to hold power not by divine right but because they won
votes, or proved their competence. The great early-twentieth-century German
soci- "Charisma" shall be understood to refer to an extraordinary
quality of a person, regardless of whether this quality is actual, alleged or
presumed. "Charismatic authority," hence, shall refer to a rule over
men, whether predominately extern l or predominately internal, to which the
governed submit because of their belief in the extraordinary quality of the
specific person. -MAX WEBER, FROM MAX WEBER: ESSAYS IN SOCIOLOGY. GERTH MILLS
And the Lord said to Moses, "Write these words; in accordance with these
words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." And he was there
with the Lordforty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water.
And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in
his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of
his face shone because he had been talking with God. And when Aaron and all the
people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were
afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the
leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked them. And
afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he gave them in commandment
all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had
finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but whenever Moses went
in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out;
and when he came out, and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the
people of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses's face shone;
and Moses would put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak
with him. -EXODUS ologist Max Weber,
however, noticed that despite our supposed progress, there were more
Charismatics than ever. What characterized a modern Charismatic, according to
Weber, was the appearance of an extraordinary quality in their character, the
equivalent of a sign of God's favor. How else to explain the power of a
Robespierre or a Lenin? More than anything it was the force of their magnetic
personalities that made these men stand out and was the source of their power.
They did not speak of God but of a great cause, visions of a future society.
Their appeal was emotional; they seemed possessed. And their audiences reacted
as euphorically as earlier audiences had to a prophet. When Lenin died, in
1924, a cult formed around his memory, transforming the communist leader into a
deity. Today, anyone who has presence, who attracts attention when he or she
enters a room, is said to possess charisma. But even these less-exalted types
reveal a trace of the quality suggested by the word's original meaning. Their
charisma is mysterious and inexplicable, never obvious. They have an unusual
confidence. They have a gift-often a smoothness with language-that makes them
stand out from the crowd. They express a vision. We may not realize it, but in
their presence we have a kind of religious experience: we believe in these
people, without having any rational evidence for doing so. When trying to
concoct an effect of charisma, never forget the religious source of its power.
You must radiate an inward quality that has a saintly or spiritual edge to it.
Your eyes must glow with the fire of a prophet. Your charisma must seem
natural, as if it came from something mysteriously beyond your control, a gift
of the gods. In our rational, disenchanted world, people crave a religious
experience, particularly on a group level. Any sign of charisma plays to this
desire to believe in something. And there is nothing more seductive than giving
people something to believe in and follow. Charisma must seem mystical, but
that does not mean you cannot learn certain tricks that will enhance the
charisma you already possess, or will give you the outward appearance of it.
The following are basic qualities that will help create the illusion of
charisma: Purpose. If people believe you have a plan, that you know where you
are going, they will follow you instinctively. The direction does not matter:
pick a cause, an ideal, a vision and show that you will not sway from your
goal. People will imagine that your confidence comes from somethingreal--just
as the ancient Hebrews believed Moses was in communion with God, simply because
he showed the outward signs. Purposefulness is doubly charismatic in times of
trouble. Since most people hesitate before taking bold action (even when action
is what is required), single-minded self-assurance will make you the focus of
attention. People will believe in you through the simple force of your
character. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to power amidst the Depression,
much of the public had little faith he could turn things around. But in his
first few months in office he displayed such confidence, such decisiveness and
clarity in dealing with the country's many problems, that the public began to
see him as their savior, someone with intense charisma. Mystery. Mystery lies
at charisma's heart, but it is a particular kind of mystery-a mystery expressed
by contradiction. The Charismatic may be both proletarian and aristocratic (Mao
Zedong), both cruel and kind (Peter the Great), both excitable and icily
detached (Charles de Gaulle), both intimate and distant (Sigmund Freud). Since
most people are predictable, the effect of these contradictions is
devastatingly charismatic. They make you hard to fathom, add richness to your
character, make people talk about you. It is often better to reveal your
contradictions slowly and subtly-if you throw them out one on top of the other,
people may think you have an erratic personality. Show your mysteriousness
gradually and word will spread. You must also keep people at arm's length, to
keep them from figuring you out. Another aspect of mystery is a hint of the
uncanny. The appearance of prophetic or psychic gifts will add to your aura.
Predict things authoritatively and people will often imagine that what you have
said hascome true. Saintliness. Most of us must compromise constantly to
survive; saints do not. They must live out their ideals without caring about
the consequences. The saintly effect bestows charisma. Saintliness goes far
beyond religion: politicians as disparate as George Washington and Lenin won
saintly reputations by living simply, despite their power-by matching their
political values to their personal lives. Both men were virtually deified after
they died. Albert Einstein too had a saintly aura-childlike, unwilling to
compromise, lost in his own world. The key is that you must already have some
deeply held values; that part cannot be faked, at least not without risking
accusations of charlatanry that will destroy your charisma in the long run. The
next step is to show, as simply and subtly as possible, that you live what you
believe. Finally, the appearance of being mild and unassuming can eventually
turn into charisma, as long as you seem completely comfortable with it. The
source of Harry Truman's charisma, and even of Abraham Lincoln's, was to appear
to be an Everyman. That devil of a man exercises a fascination on me that I
cannot explain even to myself and in such a degree that, though I fear neither
God nor devil, when I am in his presence I am ready to tremble like a child,
and he could make me go through the eye of a needle to throw myself into the
fire. -GENERAL VANDAMME, ON BONAPARTE [The masses ] have never thirsted after
truth. They demand illusions, and cannot do without them. They constantly give
what is unreal precedence over what is real; they are almost as strongly
influenced by what is untrue as by what is true. They have an evident tendency
not to distinguish between the two. -FREUD. Eloquence. A Charismatic relies on
the power of words. The reason is simple: words are the quickest way to create
emotional disturbance. They can uplift, elevate, stir anger, without referring
to anything real. During the Spanish Civil War, Dolores Gomez Ibarruri, known
as La Pasionaria, gave pro-Communist speeches that were so emotionally powerful
as to determine several key moments in the war. To bring off this kind of
eloquence, it helps if the speaker is as emotional, as caught up in words, as
the audience is. Yet eloquence can be learned: the devices La Pasionaria used-
catchwords, slogans, rhythmic repetitions, phrases for the audience to
repeat-can easily be acquired. Roosevelt, a calm, patrician type, was able to
make himself a dynamic speaker, both through his style of delivery, which was
slow and hypnotic, and through his brilliant use of imagery, alliteration, and
biblical rhetoric. The crowds at his rallies were often moved to tears. The
slow, authoritative style is often more effective than passion in the long run,
for it is more subtly spellbinding, and less tiring. Theatricality. A
Charismatic is larger than life, has extra presence. Actors have studied this
kind of presence for centuries; they know how to stand on a crowded stage and
command attention. Surprisingly, it is not the actor who screams the loudest or
gestures the most wildly who works this magic best, but the actor who stays
calm, radiating self-assurance. The effect is ruined by trying too hard. It is
essential to be self-aware, to have the ability to see yourself as others see
you. De Gaulle understood that self-awareness was key to his charisma; in the
most turbulent circumstances-the Nazi occupation of France, the national
reconstruction after World War II, an army rebellion in Algeria-he retained an
Olympian composure that played beautifully against the hysteria of his
colleagues. When he spoke, no one could take their eyes off him. Once you know
how to command attention this way, heighten the effect by appearing in
ceremonial and ritual events that are full of exciting imagery, making you look
regal and godlike. Flamboyancy has nothing to do with charisma-it attracts the
wrong kind of attention. Uninhibitedness. Most people are repressed, and have
little access to their unconscious-a problem that creates opportunities for the
Charismatic, who can become a kind of screen on which others project their
secret fantasies and longings. You will first have to show that you are less
inhibited than your audience-that you radiate a dangerous sexuality, have no
fear of death, are delightfully spontaneous. Even a hint of these qualities
will make people think you more powerful than you are. In the 1850s a bohemian
American actress, Adah Isaacs Menken, took the world by storm through her
unbridled sexual energy, and her fearlessness. She would appear on stage
half-naked, performing death-defying acts; few women could dare such things in
the Victorian period, and a rather mediocre actress became a figure of cultlike
adoration. An extension of your being uninhibited is a dreamlike quality in
your work and character that reveals your openness to your unconscious. It was
the possession of this quality that transformed artists like Wagner and Picasso
into charismatic idols. Its cousin is a fluidity of body and spirit; while the
repressed are rigid, Charismatics have an ease and an adaptability that show
their openness to experience. Fervency. You need to believe in something, and
to believe in it strongly enough for it to animate all your gestures and make
your eyes light up. This cannot be faked. Politicians inevitably lie to the
public; what distinguishes Charismatics is that they believe their own lies,
which makes them that much more believable. A prerequisite for fiery belief is
some great cause to rally around-a crusade. Become the rallying point for
people's discontent, and show that you share none of the doubts that plague
normal humans. In 1490, the Florentine Girolamo Savonarola railed at the
immorality of the pope and the Catholic Church. Claiming to be divinely
inspired, he became so animated during his sermons that hysteria would sweep
the crowd. Savonarola developed such a following that he briefly took over the
city, until the pope had him captured and burned at the stake. People believed
in him because of the depth of his conviction. His example has more relevance
today than ever: people are more and more isolated, and long for communal experience.
Let your own fervent and contagious faith, in virtually anything, give them
something to believe in. Vulnerability. Charismatics display a need for love
and affection. They are open to their audience, and in fact feed off its
energy; the audience in turn is electrified by the Charismatic, the current
increasing as it passes back and forth. This vulnerableside to charisma softens
the self-confident side, which can seem fanatical and frightening. Since
charisma involves feelings akin to love, you in turn must reveal your love for
your followers. This was a key component to the charisma that Marilyn Monroe
radiated on camera. "I knew I belonged to the Public," she wrote in
her diary, "and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful
but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else. The Public was the
only family, the only Prince Charming and the only home I had ever dreamed
of." In front of a camera, Monroe suddenly came to life, flirting with and
exciting her unseen public. If the audience doesnot sense this quality in you
they will turn away from you. On the other hand, you must never seem
manipulative or needy. Imagine your public as a single person whom you are
trying to seduce-nothing is more seductive to people than the feeling that they
are desired. Adventurousness. Charismatics are unconventional. They have an air
of adventure and risk that attracts the bored. Be brazen and courageous in your
actions-be seen taking risks for the good of others. Napoleon made sure his
soldiers saw him at the cannons in battle. Lenin walked openly on the streets,
despite the death threats he had received. Charismatics
thriveintroubledwaters;acrisissituationallowsthemtoflaunt their daring, which
enhances their aura. John F. Kennedy came to life in dealing with the Cuban
missile crisis, Charles de Gaulle when he confronted rebellion in 102 In such
conditions, where half the battle was hand- to-hand, concentrated into a small
space, the spirit and example of the leader countedfor much. When we remember
this, it becomes easier to understand the astonishing dfect of Joan's presence
upon the French troops. Her position as a leader was a unique one. She was not
a professional soldier; she was not really a soldier at all; she was not even a
man. She was ignorant of war. She was a girl dressed up. But she believed, and
had made others willing to believe, that she was the mouthpiece of God. • On
Friday, April 29th, 1429, the news spread in Orleans that a force, led by the
Pucelle of Domremy, was on its way to the relief of the city, a piece of news
which, as the chronicler remarks, comforted them greatly.-VITA SACKVILLE-WEST,
SAINTJOAN OF ARC Algeria. They needed these problems to seem charismatic, and
in fact some have even accused them of stirring up situations (Kennedy through
his brinkmanship style of diplomacy, for instance) that played to their love of
adventure. Show heroism to give yourself a charisma that will last you
alifetime.Conversely, the slightest sign of cowardice or timidity will ruin
whatever charisma you had. Magnetism. If any physical attribute is crucial in
seduction, it is the eyes. They reveal excitement, tension, detachment, without
a word being spoken. Indirect communication is critical in seduction, and also
in charisma. The demeanor of Charismatics may be poised and calm, but their
eyes are magnetic; they have a piercing gaze that disturbs their targets'
emotions, exerting force without words or action. Fidel Castro's aggressive
gaze can reduce his opponents to silence. When Benito Mussolini was challenged,
he would roll his eyes, showing the whites in a way that frightened people.
President Kusnasosro Sukarno of Indonesia had a gaze that seemed as if it could
have read thoughts. Roosevelt could dilate his pupils at will, making his stare
both hypnotizing and intimidating. The eyes of the Charismatic never show fear
or nerves. All of these skills are acquirable. Napoleon spent hours in front of
a mirror, modeling his gaze on that of the great contemporary actor Talma. The
key is self-control. The look does not necessarily have to be aggressive; it
can also show contentment. Remember: your eyes can emanate charisma, but they
can also give you away as a faker. Do not leave such an important attribute to
chance. Practice the effect you desire. Genuine charisma thus means the ability
to internally generate and externally express extreme excitement, an ability
which makes one the object of intense attention and unre- flective imitation by
others. -LI AH GREENFIELD Charismatic Types-Historical Examples The miraculous
prophet. In the year 1425, Joan of Arc, a peasant girl from the French village
of Domremy, had her first vision: "I was in my thirteenth year when God
sent a voice to guide me." The voice was that of Saint Michael and he came
with a message from God: Joan had been chosen to rid France of the English
invaders who now ruled most of the country, and of the resulting chaos and war.
She was also to restore the French crown to the prince-the Dauphin, later
Charles VII-who was its rightful heir. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret also
spoke to Joan. Her visions were extraordinarily vivid: she saw Saint Michael,
touched him, smelled him. The Charismatic • 103 At first Joan told no one what
she had seen; for all anyone knew, she was a quiet farm girl. But the visions
became even more intense, and so in 1429 she left Domremy, determined to
realize the mission for which God had chosen her. Her goal was to meet Charles
in the town of Chinon, where he had established his court in exile. The obstacles
were enormous: Chinon was far, thejourney was dangerous, and Charles, even if
she reached him, was a lazy and cowardly young man who was unlikely to crusade
against the English. Undaunted, she moved from village to village, explaining
her mission to soldiers and asking them to escort her to Chinon. Young girls
with religious visions were a dime a dozen at the time, and there was nothing
in Joan's appearance to inspire confidence; one soldier, however, Jean de Metz,
was intrigued with her. What fascinated him was the detail of her visions: she
would liberate the besieged town of Orleans, have the king crowned at the
cathedral in Reims, lead the army to Paris; she knew how she would be wounded,
and where; the words she attributed to Saint Michael were quite unlike the
language of a farm girl; and she was so calmly confident, she glowed with
conviction. De Metz fell under her spell. He swore allegiance and set out with
her for Chinon. Soon others offered assistance, too, and word reached Charles
of the strange young girl on her way to meet him.On the 350-mile road to
Chinon, accompanied only by a handful of soldiers, through a land infested with
warring bands, Joan showed neither fear nor hesitation. The journey took
several months. When she finally arrived, the Dauphin decided to meet the girl
who had promised to restore him to his throne, despite the adviceof his
counselors; but he was bored, and wanted amusement, and decided to play a trick
on her. She was to meet him in a hall packed with courtiers; to test her
prophetic powers, he disguised himself as one of these men, and dressed another
man as the prince. Yet when Joan arrived, to the amazement of the crowd, she
walked straight up to Charles and curtseyed: "The King of Heaven sends me
to you with the message that you shall be the lieutenant of the King of Heaven,
who is the king of France." In the talk that followed, Joan seemed to echo
Charles's most private thoughts, while once again recounting in extraordinary
detail the feats she would accomplish. Days later, this indecisive, flighty man
declared himself convinced and gave her his blessing to lead a French army
against the English. Miracles and saintliness aside, Joan of Arc had certain
basic qualities that made her exceptional. Her visions were intense; she could
describe them in such detail that they had to be real. Details have that
effect: they lend a sense of reality to even the most preposterous statements.
Furthermore, in a time of great disorder, she was supremely focused, as if her
strength came from somewhere unworldly. She spoke with authority, and she
predicted things people wanted: the English would be defeated, prosperity would
return. She also had a peasant's earthy common sense. She had surely heard
descriptions of Charles on the road to Chinon; once at court, she could Amongst
the surplus population living on the margin of society [in the Middle Ages ]
there was always a strong tendency to take as leader a layman, or maybe an
apostatefriar or monk, who imposed himself not simply as a holy man but as a
prophet or even as a living god. On the strength of inspirations or revelations
for which he claimed divine origin this leader would decree for his followers a
communal mission of vast dimensions and world-shaking importance. The
conviction of having such a mission, of being divinely appointed to carry out a
prodigious task, provided the disoriented and the frustrated with new bearings
and new hope. It gave them not simply a place in the world but a unique and
resplendent place. A fraternity of this kind felt itself an elite, set
infinitely apartfrom and above ordinary mortals, sharing also in his miraculous
powers. COHN, THE PURSUIT OF THE MILLENNIUM "How peculiar [Rasputin's]
eyes are," confesses a woman who had made efforts to resist his influence.
She goes on to say that every time she met him she was always amazed afresh at
the power of his glance, which it was impossible to withstand for any
considerable time. There was something oppressive inthis kind and gentle, but
at the same time sly and cunning, glance; people were helpless under the spell
of the powerful will which could be felt in his whole being. However tired you
might be of this charm, and however much you wanted to escape it, somehow or
other you always found yourself attracted back and held. • A young girl who had
heard of the strange new saint camefrom her province to the capital, and
visited him in search of edification and spiritual instruction. She had never
seen either him or a portrait of him before, and met him for the first time in
his house. When he came up to her and spoke to her, she thought him like one of
the peasant preachers she had often seen in her own country home. His gentle,
monastic gaze and the plainly parted light brown hair around the worthy simple
face, all at first inspired her confidence. But when he came nearer to her,
shefelt immediately that another quite different man, mysterious, crafty, and
corrupting, looked out from behind the eyes that radiated goodness and
gentleness. • He sat down opposite her, edged quite close up to her, and his
light blue eyes changed color, and became deep and have sensed the trick he was
playing on her, and could have confidently picked out his pampered face in the
crowd. The following year, her visions abandoned her, and her confidence as
well-shemade many mistakes, leading to her capture by the English. She was
indeed human. We may no longer believe in miracles, but anything that hints at
strange, unworldly, even supernatural powers will create charisma. The
psychology is the same: you have visions of the future, and of the wondrous
things you can accomplish. Describe these things in great detail, with an air
authority, and suddenly you stand out. And if your prophecy-of prosperity,
say-is just what people want to hear, they are likely to fall under spell and
to see later events as a confirmation of your predictions. Exhibit remarkable
confidence and people will think your confidence comes from real knowledge. You
will create a self-fulfilling prophecy: people's belief in you will translate
into actions that help realize your visions. Any hint of success will make them
see miracles, uncanny powers, the glow of charisma. The authentic animal. One
day in 1905, the St. Petersburg salon of Countess Ignatiev was unusually full.
Politicians, society ladies, and courtiers had all arrived early to await the
remarkable guest of honor: Grigori Efimovich Rasputin, a forty-year-old
Siberian monk who had made a name for himself throughout Russia as a healer,
perhaps a saint. When Rasputinarrived, few could disguise their disappointment:
his face was ugly, his hair was stringy,hewas gangly and awkward. They wondered
why they had come. But then Rasputin approached them one by one, wrapping his
big hands around their fingers and gazing deep into their eyes. At first his
gaze was unsettling: as he looked them up and down, he seemed to be probing
andjudging them. Yet suddenly his expression would change, and kindness, joy,
and understanding would radiate from his face. Several of the ladies he actually
hugged, in a most effusive manner. This startling contrast had profound
effects. The mood in the salon soon changed from disappointment to excitement.
Rasputin's voice was so calm and deep; his language was coarse, yet the ideas
it expressed were delightfully simple, and had the ring of great spiritual
truth. Then, just as the guests were beginning to relax with this dirty-looking
peasant, his mood suddenly changed to anger: "I know you, I can read your
souls. You are all too pampered. . . . These fine clothes and arts of yours are
useless and pernicious. Men must learn to humble themselves! You must be
simpler, far, far simpler. Only then will God come nearer to you." The
monk's face grew animated, his pupils expanded, he looked completely different.
How impressive that angry look was, recalling Jesus throwing the moneylenders
from the temple. Now Rasputin calmed down, returned to being gracious, but the
guests already saw him as someone strange and remarkable. Next, in a
performance he would soon repeat in salons throughout the city, he led the
guests in a folk song, and as they sang, he began to dance, a strange
uninhibited dance of his own design, and as he danced, he circled the most
attractive women there, and with his eyes invited them to join him. The dance
turned vaguely sexual; as his partners fell under his spell, he whispered
suggestive comments in their ears. Yet none of them seemed to be offended. Over
the next few months, women from every level of St. Petersburg society visited
Rasputin in his apartment. He would talk to them of spiritual matters, but then
without warning he would turn sexual, murmuring the crassest come-ons. He would
justify himself through spiritual dogma: how can you repent if you have not
sinned? Salvation only comes to those who go astray. One of the few who
rejected his advances was asked by a friend, "How can one refuse anything
to a saint?" "Does a saint need sinful love?" she replied. Her
friend said, "He makes everything that comes near him holy. I have already
belonged to him, and I am proud and happy to have done so." "But you
are married! What does your husband say?" "He considers it a very
great honor. If Rasputin desires a woman we all think it a blessing and a
distinction, our husbands as well as ourselves." Rasputin's spell soon
extended over Czar Nicholas and more particularly over his wife, the Czarina
Alexandra, after he apparently healed their son from a life-threatening injury.
Within a few years, he had become the most powerful man in Russia, with total sway
over the royal couple. People are more complicated than the masks they wear in
society. The man who seems so noble and gentle is probably disguising a dark
side, which often come out in strange ways; if his nobility and refinement are
in fact a put-on, sooner or later the truth will out, and his hypocrisy will
disappoint and alienate. On the other hand, we are drawn to people who seem
more comfortably human, who do not bother to disguise their contradictions.
This was the source of Rasputin's charisma. A man so authentically himself, so
devoid of self-consciousness or hypocrisy, was immensely appealing. His
wickedness and saintliness were so extreme that it made him seem larger than
life. The result was a charismatic aura that was immediate and preverbal; it
radiated from his eyes, and from the touch of his hands. Most of us are a mix
of the devil and the saint, the noble and the ignoble, and we spend our lives
trying to repress the dark side. Few of us can give free rein to both sides, as
Rasputin did, but we can create charisma to a smaller degree by ridding
ourselves of self-consciousness, and of the discomfort most of us feel about
our complicated natures. You cannot help being the way you are, so be genuine.
That is what attracts us to animals: beautiful and cruel, they have no
self-doubt. That quality is doubly fascinating in humans. Outwardly people may
condemn your dark side, but it is not virtue alone that creates charisma;
anything extraordinary will do. Do not apologize or go halfway. The more unbridled
you seem, the more magnetic the effect. dark. A keen glance reached her from
the comer of his eyes, bored into her, and held her fascinated. A leaden
heaviness overpowered her limbs as his great wrinkled face, distorted with
desire, came closer to hers. She felt his hot breath on her cheeks, and saw how
his eyes, burning from the depths of their sockets, furtively roved over her
helpless body, until he dropped his lids with a sensuous expression. His voice
had fallen to a passionate whisper, and he murmured strange, voluptuous words
in her ear. • Just as she was on the point of abandoning herself to her
seducer, a memory stirred in her dimly and as if from some far distance; she
recalled that she had come to ask him about God. FULOP-MILLER, RASPUTIN: THE
HOLY DEVIL By its very nature, the existence of charismaticauthority is
specifically unstable. The holder may forego his charisma; he may feel
"forsaken by his God," as Jesus did on the cross; he may prove to his
that "virtue is gone out of him." It is then that his mission is
extinguished, and hope waits and searches for a new holder of charisma. WEBER:
ESSAYS IN SOCIOLOGY. GERTH AND WRIGHT MILLS The demonic performer. Throughout
his childhood Elvis Presley was thought a strange boy who kept pretty much to
himself. In high school in Memphis, Tennessee, he attracted attention with his
pompadoured hair and sideburns, his pink and black clothing, but people who
tried to talk to him found nothing there-he was either terribly bland or
hopelessly shy. At the school prom, he was the only boy who didn't dance. He
seemed lost in a private world, in love with the guitar he took everywhere. At
the Ellis Auditorium, at the end of an evening of gospel music or wrestling,
the concessions manager would often find Elvis onstage, miming a performance
and taking bows before an imaginary audience. Asked to leave, he would quietly
walk away. He was a very polite young man. In 1953, just out of high school,
Elvis recorded his first song, in a local studio. The record was a test, a
chance for him to hear his own voice. A year later the owner of the studio, Sam
Phillips, called him in to record two blues songs with a couple of professional
musicians. They worked for hours, but nothing seemed to click; Elvis was
nervous and inhibited. Then, near the end of the evening, giddy with
exhaustion, he suddenly let loose and started to jump around like a child, in a
moment of complete selfabandon. The other musicians joined in, the song getting
wilder and wilder. Phillips's eyes lit up-he had something here. A month later
Elvis gave his first public performance, outdoors in a Memphis park. He was as
nervous as he had been at the recording session, and could only stutter when he
had to speak; but once he broke into song, the words came out. The crowd
responded excitedly, rising to peaks at certain moments. Elvis couldn't figure
out why. "I went over to the manager after the song," he later said,
"and I asked him what was making the crowd go nuts. He told me, 'I'm not
really sure, but I think that every time you wiggle your left leg, they start
to scream. Whatever it is, just don't stop.' A single Elvis recorded in 1954
became a hit. Soon he was in demand. Going onstage filled him with anxiety and
emotion, so much so that he became a different person, as if possessed.
"I've talked to some singers and they get a little nervous, but they say
their nerves kind of settle down they get into it. Mine never do. It's sort of
this energy something maybe like sex." Over the next few months he
discovered more gestures and sounds-twitching dance movements, a more tremulous
voice-that made the crowds go crazy, particularly teenage girls. Within a year
he had become the hottest musician in America. His concerts were exercises in
mass hysteria. Elvis Presley had a dark side, a secret life. (Some have
attributed it to the death, at birth, of his twin brother.) This dark side he
deeply repressed as a young man; it included all kinds of fantasies which he
could only give in to when he was alone, although his unconventional clothing
may also have been a symptom of it. When he performed, though, he was able to
let these demons loose. They came out as a dangerous sexual power. Twitching,
androgynous, uninhibited, he was a man enacting strange fantasies before the public.
The audience sensed this and was excited by it. It wasn't a flamboyant style
and appearance that gave Elvis charisma, but rather the electrifying expression
of his inner turmoil. A crowd or group of any sort has a unique energy. Just
below the surface is desire, a constant sexual excitement that has to be
repressed because it is socially unacceptable. If you have the ability to rouse
those desires, the crowd will see you as having charisma. The key is learning
to access your own unconscious, as Elvis did when he let go. You are full of an
excitement that seems to come from some mysterious inner source. Your
uninhibitedness will invite other people to open up, sparking a chain reaction:
their excitement in turn will animate you still more. The fantasies you bring
to the surface do not have to be sexual-any social taboo, anything repressed
and yearning for an outlet, will suffice. Make this felt in your recordings,
your artwork, your books. Social pressure keeps people so repressed that they
will be attracted to your charisma before they have even met you in person. The
Savior. In March of 1917, the Russian parliament forced the country's ruler.
Czar Nicholas, to abdicate and established a provisional government. Russia was
in rums. Its participation in World War I had been a disaster; famine was
spreading widely, the vast countryside was riven by looting and lynch law, and
soldiers were deserting from the army en masse. Politically the country was
bitterly divided; the main factions were the right, the social democrats, and
the left-wing revolutionaries, and each of these groups was itself afflicted by
dissension. Into this chaos came the forty-seven-year-old Vladimir Ilyich
Lenin. A Marxist revolutionary, the leader of the Bolshevik Communist party, he
had suffered a twelve-year exile in Europe until, recognizing the chaos
overcoming Russia as the chance he had long been waiting for, he had hurried
back home. Now he called for the country to end its participation in the war
and for an immediate socialist revolution. In the first weeks after his
arrival, nothing could have seemed more ridiculous. As a man, Lenin looked
unimpressive; he was short and plain-featured. He had also spent years away in
Europe, isolated from his people and immersed in reading and intellectual
argument. Most important, his party was small, representing only a splinter
group within the loosely organized left coalition. Few took him seriously as a
national leader. Undaunted, Lenin went to work. Wherever he went, he repeated
the same simple message; end the war, establish the rule of the proletariat,
abolish private property, redistribute wealth. Exhausted with the nation's
endless political infighting and the complexity of its problems, people began
to listen. Lenin was so determined, so confident. He never lost his cool. In
the midst of a raucous debate, he would simply and logically debunk each one of
his adversaries' points. Workers and soldiers were im- He is their god. He
leads them like a thing \ Made by some other deity than nature, \ That shapes
man better; and they follow him \ Against us brats with no less confidence \
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies \ Or butchers killing flies. . .S HAKES
PE ARE, CORIOLANUS The roof did lift as Presley came onstage. He sang for
twenty-five minutes while the audience erupted like Mount Vesuvius. "I
never saw such excitement and screaming in my entire life, ever before or
since," said I film director Hal ] Kanter. As an observer, he describ-ed
being stunned by "an exhibition of public mass hysteria ... a tidal wave
of adoration surging up from 9,000 people, over the wall of police flanking the
stage, up over the flood-lights, to the performer and beyond him, lifting him
to frenzied heights of response." -A DESCRIPTION OFPRESLEY'S CONCERT AT
THE HAYRIDE THEATER, SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA, DECEMBER 17, 1956, IN PETER
WHITMER, THE INNER ELVIS: A PSYCHOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY OF ELVIS AARON PRESLEY No
one could so fire others with theif plans, no one could so impose his will and
conquer by force of his personality as this seemingly so ordinary and somewhat
coarse man who lacked any obvious sources of charm. . . . Neither Plekhanov nor
Martov nor anyone else possessed the secret radiating from Lenin of positively
hypnotic effect upon people-I would even say, domination of them. Plekhanov was
treated with deference, Martov was loved, but Lenin alone was followed
unhesitatingly as the only indisputable leader. For only Lenin represented that
rare phenomenon, especially rare in Russia, of a man of iron will and indomitable
energy who combines fanatical faith in the movement, the cause, with no less
faith in himself. POTRESOV, QUOTED IN DANKWARTA. RUSTOW, ED.. PHILOSOPHERS AND
KINGS: STUDIES IN LEADERSHIP "I had hoped to see the mountain eagle of our
party, the great man, great physically as well as politically. I had fancied
Lenin as a giant, stately and imposing. Mow great was my disappointment to see
a most ordinary-looking man, below average height, in no way, literally in no
way distinguishable from ordinary mortals. STALIN, ON MEETING LENIN FOR THE
FIRST TIME IN 1905,QUOTED IN RONALD W. CLARK, LENIN :THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK
pressed by his firmness. Once, in the midst of a brewing riot, Lenin amazed his
chauffeur by jumping onto the running board of his car and directing the way
through the crowd, at considerable personal risk. Told that his ideas had
nothing to do with reality, he would answer, "So much the worse for
reality!" Allied to Lenin's messianic confidence in his cause was his
ability to organize. Exiled in Europe, his party had been scattered and
diminished; in keeping them together he had developed immense practical skills.
In front of a large crowd, he was a also powerful orator. His speech at the
First All- Russian Soviet Congress made a sensation; either revolution or a
bourgeois government, he cried, but nothing in between-enough of this
compromise in which the left was sharing. At a time when other politicians were
scrambling desperately to adapt to the national crisis, and seemed weak in the
process, Lenin was rock stable. His prestige soared, as did the membership of
the Bolshevik party Most astounding of all was Lenin's effect on workers,
soldiers, and peasants. He would address these common people wherever he found
them-in the street, standing on a chair, his thumbs in his lapel, his speech an
odd mix of ideology, peasant aphorisms, and revolutionary slogans. They would
listen, enraptured. When Lenin died, in 1924-seven years after single- handedly
opening the way to the October Revolution of 1917, which had swept him and the
Bolsheviks into power-these same ordinary Russians went into mourning. They
worshiped at his tomb, where his body was preserved on view; they told stories
about him, developing a body of Lenin folklore; thousands of newborn girls were
christened "Ninel," Lenin backwards. This cult of Lenin assumed
religious proportions. There all kinds of misconceptions about charisma, which,
paradoxically, only add to its mystique. Charisma has little to do with an
exciting physical appearance or a colorful personality, qualities that elicit
short-term interest. Particularly in times of trouble, people are not looking
for entertainment- they want security, a better quality of life, social
cohesion. Believe it or not, a plain-looking man or woman with a clear vision,
a quality of single- mindedness, and practical skills can be devastatingly
charismatic, provided it matched with some success. Never underestimate the
power of success in enhancing one's aura. But in a world teeming with
compromisers and fudgers whose indecisiveness only creates more disorder, one
clear-minded soul will be a magnet of attention-will have charisma. One on one,
or in a Zurich cafe before the revolution, Lenin had little or no charisma.
(His confidence was attractive, but many found his strident manner irritating.)
He won charisma when he was seen as the man who could save the country.
Charisma is not a mysterious quality that inhabits you outside your control; it
is an illusion in the eyes of those who see you as having what they lack.
Particularly in times of trouble, you can enhance that illusion through
calmness, resolution, and clear-minded practicality. It also helps to have a
seductivelysimple message. Call it the Savior Syndrome: once people imagine you
can save them from chaos, they will fall in love with you, like a person who
melts in the arms of his or her rescuer. And mass love equals charisma. How
else to explain the love ordinary Russians felt for a man as emotionless and
unexciting as Vladimir Lenin. The guru. According to the beliefs of the
Theosophical Society, every two thousand years or so the spirit of the World
Teacher, Lord Maitreya, inhabits the body of a human. First there was Sri
Krishna, born two thousand years before Christ; then there was Jesus himself;
and at the start of the twentieth century another incarnation was due. One day
in 1909, the theosophist Charles Leadbeater saw a boy on an Indian beach and
had an epiphany: this fourteen-year-old lad, Jiddu Krishnamurti, would be the
Teacher's next vehicle. Leadbeater was struck by the simplicity of the boy, who
seemed to lack the slightest trace of selfishness. The members of the
Theosophical Society agreed with his assessment and adopted this scraggly
underfed youth, whose teachers had repeatedly beaten him for stupidity. They
fed and clothed him and began his spiritual instruction. The scruffy urchin
turned into a devilishly handsome young man. In 1911, the theosophists formed
the Order of the Star in the East, a group intended to prepare the way for the
coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti was made head of the order. He was
taken to England, where his education continued, and everywhere he went he was
pampered and revered. His air of simplicity and contentment could not help but
impress. Soon Krishnamurti began to have visions. In 1922 he declared, "I
have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am
God-intoxicated." Over the next few years he had psychic experiences that
the theosophists interpreted as visits from the World Teacher. But Krishnamurti
had actually had a different kind of revelation: the truth of the universe came
from within. No god, no guru, no dogma could ever make one realize it. He
himself was no god or messiah, but just another man. The reverence that he was
treated with disgusted him. In 1929, much to his followers' shock, he disbanded
the Order of the Star and resigned from the Theosophical . And so Krishnamurti
became a philosopher, determined to spread the truth he had discovered: you
must be simple, removing the screen of language and past experience. Through
these means anyone could attain contentment of the kind that radiated from
Krishnamurti. The theosophists abandoned him but his following grew larger than
ever. In California, where he spent much of his time, the interest in him
verged onculticadoration. The poet Robinson Jeffers said that whenever
Krishnamurti entered a room you could feel a brightness filling the space. The
writer Aldous Huxley met him in Los Angeles and fell under his spell. Hearing
him speak, he wrote: "It was like listening to the discourse of the
Buddha- such power, such intrinsic authority." The man radiated
enlightenment. The actor John Barrymore asked him to play the role of Buddha in
a film. Tirst and foremost there can be no prestige without mystery, for
familiarity breeds contempt. ...In the design, the demeanor and the mental
operations of a leader there must always be a "something" which
others cannot altogether fathom, which puzzles them, stirs them, and rivets
their attention ... to hold in reserve some piece of secret knowledge which may
any moment intervene, and the more effectively from being in the nature of a
surprise. The latent faith of the masses will do the rest. Once the leader has
been fudged capable of adding the weight of his personality to the known
factors of any situation, the ensuing hope and confidence will add immensely to
the faith reposed in him. -CHARLES DE GAULLE, THE OF THE SWORD. IN DAVID
SCHOENBRUN, THE THREE LIVES OF CHARLES DE GAULLE Only a month after Evita's
death, the newspaper vendors' union put forwardher name for canonization, and
although this gesture was an isolated one and was never taken seriously by the
Vatican, the idea of Evita's holiness remained with many people and was
reinforced by the publication of devotional literature subsidized by
government; by the renaming of cities, schools, and subway stations; and by the
stamping of medallions, the casting of busts, and the issuing of ceremonial
stamps. The time of the evening news broadcast was changedfrom 8:30 pm. to 8:25
P.M., the time when Evita had "passed into immortality," and each
month there were torch-lit processions on the twenty-sixth of the month, the
day of her death. On the first anniversary of her death, La Prensa printed a
about one of its readers seeing Evita's face in the face of the moon, and after
this there were more such sightings reported in the newspapers. For the most
part, official publications stopped short of claiming sainthood for her, but
their restraint was not always convincing. In the calendar for 1953 of the
Buenos Aires newspaper vendors, as in other unofficial images, she was depicted
in the traditional blue robes of the Virgin, her hands crossed, her sad head to
one side and surrounded by a halo. -NICHOLAS FRASER AND MARYSA NAYARRO. EVITA
(Krishnamurti politely declined.) When he visited India, hands would reach
outfrom the crowd to try to touch him through the open car window. People
prostrated themselves before him. Repulsed by all this adoration, Krishnamurti
grew more and more detached. He even talked about himself in the third person.
In fact, the ability to disengage from one's past and view the world anew was
part of his philosophy, yet once again the effect was the opposite of what he
expected: the affection and reverence people felt for him only grew. His
followers fought jealously for signs of his favor. Women in particular fell
deeply in love with him, although he was a lifelong celibate. Krishnamurti had
no desire to be a guru or a Charismatic, but he inadvertently discovered a law
of human psychology that disturbed him. People do not want to hear that your
power comes from years of effort or discipline. They prefer to think that it
comes from your personality, your character, something you were born with. They
also hope that proximity to the guru or Charismatic will make some of that
power rub off on them. They did not want to have to read Krishnamurti's books,
or to spend years practicing his lessons-they simply wanted to be near him,
soak up his aura, hear him speak, feel the light that entered the room with
him. Krishnamurti advocated simplicity as a way of opening up to the truth, but
his own simplicity justallowedpeople to see what they wanted in him,
attributing powers to him that he not only denied but ridiculed. This is the
guru effect, and it is surprisingly simple to create. The aura you are after is
not the fiery one of most Charismatics, but one of incandescence,
enlightenment. An enlightened person has understood something that makes him or
her content, and this contentment radiates outward. That is the appearance you
want: you do not need anything or anyone, you are fulfilled. People are
naturally drawn to those who emit happiness; maybe they can catch it from you.
The less obvious you are, the better: let people conclude that you are happy,
rather than hearing it from you. Let them see it in your unhurried manner, your
gentle smile, your ease and comfort. Keep your words vague, letting people
imagine what they will. Remember: being aloof and distant only stimulates the
effect. People will fight for the slightest sign of your interest. A guru is
content and detached-a deadly Charismatic combination. The drama saint. It
began on the radio. Throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s, Argentine women
would hear the plaintive, musical voice of Eva Duarte in one of the lavishly
produced soap operas that were so popular at the time. She never made you
laugh, but how often she could make you cry-with the complaints of a betrayed
lover, or the last words of Marie Antoinette. The very thought of her voice
made you shiver with emotion. And she was pretty, with her flowing blond hair
and her serious face, which was often on the covers of the gossip magazines. In
1943, those magazines published a most exciting story: Eva had begun an affair
with one of the most dashing men in the new military government. Colonel Juan
Peron. Now Argentines heard her doing propaganda spots for the government,
lauding the "New Argentina" that glistened in the future. And
finally, this fairy tale story reached its perfect conclusion: in 1945 Juan and
Eva married, and the following year, the handsome colonel, after many trials
and tribulations (including a spell in prison, from which he was freed by the
efforts of his devoted wife) was elected president. He was a champion of th
edescamisados -the "shirtless ones," the workers and the poor, just
as his wife was. Only twenty-six at the time, she had grown up in poverty
herself. Now that this star was the first lady of the republic, she seemed to
change. She lost weight, most definitely; her outfits became less flamboyant,
even downright austere; and that beautiful flowing hair was now pulled back,
rather severely. It was a shame-the young star had grown up. But as Argentines
saw more of the new Evita, as she was now known, her new look affected them
more strongly. It was the look of a saintly, serious woman, one who was indeed
what her husband called the "Bridge of Love" between himself and his
people. She was now on the radio all the time, and listening to her was as
emotional as ever, but she also spoke magnificently in public. Her voice was
lower and her delivery slower; she stabbed the air with her fingers, reached
out as if to touch the audience. And her words pierced you to the core: "I
left my dreams by the wayside in order to watch over the dreams of others. ...
I now place my soul at the side of the soul of my people. I offer them all my
energies so that my body may be a bridge erected toward the happiness of all.
Pass over it ... toward the supreme destiny of the new fatherland." It was
no longer only through magazines and the radio that Evita made herself felt.
Almost everyone was personally touched by her in some way. Everyone seemed to
know someone who had met her, or who had visited her in her office, where a
line of supplicants wound its way through the hallways to her door. Behind her
desk she sat, so calm and full of love. Film crews recorded her acts of
charity: to a woman who had lost everything, Evita would give a house; to one
with a sick child, free care in the finest hospital. She worked so hard, no
wonder rumor had it that she was ill. And everyone heard of her visits to the
shanty towns and to hospitals for the poor, where, against the wishes of her
staff, she would kiss people with all kinds of maladies (lepers, syphilitic
men, etc.) on the cheek. Once an assistant appalled by this habit tried to dab
Evita's lips with alcohol, to sterilize them. This saint of a woman grabbed the
bottle and smashed it against the wall. Yes, Evita was a saint, a living
madonna. Her appearance alone could heal the sick. And when she died of cancer,
in 1952, no outsider to Argentina could possibly understand the sense of grief
and loss she left behind. For some, the country never recovered. As for me, I
have the gift of electrifying men. -NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, IN PIETER GEYL,
NAPOLEON: FORAND AGAINST I do not pretend to be a divine man, but I do believe
in divine guidance, divine power, and divine prophecy. I am not educated, nor
am I an expert in any particular field-but I am sincere and my sincerity is my
credentials. -MALCOLM X, QUOTED IN EUGENE VICTORWOLFENSTEIN, THE VICTIMS OF
DEMOCRACY: MALCOLM X AND THIS BLACK REVOLUTION Most of us live in a
semi-somnambulistic state: we do our daily tasks and the days fly by. The two
exceptions to this are childhood and those moments when we are in love. In both
cases, ouremotions are more engaged, more open and active. And we equate
feeling emotional with feeling more alive. A public figure who can affect
people's emotions, who can make them feel communal sadness, joy, or hope, has a
similar effect. An appeal to the emotions is far more powerful than an appeal
to reason. Eva Peron knew this power early on, as a radio actress. Her
tremulous voice could make audiences weep; because of this, people saw in her
great charisma. She never forgot the experience. Her every public act was
framed in dramatic and religious motifs. Drama is condensed emotion, and the
Catholic religion is a force that reaches into your childhood, hits you where
you cannot help yourself. Evita's uplifted arms, her staged acts of charity,
her sacrifices for the common folk-all this went straight to the heart. It was
not her goodness alone that was charismatic, although the appearance of
goodness is alluring enough. It was her ability to dramatize her goodness. You
must leam to exploit the two great purveyors of emotion: drama and religion.
Drama cuts out the useless and banal in life, focusing on moments of pity and
terror; religion deals with matters of life and death. Make your charitable
actions dramatic, give your loving words religious import, bathe everything in
rituals and myths going back to childhood. Caughtupintheemotions you stir,
people will see over your head the halo of charisma. The deliverer. In Harlem
in the early 1950s, few African-Americans knew much about the Nation of Islam,
or ever stepped into its temple. The Nation preached that white people were
descended from the devil and that someday Allah would liberate the black race.
This doctrine had little meaning for Harlemites, who went to church for
spiritual solace and turned in practical matters to their local politicians.
But in 1954, a new minister for the Nation of Islam arrived in Harlem. The
minister's name was Malcolm X, and he was well-read and eloquent, yet his
gestures and words were angry. Word spread: whites had lynched Malcolm's
father. He had grown up in a juvenile facility, then had survived as a
small-time hustler before being arrested for burglary and spending six years in
prison. His short life (he was only twenty-nine at the time) had been one long
run-in with the law, yet look at him now-so confident and educated. No one had
helped him; he had done it all on his own. Harlemites began to see Malcolm X everywhere,
handing out fliers, addressing the young. He would stand outside their
churches, and as the congregation dispersed, he would point to the preacher and
say, "He represents the white man's god; I represent the black man's
god." The curious began to come to hear him preach at a Nation of Islam
temple. He would ask them to look at the actual conditions of their lives:
"When you get through looking at where you live, then . . . take a walk
across Central Park," he would tell them. "Look at the white man's
apartments. Look at his Wall Street!" His words were powerful,
particularly coming from a minister. In 1957, a young Muslim in Harlem
witnessed the beating of a drunken black man by several policemen. When the
Muslim protested, the police pummeled him senseless and carted him off to jail.
An angry crowd gathered outside the police station, ready to riot. Told that
only Malcolm X could forestall violence, the police commissioner brought him in
and told him to break up the mob. Malcolm refused. Speaking more temperately,
the commissioner begged him to reconsider. Malcolm calmly set conditions for
his cooperation: medical care for the beaten Muslim, and proper punishment for
the police officers. The commissioner reluctantly agreed. Outside the station,
Malcolm explained the agreement and the crowd dispersed. In Harlem and around
the country, he was an overnight hero- finally a man who took action.
Membership in his temple soared. Malcolm began to speak all over the United
States. He never read from a text; looking out at the audience,hemade eye
contact, pointed his finger. His anger was obvious, not so much in his tone-he
was always controlled and articulate-as in his fierce energy, the veins popping
out on his neck. Many earlier black leaders had used cautious words, and had
asked their followers to deal patiently and politely with their social lot, no
matter how unfair. What a relief Malcolm was. He ridiculed the racists, he
ridiculed the liberals, he ridiculed the president; no white person escaped his
scorn. If whites were violent, Malcolm said, the language of violence should be
spoken back to them, for it was the only language they understood.
"Hostility is good!" he cried out. "It's been bottled up too
long." In response to the growing popularity of the nonviolent leader
Martin Luther King, Ir., Malcolm said, "Anybody can sit. An old woman can
sit. A coward can sit. ... It takes a man to stand." Malcolm X had a
bracing effect on many who felt the same anger he did but were frightened to
express it. At his funeral-he was assassinated in 1965, at one of his
speeches-the actor Ossie Davis delivered the eulogy before a large and
emotional crowd: "Malcolm," he said, "was our own black shining
prince." Malcolm X was a Charismatic of Moses' kind: he was a deliverer.
The power of this sort of Charismatic comes from his or her expression of dark
emotions that have built up over years of oppression. In doing so, the
deliverer provides an opportunity for the release of bottled-up emotions by other
people-of the hostility masked by forced politeness and smiles. Deliverers have
to be one of the suffering crowd, only more so: their pain must be exemplary.
Malcolm's personal history was an integral part of his charisma. His
lesson-that blacks should help themselves, not wait for whites to lift them
up-meant a great deal more because of his own years in prison, and because he
had followed his own doctrine by educating himself, lifting himself up from the
bottom. The deliverer must be a living example of personal redemption. The
essence of charisma is an overpowering emotion that communicates itself in your
gestures. In your tone of voice, in subtle signs that are the more powerful for
being unspoken. You feel something more deeply than others, and no emotion is
more powerful and more capable of creating a charismatic reaction than hatred,
particularly if it comes from deep- rooted feelings of oppression. Express what
others are afraid to express and they will see great power in you. Say what
they want to say but cannot. Never be afraid of going too far. If you represent
a release from oppression, you have the leeway to go still farther. Moses spoke
of violence, of destroying every last one of his enemies. Language like this
brings the oppressed together and makes them feel more alive. This is not,
however, something that is uncontrollable on your part. Malcolm X felt rage
from early on, but only in prison did he teach himself the art of oratory, and
how to channel his emotions. Nothing is more charismatic than the sense that
someone is struggling with great emotion rather than simply giving in to it.
The Olympian actor. On lanuary 24, 1960 an insurrection broke out in Algeria,
then still a French colony. Led by right-wing French soldiers, its purpose was
to forestall the proposal of President Charles de Gaulle to grant Algeria the
right of self-determination. If necessary, the insurrectionists would take over
Algeria in the name of France. For several tense days, the seventy-year-old de
Gaulle maintained a strange silence. Then on lanuary 29, at eight in the
evening, he appeared on French national television. Before he had uttered a
word, the audience was astonished, for he wore his old uniform from World War
II, a uniform that everyone recognized and that created a strong emotional
response. De Gaulle had been the hero of the resistance, the savior of the
country at its darkest moment. But that uniform had not been seen for quite
some time. Then de Gaulle spoke, reminding his public, in his cool and
confident manner, of all they had accomplished together in liberating France
from the Germans. Slowly he moved from these charged patriotic issues to the
rebellion in Algeria, and the affront it presented to the spirit of the
liberation. He finished his address by repeating his famous words of lune 18,
1940: "Once again I call all Frenchmen, wherever they are, whatever they
are, to reunite with France. Vive la Republique! Vive la France!" The
speech had two purposes. It showed that de Gaulle was determined not to give an
inch to the rebels, and it reached for the heart of all patriotic Frenchmen,
particularly in the army. The insurrection quickly died, and no one doubted the
connection between its failure and de Gaulle's performance on television. The
following year, the French voted overwhelmingly in favor of
Alself-determination. On April 11, 1961, de Gaulle gave a press conference in
which he made it clear that France would soon grant the country full
independence. Eleven days later, French generals in Algeria issued a communique
stating that they had taken over the country and declaring a state of siege.
This was the most dangerous moment of all: faced with Algeria's imminent
independence, these right-wing generals would go all the way. A civil war could
break out, toppling de Gaulle's government. The following night, de
Gaulleappearedonceagain on television, once again wearing his old uniform. He
mocked the generals, comparing them to a South American junta. He talked calmly
and sternly. Then, suddenly, at the very end of the address, his voice rose and
even trembled as he called out to the audience: "Francoises, Frangais,
aidez-moi!" ("Frenchwomen, Frenchmen, help me!") It was the most
stirring moment of all his television appearances. French soldiers in Algeria,
listening on transistor radios, were overwhelmed. The next day they held a mass
demonstration in favor of de Gaulle. Two days later the generals surrendered.
On July 1, 1962, de Gaulle proclaimed Algeria's independence. In 1940, after
the German invasion of France, de Gaulle escaped to England to recruit an army
that would eventually return to France for the liberation. At the beginning, he
was alone, and his mission seemed hopeless. But he had the support of Winston
Churchill, and with Churchill's blessing he gave a series of radio talks that
the BBC broadcast to France. His strange, hypnotic voice, with its dramatic
tremolos, would enter French living rooms in the evenings. Few of his listeners
even knew what he looked like, but his tone was so confident, so stirring, that
he recruited a silent army of believers. In person, de Gaulle was a strange,
brooding man whose confident manner couldjust as easily irritate as win over.
But over the radio that voice had intense charisma. De Gaulle was the first
great master of modern media, for he easily transferred his dramatic skills to
television, where his iciness, his calmness, his total self-possession, made
audiences feel both comforted and inspired. The world has grown more fractured.
A nation no longer conies together on the streets or in the squares; it is
brought together in living rooms, where people watching television all over the
country can simultaneously be alone and with others. Charisma must now be
communicable over the airwaves or it has no power. But it is in some ways easier
to project on television, both because television makes a direct one-on-one
appeal (the Charismatic seems to address you ) and because charisma is fairly
easy to fake for the few moments you spend in front of the camera. As de Gaulle
understood, when appearing on television it is best to radiate calmness and
control, to use dramatic effects sparingly. De Gaulle's overall iciness made
doubly effective the brief moments in which he raised his voice, or let loose a
biting joke. By remaining calm and underplaying it, he hypnotized his audience.
(Your face can express much more if your voice is less strident.) He conveyed
emotion visually-the uniform, the setting-and through the use of certain
charged words:the liberation, Joan of Arc. The less he strained for effect, the
more sincere he appeared. All this must be carefully orchestrated. Punctuate
your calmness with surprises; rise to a climax; keep things short and terse.
The only thing that cannot be faked is self-confidence, the key component to
charisma since the days of Moses. Should the camera lights betray your
insecurity, all the tricks in the world will not put your charisma back
together again. Symbol: The Lamp. Invisible to the eye, a current flowing
through a wire in a glass vessel generates a heat that turns into candescence.
All we see is the glow. In the prevailing darkness, the Lamp lights the way.
Dangers O n a pleasant May day in 1794, the citizens of Paris gathered in a
park for the Festival of the Supreme Being. The focus of their attention was
Maximilien de Robespierre, head of the Committee of Public Safety, and the man
who had thought up the festival in the first place. The idea was simple; to
combat atheism, "to recognize the existence of a Supreme Being and the
Immortality of the Soul as the guiding forces of the universe." It was
Robespierre's day of triumph. Standing before the masses in his sky-blue suit
and white stockings, he initiated the festivities. The crowd adored him; after
all, he had safeguarded the purposes of the French Revolution through
theintensepoliticking that had followed it. The year before, he had initiated
the Reign of Terror, which cleansed the revolution of its enemies by sending
them to the guillotine. He had also helped guide the country through a war against
the Austrians and the Prussians. What made crowds, and particularly women, love
him was his incorruptible virtue (he lived very modestly), his refusal to
compromise, the passion for the revolution that was evident in everything he
did, and the romantic language of his speeches, which could not fail to
inspire. He was a god. The day was beautiful and augured a great future for the
revolution. Two months later, on July 26, Robespierre delivered a speech that
he thought would ensure his place in history, for he intended to hint at the
end of the Terror and a new era for France. Rumor also had it that he was to
call for a last handful of people to be sent to the guillotine, a final group
that threatened the safety of the revolution. Mounting the rostrum to address
the country's governing convention, Robespierre wore the same clothes he had
worn on the day of the festival. The speech was long, almost three hours, and
included an impassioned description of the values and virtues he had helped
protect. There was also talk of conspiracies, treacery, unnamed enemies. The
response was enthusiastic, but a little less so than usual. The speech had
tired many representatives. Then a lone voice was heard, that of a man named
Bourdon, who spoke against printing Robespierre's speech, a veiled sign of
disapproval. Suddenly others stood up on all sides, and accused him of
vagueness: he had talked of conspiracies and threats without naming the guilty.
Asked to be specific, he refused, preferring to name names later on. The next day
Robespierre stood to defend his speech, and the representatives shouted him
down. A few hours later, he was the one sent to the guillotine. On July 28,
amid a gathering of citizens who seemed to be in an even more festive mood than
at the Festival of the Supreme Being, Robespierre's head fell into the basket,
to resounding cheers. The Reign of Terror was over. Many of those who seemed to
admire Robespierre actually harbored a gnawing resentment of him-he was so
virtuous, so superior, it was oppressive. Some of these men had plotted against
him, and were waiting for the slightest sign of weakness-which appeared on that
fateful day when he gave his last speech. In refusing to name his enemies, he
had shown either a desire to end the bloodshed or a fear that they would strike
at him before he could have them killed. Fed by the conspirators, this one
spark turned into fire. Within two days, first a governing body and then a
nation turned against a Charismatic who two months before had been revered.
Charisma is as volatile as the emotions it stirs. Most often it stirs
sentiments of love. But such feelings are hard to maintain. Psychologists talk
of "erotic fatigue"-the moments after love in which you feel tired of
it, resentful. Reality creeps in, love turns to hate. Erotic fatigue is a
threat to all Charismatics. The Charismatic often wins love by acting the
savior, rescuing people from some difficult circumstance, but once they feel
secure, charisma is less seductive to them. Charismatics need danger and risk.
They are not plodding bureaucrats; some of them deliberately keep danger going,
as de Gaulle and Kennedy were wont to do, or as Robespierre did through the
Reign of Terror. But people tire of this, and at your first sign of weakness
they turn on you. The love they showed before will be matched by their hatred
now. The only defense is to master your charisma. Your passion, your anger,
your confidence make you charismatic, but too much charisma for too long
creates fatigue, and a desire for calmness and order. The better kind of
charisma is created consciously and is kept under control. When you need to you
can glow with confidence and fervor, inspiring the masses. But when the
adventure is over, you can settle into a routine, turning the heat,out, but
down. (Robespierre may have been planning that move, but it came a day too
late.) People will admire your self-control and adaptability. Their love affair
with you will move closer to the habitual affection of a man and wife. You will
even have the leeway to look a little boring, a little simple-a role that can
also seem charismatic, if played correctly. Remember: charisma depends on
success, and the best way to maintain success, after the initial charismatic
rush, is to be practical and even cautious. Mao Zedong was a distant, enigmatic
man who for many had an awe-inspiring charisma. He suffered many setbacks that
would have spelled the end of a less clever man, but after each reversal he
retreated, becoming practical, tolerant, flexible; at least for a while. This
protected him from the dangers of a counterreaction. There is another
alternative: to play the armed prophet. According to Machiavelli, although a
prophet may acquire power through his charismatic personality, he cannot long
survive without the strength to back it up. He needs an army. The masses will
tire of him; they will need to be forced. Being an armed prophet may not
literally involve arms, but it demands a forceful side to your character, which
you can back up with action. Unfortunately this means being merciless with your
enemies for as long as you retain power. And no one creates more bitter enemies
than the Charismatic. Finally, there is nothing more dangerous than succeeding
a Charismatic. These characters are unconventional, and their rule is personal
in style, ing stamped with the wildness of their personalities. They often
leave chaos in their wake. The one who follows after a Charismatic is left with
a mess, which the people, however, do not see. They miss their inspirer and
blame the successor. Avoid this situation at all costs. If it is unavoidable,
do not try to continue what the Charismatic started; go in a new direction. By
being practical, trustworthy, and plain-speaking, you can often generate a
strange kind of charisma through contrast. That was how Harry Truman not only
survived the legacy of Roosevelt but established his own type of charisma.
Daily life is harsh, and most of us constantly seek escape from it in fantasies
and dreams. Stars feed on this weakness; standing outfrom others through a
distinctive and appealing style, they make us want to watch them. At the same
time, they are vague and ethereal, keeping their distance, and letting us
imagine more than is there. Their dreamlike quality works on our unconscious;
we are not even aware how much we imitate them. Learn to become an object
offascination by projecting the glittering but elusive presence of the Star.
The Fetishistic Star O ne day in 1922, in Berlin, Germany, a casting call went
out for the part of a voluptuous young woman in a film called Tragedy of Love.
Of the hundreds of struggling young actresses who showed up, most would do
anything to get the casting director's attention, including exposing
themselves. There was one young woman in the line, however, who was simply dressed,
and performed none of the other girls' desperate antics. Yet she stood out
anyway. The girl carried a puppy on a leash, and had draped an elegant necklace
around the puppy's neck. The casting director noticed her immediately. He
watched her as she stood in line, calmly holding the dog in her arms and
keeping to herself. When she smoked a cigarette, her gestures were slow and
suggestive. He was fascinated by her legs and face, the sinuous way she moved,
the hint of coldness in her eyes. By the time she had come to the front, he had
already cast her. Her name was Marlene Dietrich. By 1929, when the
Austrian-American director Josef von Sternberg arrived in Berlin to begin work
on the film The Blue Angel, the twenty- seven-year-old Dietrich was well known in
the Berlin film and theater world. The Blue Angel was to be about a woman
called Lola-Lola who preys sadistically on men, and all of Berlin's best
actresses wanted the part-except, apparently, Dietrich, who made it known that
she thought the role demeaning; von Sternberg should choose from the other
actresses he had in mind. Shortly after arriving in Berlin, however, von
Sternberg attended a performance of a musical to watch a male actor he was
considering for The Blue Angel The star of the musical was Dietrich, and as
soon as she came onstage, von Sternberg found that he could not take his eyes
off her. She stared at him directly, insolently, like a man; and then there
were those legs, and the way she leaned provocatively against the wall. Von
Sternberg forgot about the actor he had come to see. He had found his
Lola-Lola. Von Sternberg managed to convince Dietrich to take the part, and
immediately he went to work, molding her into the Lola of his imagination. He
changed her hair, drew a silver line down her nose to make it seem thinner,
taught her to look at the camera with the insolence he had seen onstage. When
filming began, he created a lighting systemjust for her-a light that tracked
her wherever she went, and was strategically heightened by gauze and smoke.
Obsessed with his "creation," he followed her everywhere. No one else
could go near her. The cool, brightface which didn't ask for anything, which
simply existed, waiting-it was an empty face, he thought; a face that could
change with any wind of expression. One could dream into it anything. It was
like a beautiful empty house waiting for carpets and pictures. It had all
possibilities-it could become a palace or a brothel. It depended on the one who
fdled it. How limited by comparison was all that was already completed and
labeled. - ERICH MARIA REMARQUE, ON MARLENE DIETRICH, ARCH OF TRIUMPH Marlene
Dietrich is not an actress, like Sarah Bernhardt; she is a myth, like Phryne.
-ANDRE: MALRAUX, QUOTED IN EDGAR MORIN, THE STARS. TRANSLATED BY RICHARD HOWARD
When Pygmalion saw these women, living such wicked lives, he was revolted by
the many faults which nature has implanted in thefemale sex, and long lived a
bachelor existence, without any wife to share his home. But meanwhile, with
marvelous artistry, he skillfully carved a snowy ivory statue. He made it
lovelier than any woman born, and fell in love with his own creation. The
statue had all the appearance of a real girl, so that it seemed to be alive, to
want to move, did not modesty forbid. So cleverly did his art conceal its art.
Pygmalion gazed in wonder, and in his heart there rose a passionate love for
this image of a human form. Often he ran his hands over the work, feeling it to
see whether it was flesh or ivory, and would not yet admit thativory was all it
was. He kissed the statue, and imagined that it kissed him back, spoke to it
and embraced it, and thought he felt his fingers sink into the limbs he
touched, so that he was afraid lest a bruise appear where he had pressed the
flesh. Sometimes he addressed it in flattering speeches, sometimes brought the
kind of presents that girls enjoy. . . . He dressed the limbs of his statue in
woman's robes, and put rings on its fingers, long necklaces round its neck. . .
. All this finery became the image well, but it was no less lovely unadorned.
Pygmalion then placed the statue on a couch that was covered with cloths of
Tynan purple, laid its head to rest on soft down pillows, as if it could
appreciate them, and called it his bedfellow. • The festival of Venus, which is
celebrated with the greatest The Blue Angel was a huge success in Germany.
Audiences were fascinated with Dietrich: that cold, brutal stare as she spread
her legs over a stool, baring her underwear; her effortless way of commanding
attention on screen. Others besides von Sternberg became obsessed with her. A
man dying of cancer. Count Sascha Kolowrat, had one last wish: to see Marlene's
legs in person. Dietrich obliged, visiting him in the hospital and lifting up
her skirt; he sighed and said "Thank you. Now I can die happy." Soon
Paramount Studios brought Dietrich to Hollywood, where everyone was quickly
talking about her. At a party, all eyes would turn toward her when she came
into the room. She would be escorted by the most handsome men in Hollywood, and
would be wearing an outfit both beautiful and unusual-gold-lame pajamas, a
sailor suit with a yachting cap. The next day the look would be copied by women
all over town; next it would spread to magazines, and a whole new trend would
start. The real object of fascination, however, was unquestionably Dietrich's
face. What had enthralled von Sternberg was her blankness-with a simple
lighting trick he could make that face do whatever he wanted. Dietrich
eventually stopped working with von Sternberg, but never forgot what he had
taught her. One night in 1951, the director Fritz Lang, who was about to direct
her in the film Rancho Notorious, was driving past his office when he saw a
light flash in the window. Fearing a burglary, he got out of his car, crept up
the stairs, and peeked through the crack in the door: it was Diet- rich taking
pictures of herself in the mirror, studying her face from every angle. Marlene
Dietrich had a distance from her own self: she could study her face, her legs,
her body, as if she were someone else. This gave her the ability to mold her
look, transforming her appearance for effect. She could pose in just the way
that would most excite a man, her blankness letting him see her according to
his fantasy, whether of sadism, voluptuousness, or danger. And every man who
met her, or who watched her on screen, fantasized endlessly about her. The
effect worked on women as well; in the words of one writer, she projected
"sex without gender." But this selfdistance gave her a certain
coldness, whether on film or in person. She was like a beautiful object,
something to fetishize and admire the way we admire a work of art. The fetish
is an object that commands an emotional response and that makes us breathe life
into it. Because it is an object we can imagine whatever we want to about it.
Most people are too moody, complex, and reactive to let us see them as objects
that we can fetishize. The power of the Fetishistic Star comes from an ability
to become an object, and notjust any object but an object we fetishize, one
that stimulates a variety of fantasies. Fetishistic Stars are perfect, like the
statue of a Greek god or goddess. The effect is startling, and seductive. Its
principal requirement is self-distance. If you see yourself as an object, then
others will too. An ethereal, dreamlike air will heighten the effect. You are a
blank screen. Float through life noncommittally and people will want to seize
you and consume you. Of all the parts of your bodythat draw this fetishistic
attention, the strongest is the face; so learn to tune your face like an
instrument, making it radiate a fascinating vagueness for effect. And since you
will have to stand out from other Stars in the sky, you will need to develop an
attention-getting style. Dietrich was the great practitioner of this art; her
style was chic enough to dazzle, weird enough to enthrall. Remember, your own
image and presence are materials you can control. The sense that you are
engaged in this kind of play will make people see you as superior and worthy of
imitation. She had such natural poise . . . such an economy of gesture, that
she became as absorbing as a Modigliani. She had the one essential star
quality: she could be magnificent doing nothing. -BERLIN ACTRESS LILI DARVAS ON
MARLENE DIETRICH The Mythic Star O n July 2, 1960, a few weeks before that
year's Democratic National Convention, former President Harry Truman publicly
stated that John F. Kennedy-who had won enough delegates to be chosen his
party's candidate for the presidency-was too young and inexperienced for the
job. Kennedy's response was startling: he called a press conference, to be
televised live, and nationwide, on July 4. The conference's drama was
heightened by the fact that he was away on vacation, so that no one saw or
heard from him until the event itself. Then, at the appointed hour, Kennedy
strode into the conference room like a sheriff entering Dodge City. He began by
stating that he had run in all of the state primaries, at considerable expense
of money and effort, and had beaten his opponents fairly and squarely. Who was
Truman to circumvent the democratic process? "This is a young
country," Kennedy went on, his voice getting louder, "founded by
young men . . . and still young in heart. The world is changing, the old ways
will not do, . . . It is time for a new generation of leadership to cope with
new problems and new opportunities." Even Kennedy's enemies agreed that
his speech that day was stirring. He turned Truman's challenge around: the
issue was not his inexperience but the older generation's monopoly on power.
His style was as eloquent as his words, for his performance evoked films of the
time-Alan Ladd in Shane confronting the corrupt older ranchers, or James Dean
in Rebel Without a Cause. Kennedy even resembled Dean, particularly in his air
of cool detachment. A few months later, now approved as the Democrats'
presidential candidate, Kennedy squared off against his Republican opponent,
Richard Nixon, in their first nationally televised debate. Nixon was sharp; he
knew pomp all through Cyprus, was now in progress, andheifers, their crooked
horns gildedfor the occasion, had fallen at the altar as the axe struck their
snowy necks. Smoke was rising from the incense, when Pygmalion, having made his
offering, stood by the altar and timidly prayed, saying: "If you gods can
give all things, may I have as my wife, I pray-"henot dare to say:
"the ivory maiden," but finished: "one like the golden Venus,
present at her festival in person, understood what his prayers meant, and as a
sign that the gods were kindly disposed, the flames burned up three times,
shooting a tongue of fire into the air. When Pygmalion returned home, he made
straight for the statue of the girl he loved, leaned over the couch, and kissed
her. She seemed : he laid his lips on hers again, and touched her breast with
his hands-at his touch the ivory lost its hardness, and grew soft. -OVID,METAMORPHOSES,
TR ANS L ATEDB YM AR YM .INNES [John F.] Kennedy brought to television news and
photojournalism the components most prevalent in the world of film: star
quality and mythic story. his telegenic looks, skills at self presentation,
heroic fantasies, and creative intelligence, Kennedy was brilliantly prepared
to project a major screen persona. He appropriated the discourses of mass
culture, especially of Hollywood, and transferred them to the news. By this
strategy he made the news like dreams and like the movies-a realm in which
images played out scenarios that accorded with the viewer's deepest yearnings.
Never appearing in an actual fdm, but rather turning the television apparatus
into his screen, he became the greatest movie star of the twentieth century.
-JOHN HELLMANN, THE KENNEDY OBSESSION: THE MYTH OF JFK But we have seen that,
considered as a total the stars repeats, in its own proportions, the history of
the gods. Before the gods (before the stars) the mythical universe (the screen)
was peopled with specters or phantoms with the glamour and magic of the double.
• Several of these presences have progressively assumed body and substance,
have taken form, amplified, and flowered into gods andgoddesses. And even as
certain major gods of the ancient pantheons metamorphose themselves into
hero-gods of salvation, the star-goddesses humanize and become new mediators
between the fantastic world of dreams and man's daily life on earth. The heroes
of the movies are, in an obviously attenuated way, mythological heroes in this
of becoming divine. The star is the actor or actress who absorbs some of the
heroic - i.e., divinized and mythic-substance of the hero or heroine of
theenriches this substance by the answers to the questions and debated with
aplomb,quotingstatisticson the accomplishments of the Eisenhower
administration, in which he had served as vice-president. But beneath the glare
of the cameras, on black and white television, he was a ghastly figure-his five
o'clock shadow covered up with powder, streaks of sweat on his brow and cheeks,
his face drooping with fatigue, his eyes shifting and blinking, his body rigid.
What was he so worried about? The contrast with Kennedy was startling. If Nixon
looked only at his opponent, Kennedy looked out at the audience, making eye
contact with his viewers, addressing them in their living rooms as no
politician had ever done before. If Nixon talked data and niggling points of
debate, Kennedy spoke of freedom, of building a new society, of recapturing
America's pioneer spirit. His manner was sincere and emphatic. His words were
not specific, but he made his listeners imagine a wonderful future. The day
after the debate, Kennedy's poll numbers soared miraculously, and wherever he
went he was greeted by crowds of young girls, screaming andjumping. His
beautiful wife Jackie by his side, he was a kind of democratic prince. Now his
television appearances were events. He was in due course elected president, and
his inaugural address, also broadcast on television, was stirring. It was a
cold and wintry day. In the background, Eisenhower sat huddled in coat and
scarf, looking old and beaten. But Kennedy stood hatless and coatless to
address the nation: "I do not believe that any of us would exchange places
with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the
devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who
serve it-and the glow from that fire can truly light the world." Over the
months to come Kennedy gave innumerable live press conferences before the TV
cameras, something no previous president had dared. Facing the firing squad of
lenses and questions, he was unafraid, speaking coolly and slightly ironically.
What was going on behind those eyes, that smile? People wanted to know more
about him. The magazines teased its readers with information-photographs of
Kennedy with his wife and children, or playing football on the White House
lawn, interviews creating a sense of him as a devoted family man, yet one who
mingled as an equal with glamorous stars. The images all melted together-the
space race, the Peace Corps, Kennedy facing up to the Soviets during the Cuban
missile crisis just as he had faced up to Truman. After Kennedy was
assassinated, Jackie said in an interview that before he went to bed, he would
often play the soundtracks to Broadway musicals, and his favorite of these was
Camelot, with its lines, "Don't let it be forgot / that once there was a
spot / For one brief shining moment / That was known as Camelot." There
would be great presidents again, Jackie said, but never "another
Camelot." The name "Camelot" seemed to stick, making Kennedy's
thousand days in office resonate as myth. Kennedy's seduction of the American
public was conscious and calculated. It was also more Hollywood than
Washington, which was not surprising: Kennedy's father, Joseph, had once been a
movie producer, and Kennedy himself had spent time in Hollywood, hobnobbing
with actors and trying to figure out what made them stars. He was particularly
fascinated with Gary Cooper, Montgomery Clift, and Cary Grant; he often called
Grant for advice. Hollywood had found ways to unite the entire country around
certain themes, or myths-often the great American myth of the West. The great
stars embodied mythic types: John Wayne the patriarch, Clift the Promethean
rebel, Jimmy Stewart the noble hero, Marilyn Monroe the siren. These were not
mere mortals but gods and goddesses to be dreamed and fantasized about. All of
Kennedy's actions were framed in the conventions of Hollywood. He did not argue
with his opponents, he confronted them dramatically. He posed, and in visually
fascinating ways-whether with his wife,withhis children, or alone onstage. He
copied the facial expressions, the presence, of a Dean or a Cooper. He did not
discuss policy details but waxed eloquent about grand mythic themes, the kind
that could unite a divided nation. And all this was calculated for television,
for Kennedy mostly existed as a televised image. That image haunted our dreams.
Well before his assassination, Kennedy attracted fantasies of America's lost
innocence with his call for a renaissance of the pioneer spirit, a New
Frontier. Of all the character types, the Mythic Star is perhaps the most
powerful of all. People are divided by all kinds of consciously recognized
categories- race, gender, class, religion, politics. It is impossible, then, to
gain power on a grand scale, or to win an election, by drawing on conscious
awareness; an appeal to any one group will only alienate another.
Unconsciously, however, there is much we share. All of us are mortal, all of us
know fear, all of us have been stamped with the imprint of parent figures; and
nothing conjures up this shared experience more than myth. The patterns of
myth, born out of warring feelings of helplessness on the one hand and thirst
for on the other, are deeply engraved in us all. Mythic Stars are figures of
myth come to life. To appropriate their power, you must first study their
physical presence-how they adoptadistinctive style, are cool and visually
arresting. Then you must assume the pose of a mythic figure; the rebel, the
wise patriarch, the adventurer. (The pose of a Star who has struck one of these
mythic poses might do the trick.) these connections vague; they should never be
obvious to the conscious mind. Your words and actions should invite
interpretation beyond surface appearance; you should seem to be dealing not
with specific, nitty-gritty issues and details but with matters of life and
death, love and hate, authority and chaos. Your opponent, similarly, should be
framed not merely as an enemy for reasons of ideology or competition but as a
villain, a demon. People are hopelessly susceptible to myth, so make yourself
the hero of a great drama. And keep your distance-let people identify with you
without being able to touch you. They can only watch and dream. his or her own
contribution. When we speak of the myth of the star, we mean first of all the
process of divinization which the movie actor undergoes, a process that makes
him the idol of crowds. -EDGAR MORIN, THE STARS, TRANSLATED BY RICHARD HOWARD
Age: 22, Sex: female, Nationality: British, Profession: medical student
"[Deanna Durbin] became my first and only screen idol. I wanted to be as
much like her as possible,both in my manners andclothes. Whenever I was to get
a new dress, I would find from my collection a particularly nice picture of
Deanna and ask for a dress she was wearing. I did my hair as much like hers as
1 could manage. If I found myself in any annoying or aggravating situation . .
. I found myself wondering what Deanna would do and modified my own reactions accordingly.
..." • Age: 26, Sex: female, Nationality: British "I only fell in
once with a movie actor. It was Conrad Veidt. His magnetism and his personality
got me. His voice and gestures fascinated me. I hated him, feared him, loved
him. When he died it seemed to me that a vital part of my died too, and my
world of dreams was bare. " -J. P. MAYER, BRITISH CINEMAS AND THEIR
AUDIENCES The savage worships idols of wood and stone; the civilized man, idols
of flesh and blood. -GEORGE BERNARD SHAW When the eye's rays some clear, well-
polished object-be it burnished steel or glass or water, a brilliant stone, or
other polished and gleaming substance having luster, glitter, and sparkle . . .
those rays of the eye are reflected back, and the observer then beholds himself
and obtains an ocular vision of his own person. This is what you see when you
look into a mirror; in that situation you are as it were looking at yourself
through the eyes of another. HAZM, THE RING OF THE DOVE:A TREATISE ON THE ART
AND PRACTICE OF ARAB, ARBERRY The only important constellation of collective
seduction produced by modern times [is] that of film stars or cinema idols. . .
. They were our only myth in an age incapable of generating great myths or
figures of seduction comparable to those of mythology or art. • The cinema's
power lives in its myth. Its stones, its psychological portraits, its
imagination or realism, the meaningful impressions it leaves-these are all
secondary. Only the myth is powerful, and at the heart of the cinematographic
myth lies seduction-that of the renowned seductive figure, a man or woman (but
Jack's life had more to do with myth, magic, legend, saga, and story than with
political theory or political science. -JACQUELINE KENNEDY, A WEEK AFTER JOHN
KENNEDY'S DEATH Keys to the Character Seduction is a form of persuasion that
seeks to bypass consciousness, stirring the unconscious mind instead. The
reason for this is simple: we are so surrounded by stimuli that compete for our
attention, bombarding us with obvious messages, and by people who are overtly
political and manipulative, that we are rarely charmed or deceived by them. We
have grown increasingly cynical. Try to persuade a person by appealing to their
consciousness, by saying outright what you want, by showing all your cards, and
what hope do you have? You are just one more irritation to be tuned out. To
avoid this fate you must learn the art of insinuation, of reaching the
unconscious. The most eloquent expression of the unconscious is the dream,
which is intricately connected to myth; waking from a dream, we are often
haunted by its images and ambiguous messages. Dreams obsess us because they mix
the real and the unreal. They are filled with real characters, and often deal
with real situations, yet they are delightfully irrational, pushing realities
to the extremes of delirium. If everything in a dream were realistic, it would
have no power over us; if everything were unreal, we would feel less involved
in its pleasures and fears. Its fusion of the two is what makes it haunting.
This is what Freud called the "uncanny": something that seems
simultaneously strange and familiar. We sometimes experience the uncanny in
waking life-in a deja vu, a miraculous coincidence, a weird event that recalls
a childhood experience. People can have a similar effect. The gestures, the
words, the very being of men like Kennedy or Andy Warhol, for example, evoke
both the real and the unreal: we may not realize it (and how could we, really),
but they are like dream figures to us. They have qualities that anchor them in
reality- sincerity, playfulness, sensuality-but at the same time their
aloofness, their superiority, their almost surreal quality makes them seem like
something out of a movie. These types have a haunting, obsessive effect on
people. Whether in public or in private, they seduce us, making us want to
possess them both physically and psychologically. But how can we possess a
person from a dream, or a movie star or political star, or even one of those
real-life fascinators, like a Warhol, who may cross our path? Unable to have
them, we become obsessed with them-they haunt our thoughts, our dreams, our
fantasies. We imitate them unconsciously. The psychologist Sandor Fer- enczi
calls this "introjection": another person becomes part of our ego, we
internalize their character. That is the insidious seductive power of a Star, a
power you can appropriate by making yourself into a cipher, a mix of the real
and the unreal. Most people are hopelessly banal; that is, far too real. What
you need to do is etherealize yourself. Your words and actions seem to come
from your unconscious-have a certain looseness to them. You hold yourself back,
occasionally revealing a trait that makes people wonder whether they really
know you. The Star is a creation of modern cinema. That is no surprise: film
recreates the dream world. We watch a movie in the dark, in a semisomno- lent
state. The images are real enough, and to varying degrees depict realistic
situations, but they are projections, flickering lights, images-we know they
are not real. It as if we were watching someone else's dream. It was the
cinema, not the theater, that created the Star. On a theater stage, actors are
far away, lost in the crowd, too real in their bodily presence. What enabled film
to manufacture the Star was the close-up, which suddenly separates actors from
their contexts, filling your mind with their image. The close-up seems to
reveal something not so much about the character they are playing but about
themselves. We glimpse something of Greta Garbo herself when we look so closely
into her face. Never forget this while fashioning yourself as a Star. First,
you must have such a large presence that you can fill your target's mind the
way a close-up fills the screen. You must have a style or presence that makes
you stand out from everyone else. Be vague and dreamlike, yet not distant or
absent-you don't want people to be unable to focus on or remember you. They
have to be seeing you in their minds when you're not there. Second, cultivate a
blank, mysterious face, the center that radiates Starness. This allows people
to read into you whatever they want to, imagining they can see yourcharacter,
even your soul. Instead of signaling moods and emotions, instead of emoting or
overemoting, the Star draws in interpretations. That is the obsessive power in
the face of Garbo or Dietrich, or even of Kennedy, who molded his expressions
on James Dean's. A living thing is dynamic and changing while an object or
image is passive, but in its passivity it stimulates our fantasies. A person
can gain that power by becoming a kind of object. The great eighteenth-century
charlatan Count Saint-Germain was in many ways a precursor of the Star. He
would suddenly appear in town, no one knew from where; he spoke many languages,
but his accent belonged to no single country. Nor was it clear how old he
was-not young, clearly, but his face had a healthy glow. The count only went
out at night. He always wore black, and also spectacular jewels. Arriving at
the court of Louis XV, he was an instant sensation; he reeked wealth, but no
one knew its source. He made the king and Madame de Pompadour believe he had
fantastic powers, including even the ability to turn base matter into gold (the
gift of the Philosopher's Stone), but he never made any great claims for
himself; it was all insinuation. He never said yes or no, only perhaps. He
would sit down for dinner but was never seen eating. He once gave Madame de
Pompadour a gift of candies in a box that changed color and aspect depending on
how she held it; this entrancing object, she said, reminded her of the count
himself. Saint- Germain painted the strangest paintings anyone had ever
seen-the colors above all a woman) linked to the ravishing but specious power
of the cinematographic image itself. The star is by no means an ideal or
sublime being: she is artificial. .Her presence serves to submerge all
sensibility and expression beneath a ritual fascination with the void, beneath
ecstasy of her gaze and the nullity of her smile. This is how she achieves
mythical status and becomes subject to collective rites of sacrificial
adulation. • The ascension of the cinema idols, the masses' divinities, was and
remains a central story of modern times. There is no point in dismissing it as
merely the dreams of mystified masses. It is a seductive occurrence. ..."
To be sure, seduction in the age of the masses is no longer like that of. . .
Les Liaisons Dangereuses or The Seducer's Diary, nor for that matter, like that
found in ancient mythology, which undoubtedly contains the stories richest in
seduction. In these seduction is hot, while that of our modern idols is cold,
being at the intersection of two cold mediums, that of the image and that of
the masses. The great stars or seductresses neverdazzle because of their talent
or intelligence, but because of their absence. They are dazzling in their
nullity, and in their coldness-the coldness of makeup and ritual hieraticism.
These great seductive effigies are our masks, our Eastern Island statues.
-BAUDRILLARD, SEDUCTION. TRANSLATED BY BRIAN SINGER If you want to know all
about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and fdms and me,
and there I am. There's nothing behind it. -ANDY WARHOL, QUOTED IN STEPHEN
KOCH, STARGAZER: THE UFE. WORLD et FILMS OF ANDY WARHOL were so vibrant that
when he paintedjewels, people thought they were real. Painters were desperate
to know his secrets but he never revealed them. He would leave town as he had
entered, suddenly and quietly. His greatest admirer was Casanova, who met him
and never forgot him. When he died, no one believed it; years, decades, a
century later, people were certain he was hiding somewhere. A person with
powers like his never dies. The count had all the Star qualities. Everything
about him was ambiguous and open to interpretation. Colorful and vibrant, he
stood out from the crowd. People thought he was immortal, just as a star seems
neither to age nor to disappear. His words were like his presence-fascinating,
diverse, strange, their meaning unclear. Such is thepower you can command by
transforming yourself into a glittering object. Andy Warhol too obsessed
everyone who knew him. He had a distinctive style-those silver wigs-and his
face was blank and mysterious. People never knew what he was thinking; like his
paintings, he was pure surface. In the quality of their presence Warhol and
Saint-Germain recall the great trompe l'oeil paintings of the seventeenth
century, or the prints of M. C. Escher-fascinating mixtures of realism and
impossibility, which make people wonder if they are real or imaginary. A Star
must stand out, and this may involve a certain dramatic flair, of the kind that
Dietrich revealed in her appearances at parties. Sometimes, though, a more
haunting, dreamlike effect can be created by subtle touches: the way you smoke
a cigarette, a vocal inflection, a way of walking. It isoften the little things
that get under people's skin, and make them imitate you-the lock of hair over
Veronica Lake's right eye, Cary Grant's voice, Kennedy's ironic smile. Although
these nuances may barely register to the conscious mind, subliminally they can
be as attractive as an object with a striking shape or odd color. Unconsciously
we are strangely drawn to things that have no meaning beyond their fascinating
appearance. Stars make us want to know more about them. You must learn to
stirpeople's curiosity by letting them glimpse something in your private life,
something that seems to reveal an element of your personality. Let them fantasize
and imagine. A trait that often triggers this reaction is a hint of
spirituality, which can be devilishly seductive, like James Dean's interest in
Eastern philosophy and the occult. Hints of goodness and big-heartedness can
have a similar effect. Stars are like the gods on Mount Olympus, who live for
love and play. The things you love-people, hobbies, animals- reveal the kind of
moral beauty that people like to see in a Star. Exploit this desire by showing
people peeks of your private life, the causes you fight for, the person you are
in love with (for the moment). Another way Stars seduce is by making us
identify with them, giving us a vicarious thrill. This was what Kennedy did in
his press conference about Truman: in positioning himself as a young man wronged
by an older man, evoking an archetypal generational conflict, he made young
people identify with him. (The popularity in Hollywood movies of the figure of
the disaffected, wronged adolescent helped him here.) The key is to represent a
type, as Jimmy Stewart represented the quintessential middle-American, Cary
Grant the smooth aristocrat. People of your type will gravitate to you,
identify with you, share your joy or pain.The attraction must be unconscious,
conveyed not in your words but in your pose, your attitude. Now more than ever,
people are insecure, and their identities are in flux. Help them fix on a role
to play in life and they will flock to identify with you. Simply make your type
dramatic, noticeable, and easy to imitate. The power you have in influencing
people's sense of self in this manner is insidious and profound. Remember:
everyone is a public performer. People never know exactly what you think or
feel; they judge you on your appearance. You are an actor. And the most
effective actors have an inner distance: like Dietrich, they can mold their
physical presence as if they perceived it from the outside. This inner distance
fascinates us. Stars are playful about themselves, always adjusting their
image, adapting it to the times. Nothing is more laughable than an image that
was fashionable ten years ago but isn't any more. Stars must always renew their
luster or face the worst possible fate: oblivion. Symbol: The Idol. A piece of
stone can'ed into the shape of a god, perhaps glittering with gold and jewels.
The eyes of the worshippers fill the stone with life, imagining it to have real
powers. Its shape allows them to see what they want to see-a god-but it is
actually just a piece of stone. The god lives in their imaginations. Dangers
Starscreateillusions that are pleasurable to see. The danger is that people
tire of them-the illusion no longer fascinates-and turn to another Star. Let
this happen and you will find it very difficult to regain your place in the
galaxy. You must keep all eyes on you at any cost. Do not worry about
notoriety, or about slurs on your image; we are remarkably forgiving of our
Stars. After the death of President Kennedy, all kinds of unpleasant truths
came to light about him-the endless affairs, the addiction to risk and danger.
None of this diminished his appeal, and in fact the public still considers him
one of America's greatest presidents. Errol Flynn faced many scandals,
including a notorious rape case; they only enhanced his rakish image. Once
people have recognized a Star, any kind of publicity, even bad, simply feeds
the obsession. Of course you can go too far: people like a Star to have a
transcendent beauty, and too much human frailty will eventually disillusion
them. But bad publicity is less of a danger than disappearing for too long, or
growing too distant. You cannot haunt people's dreams if they never see you. At
the same time, you cannot let the public get too familiar with you, or let your
image become predictable. People will turn against you in an instant if you
begin to bore them, for boredom is the ultimate social evil. Perhaps
thegreatest danger Stars face is the endless attention they elicit. Obsessive
attention can become disconcerting and worse. As any attractive woman can
attest, it is tiring to be gazed at all the time, and the effect can be
destructive, as is shown by the story of Marilyn Monroe. The solution is to
develop the kind of distance from yourself that Dietrich had-take the attention
and idolatry with a grain of salt, and maintain a certain detachment from them.
Approach your own image playfully. Most important, never become obsessed with
the obsessive quality of people's interest in you. in the anti-O jeducer
Seducers draw you in by the focused, individualized attention they pay to you.
Anti-Seducers are the opposite: insecure, self-absorbed, and unable to grasp
the psychology of another person, they literally repel. Anti- Seducers have no
self-awareness, and never realize when they are pestering, imposing, talking
too much. They lack the subtlety to create the promise of pleasure that
seduction requires. Root out anti-seductive qualities in yourself, and
recognize them in others-there is no pleasure or profit dealing with the
Anti-Seducer. Typology of the Anti-Seducers Anti-Seducers come in many shapes
and kinds, but almost all of them share a single attribute, the source of their
repellence: insecurity. We are all insecure, and we suffer for it. Yetwe are
able to surmount these feelings at times; a seductive engagement can bring us
out of our usual selfabsorption, and to the degree that we seduce or are
seduced, we feel charged and confident. Anti-Seducers, however, are insecure to
such a degree that they cannot be drawn into the seductive process. Their
needs, their anxieties, their self-consciousness close them off. They interpret
the slightest ambiguity on your part as a slight to their ego; they see the
merest hint of withdrawal as a betrayal, and are likely to complain bitterly
about it. It seems easy: Anti-Seducers repel, so be repelled-avoid them.
Unfortunately, however, many Anti-Seducers cannot be detected as such at first
glance. They are more subtle, and unless you are careful they will ensnare you
in a most unsatisfying relationship. You must look for clues to their
self-involvement and insecurity: perhaps they are ungenerous, or they argue
with unusual tenacity, or are excessively judgmental. Perhaps they lavish you
with undeserved praise, declaring their love before knowing anything about you.
Or, most important, they pay no attention to details. Since they cannot see
what makes you different, they cannot surprise you with nu- anced attention. It
is critical to recognize anti-seductive qualities not only in others but also
in ourselves. Almost all of us have one or two of the Anti-Seducer's qualities
latent in our character, and to the extent that we can consciously root them
out, we become more seductive. A lack of generosity, for instance, need not
signal an Anti-Seducer if it is a person's only fault, but an ungenerous person
is seldom truly attractive. Seduction implies opening yourself up, even if only
for the purposes of deception; being unable to give by spending money usually
means being unable to give in general. Stamp ungenerosity out. It is an
impediment to power and a gross sin in seduction. It is best to disengage from
Anti-Seducers early on, before they sink their needy tentacles into you, so
learn to read the signs. These are the main types. Count Lodovico then remarked
with a smile: "I promise you that our sensible courtier will never act so
stupidly to gain a woman's favor." • Cesare Gonzaga replied: "Nor so
stupidly as a gentleman I remember, of some repute, whom to spare men's blushes
I don't wish to mention by name. " • "Well, at least tell us what he
did," said the Duchess. • Then Cesare continued: "He was loved by a
very great lady, and at her request he came secretly to the town where she was.
After he had seen her and enjoyed her company for as long as she would let him
in the time, he sighed and wept bitterly, to show the anguish he was suffering
at having to leave her, and hebegged her never to forget him; and then he added
that she should pay for his lodging at the inn, since it was she who had sent
for him and he thought it only right, therefore, that he shouldn't be involved
in any expense over the journey." • At this, all the ladies began to laugh
and to say that the man concerned hardly deserved the name of gentleman; and
many of the men felt as ashamed as he should have been, had he ever had the sense
to recognize such disgraceful behavior for what it was. -BALDASSARE
CAST1GL10NE, THE BOOK OF THE COURTIER. The Brute. If seduction is a kind of
ceremony or ritual, part of the pleasure is its duration-the time it takes, the
waiting that increases anticipation. Brutes have no patience for such things;
they are concerned only with their own pleasure, never with yours. To be
patient is to show that you are thinking of the other person, which never fails
to impress. Impatience has the opposite effect: assuming you are so interested
in them you have no reason to wait, Brutes offend you with their egotism.
Underneath that egotism, too, there is often a gnawing sense of inferiority,
and if you spurn them or make them wait, they overreact. If you suspect you are
dealing with a Brute, do a test-make that person wait. His or her response will
tell you everything you need to know. Let us see now how love is diminished.
This happens through the easy accessibility of its consolations, through one's
being able to see and converse lengthily with a lover, through a lover's
unsuitable garb and gait, and by the sudden onset of poverty. Another cause of
diminution of love is the realization of the notoriety of one's lover, and
accounts of his miserliness, bad character, and general wickedness; also any
affair with another woman, even if it involves no feelings of love. Love is
also diminished if a woman realizes that her lover is foolish and undisceming,
or if she sees him going too far in demands of love, giving no thought to his partner's
modesty nor wishing to pardon her blushes. A faithful lover ought to choose the
harshest pains of love rather than by his demands cause his partner
embarrassment, or take pleasure in spurning her modesty; for one who thinks
only of the outcome of his own pleasure, and ignores the welfare of his
partner, should be called a traitor rather than a lover. • Love also suffers
decrease if the woman realizes that her lover is fearful in war, The
Suffocator. Suffocators fall in love with you before you are even half- aware
of their existence. The trait is deceptive-you might think they have found you
overwhelming-but the fact is they suffer from an inner void, a deep well of
need that cannot be filled. Never get involved with Suffocators; they are
almost impossible to free yourself from without trauma. They cling to you until
you are forced to pull back, whereupon they smother you with guilt. We tend to
idealize a loved one, but love takes time to develop. Recognize Suffocators by
how quickly they adore you. To be so admired may give a momentary boost to your
ego, but deep inside you sense that their intense emotions are not related to
anything you have done. Tmst these instincts. A subvariant of the Suffocator is
the Doormat, a person who slavishly imitates you. Spot these types early on by
seeing whether they are capable of having an idea of their own. An inability to
disagree with you is a bad sign. The Moralizer. Seduction is a game, and should
be undertaken with a light heart. All is fair in love and seduction; morality
never enters the picture. The character of the Moralizer, however, is rigid.
These are people who follow fixed ideas and try to make you bend to their
standards. They want to change you, to make you a better person, so they
endlessly criticize and judge-that is their pleasure in life. In truth, their
moral ideas stem from their own unhappiness, and mask their desire to dominate
those around them. Their inability to adapt and to enjoy makes them easy to
recognize; their mental rigidity mayalso be accompanied by a physical
stiffness. It is hard not to take their criticisms personally so it is better
to avoid their presence and their poisoned comments. The Tightwad. Cheapness
signals more than a problem with money. It is a sign of something constricted
in a person's character-something that keeps them from letting go or taking a
risk. It is the most anti-seductive trait of all, and you cannot allow yourself
to give in to it. Most tightwads do not realize they have a problem; they
actually imagine that when they give someone some paltry crumb, they are being
generous. Take a hard look at yourself-you are probably cheaper than you think.
Try giving more freely of both your money and yourself and you will see the
seductive potential in selective generosity. Of course you must keep your
generosity under control. Giving too much can be a sign of desperation, as if
you were trying to buy someone. The Bumbler. Bumblers are self-conscious, and
their self-consciousness heightens your own. At first you may think they are
thinking about you, and so much so that it makes them awkward. In fact they are
only thinking of themselves-worrying about how they look, or about the
consequences for them of their attempt to seduce you. Their worry is usually
contagious: soon you are worrying too, about yourself. Bumblers rarely reach
the final stages of a seduction, but if they get that far, they bungle that
too. In seduction, the key weapon is boldness, refusing the target the time to
stop and think. Bumblers have no sense of timing. You might find it amusing to
try to train or educate them, but if they are still Bumblers past a certain
age, the case is probably hopeless-they are incapable of getting outside
themselves. or sees that he has no patience, or is stained with the vice of
pride. There is nothing which appears more appropriate to the character of any
lover than to be clad in the adornment of humility, utterly untouched by the
nakedness of pride. • Then too the prolixity of a fool or a madman often
diminishes love. There arc many keen to prolong their crazy words in the
presence of a woman, thinking that they please her if they employ foolish,
ill-judged language, but infact they are strangely deceived. Indeed, he who
thinks that his foolish behavior pleases a wise woman suffers from the greatest
poverty of sense. -ANDREAS CAPELLANUS,"HOW LOVE IS DIMINISHED," The
Windbag. The most effective seductions are driven by looks, indirect actions,
physical lures. Words have a place, but too much talk will generally break the
spell, heightening surface differences and weighing things down. People who
talk a lot most often talk about themselves. They have never acquired that
inner voice that wonders. Am I boring you? To be a Windbag is to have a
deep-rooted selfishness. Never interrupt or argue with these types-that only
fuels their windbaggery. At all costs leam to control your own tongue. The
Reactor. Reactors are far too sensitive, not to you but to their own egos. They
comb your every word and action for signs of a slight to their vanity. If you
strategically back off, as you sometimes must in seduction, they will brood and
lash out at you. They are prone to whining and complaining, two very
anti-seductive traits. Test them by telling a gentlejoke or story at their
expense: we should all be able to laugh at ourselves a little, but the Reactor
cannot. You can read the resentment in their eyes. Erase any reactive qualities
in your own character-they unconsciously repel people. The Vulgarian.
Vulgarians are inattentive to the details that are so important in seduction.
You can see this in their personal appearance-their Real men \ Shouldn't primp
their good looks. . . . \ Keep pleasantly clean, take exercise, work up an
outdoor \ Tan; make quite sure that your toga fits \ And doesn't show spots;
don't lace your shoes too tightly \ Or ignore any rusty buckles, or slop \
Around in too large a fitting. Don't let some incompetent barber \ Ruin your
looks: both hair andbeard demand \ Expert attention. Keep your nails pared, and
dirt-free; \ Don't let those long hairs sprout \ In your nostrils, make sure
your breath is never offensive, \ Avoid the rank male stench \ That wrinkles
noses. ... \ I was about to warn you [women] against rank goatish armpits \ And
bristling hair on your legs, \ But I'm not instructing hillbilly girls from the
Caucasus, \ Or Mysian river-hoydens-so what need \ To remind you not to let
your teeth get all discolored \ Through neglect, or forget to wash \ Your hands
every morning? You know how to brighten your complexion \ With powder, add
rouge to a bloodless face, \ Skillfully block in the crude outline of an
eyebrow, \ Stick a patch on one flawless cheek. \ You don't shrink from lining
your eyes with dark mascara \ Or a touch of Cilician saffron. . . . \ But don't
let your lover find all those jars and bottles \ On your dressing- table: the
best \ Makeup remains unobtrusive. A face so thickly plastered \ With pancake
it runs down your sweaty neck \ Is bound to create repulsion. And that goo from
unwashed fleeces - \ Athenian maybe, but my dear, the smell !- \ That's used
for face-cream: avoid it. When you have company \ Don't dab stuff on your
pimples, don't start cleaning your teeth: \ The result may be attractive, but
the process is sickening. . . . - OVID, THE ART OF LOVE. clothes are tasteless
by any standard-and in their actions: they do not know that it is sometimes
better to control oneself and refuse to give in to one's impulses. Vulgarians
will blab, saying anything in public. They have no sense of timing and are
rarely in harmony with your tastes. Indiscretion is a sure sign of the
Vulgarian (talking to others of your affair, for example); it may seem
impulsive, but its real source is their radical selfishness, their inability to
see themselves as others see them. More than just avoiding Vulgarians, you must
make yourself their opposite-tact, style, and attention to detail are all basic
requirements of a seducer. Examples of the Anti-Seducer 1. Claudius, the
step-grandson of the great Roman emperor Augustus, was considered something of
an imbecile as a young man, and was treated badly by almost everyone in his
family. His nephew Caligula, who became emperor in A.D. 37, made it a sport to
torture him, making him run around the palace at top speed as penance for his
stupidity, having soiled sandals tied to his hands at supper, and so on. As
Claudius grew older, he seemed to become even more slow-witted, and while all
of his relatives lived under the constant threat of assassination, he was left
alone. So it came as a great surprise to everyone, including Claudius himself,
that when, in AD. 41, a cabal of soldiers assassinated Caligula, they also
proclaimed Claudius emperor. Having no desire to rule, he delegated most of the
governing to confidantes (a group of freed slaves) and spent his time doing
what he loved best: eating, drinking, gambling, and whoring. Claudius's wife,
Valeria Messalina, was one of the most beautiful women in Rome. Although he
seemed fond of her, Claudius paid her no attention, and she started to have
affairs. At first she was discreet, but over the years, provoked by her
husband's neglect, she became more and more debauched. She had a room built for
her in the palace where she entertained scores of men, doing her best to
imitate the most notorious prostitute in Rome, whose name was written on the
door. Any man who refused her advances was put to death. Almost everyone in
Rome knew about these frolics, but Claudius said nothing; he seemed oblivious.
So great was Messalina's passion for her favorite lover, Gaius Silius, that she
decided to marry him, although both of them were married already. While
Claudius was away, they held a wedding ceremony, authorized by a marriage
contract that Claudius himself had been tricked into signing. After the ceremony,
Gaius moved into the palace. Now the shock and disgust of the whole city
finally forced Claudius into action, and he ordered theexecution of Gaius and
of Messalina's other lovers-but not of Messalina herself. Nevertheless, a gang
of soldiers, inflamed by the scandal, hunted her down and stabbed her to death.
When this was reported to the emperor, he merely ordered more wine and
continued his meal. Several nights later, to the amazement of his slaves, he
asked why the empress was not joining him for dinner. Nothing is more
infuriating than being paid no attention. In the process of seduction, you may
have to pull back at times, subjecting your target to moments of doubt. But
prolonged inattention will not only break the seductive spell, it can create
hatred. Claudius was an extreme of this behavior. His insensitivity was created
by necessity: in acting like an imbecile, he hid his ambition and protected
himself among dangerous competitors. But the insensitivity became second
nature. Claudius grew slovenly, and no longer noticed what was going on around
him. His inattentiveness had a profound effect on his wife: How, she wondered,
can a man, especially a physically unappealing man like Claudius, not notice
me, or care about my affairs with other men? But nothing she did seemed to
matter to him. Claudius marks the extreme, but the spectrum of inattention is
wide. A lot of people pay too little attention to the details, the signals
another person gives. Their senses are dulled by work, by hardship, by self-absorption.
We often see this turning off the seductive charge between two people, notably
between couples who have been together for years. Carried further, it will stir
angry, bitter feelings. Often, the one who has been cheated on by a partner
started the dynamic by patterns of inattention. 2. In 1639, a French army
besieged and took possession of the Italian city of Turin. Two French officers,
the Chevalier (later Count) de Grammont and his friend Matta, decided to turn
their attention to the city's beautiful women. The wives of some of Turin's
most illustrious men were more than susceptible-their husbands were busy, and
kept mistresses of their own. The wives' only requirement was that the suitor
play by the mles of gallantry. The chevalier and Matta were quick to find
partners, the chevalier choosing the beautiful Mademoiselle de Saint-Germain,
who was soon to be betrothed, and Matta offering his services to an older and
more experienced woman, Madame de Senantes. The chevalier took to wearing
green, Matta blue, these being their ladies' favorite colors. On the second day
of their courtships the couples visited a palace outside the city. The
chevalier was all charm, making Mademoiselle de Saint-Germain laugh
uproariously at his witticisms, but Matta did not fare so well; he had no
patience for this gallantry business, and when he and Madame de Senantes took a
stroll, he squeezed her hand and boldly declared his affections. The lady of
course was aghast, and when they got back to Turin she left without looking at
him. Unaware that he had offended her, Matta imagined that she was overcome
with emotion, and felt rather pleased with himself. But the Chevalier de
Grammont, wondering why the pair had parted, visited Madame de Senantes and
asked her how it went. She told him the truth-Matta had dispensed with the
formalities and was ready to bed her. The chevalier But if, like the winter cat
upon the hearth, the lover clings when he is dismissed, and cannot bear to go,
certain means must be taken to make him understand; and these should be
progressively ruder and ruder, until they touch him to the quick of his flesh.
• She should refuse him the bed, and jeer at him, and make him angry; she
should stir up her mother's enmity against him; she should treat him with an obvious
lack of candor, and spread herself in long considerations about his ruin; his
departure should be openly anticipated, his tastes and desires should be
thwarted, his poverty outraged; she should let him see that she is in sympathy
with another man, she should blame him with harsh words on every occasion; she
should tell lies about him to her parasites, she should interrupt his
sentences, and send him on frequent errands away from the house. She should
seek occasions of quarrel, and make him the victim of a thousand domestic
perfidies; she should rack her brains to vex him; she should play with the
glances of another in his presence, and give herself up to reprehensible
profligacy before his face; she should leave the house as often as possible,
and let it be seen that she has no real need to do so. All these means are good
for showing a man the door. -EASTERN LOVE, VOLUME II: THE HARLOT'S BREVIARY OF
KSHEMENDRA, MATHERS Just as ladies do love men which be valiant and bold under
arms, so likewise do they love such as be of like sort in love; and the man
which is cowardly and over and above respectful toward them, will never win
their good favor. Not that they would have them so overweening, bold, and
presumptuous, as that they should by main force lay them on the floor; but
rather they desire in them a certain hardy modesty, or perhaps better a certain
modest hardihood. For while themselves are not exactly wantons, and will
neither solicit a man nor yet actually offer their favors, yet do they know
well how to rouse the appetites and passions, and prettily alluretothe skirmish
in such wise that he which doth not take occasion by theforelock and join
encounter, and that without the least awe of rank and greatness, without a
scruple of conscience or a fear or any sort of hesitation, he verily is a fool
and a spiritless poltroon, and one which doth merit to be forever abandoned of
kind fortune. • I have heard of two honorable gentlemen and comrades, for the
which two very honorable ladies, and of by no means humble quality, made tryst
one day at Paris to go walking in a garden. Being come thither, each lady did
separate apart onefrom the other, each alone with her own cavalier, each in a
several alley of the garden, that was so close covered in with a fair trellis
of boughs as that daylight could really scarce penetrate there at all, and the
coolness of the place was very grateful. laughed and thought to himself how
differently he would manage affairs if he were the one wooing the lovely
Madame. Over the next few days Matta continued to misread the signs. He did not
pay a visit to Madame de Senantes's husband, as custom required. He did not
wear her colors. When the two went riding together, he went chasing after
hares, as if they were the more interesting prey, and when he took snuff he
failed to offer her some. Meanwhile he continued to make hisoverforward
advances.FinallyMadamehadhadenough,andcomplainedtohim directly. Matta
apologized; he had not realized his errors. Moved by his apology, the lady was
more than ready to resume the courtship-but a few days later, after a few
trifling stabs at wooing, Matta once again assumed that she was ready for bed.
To his dismay, she refused him as before. "I do not think that [women] can
be mightily offended," Matta told the chevalier, "if one sometimes
leaves off trifling, to come to the point." But Madame de Senantes would
have nothing more to do with him, and the Chevalier de Grammont, seeing an
opportunity he could not pass by, took advantage of her displeasure by secretly
courting her properly, and eventually winning the favors that Matta had tried
to force. There is nothing more anti-seductive than feeling that someone has
assumed that you are theirs, that you cannot possibly resist them. The
slightest appearance of this kind of conceit is deadly to seduction; you must
prove yourself, take your time, win your target's heart. Perhaps you fear that
he or she will be offended by a slower pace, or will lose interest. It is more
likely, however, that your fear reflects your own insecurity, and insecurity is
always anti-seductive. In truth, the longer you take, the more you show the
depth of your interest, and the deeper the spell you create. In a world of few
formalities and ceremony, seduction is one of the few remnants from the past
that retains the ancient patterns. It is a ritual, and its rites must be
observed. Haste reveals not the depth of your feelings but the degree of your
self-absorption. It may be possible sometimes to hurry someone into love, but
you will only be repaid by the lack of pleasure this kind of love affords. If
you are naturally impetuous, do what you can to disguise it. Strangely enough,
the effort you spend on holding yourself back may be read by your target as
deeply seductive. 3. In Paris in the 1730s lived a young man named Meilcotp\
who was just of an age to have his first affair. His mother's friend Madame de
Lursay, a widow of around forty, was beautiful and charming, but had a
reputation for being untouchable; as a boy, Meilcour had been infatuated with
her, but never expected his love would be returned. So it was with great
surprise and excitement that he realized that now that he was old enough,
Madame de Lursay's tender looks seemed to indicate a more than motherly
interest in him. The Anti-Seducer • 139 For two months Meilcour trembled in de
Lursay's presence. He was afraid of her, and did not know what to do. One
evening they were discussing a recent play. How well one character had declared
his love to a woman, Madame remarked. Noting Meilcour's obvious discomfort, she
went on, "If I am not mistaken, a declaration can only seem such an
embarrassing matter because you yourself have one to make." Madame de
Lursay knew full well that she was the source of the young man's awkwardness,
but she was a tease; you must tell me, she said, with whom you are in love.
Finally Meilcour confessed: it was indeed Madame whom he desired. His mother's
friend advised him to not think of her that way, but she also sighed, and gave
him a long and languid look. Her words said one thing, her eyes another-perhaps
she was not as untouchable as he had thought. As the evening ended, though,
Madame de Lursay said she doubted his feelings would last, and she left young
Meilcour troubled that she had said nothing about reciprocating his love. Over
the next few days, Meilcour repeatedly asked de Lursay to declare her love for
him, and she repeatedly refused. Eventually the young man decided his cause was
hopeless, and gave up; but a few nights later, at a soiree at her house, her dress
seemed more enticing than usual, and her looks at him stirred his blood. He
returned them, and followed her around, while she took care to keep a bit of
distance, lest others sense what was happening. Yet she also managed to arrange
that he could stay without arousing suspicion when the other visitors left.
When they were finally alone, she made him sit beside her on the sofa. He could
barely speak; the silence was uncomfortable. To get him talking she raised the
same old subject; his youth would make his love for her a passing fancy.
Instead of denying it he looked dejected, and continued to keep a polite
distance, so that she finally exclaimed, with obvious bony, "If it were
known that you were here with my consent, that I had voluntarily arranged it
with you . . . what might not people say? And yet how wrong they would be, for
no one could be more respectful than you are." Goaded into action,
Meilcour grabbed her hand and looked her in the eye. She blushed and told him
he should go, but the way she arranged herself on the sofa and looked back at
him suggested he should do the opposite. Yet Meilcour still hesitated: she had
told him to go, and if he disobeyed she might cause a scene, and might never
forgive him; he would have made a fool of himself, and everyone, including his
mother, would hear of it. He soon got up, apologizing for his momentary
boldness. Her astonished and somewhat cold look meant he had indeed gone too
far, he imagined, and he said goodbye and left. Meilcour and Madame de Lursay
appear in the novel The Wayward Head and Heart, written in 1738 by Crebillon
fils, who based his characters on libertines he knew in the France of the time.
For Crebillon fils, seduction is all about signs-about being able to send them
and read them. This is not Now one of the twain was a bold man, and well
knowing how the party had been madefor something else than merely to walk and
take the air, and judging by his lady's face, which he saw to be all a-fire,
that she had longings to taste other fare than the muscatels that hung on the
trellis, as also by her hot, wanton, and wild speech, he did promptly seize on
so fair an opportunity. So catching hold of her without the least ceremony, he
did lay her on a little couch that was there made of turf and clods of earth,
and did very pleasantly work his will of her, without her ever uttering a word
but only: "Heavens! Sir, what are you at? Surely you be the maddest and
strangest fellow ever was! If anyone comes, whatever will they say? Great
heavens! get out!" But the gentleman, without disturbing himself, did so
well continue what he had begun that he did finish, and she to boot, with such
content as that after taking three or four turns up and down the alley, they
did presently start afresh. Anon, coming forth into another, open, alley, they
did see in another part of the garden the other pair, who were walking about
together just as they had left them at first. Whereupon the
lady,wellcontent,didsay to the gentleman in the like condition, "I verily
believe so and so hath played the silly prude, and hath given his lady no other
entertainment but only words, fine speeches, and promenading." • Afterward
when allfour were come together, the two ladies did fall to asking one another
140 how it had fared with each. Then the one which was well content did reply
she was exceeding well, indeed she was; indeedfor the nonce she could scarce be
better. The other, which was ill content, did declare for her part she had had
to with the biggestfool and most coward lover she had ever seen; and all the
time the two gentlemen could see them laughing together as they walked and
crying out: "Oh! the silly fool! the shamefaced poltroon and coward!"
At this the successful gallant said to his companion: "Hark to our ladies,
which do cry out at you, and mock you sore. You will find you have overplayed
the prude and coxcomb this bout." So much he did allow; but there was no
more time to remedy his error, for opportunity gave him no other handle to
seize her by. -SEIGNEUR DE BRANTOME, LIVES OF FAIR et GALLANT LADIES. because
sexuality is repressed and requires speaking in code. It is rather because
wordless communication (through clothes, gestures, actions) is the most
pleasurable, exciting, and seductive form of language. In Crebillon fils's
novel, Madame de Lursay is an ingenious seductress who finds it exciting to
initiate young men. But even she cannot overcome the youthful stupidity of
Meilcour, who is incapable of reading her sigas because he is absorbed in his
own thoughts. Later in the story, she does manage to educate him, but in real
life there are many who cannot be educated. They are too literal and
insensitive to the details that contain seductive power. They do not so much
repel as irritate and infuriate you by their constant misinterpretations,
always viewing life from behind screen of their ego and unable to see things as
they really are. Meilcour is so caught up in himself he cannot see that Madame
is expecting him to make the bold move to which she will have to succumb. His
hesitation shows that he is thinking of himself, not of her; that he is
worrying about how he will look, not feeling overwhelmed by her charms. Nothing
could be more anti-seductive. Recognize such types, and if they are past the
young age that would give them an excuse, do not entangle yourself in their
awkwardness-they will infect you with doubt. 4. In the Heian court of
late-tenth-century lapan, the young nobleman Kaoru, purported son of the great
seducer Genji himself, had had nothing but misfortune in love. He had become
infatuated with a young princess, Oigimi, who lived in a dilapidated home in
the countryside, her father having fallen on hard times. Then one day he had an
encounter with Oigimi's sister, Nakanokimi, that convinced him she was the one
he actually loved. Confused, he returned to court, and did not visit the
sisters for some time. Then their father died, followed shortly thereafter by
Oigimi herself. Now Kaoru realized his mistake: he had loved Oigimi all along,
and she had died out of despair that he did not care for her. He would never
meet like again; she was all he could think about. When Nakanokimi, her father
and sister dead, came to live at court, Kaoru had the house where Oigimi and
her family had lived turned into a shrine. One day, Nakanokimi, seeing the
melancholy into which Kaoru had fallen, told him that there was a third sister,
Ukifune, who resembled his beloved Oigimi and lived hidden away in the
countryside. Kaoru came to life-perhaps he had a chance to redeem himself, to
change the past. But how could he meet this woman? There came a time when he
visited the shrine to pay his respects to the departed Oigimi, and heard that
the mystea glimpse of her through the crack in a door. The sight of her took
his breath away; although she was a plain-looking country girl, in Kaoru's eyes
she was the living incarnation of Oigimi. Her voice, meanwhile, was like The
Anti-Seducer • 141 the voice of Nakanokimi, whom he had loved as well. Tears
welled up in his eyes. A few months later Kaoru managed to find the house in
the mountains where Ukifune lived. He visited her there, and she did not
disappoint. "I once had a glimpse of you through a crack in a door,"
he told her, and "you have been very much on my mind ever since."
Then he picked her up in his arms and carried her to a waiting carriage. He was
taking her back to the shrine, and the journey there brought back to him the
image of Oigimi; again his eyes clouded with tears. Looking at Ukifune, he
silently compared her to Oigimi-her clothes were less nice but she had
beautiful hair. When Oigimi was alive, she and Kaoru had played the koto
together, so once at the shrine he had kotos brought out. Ukifune did not play
as well as Oigimi had, and her manners were less refined. Not to worry-he would
give her lessons, change her into a lady. But then, as he had done with Oigimi,
Kaoru returned to court, leaving Ukifune languishing at the shrine. Some time
passed before he visited her again; she had improved, was more beautiful than
before, but he could not stop thinking of Oigimi. Once again he left her,
promising to bring her to court, but more weeks passed, and finallyhereceived
the news that Ukifune had disappeared, last seen heading toward a river. She
had most likely committed suicide. At the funeral ceremony for Ukifune, Kaoru
was wracked with guilt: why had he not come for her earlier? She deserved a
better fate. Kaoru and the others appear in the eleventh-century Japanese novel
The Tale of Genji, by the noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu. The characters are based
on people the author knew, but Kaoru's type appears in every culture and
period: these are men and women who seem to be searching for an ideal partner.
The one they have is never quite right; at first glance a person excites them,
but they soon see faults, and when a new person crosses their path, he or she
looks better and the first person is forgotten. These types often try to work
on the imperfect mortal who has excited them, to improve them culturally and
morally. But this proves extremely unsatisfactory for both parties. The truth
about this type is not that they are searching for an ideal but that they are
hopelessly unhappy with themselves. You may mistake their dissatisfaction for a
perfectionist's high standards, but in point of fact nothing will really
satisfy them, for their unhappiness is deep-rooted. You can recognize them by
their past, which will be littered with short-lived, stormy romances. Also,
they will tend to compare you to others, and to try to remake you. You may not
realize at first what you have gotten into, but people like this will
eventually prove hopelessly anti-seductive because they cannot see your
individual qualities. Cut the romance off before it happens. These types are
closet sadists and will torture you with their unreachable goals. 5. In 1762,
in the city of Turin, Italy, Giovanni Giacomo Casanova made the acquaintance of
one Count A.B., a Milanese gentleman who seemed to like him enormously. The
count had fallen on hard times and Casanova lent him some money. In gratitude,
the count invited Casanova to stay with him and his wife in Milan. His wife, he
said, was from Barcelona, and was admired far and wide for her beauty. He
showed Casanova her letters, which had an intriguing wit; Casanova imagined her
as a prize worth seducing. He went to Milan. Arriving at the house of Count
A.B., Casanova found that the Spanish lady was certainly beautiful, but that
she was also quiet and serious. Something about her bothered him. As he was
unpacking his clothes, the countess saw a stunning red dress, trimmed with
sable, among his belongings. It was a gift, Casanova explained, for any
Milanese lady who won his heart. The following evening at dinner, the countess
was suddenly more friendly, teasing and bantering with Casanova. She described
the dress as a bribe-he would use it to persuade a woman to give in to him. On
the contrary, said Casanova, he only gave gifts afterward, as tokens of his
appreciation. That evening, in a carriage on the way back from the opera, she
asked him if a wealthy friend of hers could buy the dress, and when he said no,
she was clearly vexed. Sensing her game, Casanova offered to give her the sable
dress if she was kind to him. This only made her angry, and they quarreled.
Finally Casanova had had enough of the countess's moods: he sold the dress for
15,000 francs to her wealthy friend, who in turn gave it to her, as she had
planned all along. But to prove his lack of interest in money, Casanova told
the countess he would give her the 15,000 francs, no strings attached.
"You are a very bad man," she said, "but you can stay, you amuse
me." She resumed her coquettish manner, but Casanova was not fooled.
"It is not my fault, madame, if your charms have so little power over
me," he told her. "Here are 15,000 francs to console you." He
laid the money on a table and walked out, leaving the countess fuming and
vowing revenge. When Casanova first met the Spanish lady, two things about her
repelled him. First, her pride: rather than engaging in the give-and-take of seduction,
she demanded a man's subjugation. Pride can reflect self-assurance, signaling
that you will not abase yourself before others. Just as often, though, it stems
from an inferiority complex, which demands that others abase themselves before
you. Seduction requires an openness to the other person, a willingness to bend
and adapt. Excessive pride, without anything to justify it, is highly
anti-seductive. The second quality that disgusted Casanova was the countess's
greed: her coquettish little games were designed only to get the dress-she had
no interest in romance. For Casanova, seduction was a lighthearted game that
people played for their mutual amusement. In his scheme of things, it was fine
if a woman wanted money and gifts as well; he could understand that desire, and
he was a generous man. But he also felt that this was a desire a The
Anti-Seducer • 143 woman should disguise-she should create the impression that
what she was after was pleasure. The person who is obviously angling for money
or other material reward can only repel. If that is your intention, if you are
looking for something other than pleasure-for money, for power-never show it.
The suspicion of an ulterior motive is anti-seductive. Never let anything break
the illusion. 6. In 1868, Queen Victoria of England hosted her first private
meeting with the country's new prime minister, William Gladstone. She had met
him before, and knew his reputation as a moral absolutist, but this was to be a
ceremony, an exchange of pleasantries. Gladstone, however, had no patience for
such things. At that first meeting he explained to the queen his theory of
royalty: the queen, he believed, had to play an exemplary role in England-a
role she had lately failed to live up to, for she was overly private. This
lecture set a bad tone for the future, and things only got worse: soon Victoria
was receiving letters from Gladstone, addressing the subject in even greater
depth. Half of them she never bothered to read, and soon she was doing
everything she could to avoid contact with the leader of her government; if she
had to see him, she made the meeting as brief as possible. To that end, she
never allowed him to sit down in her presence, hoping that a man his age would
soon tire and leave. For once he got going on a subject dear to his heart, he
did not notice your look of disinterest or the tears in your eyes from yawning.
His memoranda on even the simplest of issues would have to be translated into
plain English for her by a member of her staff. Worst of all, Gladstone argued
with her, and his arguments had a way of making her feel stupid. She soon
learned to nod her head and appear to agree with whatever abstract point he was
trying to make. In a letter to her secretary, referringtoherselfin the third
person, she wrote, "She always felt in [Gladstone's] manner an overbearing
obstinacy and imperiousness . . . which she never experienced from anyone else,
and which she found most disagreeable." Over the years, these feelings
hardened into an unwaning hatred. As the head of the Liberal Party, Gladstone
had a nemesis, Benjamin Disraeli, the head of the Conservative Party. He
considered Disraeli amoral, a devilish Jew. At one session of Parliament,
Gladstone tore into his rival, scoring point after point as he described where
his opponents policies would lead. Growing angry as he spoke (as usually
happened when he talked of Disraeli), he pounded the speaker's table with such
force that pens and papers went flying. Through all of this Disraeli seemed
half-asleep. When Gladstone had finished, he opened his eyes, rose to his feet,
and calmly walked up to the table. "The right honorable gentleman,"
he said, "has spoken with much passion, much eloquence, and much- ahem -
violence." Then, after a drawn-out pause, he continued, "But the
damage can be repaired"-and he proceeded to gather up everything that had
fallen from the table and put them back in place. The speech that followed was
all the more masterful for its calm and ironic contrast to Gladstone's. The
members of Parliament were spellbound, andallof them agreed he had won the day.
If Disraeli was the consummate social seducer and charmer, Gladstone was the
Anti-Seducer. Of course he had supporters, mostly among the more puritanical
elements of society-he twice defeated Disraeli in a general election. But he
found it hard to broaden his appeal beyond the circle of believers. Women in
particular found him insufferable. Of course they had no vote at the time, so
they were little political liability; but Gladstone had no patience for a
feminine point of view. A woman, he felt, had to learn to see things as a man
did, and it was his purpose in life to educate those he felt were irrational or
abandoned by God. It did not take long for Gladstone to wear on anyone's
nerves. That is the nature of people who are convinced of some truth, but have
no patience for a different perspective or for dealing with someone else's
psychology. These types are bullies, and in the short term they often get their
way, particularly among the less aggressive. But they stir up a lot of
resentment and unspoken antipathy, which eventually trips them up. People see
through their righteous moral stance, which is most often a cover for a power
play-morality is a form of power. A seducer never seeks to persuade directly,
never parades his or her morality,
neverlecturesorimposes.Everythingissubtle,psychological,andindirect.Symbol: The
Crab. In a harsh world, the crab survives by its hardened shell, by the threat
of its pincers, and by burrowing into the sand. No one dares get too close. But
the Crab cannot surprise its enemy and has little mobility. Its defensive
strength is its supreme limitation. Uses of Anti-Seduction T he best way to
avoid entanglements with Anti-Seducers is to recognize them right away and give
them a wide berth, but they often deceive us. Involvements with these types are
painful, and are hard to disengage from, because the more emotional response
you show, the more engaged you seem to be. Do not get angry-that may only
encourage them or exacerbate their anti-seductive tendencies. Instead, act
distant and indifferent, pay no attention to them, make them feel how little
they matter to you. The best antidote to an Anti-Seducer is often to be
anti-seductive yourself. Cleopatra had a devastating effect on every man who
crossed her path. Octavius-the future Emperor Augustus, and the man who would
defeat and destroy Cleopatra's lover Mark Antony-was well aware of her power,
and defended himself against it by being always extremely amiable with her, courteous
to the extreme, but never showing the slightest emotion, whether of interest or
dislike. In other words, he treated her as if she were any other woman. Facing
this front, she could not sink her hooks into him. Octavius made anti-seduction
his defense against the most irresistible woman in history. Remember: seduction
is a game of attention, of slowly filling the other person's mind with your
presence. Distance and inattention will create the opposite effect, and can be
used as a tactic when the need arises. Finally, if you really want to
"anti-seduce," simply feign the qualities listed at the beginning of
the chapter. Nag; talk a lot, particularly about yourself; dress against the
other person's tastes; pay no attention to detail; suffocate, and so on. A word
of warning: with the arguing type, the Windbag, never talk back too much. Words
will only fan the flames. Adopt the Queen Victoria strategy: nod, seem to
agree, then find an excuse to cut the conversation short. This is the only
defense. the seducer's Victims- The Eighteen Types The people around you are
all potential victims of a seduction, but first you must know what type of
victim you are dealing with. Victims are categorized by what they feel they are
missing in life - adventure, attention, romance, a naughty experience, mental
or physical stimulation, etc. Once you identify their type, you have the
necessary ingredients for a seduction: you will be the one to give them what
they lack and cannot get on their own. In studying potential victims, learn to
see the reality behind the appearance. A timid person may yearn to play the
star; a prude may long for a transgressive thrill. Never try to seduce your own
type. ooo o o o Victim Theory N obody in this world feels whole and complete.
We all sense some gap in our character, something we need or want but cannot
get on our own. When we fall in love, it is often with someone who seems to
fill that gap. The process is usually unconscious and depends on luck: we wait
for the right person to cross our path, and when we fall for them we hope they
return our love. But the seducer does not leave such things to chance. Look at
the people around you. Forget their social exterior, their obvious character
traits; look behind all of that, focusing on the gaps, the missing pieces in
their psyche. That is the raw material of any seduction. Pay close attention to
their clothes, their gestures, their offhand comments, the things in their
house, certain looks in their eyes; get them to talk about their past, particularly
past romances. And slowly the outline of those missing pieces will come into
view. Understand: people are constantly giving out signals as to what they
lack. They long for completeness, whether the illusion of it or the reality,
and if it has to come from another person, that person has tremendous power
over them. We may call them victims of a seduction, but they are almost always
willing victims. This chapter outlines the eighteen types of victims, each one
of which has a dominant lack. Although your target may well reveal the
qualities of more than one type, there is usually a common need that ties them
together. Perhaps you see someone as both a New Prude and a Crushed Star, but
what is common to both is a feeling of repression, and therefore a desire to be
naughty, along with a fear of not being able or daring enough. In identifying
your victim's type, be careful to not be taken in by outward appearances. Both
deliberately and unconsciously, we often develop a social exterior designed
specifically to disguise our weaknesses and lacks. For instance, you may think
you are dealing with someone who is tough and cynical, without realizing that
deep inside they have a soft sentimental core. They secretly pine for romance.
And unless you identify their type and the emotions beneath their toughness,
you lose the chance to truly seduce them. Most important: expunge the nasty
habit of thinking that other people have the same lacks you do. You may crave
comfort and security, but in giving comfort and security to someone else, on
the assumption they must want them as well, you are more likely smothering and
pushing them away. Never try to seduce someone who is of your own type.Youwill
be like two puzzles missing the same parts. 149 150 The Eighteen Types The
Reformed Rake or Siren. People of this type were once happy-go- lucky seducers
who had their way with the opposite sex. But the day came when they were forced
to give this up-someone corraled them into a relationship, they were
encountering too much social hostility, they were getting older and decided to
settle down. Whatever the reason, you can be sure they feel some resentment and
a sense of loss, as if a limb were missing. We are always trying to recapture
pleasures we experienced in the past, but the temptation is particularly great
for the Reformed Rake or Siren because the pleasures they found in seduction
were intense. These types are ripe for the picking: all that is required is
that you cross their path and offer them the opportunity to resume their rakish
or siren ways. Their blood will stir and the call of their youth will overwhelm
them. It is critical, though, to give these types the illusion that they are
the ones doing the seducing. With the Reformed Rake, you must spark his
interest indirectly, then let him burn and glow with desire. With the Reformed
Siren, you want to give her the impression that she still has the irresistible
power to draw a man in and make him give up everything for her. Remember that
what you are offering these types is not another relationship, another
constriction, but rather the chance to escape the corral and have some ran. Do
not be put off if they are in a relationship; a preexisting commitment is often
the perfect foil. If hooking them into a relationship is what you want, hide it
as best you can and realize it may not be possible. The Rake or Siren is
unfaithful by nature; your ability to spark the old feeling gives you power,
but then you will have to live with the consequences of their feckless ways.
The Disappointed Dreamer. As children, these types probably spent a lot of time
alone. To entertain themselves they developed a powerful fantasy life, fed by
books and films and other kinds of popular culture. And as they get older, it
becomes increasingly difficult to reconcile their fantasy life with reality,
and so they are often disappointed by what they get. This is particularly true
in relationships. They have been dreaming of romantic heroes, of danger and
excitement, but what they have is lovers with human frailties, the petty
weaknesses of everyday life. As the years pass, they may force themselves to
compromise, because otherwise they would have to spend their lives alone; but
beneath the surface they are bitter and still hungering for something grand and
romantic. You can recognize this type by the books they read and
filmstheygoto,theway their ears prick up when told of the real-life adventures
some people manage to live out. In their clothes and home furnishings, a taste
for exuberant romance or drama will peek through. They are often trapped in
drab relationships, and little comments here and there will reveal their
disappointment and inner tension. The Seducer's Victims-The Eighteen Types
These types make for excellent and satisfying victims. First they usually have
a great deal of pent-up passion and energy, which you can release and focus on
yourself. They also have great imaginations and will respond to anything
vaguely mysterious or romantic that you offer them. All you need do is disguise
some of your less than exalted qualities and give them a part of their dream.
This could be the chance to live out their adventures or be courted by a
chivalrous soul. If you give them a part of what they want they will imagine
the rest. At all cost, do not let reality break the illusion you are creating.
One moment of pettiness and they will be gone, more bitterly disappointed than
ever. The Pampered Royal. These people were the classic spoiled children. All
of their wants and desires were met by an adoring parent-endless entertainments,
a parade of toys, whatever kept them happy for a day or two. Where many
children learn to entertain themselves, inventing games and finding friends.
Pampered Royals are taught that others will do the entertaining for them. Being
spoiled, they get lazy, and as they get older and the parent is no longer there
to pamper them, they tend to feel quite bored and restless. Their solution is
to find pleasure in variety, to move quickly from person to person, job to job,
or place to place before boredom sets in. They do not settle into relationships
well because habit and routine of some kind are inevitable in such affairs. But
their ceaseless search for variety is tiring for them and comes with a price:
work problems, strings of unsatisfying romances, friends scattered across the
globe. Do not mistake their restlessness and infidelity for reality-what the
Pampered Prince or Princess is really looking for is one person, that parental
figure, who will give them the spoiling they crave. To seduce this type, be ready
to provide a lot of distraction-new places to visit, novel experiences, color,
spectacle. You will have to maintain an air of mystery, continually surprising
your target with a new side to your character. Variety is the key. Once
Pampered Royals are hooked, things get easier for they will quickly grow
dependent on you and you can put out less effort. Unless their childhood
pampering has made them too and lazy, these types make excellent victims-they
will beasloyal to you as they once were to mommy or daddy. But you will have to
do much of the work. If you are after a long relationship, disguise it. Offer
long-term security to a Pampered Royal and you will induce a panicked flight.
Recognize these types by the turmoil in their past-job changes, travel,
short-term relationships-and by the air of aristocracy, no matter their social
class, that comes from once being treated like royalty. The New Prude. Sexual
prudery still exists, but it is less common than it was. Prudery, however, is
neverjust about sex; a prude is someone who is excessively concerned with
appearances, with what society considers ap- propriate and acceptable behavior.
Prudes rigorously stay within the boundaries of correctness because more than
anything they fear society's judgment. Seen in this light, prudery is just as
prevalent as it always was. The New Prude is excessively concerned with
standards of goodness, fairness, political sensitivity, tastefulness, etc. What
marks the New Prude, though, as well as the old one, is that deep down they are
actually excited and intrigued by guilty, transgressive pleasures. Frightened
by this attraction, they run in the opposite direction and become the most
correct of all. They tend to wear drab colors; they certainly never take
fashion risks. They can be very judgmental and critical of people who do take
risks and are less correct. They are also addicted to routine, which gives them
a way to tamp down their inner turmoil. New Prudes are secretly oppressed by
their correctness and long to transgress. Just as sexual prudes make prime
targets for a Rake or Siren, the New Prude will often be most tempted by
someone with a dangerous or naughty side. If you desire a New Prude, do not be
taken in by theirjudg- ments of you or their criticisms. That is only a sign of
how deeply you fascinate them; you are on their mind. You can often draw a New
Prude into a seduction, in fact, by giving them the chance to criticize you or
even try to reform you. Take nothing of what they say to heart, of course, but
now you have the perfect excuse to spend time with them-and New Prudes can be
seduced simply through being in contact with you. These types actually make
excellent and rewarding victims. Once you open them up and get them to let go
of their correctness, they are flooded with feelings and energies. They may
even overwhelm you. Perhaps they are in a relationship with someone as drab as
they themselves seem to be-do not be put off. They are simply asleep, waiting
to be awakened. The Crushed Star. We all want attention, we all want to shine,
but with most of us these desires are fleeting and easily
quieted.Theproblemwith Crushed Stars is that at one point in their lives they
did find themselves the center of attention-perhaps they were beautiful,
charming and effervescent, perhaps they were athletes, or had some other
talent-but those days are gone. They may seem to have accepted this, but the
memory of having once shone is hard to get over. In general, the appearance of
wanting attention, of trying to stand out, is not seen too kindly in polite
society or in the workplace. So to get along. Crushed Stars learn to tamp down
their desires; but failing to get the attention they feel they deserve, they
also become resentful. You can recognize Crushed Stars by certain unguarded
moments; they suddenly receive some attention in a social setting, and it makes
them glow; they mention their glory days, and there is a little glint in the
eye; a little wine in the system, and they become effervescent. Seducing this
type is simple: just make them the center of attention. When you are with them,
act as if they were stars and you were basking in their glow. Get them to talk,
particularly about themselves. In social situations, mute your own colors and
let them look funny and radiant by comparison. In general, play the Charmer.
The reward of seducing Crushed Stars is that you stir up powerful emotions.
They will feel intensely grateful to you for letting them shine. To whatever
extent they had felt crushed and bottled up, the easing of that pain releases
intensity and passion, all directed at you. They will fall madly in love. If
you yourself have any star or dandy tendencies it is wise to avoid such
victims. Sooner or later those tendencies will come out, and the competition
between you will be ugly. The Novice. What separates Novices from ordinary
innocent young people is that they are fatally curious. They have little or no
experience of the world, but have been exposed to it secondhand-in newspapers,
films, books. Finding their innocence a burden, they long to be initiated into
the ways of the world. Everyone sees them as so sweet and innocent, but they
know this isn't so-they cannot be as angelic as people think them. Seducing a
Novice is easy. To do it well, however, requires a bit of art. Novices are
interested in people with experience, particularly people with a touch of
corruption and evil. Make that touch too strong, though, and it will intimidate
and frighten them. What works best with a Novice is a mix of qualities. You are
somewhat childlike yourself, with a playful spirit. At the same time, it is
clear that you have hidden depths, even sinister ones. (This was the secret of
Lord Byron's success with so many innocent women.) You are initiating your
Novices not just sexually but experien- tially,exposingthem to new ideas,
taking them to new places, new worlds both literal and metaphoric. Do not make
your seduction ugly or seedy- everything must be romantic, even including the
evil and dark side of life. Young people have their ideals; it is best to
initiate them with an aesthetic touch. Seductive language works wonders on
Novices, as does attention to detail. Spectacles and colorful events appeal to
their sensitive senses. They are easily misled by these tactics, because they
lack the experience to see through them. Sometimes Novices are a little older
and have been at least somewhat educated in the ways of the world. Yet they put
on a show of innocence, for they see the power it has over older people. These
are coy Novices, aware of the game they are playing-but Novices they remain.
They may be less easily misled than purer Novices, but the way to seduce them
is pretty much the same-mix innocence and corruption and you will fascinate
them. The Conqueror. These types have an unusual amount of energy, which they
find difficult to control. They are always on the prowl for people to conquer,
obstacles to surmount. You will not always recognize Conquerors by their
exterior-they can seem a little shy in social situations and can have a degree
of reserve. Look not at their words or appearance but at their actions, in work
and inrelationships. They love power, and by hook or by crook they get it.
Conquerors tend to be emotional, but their emotion only comes out in outbursts,
when pushed. In matters of romance, the worst thing you can do with them is lie
down and make yourself easy prey; they may take advantage of your weakness, but
they will quickly discard you and leave you the worse for wear. You want to
give Conquerors a chance to be aggressive, to overcome some resistance or
obstacle, before letting them think they have overwhelmed you. You want to give
them a good chase. Being a little difficult or moody, using coquetry, will
often do the trick. Do not be intimidated by their aggressiveness and
energy-that is precisely what you can turn to your advantage. To break them in,
keep them charging back and forth like a bull. Eventually they will grow weak
and dependent, as Napoleon became the slave ofJosephine. The Conqueror is
generally male but there are plenty of female Conquerors out there-Lou
Andreas-Salome and Natalie Barney are famous ones. Female Conquerors will
succumb to coquetry, though, just as the male ones will. The Exotic Fetishist.
Most of us are excited and intrigued by the exotic. What separates Exotic
Fetishists from the rest of us is the degree of this interest, which seems to
govern all their choices in life. Intruththeyfeelempty inside and have a strong
dose of self-loathing. They do not like wherever it is they come from, their
social class (usually middle or upper), and their culture because they do not
like themselves. These types are easy to recognize. They like to travel; their
houses are filled with objets from faraway places; they fetishize the music or
art of this or that foreign culture. They often have a strong rebellious
streak. Clearly the way to seduce them is to position yourself as exotic-if you
do not at least appear to come from a different background or race, or to have
some alien aura, you should not even bother. But it is always possible to play
up what makes you exotic, to make it a kind of theater for their amusement.
Your clothes, the things you talk about, the places you take them, make a show
of your difference. Exaggerate a little and they will imagine the rest, because
such types tend to be self-deluders. Exotic Fetishists, however, do not make
particularly good victims. Whatever exoticism you have will soon seem banal to
them, and they will want something else. It will be a struggle to hold their
interest. Their underlying insecurity will also keep you on edge. One variation
on this type is the man or woman who is trapped in a stultifying relationship,
a banal occupation, a dead-end town. It is circumstance, as opposed topersonal
neurosis, that makes such people fetishize the exotic; and these Exotic
Fetishists are better victims than the self-loathing kind, because you can
offer them a temporary escape from whatever oppresses them. Nothing, however,
will offer true Exotic Fetishists escape from themselves. The Drama Queen.
There are people who cannot do without some constant drama in their lives-it is
their way of deflecting boredom. The greatest mistake you can make in seducing
these Drama Queens is to come offering stability and security. That will only
make them run for the hills. Most often. Drama Queens (and there are plenty of
men in this category) enjoy playing the victim. They want something to complain
about, they want pain. Pain is a source of pleasure for them. With this type,
you have to be willing and able to give them the mental rough treatment they
desire. That is the only way to seduce them in a deep manner. The moment you
turn too nice, they will find some reason to quarrel or get rid of you. You
will recognize Drama Queens by the number of people who have hurt them, the
tragedies and traumas that have befallen them. At the extreme, they can be
hopelessly selfish and anti-seductive, but most of them are relatively harmless
and will make fine victims if you can live with the sturm und drang.Ifforsomereasonyouwantsomethinglongterm
with this type, you will constantly have to inject drama into your
relationship. For some this can be an exciting challenge and a source for
constantly renewing the relationship. Generally, however, you should see an
involvement with a Drama Queen as something fleeting and a way to bring a
little drama into your own life. The Professor. These types cannot get out of
the trap of analyzing and criticizing everything that crosses their path. Their
minds are overdeveloped and overstimulated. Even when they talk about love or
sex, it is with great thought and analysis. Having developed their minds at the
expense of their bodies, many of them feel physically inferior and compensate
by lording their mental superiority over others. Their conversation is often
wry or ironic-you never quite know what they are saying, but you sense them
looking down on you. They would like to escape their mental prisons, they would
like pure physicality, without any analysis, but they cannot get there on their
own. Professor types sometimes engage in relationships with other professor
types, or with people they can treat as inferiors. But deep down they long to
be overwhelmed by someone with physical presence-a Rake or a Siren, for
instance. Professors can make excellent
victims,forunderneaththeirintellectualstrengthliegnawinginsecurities.MakethemfeellikeDon
Juans or Sirens, to even the slightest degree, and they are your slaves. Many
of them have a masochistic streak that will come out once you stir their
dormant senses. You are offering an escape from the mind, so make it as
complete as possible: if you have intellectual tendencies yourself, hide them.
They will only 156stir your target's competitive juices and get their minds
turning. Let your Professors keep their sense of mental superiority; let
themjudge you. You will know what they will try to hide: that you are the one
in control, for you are giving them what no one else can give them-physical
stimulation. The Beauty. From early on in life, the Beauty is gazed at by
others. Their desire to look at her is the source of her power, but also the
source of much unhappiness: she constantly worries that her powers are waning,
that she is no longer attracting attention. If she is honest with herself, she
also senses that being worshiped only for one's appearance is monotonous and
unsatisfying-and lonely. Many men are intimidated by beauty and prefer to
worship it from afar; others are drawn in, but not for the purpose of
conversation. The Beauty suffers from isolation. Because she has so many lacks,
the Beauty is relatively easy to seduce,andifdoneright,youwill have won not
only a much prized catch but someone who will grow dependent on what you
provide. Most important in this seduction is to validate those parts of the
Beauty that no one else appreciates-her intelligence (generally higher than
people imagine), her skills, her character. Of course you must worship her
body-you cannot stir up any insecurities in the one area in which she knows her
strength, and \the strength on which she most depends-but you also must worship
her mind and soul. Intellectual stimulation will work well on the Beauty,
distracting her from her doubts and insecurities, and making it seem that you
value that side of her personality. Because the Beauty is always being looked
at, she tends to be passive. Beneath her passivity, though, there often lies
frustration: the Beauty would love to be more active and to actually do some
chasing of her own. A little coquettishness can work well here: at some point
in all your worshiping, you might go a little cold, inviting her to come after
you. Train her to be more active and you will have an excellent victim. The
only downside is that her many insecurities require constant attention and
care. The Aging Baby. Some people refuse to grow up. Perhaps they are afraid of
death or of growing old; perhaps they are passionately attached to the life
they led as children. Disliking responsibility, they struggle to turn
everything into play and recreation. In their twenties they can be charming, in
their thirties interesting, but by the time they reach their forties they are
beginning to wear thin. Contrary to what you might imagine, one Aging Baby does
not want to be involved with another Aging Baby, even though the combination
might seem to increase the chances for play and frivolity. The Aging Baby does
not want competition, but an adult figure. If you desire to seduce this type,
you must be prepared to be the responsible, staid one. That may be a strange way
of seducing, but in this case it works. You should appear to like the Aging
Baby's youthful spirit (it helps if you actually do), can engage with it, but
you remain the indulgent adult. By being responsible you free the Baby to play.
Act the loving adult to the hilt, neverjudging or criticizing their behavior,
and a strong attachment will form. Aging Babies can be amusing for a while,
but, like all children, they are often potently narcissistic. This limits the
pleasure you can have with them. You should see them as short-term amusements
or temporary outlets for your frustrated parental instincts. The Rescuer. We
are often drawn to people who seem vulnerable or weak-their sadness or
depression can actually be quite seductive. There are people, however, whotake
this much further, who seem to be attracted only to people with problems. This
may seem noble, but Rescuers usually have complicated motives: they often have
sensitive natures and truly want to help. At the same time, solving people's
problems gives them a kind of power they relish-it makes them feel superior and
in control. It is also the perfect way to distract them from their own
problems. You will recognize these types by their empathy-they listen well and
try to get you to open up and talk. You will also notice they have histories of
relationships with dependent and troubled people. Rescuers can make excellent
victims, particularly if you enjoy chivalrous or maternal attention. If you are
a woman, play the damsel in distress, giving a man the chance so many men long
for-to act the knight. If you are a man, play the boy who cannot deal with this
harsh world; a female Rescuer will envelop you in maternal attention, gaining
for herself the added satisfaction of feeling more powerful and in control than
a man. An air of sadness will draw either gender in. Exaggerate your
weaknesses, but not through overt words or gestures-let them sense that you
have had too little love, that you have had a string of bad relationships, that
you have gotten a raw deal in life. Having lured your Rescuer in with the
chance to help you, you can then stokethe relationship's fires with a steady
supply of needs and vulnerabilities. You can also invite moral rescue: you are
bad. You have done bad things. You need a stem yet loving hand. In this case
the Rescuer gets to feel morally superior, but also the vicarious thrill of
involvement with someone naughty. The Roue. These types have lived the good
life and experienced many pleasures. They probably have, or once had, a good
deal of money to finance their hedonistic lives. On the outside they tend to
seem cynical and jaded, but their worldliness often hides a sentimentality that
they have stmggled to repress. Roues are consummate seducers, but there is one
type that can easily seduce them-the young and the innocent. As they get 158
older, they hanker after their lost youth; missing their long-lost innocence,
they begin to covet it in others. If you should want to seduce them, you will
probably have to be somewhat young and to have retained at least the appearance
of innocence. It is easy to play this up-make a show of how little experience
you have in the world, how you still see things as a child. It is also good to
seem to resist their advances: Roues will think it lively and exciting to chase
you. You can even seem to dislike or distrust them-that will really spur them
on. By being the one who resists, you control the dynamic. And sinceyou have
the youth that they are missing, you can maintain the upper hand and make them
fall deeply in love. They will often be susceptible to such a fall, because
they have tamped down their own romantic tendencies for so long that when it
bursts forth, they lose control. Never give in too early, and never let your
guard down-such types can be dangerous. The Idol Worshiper. Everyone feels an
inner lack, but Idol Worshipers have a bigger emptiness than most people. They
cannot be satisfied with themselves, so they search the world for something to
worship, something to fill their inner void. This often assumes the form of a
great interest in matters or in some worthwhile cause; by focusing on something
supposedly elevated, they distract themselves from their own void, from what
they dislike about themselves. Idol Worshipers are easy to spot-they are the ones
pouring their energies into some cause or religion. They often move around over
the years, leaving one cult for another. The way to seduce these types is to
simply become their object of worship, to take the place of the cause or
religion to which they are so dedicated. At first you may have to seem to share
their spiritual interest, joining them in their worship, or perhaps exposing
them to a new cause; eventually you will displace it. With this type you have
to hideyourflaws, or at least to give them a saintly sheen. Be banal and Idol
Worshipers will pass you by. But mirror the qualities they aspire to have for
themselves and they will slowly transfer their adoration to you. Keep
everything on an elevated plane-let romance and religion flow into one. Keep
two things in mind when seducing this type. First, they tend to have overactive
minds, which can make them quite suspicious. Because they often lack physical
stimulation, and because physical stimulation will distract them, give them
some: a mountain trek, a boat trip, or sex will do the trick. But this takes a
lot of work, for their minds are always ticking. Second, they often suffer from
low self-esteem. Do not try to raise it; they will see through you, and your
efforts at praising them will clash with their own self-image. They are to
worship you; you are not to worship them. Idol Worshipers make perfectly
adequate victims in the short term, but their endless need to search will
eventually lead them to look for something new to adore. The Seducer's Victims-The
Eighteen Types • 159 The Sensualist. What marks these types is not their love
of pleasure but their overactive senses. Sometimes they show this quality in
their appearance-their interest in fashion, color, style. But sometimes it is
more subtle: because they are so sensitive, they areoften quite shy, and they
will shrink from standing out or being flamboyant. You will recognize them by
how responsive they are to their environment, how they cannot stand a room
without sunlight, are depressed by certain colors, or excited by certain
smells. They happen to live in a culture that deempha- sizes sensual experience
(except perhaps for the sense of sight). And so what the Sensualist lacks is
precisely enough sensual experiences to appreciate and relish. The key to
seducing them is to aim for their senses, to take them to beautiful places, pay
attention to detail, envelop them in spectacle, and of course use plenty of
physical lures. Sensualists, like animals, can be baited with colors and
smells. Appeal to as many senses as possible, keeping your targets distracted
and weak. Seductions of Sensualists are often easy and quick, and you can use
the same tactics again and again to keep them interested, although it is wise
to vary your sensual appeals somewhat, in kind if not in quality. That is how
Cleopatra worked on Mark Antony, an inveterate Sensualist. These types make
superb victims because they are relatively docile if you give them what they
want. The Lonely Leader. Powerful people are not necessarily different from
everyone else, but they are treated differently, and this has a big effect on
their personalities. Everyone around them tends to be fawning and courtierlike,
to have an angle, to want something from them. This makes them suspicious and
distrustful, and a little hard around the edges, but do not mistake the
appearance for the reality: Lonely Leaders long to be seduced, to have someone
break through their isolation and overwhelm them. The problem is that most
people are too intimidated to try, or use the kind of tactics-flattery,
charm-that they see through and despise. To seduce such types, it is better to
act like their equal or even their superior- the kind of treatment they never
get. If you are blunt with them you will seem genuine, and they will be
touched-you care enough to be honest, even perhaps at some risk. (Being blunt
with the powerful can be dangerous.) Lonely Leaders can be made emotional by
inflicting some pain, followed by tenderness. This is one of the hardest types
to seduce, not only because they are suspicious but because their minds are
burdened with cares and responsi. They have less mental space for a seduction.
You will have to be patient and clever, slowly filling their minds with
thoughts of you. Succeed, though, and you can gain great power in turn, for in
their loneliness they will come to depend on you. The Floating Gender. All of
us have a mix of the masculine and the in our characters, but most of us learn
to develop and exhibit the socially acceptable side while repressing the other.
People of the Floating Gender type feel that the separation of the sexes into
such distinct genders is a burden. They are sometimes thought to be repressed
or latent homosexuals, but this is a misunderstanding: they may well be
heterosexual but their masculine and feminine sides are in flux, and because
this may discomfit others if they show it, they learn to repress it, perhaps by
going to one extreme. They would actually love to be able to play with their
gender, to give full expression to both sides. Many people fall into this type
without its being obvious: a woman may have a masculine energy, a man a
developed aesthetic side. Do not look for obvious signs, because these types
often go underground, keeping it under wraps. This makes them vulnerable to a
powerful seduction. What Floating Gender types are really looking for is
another person of uncertain gender, their counterpart from the opposite sex.
Show them that in your presence and they can relax, express the repressed side
of their character. If you have such proclivities, this is the one instance
where it would be best to seduce the same type of the opposite sex. Each person
will stir up repressed desires in the other and will suddenly have license to
explore all kinds of gender combinations, without fear of judgment. If you are
not of the Floating Gender, leave this type alone. You will only inhibit them
and create more discomfort. eductive process M ost of us understand that
certain actions on our part will have apleasing and seductive effect on the
person we would like to seduce. The problem is that we are generally too
self-absorbed: We think more about what we want from others than what they
could want from us. We may occasionally do something that is seductive, but
often we follow this up a with a selfish or aggressive action (we are in a
hurry to get what we want); or, unaware of what we are doing, we show a side of
ourselves that is petty and banal, deflating any illusions or fantasies a
person might have about us. Our attempts at seduction usually do not last long
enough to create much of an effect. You will not seduce anyone by simply
depending on your engaging personality, or by occasionally doing something
noble or alluring. Seduction is a process that occurs over time-the longer you
take and the slower you go, the deeper you will penetrate into the mind of your
victim. It is an art that requires patience, focus, and strategic thinking. You
need to always be one step ahead of your victim, throwing dust in their eyes,
casting a spell, keeping them off balance. The twenty-four chapters in this
section will arm you with a series of tactics that will help you get out of
yourself and into the mind of your victim, so that you can play it like an
instrument. The chapters are placed in a loose order, going from the initial
contact with your victim to the successful conclusion. This order is based on
certain timeless laws of human psychology. Because people's thoughts tend to
revolve around their daily concerns and insecurities, you cannot proceed with a
seduction until you slowly put their anxieties to sleep and fill their
distracted minds with thoughts of you. The opening chapters will help you
accomplish this. There is a natural tendency in relationships for people to
become so familiar with one another that boredom and stagnation set in. Mystery
is the lifeblood of seduction and to maintain it you have to constantly
surprise your victims, stir things up, even shock them. A seduction should
never settle into a comfortable routine. The middle and later chapters will
instruct you in the art of alternating hope and despair, pleasure and pain,
until your victims weaken and succumb. In each instance, one tactic is setting
up the next one, allowing you to push it further with something bolder and more
violent. A seducer cannot be timid or merciful. To help you move the seduction
along, the chapters are arranged in 163 164 • The Art of Seduction four phases,
each phase with a particular goal to aim for: getting the victim to think of
you; gaining access to their emotions by creating moments of pleasure and
confusion; going deeper by working on their unconscious, stirring up repressed
desires; and finally, inducing physical surrender. (The are clearly marked and
explained with a short introduction.) By following these phases you will work
more effectively on your victim's mind and create the slow and hypnotic pace of
a ritual. In fact, the seductive process may be thought of as a kind of
initiation ritual, in which you are uprooting people from their habits, giving
them novel experiences, putting them through tests, before initiating them into
a new life. It is best to read all of the chapters and gain as much knowledge
as possible. When it comes time to apply these tactics, you will want to pick
and choose which ones are appropriate for your particular victim; sometimes
only a few are sufficient, depending on the level of resistance you meet and
the complexity of your victim's problems. These tactics are equally applicable
to social and political seductions, minus the sexual component in Phase Four.
At all cost, resist the temptation to hurry to the climax of your seduction, or
to improvise. You are not being seductive but selfish. Everything in daily life
is hurried and improvised, and you need to offer something different. By taking
your time and respecting the seductive process you will not only break down
your victim's resistance, you will make them fall in love. Phase One Separation
- Stirring Interest and Desire Your victims live in their own worlds, their
minds occupied with anxieties and daily concerns. Your goal in this initial
phase is to slowly separate themfrom that closed world and fill their minds
with thoughts of you. Once you have decided whom to seduce (1: Choose the right
victim), your first task is to get your victims' attention, to stir interest in
you. For those who might be more resistant or difficult, you should try a
slower and more insidious approach, first winning their friendship (2: Create a
false sense of security-approach indirectly); for those who are bored and less
difficult to reach, a more dramatic approach will work, either fascinating them
with a mysterious presence (3; Send mixed signals) or seeming to be someone who
is coveted and fought over by others (4: Appear to be an object of desire).
Once the victim is properly intrigued, you need to transform their interest
into something stronger - desire. Desire is generally preceded by feelings of
emptiness, of something missing inside that needsfulfillment. You must deliberately
instill suchfeelings, make your victims aware of the adventure and romance that
are lacking in their lives (5: Create a need-stir anxiety and discontent). If
they see you as the one to fill their emptiness, interest will blossom into
desire. The desire should be stoked by subtly planting ideas in their minds,
hints of the seductive pleasures that await them (6: Master the art of
insinuation). Mirroring your victims' values, indulging them in their wants and
moods will charm and delight them (7: Enter their spirit). Without realizing
how it has happened, more and more of their thoughts now revolve around you.
The time has come for something stronger. Lure them with an irresistible
pleasure or adventure (8: Create temptation) and they will follow your lead. 1
Choose the Right Victim Everything depends on the target of your seduction.
Study your prey thoroughly, and choose only those who will prove susceptible to
your charms. The right victims are those for whom you can fill a void, who see
in you something exotic. They are often isolated or at least somewhat unhappy
(perhaps because of recent adverse circumstances), or can easily be made so-for
the completely contented person is almost impossible to seduce. The perfect
victim has some natural quality that attracts you. The strong emotions this
quality inspires will help make your seductive maneuvers seem more natural and
dynamic. The perfect victim allows for the perfectchase. Preparing for the Hunt
T he young Vicomte de Valmont was a notorious libertine in the Paris of the
1770s, the ruin of many a young girl and the ingenious seducer of the wives of
illustrious aristocrats. But after a while the repetitiveness of it all began
to bore him; his successes came too easily So one year, during the sweltering,
slow month of August, he decided to take a break from Paris and visit his aunt
at her chateau in the provinces. Life there was not what he was used to-there
were country walks, chats with the local vicar, card games. His city friends,
particularly his fellow libertine and confidante the Marquise de Merteuil,
expected him to hurry back. There were other guests at the chateau, however,
including the Presi- dente de Tourvel, a twenty-two-year-old woman whose
husband was temporarily absent, having work to do elsewhere. The Presidente had
been languishing at the chateau, waiting for him to join her. Valmont had met
her before; she was certainly beautiful, but had a reputation as a prude who
was extremely devoted to her husband. She was not a court lady; her taste in
clothing was atrocious (she always covered her neck with ghastly frills) and
her conversation lacked wit. For some reason, however, far from Paris, Valmont
began to see these traits in a new light. He followed her to the where she went
every morning to pray. He caught glimpses of her at dinner, or playing cards.
Unlike the ladies of Paris, she seemed unaware of her charms; this excited him.
Because of the heat, she wore a simple linen dress, which revealed her figure.
A piece of muslin covered her breasts, letting him more than imagine them. Her
hair, unfashionable in its slight disorder, conjured the bedroom. And her
face-he had never noticed how expressive it was. Her features lit up when she
gave alms to a beggar; she blushed at the slightest praise. She was so natural
and unself-conscious. And when she talked of her husband, or religious matters,
he could sense the depth of her feelings. If such a passionate nature were ever
detoured into a love affair. . . . Valmont extended his stay at the chateau, much
to the delight of his aunt, who could not have guessed at the reason. And he
wrote to the Marquise de Merteuil, explaining his new ambition: to seduce
Madame de Tourvel. The Marquise was incredulous. He wanted to seduce this
prude? If he succeeded, how little pleasure she would give him, and if he
failed, what a disgrace-the great libertine unable to seduce a wife whose
husband was far away! She wrote a sarcastic letter, which only inflamed Valmont
fur- The ninth • Have I become blind? Has the inner eye of the soul lost its
power? 1 have seen her, but it is as if I had seen a heavenly revelation -so
completely has her image vanished again for me. In vain do I summon all the of
my soul in order to conjure up this image. If I ever see her again, I shall be able
to recognize her instantly, even though she stands among a hundred others. Now
she has fled, and the eye of my soul tries in vain to overtake her with its
longing. I was walking along Langelinie, seemingly nonchalantly and without
paying attention to my surroundings, although my reconnoitering glance
leftnothing unobserved-and then my eyesfell upon her. My eyes fixed
unswervingly upon her. They no longer obeyed their master's will; it was
impossiblefor me to shift my gaze and thus overlook the object I wanted to
see-I did not look, I stared. As a fencerfreezes in his lunge, so my eyes were
fixed, petrified in the direction initially taken. It was impossible to look
down, impossible to withdraw my glance, impossible to see, because I saw far
too much. The only thing I have retained is that she had on a green cloak, that
is all-one could call it capturing the cloud instead of Juno; she has escaped
me . . .and left only her cloak behind. . . . The girl made an impression on
me. • The sixteenth • ... I feel no impatience, for she must live here in the
city, and at this moment that is enough for me. This possibility is the
condition for the properappearanceofher image - everything will be enjoyed in
slow drafts. ..." The nineteenth • Cordelia, then, is her name! Cordelia!
It is a beautiful name, and that, too, is important, since it can be very
disturbing to have to name an ugly name together with the most tender
adjectives. KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY. TRANSLATED BY HOWARD V. HONG AND
EDNA H. HONG Love as understood by Don Juan is a feeling akin to a taste for
hunting. It is cravingfor an activity which needs an incessant of stimuli to
challenge skill. -STENDHAL, LOVE. SALE It is not the quality of the desired
object that gives us pleasure, but rather the energy of our appetites. -CHARLES
BAUDELAIRE, THE END OF DON JUANther. The conquest of this notoriously virtuous
woman would prove his greatest seduction. His reputation would only be
enhanced. There was an obstacle, though, that seemed to make success almost
impossible: everyone knew Valmonfs reputation, including the Presidente. She
knew how dangerous it was to ever be alone with him, how people would talk
about the least association with him. Valmont did everything to belie his
reputation, even going so far as to attend church services and seem repentant
of his ways. The Presidente noticed, but still kept her distance. The challenge
she presented to Valmont was irresistible, but could he meet it? Valmont
decided to test the waters. One day he arranged a little walk with the
Presidente and his aunt. He chose a delightful path that they had never taken
before, but at a certain point they reached a little ditch, unsuitable for a
lady to cross on her own. And yet, Valmont said, the rest of the walk was too nice
for them to turn back, and he gallantly picked up his aunt in his arms and
carried her across the ditch, making the Presidente laugh uproariously. But
then it was her turn, and Valmont purposefully her up a little awkwardly, so
that she caught at his arms, and while he was holding her against him he could
feel her heart beating faster, and her blush. His aunt saw this too, and cried
out, "The child is afraid!" But Valmont sensed otherwise. Now he knew
that the challenge could be met, that the Presidente could be won. The
seduction could proceed. Interpretation. Valmont, the Presidente de Tourvel,
and the Marquise de Merteuil are all characters in the eighteenth-century
French novel Dangerous Liaisons, by Choderlos de Laclos. (The character of
Valmont was inspired by several real-life libertines of the time, most
prominent of all the Duke de Richelieu.) In the story, Valmont worries that his
seductions have become mechanical; he makes a move, and the woman almost always
responds the same way. But no two seductions should be the same-a different
target should change the whole dynamic. Valmonfs problem is that he is always
seducing the same type-the wrong type. He realizes this when he meets Madame de
Tourvel. It is not because her husband is a count that he decides to seduce
her, or because she is stylishly dressed, or is desired by other men-the usual
reasons. He chooses her because, in her unconscious way, she has already
seduced him. A bare arm, an unrehearsed laugh, a playful manner-all these have
captured his attention, because none of them is contrived. Once he falls under
her spell, the strength of his desire will make his subsequent maneuvers seem
less calculated; he is apparently unable to help himself. And his strong
emotions will slowly infect her. Beyond the effect the Presidente has on
Valmont, she has other traits that make her the perfect victim. She is bored,
which draws her toward adventure. She is naive, and unable to see through his
tricks. Finally, the Achilles' heel; she believes herself immune to seduction.
Almost all of us Choose the Right Victim • 171 are vulnerable to the
attractions of other people, and we take precautions against unwanted lapses.
Madame de Tourvel takes none. Once Valmont has tested her at the ditch, and has
seen she is physically vulnerable, he knows that eventually she will fall. Life
is short, and should not be wasted pursuing and seducing the wrong people. The
choice of target is critical; it is the set up of the seduction and it will
determine everything else that follows. The perfect victim does not have
certain facial features, or the same taste in music, or similar goals in life.
That is how a banal seducer chooses his or her targets. The perfect victim is
the person who stirs you in a way that cannot be explained in words, whose
effect on you has nothing to do with superficialities. He or she often has a
quality that you yourself lack, and may even secretly envy- the Presidente, for
example, has an innocence that Valmont long ago lost or never had. There should
be a little bit of tension-the victim may fear you a little, even slightly
dislike you. Such tension is full of erotic potential and will make the
seduction much livelier. Be more creative in choosing your prey and you will be
rewarded with a more exciting seduction. Of course, it means nothing if the
potential victim is not open to your influence. Test the person first. Once you
feel that he or she is also vulnerable to you then the hunting can begin. It is
a stroke of good fortune to find one who is worth seducing. . . . Most people
rush ahead, become engaged or do other stupid things, and ina turn of the hand
everything is over, and they know neither what they have won nor what they have
lost. KIERKEGAARD Keys to Seduction T hroughout life we find ourselves having
to persuade people-to seduce them. Some will be relatively open to our
influence, if only in subtle ways, while others seem impervious to our charms.
Perhaps we find this a mystery beyond our control, but that is an ineffective
way of dealing with life. Seducers, whether sexual or social, prefer to pick
the odds. As often as possible they go toward people who betray some
vulnerability to them, and avoid the ones who cannot be moved. To leave people
who are inaccessible to you alone is a wise path; you cannot seduce everyone.
On the other hand, you must actively hunt out the prey that responds the right
way. This will make your seductions that much more pleasurable and satisfying.
How do you recognize your victims? By the way they respond to you. You should
not pay so much attention to their conscious responses-a person who is
obviously trying to please or charm you is probably playing to your vanity, and
wants something from you. Instead, pay greater attention to those responses
outside conscious control-a blush, an involuntary mir- The daughter of desire
should strive to have the following lovers in their turn, as being
mutuallyrestful to her: a boy who has been loosed too soon from the authority
and counsel of his father, an author enjoying office with a rather
simple-minded prince, a merchant's son whose pride is in rivaling other lovers,
an ascetic who is the slave of love in secret, a king's son whose follies are
boundless and who has a tastefor rascals, the countrified son of some village
Brahman, a married woman's lover, a singer who has just pocketed a very large
sum of money, the master of a caravan but recently come in. . . .These brief
instructions admit of infinitely varied interpretation, dear child, according
to the circumstance; and it requires intelligence, insight and reflection to
make the best of each particular case. -EASTERN LOVE, VOLUME II: THE HARLOT'S
BREVIARY OF KSHEMENDRA, MATHERS The women who can be easily won over to
congress: ... a woman who looks sideways at you; ... a woman who hates her
husband, or who is hated by him; ... a woman who has not had any children; ...
a woman who is very fond of society; a woman who is apparently very
affectionate toward her husband; the wife of an actor; a widow; ... a woman
fond of enjoyments; ... a vain woman; a woman whose husband is inferior to her
in rank or ability; a woman who is proud of her skill in the arts; ... a woman
who is slighted by her husband without any cause; ... a woman whose husband is
devoted to travelling; the wife of a jeweler; a jealous woman; a covetous
woman. -THE HINDI: ART OF LOVE. EDITED BY EDWARD WINDSOR Leisure stimulates
love, leisure watches the lovelorn, \ Leisure's the cause and sustenance of
this sweet \ Evil. Eliminate leisure, and Cupid's bow is broken, \ His torches
lie lightless, scorned. \ As a plane-tree rejoices in wine, as a poplar in
water, \As a marsh-reed in swampy ground, so Venus loves \ Leisure. . . . \ Why
do you think Aegisthus \ Became an adulterer? Easy: he was idle-and bored. \
Everyone else was away at Troy on a lengthy \ Campaign: all Greece had shipped
\ Its contingent across. Suppose he hankered for warfare? Argos \ Had no wars
to offer. Suppose he fancied the courts? \ Argos lacked litigation. Love was
better than doing nothing. \ That's how Cupid slips in; that's how he stays. -
ON ID, CURES FOR LOVE. The Chinese have a proverb: "When Yang is in the
ascendant, Yin is bom," which means, translated into our language, that
when a man has devoted the better of his life to the ordinary business of
living, the Yin, raring of some gesture of yours, an unusual shyness, even
perhaps a flash of anger or resentment. All of these show that you arehaving an
effect on a person who is open to your influence. Like Valmont, you can also
recognize the right targets by the effect they are having on you. Perhaps they
make you uneasy-perhaps they correspond to a deep-rooted childhood ideal, or
represent some kind of personal taboo that excites you, or suggest the person
you imagine you would be if you were the opposite sex. When a person has such a
deep effect on you, it transforms all of your subsequent maneuvers. Your face
and gestures become more animated. You have more energy; when victims resist
you (as a good victim should) you in turn will be more creative, more motivated
to overcome their resistance. The seduction will move forward like a good play.
Your strong desire will infect the target and give them the dangerous sensation
that they have a power over you. Of course, you are the one ultimately in control
since you are making your victims emotional at the right moments, leading them
back and forth. Good seducers choose targets that inspire them but they know
how and when to restrain themselves. Never rush into the waiting arms of the
first person who seems to like you. That is not seduction but insecurity. The
need that draws you will make for a low-level attachment, and interest on both
sides will sag. Look at the types you have not considered before-that is where
you will find challenge and adventure. Experienced hunters do not choose their
prey by how easily it is caught; they want the thrill of the chase, a
life-and-death struggle-the fiercer the better. Although the victim who is
perfect for you depends on you, certain types lend themselves to a more
satisfying seduction. Casanova liked young women who were unhappy, or had
suffered a recent misfortune. Such women appealed to his desire to play the
savior, but it also responded to necessity: happy people are much harder to
seduce. Their contentment makes them inaccessible. It is always easier to fish
in troubled waters. Also, an air of sadness is itself quite seductive-Genji,
the hero of the Japanese novel The Tale of Genji, could not resist a woman with
a melancholic air. In Kierkegaard's book The Seducer's Diary, the narrator,
Johannes, has one main requirement in his victim: she must have imagination.
That is why he chooses a woman who lives in a fantasy world, a woman who will
envelop his every gesture in poetry, imagining far more than is there. Just as
it is hard to seduce a person who is happy, it is hard to seduce a person who
has no imagination. For women, the manly man is often the perfect victim. Mark
Antony was of this type-he loved pleasure, was quite emotional, and when it
came to women, found it hard to think straight. He was easy for Cleopatra to
manipulate. Once she gained a hold on his emotions, she kept him permanently on
a string. A woman should never be put off by a man who seems overly aggressive.
He is often the perfect victim. It is easy, with a few coquettish tricks, to
turn that aggression around and make him your slave. Such men actually enjoy
being made to chase after a woman. Choose the Right Victim • 173 Be careful
with appearances. The person who seems volcanically passionate is often hiding
insecurity and self-involvement. This was what most men failed to perceive in
the nineteenth-century courtesan Lola Montez. She seemed so dramatic, so
exciting. In fact, she was a troubled, self- obsessed woman, but by the time
men discovered this it was too late-they had become involved with her and could
not extricate themselves without months of drama and torture. People who are
outwardly distant or shy are often better targets than extroverts. They are
dying to be drawn out, and still waters run deep. People with a lot of time on
their hands are extremely susceptible to seduction. They have mental space for
you to fill. Tullia d'Aragona, the infamous sixteenth-century Italian
courtesan, preferred young men as her victims; besides the physical reason for
such a preference, they were more idle than working men with careers, and therefore
more defenseless against an ingenious seductress. On the other hand, you should
generally avoid people who are preoccupied with business or work-seduction
demands attention, and busy people have too little space in their minds for you
to occupy. According to Freud, seduction begins early in life, in our
relationship with our parents. They seduce us physically, both with bodily
contact and by satisfying desires such as hunger, and we in turn try to seduce
them into paying us attention. We are creatures by nature vulnerable to
seduction throughout our lives. We all want to be seduced; we yearn to be drawn
out of ourselves, out of our routines and into the drama of eros. And what
draws us more than anything is the feeling that someone has something we don't,
a quality we desire. Your perfect victims are often people who think you have
something they don't, and who will be enchanted to have it provided for them. Such
victims may have a temperament quite the opposite of yours, and this difference
will create an exciting tension. When Jiang Qing, later known as Madame Mao,
first met Mao Tse- tung in 1937 in his mountain retreat in western China, she
could sense how desperate he was for a bit of color and spice in his life: all
the camp's women dressedlikethemen,andabjuredanyfemininefinery. Jiang had been
anactress in Shanghai, and was anything but austere. She supplied what he
lacked, and she also gave him the added thrill of being able to educate her in
communism, appealing to his Pygmalion complex-the desire to dominate, control,
and remake a person. In fact it was Jiang Qing who controlled her future
husband. The greatest lack of all is excitement and adventure, which is
precisely what seduction offers. In 1964, the Chinese actor Shi Pei Pu, a man
who had gained fame as a female impersonator, met Bernard Bouriscout, a young
diplomat assigned to the French embassy in China. Bouriscout had come to China
looking for adventure, and was disappointed to have little contact with Chinese
people. Pretending to be a woman who, when still a child, had been forced to
live as a boy-supposedly the family already had too many daughters-Shi Pei Pu
used the young Frenchman's boredom and or emotional side of his nature, rises
to the surface and demands its rights. When such a period occurs, all that
which has formerly seemed important loses its significance. The will-of-
the-wisp of illusion leads the man hither and thither, taking him on strange
and complicated deviations from his former path in life. Ming Huang, the
"Bright Emperor" of the Tang dynasty, was an example of the profound
truth of this theory. From the moment he saw Yang Kuei-fei bathing in the lake
near his palace in the Li mountains, he was destined to sit at her feet,
leamingfrom her the emotional mysteries of what the Chinese call Yin. -ELOISE
TALCOTT HIBBERT, EMBROIDERED GAUZE: PORTRAITS OF FAMOUS LADIES discontent to
manipulate him. Inventing a story of the deceptions he had had to go through,
he slowly drew Bouriscout into an affair that would last many years.
(Bouriscout had had previous homosexual encounters, but considered himself
heterosexual.) Eventually the diplomat was led into spying for the Chinese. All
the while, he believed Shi Pei Pu was a woman-his for adventure had made him
that vulnerable. Repressed types are perfect victims for a deep seduction.
People who repress the appetite for pleasure make ripe victims, particularly
later in their lives. The eighth-century Chinese Emperor Ming Huang spent much
of his reign trying to rid his court of its costly addiction to luxuries, and
was himself a model of austerity and virtue. But the moment he saw the
concubine Yang Kuei-fei bathing in a palace lake, everything changed. The most
charming woman in the realm, she was the mistress of his son. Exerting his
power, the emperor won her away-only to become her abject slave. The choice of
the right victim is equally important in politics. Mass seducers such as
Napoleon or John F. Kennedy offer their public just what it lacks. When
Napoleon came to power, the French people's sense of pride was beaten down by
the bloody aftermath of the French Revolution. He offered them glory and
conquest. Kennedy recognized that Americans were bored with the stultifying
comfort of the Eisenhower years; he gave them adventure and risk. More
important, he tailored his appeal to the group most vulnerable to it: the
younger generation. Successful politicians know that not everyone will be susceptible
to their charm, but if they can find a group of believers with a need to be
filled, they have supporters who will stand by them no matter what. Symbol: Big
Game. Lions are dangerous-to hunt them is to know the thrill of risk. Leopards
are clever and swift, offering the excitement of a difficult chase. Never rush
into the hunt. Know your prey and choose it carefully. Do not waste time with
small game-the rabbits that back into snares, the mink that walk into a scented
trap. Challenge is pleasure. Choose the Right Victim • 175 Reversal T here is
no possible reversal. There is nothing to be gained from trying to seduce the
person who is closed to you, or who cannot provide the pleasure and chase that
you need. 2. Create a False Sense of Security- Approach Indirectly. Ifyouaretoo
rect early on, you risk stirring up a resistance that will never be lowered. At
first there must be nothing of the seducer in your manner. The seduction should
begin at an angle, indirectly, so that the target only gradually becomes aware
of you. Haunt the periphery of your target 's life-approach through a third
party, or seem to cultivate a relatively neutral relationship, moving gradually
from friend to lover. Arrange an occasional "chance" encounter, as if
you and your target were destined to become acquainted-nothing is more
seductive than a sense of destiny. Lull the target into feeling secure, then
strike. Friend to Lover. A nne Marie Louis d'Orleans, the Duchess de
Montpensier, known in seventeenth-century France as La Grande Mademoiselle, had
never known love in her life. Her mother had died when she was young; her
father remarried and ignored her. She came from one of Europe's most
illustrious families: her grandfather had been King Henry IV; the future King
Louis XIV was her cousin. When she was young, matches had been proposed between
her and the widowed king of Spain, the son of the Holy Roman emperor, and even
cousin Louis himself, among many others. But all of these matches were designed
for political purposes, or because of her family's enormous wealth. No one
bothered to woo her; she rarely evenmet her suitors. To make matters worse, the
Grande Mademoiselle was an idealist who believed in the old-fashioned values of
chivalry: courage, honesty, virtue. She loathed the schemers whose motives in
courting her were dubious at best. Whom could she trust? One by one she found a
reason to spurn them. Spinsterhood seemed to be her fate. In April of 1669, the
Grande Mademoiselle, then forty-two, met one of the strangest men in the court:
the Marquis Antonin Peguilin, later known as the Duke de Lauzun. A favorite of
Louis XIV's, the thirty-six- year-old Marquis was a brave soldier with an acid
wit. He was also an incurable Don Juan. Although he was short, and certainly
not handsome, his impudent manners and his military exploits made him
irresistible to women. The Grande Mademoiselle had noticed him some years
before, admiring his elegance and boldness. But it was only this time, in 1669,
that she had a real conversation with him, if a short one, and although she
knew of his lady-killer reputation, she found him charming. A few days later
they ran into each other again; this time the conversation was longer, and
Lauzun proved more intelligent than she had imagined-they talked of the
playwright Corneille (her favorite), of heroism, and of other elevated topics.
Now their encounters became more frequent. They had become friends. Anne Marie
noted in her diary that her conversations with Lauzun, when they occurred, were
the highlight of her day; when he was not at court, she felt his absence.
Surely her encounters with him came frequently enough that they could not be
accidental on his part, but he always seemed surprised to see her. At the same
time, she recorded feeling uneasy- strange emotions were stealing up on her,
she did not know why. Many women adore the elusive, \ Hate overeagerness. So,
play hard to get, \ Stop boredom developing. And don't let your entreaties \
Sound too confident of possession. Insinuate sex \ Camouflaged as friendship.
I've seen ultrastubborn creatures \ Fooled by this gambit, the switch from
companion to stud. -OVID, THEART OF LOVE, GREEN On the street, I do not stop
her, or I exchange a greeting with her but never come close, but always strive
for distance. Presumably our repeated encounters are clearly noticeable to her;
presumably she does perceive that on her horizon a new planet has loomed, which
in its course has encroached disturbingly upon hers in a curiously undisturbing
way, but she has no inkling of the law underlying this movement. . . . Before I
begin my attack, I must first become acquainted with her and her whole mental
state. KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY. HONG AND EDNA H. HONG No sooner had he
spoken than the bullocks, driven from their mountain pastures, were on their
way to the beach, as Jove had directed; they were making for the sands where
the daughter [Europa] of the great king used to play with the young girls of
Tyre, who were her companions. Abandoning the dignity of his scepter, the father
and ruler of the gods, whose hand wields the flaming threeforked bolt, whose
nod shakes the universe, adopted the guise of a bull; and, mingling with the
other bullocks, joined in the lowing and ambled in the tender grass, a fair
sight to sec. His hide was white as untrodden snow, snow not yet melted by the
rainy South wind. The muscles stood out on his neck, and deep folds of skin
hung along his flanks. His horns were small, it is true, but so beautifully
made that you would swear they were the work of an artist, more polished and
shining than any jewel. There was no menace in the set of his head or in his
eyes; he looked completely placid. • Agenor's daughter [Europa ] was filled
with admiration for one so handsome and so friendly. But, gentle though he
seemed, she was afraid at first to touch him; then she went closer, and held
out flowers to his shining lips. The lover was delighted Time passed, and the
Grande Mademoiselle was to leave Paris for a week or two. Now Lauzun approached
her without warning and made an emotional plea to be considered her confidante,
the great friend who would execute any commission she needed done while she was
away. He was poetic and chivalrous, but what did he really mean? In her diary,
Anne Marie finally confronted the emotions that had been stirring in her since
their first conversation: "I told myself, these are not vague musings;
there must be an object to all of these feelings, and I could not imagine who
it was. . . . Finally, after troubling myself with this for several days, I
realized that it was M. de Lauzun whom I loved, it was he who had somehow
slipped into my heart and captured it." Made aware of the source of her
feelings, the Grande Mademoiselle became more direct. If Lauzun was to be her
confidante, she could talk to him of marriage, of the matches that were still
being offered to her. The topic might give him a chance to express his
feelings; perhaps he might show jealousy. Unfortunately Lauzun did not seem to
take the hint. Instead, he asked her why she was thinking of marriage at
all-she seemed so happy. Besides, who could possibly be worthy of her? This
went on for weeks. She could pry nothing personal out of him. In a way, she
understood-there were the differences in rank (she was far above him) and age
(she was six years older). Then, a few months later, the wife of the king's
brother died, and King Louis suggested to the Grande Mademoiselle that she
replace his late sister-in-law-that is, that she marry his brother. Anne Marie
was disgusted; clearly the brother was trying to get his hands on her fortune.
She asked Lauzun his opinion. As the king's loyal servants, he replied, they
must obey the royal wish. His answer did not please her, and to make things
worse, he stopped visiting her, as if it were no longer proper for them to be
friends. This was the last straw. The Grande Mademoiselle told the king she
would not marry his brother, and that was that. Now Anne Marie met with Lauzun,
and told him she would write on a piece of paper the name of the man she had
wanted to marry all along. He was to put the paper under his pillow and read it
the next morning. When he did, he found the words "C'est vous "-It is
you. Seeing the Grande Mademoiselle the following evening, Lauzun said she must
have been joking; she would make him the laughing stock of the court. She
insisted that she was serious. He seemed shocked, surprised-but not as
surprised as the rest of the court was a few weeks later, when an engagement
was announced between this relatively low-ranking Don Juan and the
second-highest-ranking lady in France, a woman known for both her virtue and
her skill at defending it. Interpretation. The Duke de Lauzun was one of the
greatest seducers in history, and his slow and steady seduction of the Grande
Mademoiselle was his masterpiece. His method was simple: indirection. Sensing
her interest in him in that first conversation, he decided to beguile her with
friendship. Create a False Sense of Security-Approach Indirectly He would
become her most devoted friend. At first this was charming; a man was taking
the time to talk to her, of poetry, history, the deeds of war-her favorite
subjects. She slowly began to confide in him. Then, almost without her
realizing it, her feelings shifted: the consummate ladies' man was only
interested in friendship? He was not attracted to her as a ? Such thoughts made
her aware that she had fallen in love with him. This, in part, was what
eventually made her turn down the match the king's brother-a decision cleverly
and indirectly provoked by Lauzun himself, when he stopped visiting her. And
how could he be after money or position, or sex, when he had never made any
kind of move? No, the brilliance of Lauzun's seduction was that the Grande
Mademoiselle it was she who was making all the moves. Once you have chosen the
right victim, you must get his or her attention and stir desire. To move from
friendship to love can win success without calling attention to itself as a
maneuver. First, your friendly conversations with your targets will bring you
valuable information about their characters, their tastes, their weaknesses,
the childhood yearnings that govern their adult behavior. (Lauzun, for example,
could adapt cleverly to Anne Marie's tastes once he had studied her close up.)
Second, by spending time with your targets you can make them comfortable with
you. Believing you are interested only in their thoughts, in their company,
they will lower their resistance, dissipating the usual tension between the
sexes. Now they are vulnerable, for your friendship with them has opened the
golden gate to their body: their mind. At this point any offhand comment, any
slight physical contact, will spark a different thought, which will catch them
offguard: perhaps there could be something else between you. Once that feeling
has stirred, they will wonder why you haven't made a move, and will take the
initiative themselves, enjoying the illusion that they are in control. There is
nothing more effective in seduction than making the seduced think that they are
the ones doing the seducing. I do not approach her, 1 merely skirt the
periphery of her existence. . . . This is the first web into which she must
bespun. KIERKEGAARD Key to Seduction W hat you are after as a seducer is the
ability to move people in the direction you want them to go. But the game is
perilous; the moment they suspect they are acting under your influence, they
will become resentful. We are creatures who cannot stand feeling that we are
obeying someone else's will. Should your targets catch on, sooner or later they
will turn against you. But what if you can make them do what you want them to
without their realizing it? What if they think they are in control? That is
and, until he could achieve h is hoped-for pleasure, kissed her hands. He could
scarcely wait for the rest, only with great difficulty did he restrain himself
• Now he frolicked and played on the green turf now lay down, all snowy white
on the yellow sand. Gradually the princess lost herfear, and with her innocent
hands she stroked his breast when he offered itfor her caress, and hung fresh
garlands on his horns: till finally she even ventured to mount the bull, little
knowing on whose back she was resting. Then the god drew away from the shore by
easy stages, first planting the hooves that were part of his disguise in the
surf at the water's edge, and then proceeding farther out to sea, till he bore
his booty away over the wide stretches of mid ocean. - OVID, METAMORPHOSES,
INNES These few reflections lead us to the understanding that, since in
attempting a seduction it is up to the man to make the first steps, for the
seducer, to seduce is nothing more than reducing the distance, in this case
that of the difference between the sexes and that, in order to accomplish this,
it is necessary to feminize himself or at least identify himself with the
object of his seduction. ... As Alain Roger writes: "If there is a
seduction, it is the seducer who is first lead astray, in the sense that he
abdicates his own sex. Seduction undoubtedly aims at sexual consummation, but
it only gets there in creating a kind 182 of simulacra of Gomorra. The seducer
is nothing more than a lesbian." MONNEYRON, S EDUIRE: L'lMAGINAIRE DE LA
SEDUCTION DE DON GIOVANNI A MICK JAGGER As he [Jupiter ] was hurrying busily to
and fro, he stopped short at the sight of an Arcadian maiden. The fire of
passion kindled the very marrow of his bones. This girl was not one who spent
her time in spinning soft fibers of wool, or in arranging her hair in different
styles. She was one of Diana's warriors, wearing her tunic pinned together with
a brooch, her tresses carelessly caught back by a white ribbon, and carrying in
her hand a light javelin or her bow. The sun on high had passed its zenith,
whenshe entered a grove whose trees had neverfelt the axe. Here she took her
quiver from her shoulders, unstrung her pliant bow, lay down on the turf,
resting her head on her painted quiver. When Jupiter saw her thus, tired and
unprotected, he said: "Here is a secret of which my wife will know nothing;
or if she does get to know of it, it will be worth her reproaches!" •
Without wasting time he assumed the appearance and the dress of Diana, and
spoke to the girl. 'Dearest of all my companions," he said, "where
have you been hunting? On what mountain ridges?" She raised herself from
the grass: "Greeting, divine mistress," she cried, "greater in
my sight than the power of indirection and no seducer can work his or her magic
without it. The first move to master is simple: once you have chosen the right
person, you must make the target come to you. If, in the opening stages, you
can make your targets think that they are the ones making the first approach,
you have won the game. There will be no resentment, no perverse
counterreaction, no paranoia. To make them come to you requires giving them
space. This can be accomplished in several ways. You can haunt the periphery of
their existence, letting them notice you in different places but never
approaching them. You will get their attention this way, and if they want to
bridge the gap, they will have to come to you. You can befriend them, as Lauzun
did the Grande Mademoiselle, moving steadily closer while always maintaining
the distance appropriate for friends of the opposite sex. You can also play cat
and mouse with them, first seeming interested, then stepping back- actively
luring them to follow you into your web. Whatever you do, and whatever kind of
seduction you are practicing, you must at all cost avoid the natural tendency
to crowd your targets. Do not make the mistake of thinking they will lose
interest unless you apply pressure, or that they will enjoy a flood of
attention. Too much attention early on will actually just suggest insecurity,
and raise doubts as to your motives. Worst of all, it gives your targets no
room for imagination. Take a step back; let the thoughts you are provoking come
to them as if they were their own. This is doubly important if you are dealing
with someone who has a deep effect on you. We can never really understand the
opposite sex. They are always mysterious to us, and it is this mystery that
provides the tension so delightful in seduction; but it is also a source of
unease. Freud famously wondered what women really wanted; even to this most
insightful of psychological thinkers, the opposite sex was a foreign land. For
both men and women, there are deep-rooted feelings of fear and anxiety in
relation to the opposite sex. In the initial stages of a seduction, then, you
must find ways to calm any sense of mistrust that the other person may
experience. (A sense of danger and fear can heighten the seduction later on,
but if you stir such emotions in the first stages, you will more likely scare
the target away.) Establish a neutral distance, seem harmless, and you give
yourself room to move. Casanova cultivated a slight femininity in his
character-an interest in clothes, theater, domestic matters-that young girls
found comforting. The Renaissance courtesan Tullia d'Aragona, developing
friendships with the great thinkers and poets of her time, talked of literature
and philosophy- anything but the boudoir (and anything but the money that was
also her goal). Johannes, the narrator of Soren Kierkegaard's The Seducer's
Diary, follows, his target, Cordelia, from a distance; when their paths cross,
he is polite and apparently shy. As Cordelia gets to know him, he doesn't
frighten her. In fact he is so innocuous she begins to wish he were less so.
Duke Ellington, the great jazz artist and a consummate seducer, would Create a
False Sense of Security- initially dazzle the ladies with his good looks,
stylish clothing, and charisma. But once he was alone with a woman, he would
take a slight step back, becoming excessively polite, makingonly small talk.
Banal conversation can be a brilliant tactic; it hypnotizes the target. The
dullness of your front gives the subtlest suggestive word, the slightest look,
an amplified power. Never mention love and you make its absence speak
volumes-your victims will wonder why you never discuss your emotions, and as they
have such thoughts, they will go further, imagining what else is going on in
your mind. They will be the ones to bring up the topic of love or affection.
Deliberate dullness has many applications. In psychotherapy, the doctor makes
monosyllabic responses to draw patients in, making them relax and open up. In
international negotiations, Henry Kissinger would lull diplomats with boring
details, then strike with bold demands. Early in a seduction, less-colorful
words are often more effective than vivid ones-the target tunes them out, looks
at your face, begins to imagine, fantasize, fall under your spell. Getting to
your targets through other people is extremely effective; infiltrate their
circle and you are no longer a stranger. Before the seventeenth- century
seducer Count de Grammont made a move, he would befriend his target's
chambermaid, her valet, a friend, even a lover. In this way he could gather
information, finding a way to approach her in an unthreatening manner. He could
also plant ideas, saying thingsthethirdpartywas likely to repeat, things that
would intrigue the lady, particularly when they came from someone she knew.
Ninon de 1'Enclos, the seventeenth-century courtesan and strategist of
seduction, believed that disguising one's intentions was not only a necessity,
it added to the pleasure of the game. A man should never declare his feelings,
she felt, particularly early on. It is irritating and provokes mistrust.
"A woman is much better persuaded that she is loved by what she guesses than
by what she is told," Ninon once remarked. Often a person's haste in
declaring his or her feelings comes from a false desire to please, thinking
this will flatter the other. But the desire to please can annoy and offend.
Children, cats, and coquettes draw us to them by apparently not trying, even by
seeming uninterested. Leam to disguise your feelings and let people figure out
what is happening for themselves. In all arenas of life, you should never give
the impression that you are angling for something-that will raise a resistance
that you will never lower. Leam to approach people from the side. Mute your
colors, blend in, seem unthreatening, and you will have more room to maneuver
later on.The same holds true in politics, where overt ambition often frightens people.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin at first glance looked like an everyday Russian; he
dressed like a worker, spoke with a peasant accent, had no air of greatness.
This made the public feel comfortable and identify with him. Yet beneath this
apparently bland appearance, of course, was a deeply clever man who was always
maneuvering. By the time people realized this it was too late. -Approach
Indirectly • 183 Jove himself-I care not if he hears me!" Jove laughed to
hear her words. Delighted to be preferred to himself he kissed her-not with the
restraint becoming to a maiden's kisses: and as she began to tell of her
hunting exploits in the forest, he prevented her by his embrace, and betrayed
his real self by a shameful action. So far from complying, she resisted him as
far as a woman could . . . but how could a girl overcome a man, and who could
defeat Jupiter? He had his way, and returned to the upper air. OVIDIO (si veda),
METAMORPHOSES,INNES I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he
loves me. -BEATRICE, IN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING I know of a
man whose beloved was completely friendly and at ease with him; but if he had
disclosed by the least gesture that he was in love, the beloved would have
become as remotefrom him as the Pleiades, whose stars hang so high in heaven.
It is a sort of statesmanship that is required in such cases; the party
concerned was enjoying the pleasure of his loved one's company intensely and to
the last degree, but if he had so much as hinted at his inner feelings he would
have attained but a miserable fraction of the beloved's favor, and endured into
the bargain all the arrogance and caprice of which love is Symbol: The Spider's
Web. The spiderfinds an innocuous corner in capable. which to spin its web. The
longer the web takes, the more fabulous HAZM; THE RING OF THE DOVE: A TREATISE
ON THE ART AND PRACTICE OF ARAB LOVE ARBERRY its construction, yetfew really
notice it-its gossamer threads are nearly invisible. The spider has no need to
chaseforfood, or even to move. It quietly sits in the corner, waitingfor its
victims to come to it on their own, and ensnare themselves in the web. Reversal
I n warfare, you need space to align your troops, room to maneuver. The more
space you have, the more intricate your strategy can be. But sometimes it is
better to overwhelm the enemy, giving them no time to think or react. Although
Casanova adapted his strategies to the woman in question, he would often try to
make an immediate impression, stirring her desire at the first encounter.
Perhaps he would perform some gallantry, rescuing a woman in danger; perhaps he
would dress so that his target would notice him in a crowd. In either case,
once he had the woman's attention he would move with lightning speed. A Siren
like Cleopatra tries to have an immediate physical effect on men, giving her
victims no time or space to retreat. She uses the element of surprise. The
first period of your contact with someone can involve a level of desire that
will never be repeated; boldness will carry the day. But these are short
seductions. The Sirens and the Casanovas only get pleasure from the number of
their victims, moving quickly from conquest to conquest, and this can be
tiring. Casanova burned himself out; Sirens, insatiable, are never satisfied.
The indirect, carefully constructed seduction may reduce the number of your
conquests, but more than compensate by their quality. 3 Send Mixed Signals Once
people are aware of your presence, and perhaps vaguely intrigued, you need to
stir their interest before it settles on someone else. What is obvious and
striking may attract their attention atfirst, but that attention is often
short-lived; in the long run, ambiguity is much more potent. Most of us are
much too obvious - instead, be hard to figure out. Send mixed signals: both
tough and tender, both spiritual and earthy, both innocent and cunning. A mix
of qualities suggests depth, which fascinates even as it confuses. An elusive,
enigmatic aura will make people want to know more, drawing them into your
circle. Create such a power by hinting at something contradictory within you.
Good and Bad I n 1806, when Prussia and France were at war, Auguste, the
handsome twenty-four-year-old prince of Prussia and nephew of Frederick the
Great, was captured by Napoleon. Instead of locking him up, Napoleon allowed
him to wander around French territory, keeping a close watch on him through
spies. The prince was devoted to pleasure, and spent his time moving from town
to town, seducing young girls. In 1807 he decided to visit the Chateau de
Coppet, in Switzerland, where lived the great French writer Madame de Stael
Auguste was greeted by his hostess with as much ceremony as she could muster.
After she had introduced him to her other guests, they all retired to a drawing
room, where they talked of Napoleon's war in Spain, the current Paris fashions,
and so on. Suddenly the door opened and another guest entered, a woman who had
somehow stayed in her room during the hubbub of the prince's entrance. It was
the thirty-year-old Madame Recamier, Madame de Stael's closest friend. She
introduced herself to the prince, then quickly retired to her bedroom. Auguste
had known that Madame Recamier was at the chateau. In fact he had heard many
stories about this infamous woman, who, in the years after the French
Revolution, was considered the most beautiful in France. Men had gone wild over
her, particularly at balls when she would take off her evening wrap, revealing
the diaphanous white dresses that she had made famous, and dance with such
abandon. The painters Gerard and David had immortalized her face and fashions,
and even her feet, considered the most beautiful anyone had ever seen; and she
had broken the heart of Lucien Bonaparte, the Emperor Napoleon's brother.
Auguste liked his girls younger than Madame Recamier, and he had come to the
chateau to rest. But those few moments in which she had stolen the scene with
her sudden entrance caught him off guard; she was as beautiful as people had
said, but more striking than her beauty was that look of hers that seemed so
sweet, indeed heavenly, with a hint of sadness in the eyes. The other guests
continued their conversations, but Auguste could only think of Madame Recamier.
Over dinner that evening, he watched her. She did not talk much, and kept her
eyes downward, but once or twice she looked up-directly at the prince. After
dinner the guests assembled in the gallery, and a harp was brought in. To the
prince's delight, Madame Recamier began to play. Reichardt had seen Juliette at
another ball, protesting coyly that she would not dance, and then, after a
while, throwing off her heavy evening gown, to reveal a light dress underneath.
On all sides, there were murmurs and whisperings about her coquetry and
affectation. As ever, she wore white satin, cut very low in the back, revealing
her charming shoulders. The men implored her to dance for them. ... To soft
music she floated into the room in her diaphanous Greek robe. Her head was
bound with a muslin fichu. She bowed timidly to the audience, and then,
spinning round lightly, she shook a transparent scarf with her fingertips, so
that in turns it billowed into the semblance of a drapery, a veil, a cloud. All
this with a strange blend ofprecision and languor. She used her eyes in a subtle
fascinating way - "she danced with her eyes." The women thought that
all that serpentine undulating of the body, all that nonchalant rhythmic
nodding of the head, were sensuous; the men were wafted into a realm of
unearthly bliss. Juliette wan ange fatal, and much more dangerous for looking
like an angel! The music grew fainter. Suddenly, by a deft trick, Juliette's
chestnut hair was loosened andfell in clouds around her. A little out of
breath, she disappeared into her dimly lit boudoir. And there the crowdfollowed
her and beheld her reclining on her daybed in a loose tea-gown, looking
fashionably pale, like Gerard's Psyche, while her maids cooled her brow with
toilet water. -MARGARET TROUNCER, MADAME RECAMIER The idea that two distinct
elements are combined in Mona Lisa's smile is one that has struck several
critics. They accordingly find in the beautiful Florentine's expression the
most perfect representation of the contrasts that dominate the erotic life of
women; the contrast between reserve and seduction, and between the most devoted
tenderness and a sensuality that is ruthlessly demanding - consuming men as if
they were alien beings. -SIGMUND FREUD, LEONARDO DA VINCI AND A MEMORY OF HIS
CHILDHOOD, TYSON [Oscar Wilde's] hands were fat and flabby; his handshake
lacked grip, and at a first encounter one recoiled from its plushy limpness,
but this aversion was soon overcome when he began to talk, for his genuine
kindliness and desire to please made one forget what was unpleasant singing a
love song. And now, suddenly, she changed: there was a roguish look in her eye
as she glanced at him. The angelic voice, the glances, the energy animating her
face, sent his mind reeling. He was confused. When the same thing happened the
next night, the prince decided to extend his stay at the chateau. In the days
that followed, the prince and Madame Recamier took walks together, rowed out on
the lake, and attended dances, where he finally held her in his arms. They
would talk late into the night. But nothing grew clear to him: she would seem
so spiritual, so noble, and then there would be a touch of the hand, a sudden
flirtatious remark. After two weeks at the chateau, the most eligible bachelor
in Europe forgot all his libertine habits and proposed marriage to Madame
Recamier. He would convert to Catholicism, her religion, and she would divorce
her much older husband. (She had told him her marriage had never been
consummated and so the Catholic church could annul it.) She would then come to
live with him in Prussia. Madame promised to do as he wished. The prince
hurried off to Pmssia to seek the approval of his family, and Madame returned
to Paris to secure the required annulment. Auguste flooded her with love
letters, and waited. Time passed; he felt he was going mad. Then, finally, a
letter: she had changed her mind. Some months later, Madame Recamier sent
Auguste a gift: Gerard's famous painting of her reclining on a sofa. The prince
spent hours in front of it, trying to pierce the mystery behind her gaze. He
had joined the company of her conquests-of men like the writer Benjamin
Constant, who said of her, "She was my last love. For the rest of my life
I was like a tree struck bylightning." Interpretation. Madame Recamier's
list of conquests became only more impressive as she grew older: there was
Prince Metternich, the Duke of Wellington, the writers Constant and
Chateaubriand. For all of these men she was an obsession, which only increased
in intensity when they were away from her. The source of her power was twofold.
First, she had an angelic face, which drew men to her. It appealed to paternal
instincts, charming with its innocence. But then there was a second quality
peeking through, in the flirtatious looks, the wild dancing, the sudden
gaiety-all these caught men off guard. Clearly there was more to her than they
had thought, an intriguing complexity. When alone, they would find themselves
pondering these contradictions, as if a poison were coursing through their
blood. Madame Recamier was an enigma, a problem that had to be solved. Whatever
it was that you wanted, whether a coquettish she-devil or an unattainable
goddess, she could seem to be. She surely encouraged this illusion by keeping
her men at a certain distance, so they could never figure her out. And she was
the queen of the calculated effect, like her surprise entrance at the Chateau
de Coppet, which made her the center of attention, if only for a few seconds.
Send Mixed Signals • 189 The seductive process involves filling someone's mind
with your image. Your innocence, or your beauty, or your flirtatiousness can
attract their attention but not their obsession; they will soon move on to the
next striking image. To deepen their interest, you must hint at a complexity
that cannot be grasped in a week or two. You are an elusive mystery, an
irresistible lure, promising great pleasure if only it can be possessed. Once
they begin to fantasize about you, they are on the brink of the slippery slope
of seduction, and will not be able to stop themselves from sliding down. Artificial
and Natural, T he big Broadway hit of 1881 was Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta
Patience, a satire on the bohemian world of aesthetes and dandies that had
become so fashionable in London. To cash in on this vogue, the operetta's
promoters decided to invite one of England's most infamous aesthetes to America
for a lecture tour; Oscar Wilde. Only twenty-seven at the time, Wilde was more
famous for his public persona than for his small body of work. The American
promoters were confident that their public would be fascinated by this man,
whom they imagined as always walking around with a flower in his hand, but they
did not expect it to last; he would do a few lectures, then the novelty would
wear off, and they would ship him home. The money was good and Wilde accepted.
On hisarrival in New York, a customs man asked him whether he had anything to
declare: "I have nothing to declare," he replied, "except my
genius." The invitations poured in-New York society was curious to meet
this oddity. Women found Wilde enchanting, but the newspapers were less kind;
The New York Times called him an "aesthetic sham." Then, a week after
his arrival, he gave his first lecture. The hall was packed; more than a
thousand people came, many of themjust to see what he looked like. They were
not disappointed. Wilde did not carry a flower, and was taller than they had
expected, but he had long flowing hair and wore a green velvet suit and cravat,
as well as knee breeches and silk stockings. Many in the audience were put off;
as they looked up at him from their seats, the combination of his large size
and pretty attire were rather repulsive. Some people openly laughed, others
could not hide their unease. They expected to hate the man. Then he began to
speak. The subject was the "English Renaissance," the "art for
art's sake" movement in late-nineteenth-century England. Wilde's voice
proved hypnotic; he spoke in a kind of meter, mannered and artificial, and few
really understood what he was saying, but the speech was so witty, and it flowed.
His appearance was certainly strange, but overall, no New Yorker had ever seen
or heard such an intriguing man, and the lecture was a huge success. Even the
newspapers warmed up to it. In Boston a few weeks later, some sixty Harvard
boys had prepared an ambush: they would make lun of this effeminate poet by
dressing in knee breeches, carrying flowers, and ap- in his physical appearance
and contact, gave charm to his manners, and grace to his precision of speech.
The first sight of him affected people in various ways. Some could hardly
restrain their laughter, others felt hostile, a few were afflicted with the
"creeps" many were conscious of being uneasy, but exceptfor a small
minority who could never recover from the first sensation of distaste and so
kept out of his way, both sexes found him irresistible, and to the young men of
his time, says W. B. Yeats, he was like a triumphant and audacious figure from
another age. -HESKETH PEARSON, OSCAR WILDE: HIS UFE AND WIT Once upon a time
there was a magnet, and in its close neighborhood lived some steel filings. One
day two or three little filings felt a sudden desire to go and visit the
magnet, and they began to talk of what a pleasant thing it would be to do.
Other filings nearby overheard their conversation, and they, too, became
infected with the same desire. Still others joined them, till at last all the
filings began to discuss the matter, and more and more their vague desire grew
into an impulse. "Why not go today?" said one of them; but others
were of opinion that it would be better to wait until tomorrow. Meanwhile,
without their having noticed it, they had been involuntarily moving nearer to
the magnet, which lay there quite still, apparently taking no heed of them. And
so they went on discussing, all the time insensibly drawing nearer to their
neighbor; and the more they talked, the more they felt the impulse growing
stronger, till the more impatient ones declared that they would go that day,
whatever the rest did. Some were heard to say that it was their duty to visit
the magnet, and they ought to have gone long ago. And, while they talked, they
moved always nearer and nearer, without realizing that they had moved. Then, at
last, the impatient ones prevailed, and, with one irresistible impulse, the whole
body cried out, "There is no use waiting. We will go today. We will go
now. We will go at once." And then in one unanimous mass they swept along,
and in another moment were clingingfast to the magnet on every side. Then the
magnet smiled-for the steel filings had no doubt at all but that they were
paying that visit of their own free will. WILDE, LE GALLIENNE IN plauding far
too loudly at his entrance. Wilde was not the least bit flustered. The audience
laughed hysterically at his improvised comments, and when the boys heckled him
he kept his dignity, betraying no anger at all. Once again, the contrast
between his manner and his physical appearance made him seem rather
extraordinary. Many were deeply impressed, and Wilde was well on his way to
becoming a sensation. The short lecture tour turned into a cross-country
affair. In San Francisco, this visiting lecturer on art and aesthetics proved
able to drink everyone under the table and play poker, which made him the hit
of the season. On his way back from the West Coast, Wilde was to make stops in
Colorado, and was warned that if the pretty-boy poet dared to show up in the
mining town of Leadville, he would be hung from the highest tree. It was an
invitation Wilde could not refuse. Arriving in Leadville, he ignored the
hecklers and nasty looks; he toured the mines, drank and played cards, then
lectured on Botticelli and Cellini in the saloons. Like everyone else, the
miners fell under his spell, even naming a mine after him. One cowboy was heard
to say, "That fellow is some art guy, but he can drink any of us under the
table and afterwards carry us home two at a time." Interpretation. In a
fable he improvised at dinner once, Oscar Wilde talked about some steel filings
that had a sudden desire to visit a nearby magnet. As they talked to each other
about this, they found themselves moving closer to the magnet without realizing
how or why. Finally they were swept in one mass to the magnet's side.
"Then the magnet smiled-for the steel filings had no doubt at all but that
they were paying that visit of their own free will." Such was the effect
that Wilde himself had on everyone around him. HESKETH PEARSON, OSCAR WILDE:
HIS UFE AND WIT Now that the bohort [impromptu joust] was over and the knights
were dispersing and each making his way to where his thoughts inclined him, it
chanced that Rivalin was heading for where lovely Blancheflor was sitting.
Seeing this, he galloped up to her and looking her in the eyes saluted her most
pleasantly. • "God save you, lovely woman!" • "Thank you,"
said the girl, and continued very bashfully, "may God Almighty, who makes
all hearts glad, gladden your heart and mind! And my Wilde's attractiveness was
more than just a by-product of his character, it was quite calculated. An
adorer of paradox, he consciously played up his own weirdness and ambiguity,
the contrast between his mannered appearance and his witty, effortless
performance. Naturally warm and spontaneous, he constructed an image that ran
counter to his nature. People were repelled, confused, intrigued, and finally
drawn to this man who seemed impossible to figure out. Paradox is seductive
because it plays with meaning. We are secretly oppressed by the rationality in
our lives, where everything is meant to mean something; seduction, by contrast,
thrives on ambiguity, on mixed signals, on anything that eludes interpretation.
Most people are painfully obvious. If their character is showy, we may be
momentarily attracted, but the attraction wears off; there is no depth, no
contrary motion, to pull us in. The key to both attracting and holding
attention is to radiate mystery. And no one is naturally mysterious, at least
not for long; mystery is something you have to work at, a ploy on your part,
and something that must be used early on in the seduction. Let one part of your
character show, so everyone notices it. (In the example of Wilde, this was the
mannered affectation con- Send Mixed Signals • 191 veyed by Ms clothes and
poses.) But also send out a mixed signal-some sign that you are not what you
seem, a paradox. Do not worry if this underquality is a negative one, like
danger, cmelty, or amorality; people will be drawn to the enigma anyway, and
pure goodness is rarely seductive. Paradox with him was only truth standing on
its head to attract attention. - LE GALLIENNE, ON HIS FRIEND OSCAR WILDE
grateful thanks to you !- yet notforgetting a bone I have to pick with
you." • "Ah, sweet woman, what have I done?" was courteous
Rivalin's reply. • "You have annoyed me through a friend of mine, the best
I ever had. " • "Good heavens," thought he, "what does this
mean? What have I done to. Keys to Seduction displease her? What
does she say I have done?" and he imagined that N othing can proceed in
seduction unless you can attract and hold your attention, your physical
presence becoming a haunting mental presence. It is actually quite easy to
create that first stir-an alluring style of dress, a suggestive glance,
something extreme about you. But what happens next? Our minds are barraged with
images-not just from media but from the disorder of daily life. And many of
these images are quite striking. You become just one more thing screaming for
attention; your attractiveness will pass unless you spark the more enduring
kind of spell that makes people think of you in your absence. That means
engaging their imaginations, making them think there is more to you than what
they see. Once they start embellishing your image with their fantasies, they
are hooked. This must, however, be done early on, before your targets know too
much and their impressions of you are set. It should occur the moment they lay
eyes on you. By sending mixedsignals in that first encounter, you create a
little surprise, a little tension: you seem to be one thing (innocent, brash, intellectual,
witty), but you also throw them a glimpse of something else (devilish, shy,
spontaneous, sad). Keep things subtle: if the second quality is too strong, you
will seem schizopMenic. But make them wonder why you might be shy or sad
underneath your brash intellectual wit, and you will have their attention. Give
them an ambiguity that lets them see what they want to see, capture their
imagination with little voyeuristic glimpses into your dark soul. The Greek
philosopher Socrates was one of history's greatest seducers; the young men who
followed him as students were not just fascinated by Ms ideas, they fell in
love with him. One such youth was Alcibiades, the unwittingly he must have
injured a kinsman of hers some time at their knightly sports and that was why
she was vexed with him. But no, the friend she referred to was her heart, in
which he made her suffer: that was the friend she spoke of But he knew nothing
of that. • "Lovely woman," he said with all his accustomed charm,
"I do not want you to be angry with me or bear me any ill will. So, if
what you tell me is true, pronounce sentence on me yourself: I will do whatever
you command." • "I do not hate you overmuch for what has
happened," was the sweet girl's answer, "nor do I love you for it.
But to see what amends you will make for the wrong you have done me, I shall
test you another time." • And so he bowed as if to go, and she, lovely
girl, sighed at him most secretly and said with tender feeling: • "Ah,
dear notorious playboy who became a powerful political figure near the end of
the fifth century B.C. In Plato's Symposium, Alcibiades describes Socrates's
seductive powers by comparing him to the little figures of Silenus that were
made back then. In Greek myth, Silenus was quite ugly, but also a wise prophet.
Accordingly the statues of Silenus were hollow, and when you took them apart,
you would find little figures of gods inside them-the inner truth and beauty
under the unappealing exterior. And so, for Alcibiades, it was the same with
Socrates, who was so ugly as to be repellent but whose face radiated inner
beauty and contentment. The effect was confus- friend, God bless you!"
From this time on the thoughts of each ran on the other. • Rivalin turned away,
pondering many things. He pondered from many sides why Blancheflor should be
vexed, and what lay behind it all. He considered her greeting, her words; he
examined her sigh minutely, herfarewell, he whole behavior. . . But since he
was uncertain of her motive-whether she had acted from enmity orlove-he wavered
in perplexity. He wavered in his thoughts now here, now there. At one moment he
was off in one direction, then suddenly in another, till he had so ensnared
himself in the toils of his own desire that he was powerless to escape . . . •
His entanglement had placed him in a quandary, for he did not know whether she
wished him well or ill; he could not make out whether she loved or hated him.
No hope or despair did he consider which did not forbid him either to advance
or retreat-hope and despair led him to andfro in unresolved dissension. Hope
spoke to him of love, despair of hatred. Because of this discord he could yield
his firm belief neither to hatred nor yet to love. Thus his feelings drifted in
an unsure haven-hope bore him on, despair away. He found no constancy in
either; they agreed neither one way or another. When despair came and told him
that his Blancheflor was his enemy he faltered and sought to escape: but at
once came hope, bringing him her love, and a fond aspiration, and so perforce
he remained. In theface of such discord he did not know where to turn: nowhere
could he go forward. The more he strove to flee, the more firmly love forced
him back. The harder he struggled to escape, love drew him back more firmly.
-STRASSBURG, TRISTAN. HATTOing and attractive. Antiquity's other great seducer,
Cleopatra, also sent out mixed signals: by all accounts physically alluring, in
voice, face, body, and manner, she also had a brilliantly active mind, which
for many writers of the time made her seem somewhat masculine in spirit. These
contrary qualities gave her complexity, and complexity gave her power. To
capture and hold attention, you need to show attributes that go against your
physical appearance, creating depth and mystery. If you have a sweet face and
an innocent air, let out hints of something dark, even vaguely cruel in your
character. It is not advertised in your words, but in your manner. The actor
Errol Flynn had a boyishly angelic face and a slight air of sadness. Beneath
this outward appearance, however, women could sense an underlying cruelty, a
criminal streak, an exciting kind of dangerousness. This play of contrary
qualities attracted obsessive interest. The female equivalent is the type
epitomized by Marilyn Monroe; she had the face and voice of a little girl, but
something sexual and naughty emanated powerfully from her as well. Madame
Recamier did it all with her eyes-the gaze of air angel, suddenly interrupted
by something sensual and flirtatious. Playing with gender roles is a kind of
intriguing paradox that has a long history in seduction. The greatest Don Juans
have had a touch of prettiness and femininity, and the most attractive
courtesans have had a masculine streak. The strategy, though, is only powerful
when the underquality is merely hinted at; if the mix is too obvious or
striking it will seem bizarre or even threatening. The great
seventeenth-century French courtesan Ninon de l'Enclos was decidedly feminine
in appearance, yet everyone who met her was struck by a touch of aggressiveness
and independence in her-but just a touch. The late nineteenth-century Italian
novelist Gabriele d'Annunzio was certainly masculine in his approaches, but
there was a gentleness, a consideration, mixed in, and an interest in feminine
finery The combinations can be juggled every which way: Oscar Wilde was quite
feminine in appearance and manner, but the underlying suggestion that he was
actually quite masculine drew both men and women to him. A potent variation on
this theme is the blending of physical heat and emotional coldness. Dandies
like Beau Brummel and Andy Warhol combine striking physical appearances with a
kind of coldness of manner, a distance from everything and everyone. They are
both enticing and elusive, and people spend lifetimes chasing after such men,
trying to shatter their unattainability. (The power of apparently unattainable
people is devilishly seductive; wewantto be the one to break them down.) They
also wrap themselves in ambiguity and mystery, either talking very little or
talking only of surface matters, hinting at a depth of character you can never
reach. When Marlene Dietrich entered a room, or arrived at a party, all eyes
inevitably turned to her. First there were her startling clothes, chosen to
make heads turn. Then there was her air of nonchalant indifference. Men, and
women too, became obsessed with her, thinking of her long after other memories
of the evening had faded. Remember: that first impression, that Send Mixed
Signals entrance, is critical. To show too much desire for attention is to
signal insecurity, and will often drive people away; play it too cold and
disinterested, on the other hand, and no one will bother coming near. The trick
is to combine the two attitudes at the same moment. It is the essence of .
Perhaps you have a reputation for a particular quality, which immediately comes
to mind when people see you. You will better hold their attention by suggesting
that behind this reputation some other quality lies lurking. No one had a
darker, more sinful reputation than Lord Byron. What drove women wild was that
behind his somewhat cold and disdainful exterior, they could sense that he was
actually quite romantic, even spiritual. Byron played this up with his
melancholic airs and occasional kind deed. Transfixed and confused, many women
thought that they could be the one to lead him back to goodness, to make him a
faithful lover. Once a woman entertained such a thought, she was completely
under his spell. It is not difficult to create such a seductive effect. Should
you be known as eminently rational, say, hint at something irrational.
Johannes, the narrator in Kierkegaard's The Seducer's Diary, first treats the
young Cordelia with businesslike politeness, as his reputation would lead her
to expect. Yet she very soon overhears him making remarks that hint at a wild,
poetic streak in his character; and she is excited and intrigued. These
principles have applications far beyond sexual seduction. To hold the attention
of a broad public, to seduce them into thinking about you, you need to mix your
signals. Display too much of one quality-even if it is a noble one, like
knowledge or efficiency-and people will feel that you lack humanity. We are all
complex and ambiguous, full of contradictory impulses; if you show only one
side, even if it is your good side, you will wear on people's nerves. They will
suspect you are a hypocrite. Mahatma Gandhi, a saintly figure, openly confessed
to feelings of anger and vengefulness. John F. Kennedy, the most seductive
American public figure of modern times, wasawalkingparadox: an East Coast
aristocrat with a love of the common man, an obviously masculine man-a war
hero-with a vulnerability you could sense underneath, an intellectual who loved
popular culture. People were drawn to Kennedy like the steel filings in Wilde's
fable. A bright surface may have a decorative charm, but what draws your eye
into a painting is a depth of field, an inexpressible ambiguity, a surreal
complexity. Symbol: The Theater Curtain. Onstage, the curtain's heavy deep-red
folds attract your eye with their hypnotic surface. But what really fascinates
and draws you in is what you think might be happening behind the curtain-the
light peeking through, the suggestion of a secret, something about to happen. You
feel the thrill of a voyeur about to watch a performance. Reversal T he
complexity you signal to other people will only affect them properly if they
have the capacity to enjoy a mystery. Some people like things simple, and lack
the patience to pursue a person who confuses them. They prefer to be dazzled
and overwhelmed. The great Belle Epoque courtesan known as La Belle Otero would
work a complex magic on artists and political figures who fell for her, but in
dealing with the more uncomplicated, sensual male she would astound them with
spectacle and beauty. When meeting a woman for the first time, Casanova might
dress in the most fantastic outfit, with jewels and brilliant colors to dazzle
the eye; he would use the target's reaction to gauge whether or not she would
demand a more complicated seduction. Some of his victims, particularly young
girls, needed no more than the glittering and spellbinding appearance, which
was really what they wanted, and the seduction would stay on that level.
Everything depends on your target: do not bother creating depth for people who
are insensitive to it, or who may even be put off or disturbed by it. You can
recognize such types by their preference for the simpler pleasures in life,
their lack of patience for a more nuanced story. With them, keep it simple. 4,
Appear to Be an Object of Desire -Create Triangles, Few are drawn to the person
whom others avoid or neglect; people gather around those who have already
attracted interest. We want what other people want. To draw your victims closer
and make them hungry to possess you, you must create an aura of desirability-of
being wanted and courted by many. It will become a point of vanity for them to
be the preferred object of your attention, to win you away from a crowd of
admirers. Manufacture the illusion of popularity by surrounding yourself with
members of the opposite sex – friends, former lovers, present suitors.
Createtriangles that stimulate rivalry and raise your value. Build a reputation
that precedes you: if many have succumbed to your charms, there must be a
reason. Creating Triangles O ne evening in 1882, the thirty-two-year-old
Prussian philosopher Paul Ree, living in Rome at the time, visited the house of
an older woman who ran a salon for writers and artists. Ree noticed a newcomer
there, a twenty-one-year-old Russian girl named Lou von Salome, who had come to
Rome on holiday with her mother. Ree introduced himself and they began a
conversation that lasted well into the night. Her ideas about God and morality
were like his own; she talked with such intensity, yet at the same time her
eyes seemed to flirt with him. Over the next few days Ree and Salome took long
walks through the city. Intrigued by her mind yet confused by the emotions she
aroused, he wanted to spend more time with her. Then, one day, she startled him
with a proposition: she knew he was a close friend of the philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche, then also visiting Italy. The three of them, she said, should travel
together-no, actually live together, in a kind of philosophers' menage a trois.
A fierce critic of Christian morals, Ree found this idea delightful. He wrote
to his friend about Salome, describing how desperate she was to meet him. After
a few such letters, Nietzsche hurried to Rome. Ree had made this invitation to
please Salome, and to impress her; he also wanted to see if Nietzsche shared
his enthusiasm for the young girl's ideas. But as soon as Nietzsche arrived,
something unpleasant happened; the great philosopher, who had always been a
loner, was obviously smitten with Salome. Instead of the three of them sharing
intellectual conversations together, Nietzsche seemed to be conspiring to get
the girl alone. When Ree caught glimpses of Nietzsche and Salome talking
without including him, he felt shivers of jealousy. Forget about some
philosophers' menage a trois: Salome was his, he had discovered her, and he
would not share her, even with his good friend. Somehow he had to get her
alone. Only then could he woo and win her. Madame Salome had planned to escort
her daughter back to Russia, but Salome wanted to stay in Europe. Ree
intervened, offering to travel with the Salomes to Germany and introduce them
to his own mother, who, he promised, would look after the girl and act as a
chaperone. (Ree knew that his mother would be a lax guardian at best.) Madame
Salome agreed to this proposal, but Nietzsche was harder to shake: he decided
to join them on their northward journey to Ree's home in Prussia. At one point
in the trip, Nietzsche and Salome took a walk by themselves, and Let me tell
you about a gentleman I once knew who, although he was of pleasing appearance
and modest behavior, and also a very capable warrior, was not so outstanding as
regards any of these qualities that there were not to befound many who were his
equal and even better. However, as luck would have it, a certain lady fell very
deeply in love with him. She saw that he felt the same way, and as her love
grew day by day, there not being any way for them to speak to each other, she
revealed her sentiments to another lady, who she hoped would be of service to
her in this affair. Now this lady neither in rank nor beauty was a whit
inferior to the first; and it came about that when she heard the young man
(whom she had never seen) spoken of so affectionately, and came to realize that
the other woman, whom she knew was extremely discreet and intelligent, loved
him beyond words, she straight away began to imagine that he must be the most
handsome, the wisest, the most discreet of men, and, in short, the man most
worthy of her love in all the world. So, never having set eyes on him, shefell
in love with him so passionately that she set out to win him not for herfriend
but for herself And in this she succeeded with little effort, for indeed she
was a woman more to be wooed than to do the wooing. And now listen
tothesplendid sequel: not long afterward it happened that a letter which she
had written to her lover fell into the hands of another woman of comparable
rank, charm, and beauty; and since she, like most women, was curious and eager
to learn secrets, she opened the letter and read it. Realizing that it was
written from the depths of passion, in the most loving and ardent terms, she
was at first moved with compassion, for she knew very wellfrom whom the letter
came and to whom it was addressed; then, however, such was the power of the
words she read, turning them over in her mind and considering what kind of man
it must be who had been able to arouse such great love, she at once began to
fall in love with him herself; and the letter was without doubt far more
effective than if the young man had himself written it to her. And just as it
sometimes happens that the poison preparedfor a prince kills the one who tastes
his food, so that poor woman, in her greediness, drank the love potion prepared
for another. What more is there to say? The affair was no secret, and things so
developed that many other women besides, partly to spite the others and partly
to follow their when they came back, Ree had the feeling that something
physical had happened between them. His blood boiled; Salome was slipping from
his grasp. Finally the groupsplitup, the mother returning to Russia, Nietzsche
to his summer place in Tautenburg, Ree and Salome staying behind at Ree's home.
But Salome did not stay long: she accepted an invitation of Nietzsche's to
visit him, unchaperoned, in Tautenburg. In her absence Ree was consumed with
doubts and anger. He wanted her more than ever, and was prepared to redouble
his efforts. When she finally came back, Ree vented his bitterness, railing
against Nietzsche, criticizing his philosophy, and questioning his motives
toward the girl. But Salome took Nietzsche's side. Ree was in despair; he felt
he had lost her for good. Yet a few days later she surprised him again: she had
decided she wanted to live with him, and with him alone. At last Ree had what
he had wanted, or so he thought. The couple settled in Berlin, where they
rented an apartment together. But now, to Ree's dismay, the old pattern repeated.
They lived together but Salome was courted on all sides by young men. The
darling of Berlin's intellectuals, who admired her independent spirit, her
refusal to compromise, she was constantly surrounded by a harem of men, who
referred to her as "Her Excellency." Once again Ree found himself
competing for her attention. Driven to despair, he left her a few years later,
and eventually committed suicide. In 1911, Sigmund Freud met Salome (now known
as Lou Andreas- Salome) at a conference in Germany. She wanted to devote
herself to the psychoanalytical movement, she said, and Freud found her
enchanting, although, like everyone else, he knew the story of her infamous
affair with Nietzsche (see page 46, "The Dandy"). Salome had no
background in psychoanalysis or in therapy of any kind, but Freud admitted her
into the inner circle of followers who attended his private lectures. Soon
after she joined the circle, one of Freud's most promising and brilliant
students. Dr. Victor Tausk, sixteen years younger than Salome, fell in love
with her. Salome's relationship with Freud had been platonic, but he had grown
extremely fond of her. He was depressed when she missed a lecture, and would
send her notes and flowers. Her involvement in a love affair with Tausk made him
intensely jealous, and he began to compete for her attention. Tausk had been
like a son to him, but the son was threatening to steal the father's platonic
lover. Soon, however, Salome left Tausk. Now her friendship with Freud was
stronger than ever, and so it lasted until her death, in 1937. Interpretation.
Men did not just fall in love with Lou Andreas-Salome; they were overwhelmed
with the desire to possess her, to wrest her away from others, to be the proud
owner of her body and spirit. They rarely saw her alone; she always in some way
surrounded herself with other men. Appear to Be an Object of Desire-Create
Triangles • 199 When she saw that Ree was interested in her, she mentioned her
desire to meet Nietzsche. This inflamed Ree, and made him want to marry her and
to keep him for himself, but she insisted on meeting his friend. His letters to
Nietzsche betrayed his desire for this woman, and this in turn kindled
Nietzsche's own desire for her, even before he had met her. Every time one of
the two men was alone with her, the other was in the background. Then, later
on, most of the men who met her knew of the infamous Nietzsche affair, and this
only increased their desire to possess her, to compete with Nietzsche's memory.
Freud's affection for her, similarly, turned into potent desire when he had to
vie with Tausk for her attention. Salome was intelligent and attractive enough
on her own account; but her constant strategy of imposing a triangle of
relationships on her suitors made her desirability intense. And while they
fought over her, she had the power, being desired by all and subject to none.
Our desire for another person almost always involves social considerations: we
are attracted to those who are attractive to other people. We want to possess
them and steal them away. You can believe all the sentimentalnonsense you want
to about desire, but in the end, much of it has to do with vanity and greed. Do
not whine and moralize about people's selfishness, but simply use it to your
advantage. The illusion that you are desired by others will make you more
attractive to your victims than your beautiful face or your perfect body. And
the most effective way to create that illusion is to create a triangle: impose
another person between you and your victim,and subtly make your victim aware of
how much this other person wants you. The third point on the triangle does not
have to be just one person: surround yourself with admirers, reveal your past
conquests-in other words, envelop yourself in an aura of desirability. Make
your targets compete with your past and your present. They will long to possess
you all to themselves, giving you great power for as long as you elude their
grasp. Fail to make yourself an object of desire right from the start, and you
will end up the sorry slave to the whims of your lovers-they will abandon you
the moment they lose interest. [A person] will desire any object so long as he
is convinced that it is desired by another person whom he admires. -RENE GIRARD
Keys to Seduction W e are social creatures, and are immensely influenced by the
tastes and desires of other people. Imagine a large social gathering. You see
aman alone, whom nobody talks to for any length of time, and who is wandering
around without company; isn't there a kind of self-fulfilling isolation about
him? Why is he alone, why is he avoided? There has to be a reason. Until
someone takes pity on this man and starts up a conversation example, put every
care and effort into winning this man's love, squabbling over it for a while as
boys do for cherries. CASTIGLIONE, THE BOOK OFTHE COURTIER, BULL Most of the
time we prefer one thing to another because that is what our friends already
prefer or because that object has marked social significance. Adults, when they
are hungry, are just like children in that they seek out thefoods that others
take. In their love affairs, they seek out the man or woman whom others find
attractive and abandon those who are not sought after. When we say of a man or
woman that he or she is desirable, what we really mean is that others desire
them. It is not that they have some particular quality, but because they
conform to some currently modish model. MOSCOVICI, THE AGE OF THE CROWD.A
HISTORICAL TREATISE ON MASS PSYCHOL- OGT, WHITEHOUSE It will be greatly to your
advantage to entertain the lady you would win with an account of the number of
women who are in love with you, and of the decided advances which they have
made to you; for this will not only prove that you are a greatfavorite with the
ladies, and a man of true honor, but it will convince her that she may have the
honor of being enrolled in the same list, and of being praised in the same way,
in the presence of your otherfemale friends. This will greatly delight her, and
you need not be surprised if she testifies her admiration of your character by
throwing her arms around your neck on the spot. -LOLA MONTEZ, THE ARTS AND
SECRETS OF BEAUTY, WITH HINTS TO GENTLEMEN ON THE ART OF FASCINATING [Rene]
Girard's mimetic desire occurs when an individual subject desires an object
because it is desired by another subject, here designated as the rival: desire
is modeled on with him, he will look unwanted and unwantable. But over there,
in another corner, is a woman surrounded by people. They laugh at her remarks,
and as they laugh, others join the group, attracted by its gaiety. When she
moves around, people follow. Her face is glowing with attention. There has to
be a reason. In both cases, of course, there doesn't actually have to be a
reason at all. The neglected man may have quite charming qualities, supposing
you ever talk to him; but most likely you won't. Desirability is a social
illusion. Its source is less what you say or do, or any kind of boasting or
self- advertisement, than the sense that other people desire you. To turn your
targets' interest into something deeper, into desire, you must make them see
you as a person whom others cherish and covet. Desire is both imitative (we
like what others like) and competitive (we want to take away from others what
they have). As children, we wanted to monopolize the attention of a parent, to
draw it away from other siblings. This sense of rivalry pervades human desire,
repeating throughout our lives. Make people compete for your attention, make
them see you as sought after by everyone else. The aura of desirability will
envelop you. the wishes or actions of another. Philippe Lacoue- Labarthe says
that "the basic hypothesis upon which rests Girard's famous analysis [is
that] every desire is the desire of the other (and not immediately desire of an
object), every structure of desire is triangular (including the other-mediator
or model-whose desire desire imitates), every desire is thus from its inception
tapped by hatred and rivalry; in short, the origin of desire is mimesis -
mimeticism-and no desire is ever forged which does not desire forthwith the
death or disappearance of the model or exemplary character which gave rise to
it. MANDRELL, DON JUAN AND THE POINT OF HONOR Your admirers can be friends or
even suitors. Call it the harem effect. Pauline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon,
raised her value in men's eyes by always having a group of worshipful men
around her at balls and parties. If she went for a walk, it was never with one
man, always with two or three. Perhaps these men were simply friends, or even
just props and hangers-on; the sight of them was enough to suggest that she was
prized and desired, a woman worth fighting over. Andy Warhol, too, surrounded
himself with the most glamorous, interesting people he could find. To be part
of his inner circle meant that you were desirable as well. By placing himself
in the middle but keeping himself aloof from it all, he made everyone compete
for his attention. He stirred people's desire to possess him by holding back.
Practices like these not only stimulate competitive desires, they take aim at
people's prime weakness: their vanity and self-esteem. We can endure feeling
that another person has more talent, or more money, but the sense that a rival
is more desirable than we are-that is unbearable. In the early eighteenth
century, the Duke de Richelieu, a great rake, managed to seduce a young woman
who was rather religious but whose husband, a dolt, was often away. He then
proceeded to seduce her upstairs neighbor, a young widow. When the two women
discovered that he was going from one to the other in the same night, they
confronted him. A lesser man would have fled, but not the duke; he understood
the dynamic of vanity and desire. Neither woman wanted to feel that he
preferred the other. And so he managed to arrange a little menage a trois,
knowing that now they would struggle between themselves to be the favorite.
When people's vanity is at risk, you can make them do whatever you want. According
to Stendhal, if there is a woman you are interested in, pay attention to her
sister. That will stir a triangular desire. Your reputation-your illustrious
past as a seducer-is ait effective way Appear to Be an Object of Desire-Create
Triangles • 201 of creating an aura of desirability. Women threw themselves at
Errol Flynn's feet, not because of his handsome face, and certainly not because
of his acting skills, but because of his reputation. They knew that other women
had found him irresistible. Once he had established that reputation, he did not
have to chase women anymore; they came to him. Men who believe that a rakish
reputation will make women fear or distrust them, and should be played down,
are quite wrong. On the contrary, it makes them more attractive. The virtuous
Duchess de Montpensier, the Grande Mademoiselle of seventeenth-century France,
began by enjoying a friendship with the rake Lauzun, but a troubling thought
soon occurred to her: if a man with Lauzun's past did not see her as a possible
lover, something had to be wrong with her. This anxiety eventually pushed her
into his arms. To be part of a great seducer's club of conquests can be a
matter of vanity and pride. We are happy to be in such company, to have our
name broadcast as this man or woman's lover. Your own reputation may not be so
alluring, but you must find a way to suggest to your victim that others, many
others, have found you desirable. It is reassuring. There is nothing like a
restaurant full of empty tables to persuade you not to go in. A variation on
the triangle strategy is the use of contrasts: careful exploitation of people
who are dull or unattractive may enhance your desirability by comparison. At a
social affair, for instance, make sure that your target has to chat with the
most boring person available. Come to the rescue and your target will be
delighted to see you. In The Seducer's Diary, by Spren Kierkegaard, Johannes
has designs on the innocent young Cordelia. Knowing that his friend Edward is
hopelessly shy and dull, he encourages this man to court her; a few weeks of
Edward's attentions will make her eyes wander in search of someone else, anyone
else, and Johannes will make sure that they settle on him. Johannes chose to
strategize and maneuver, but almost any social environment will contain
contrasts you can make use of almost naturally. The seventeenth-century English
actress Nell Gwyn became the main mistress of King Charles II because her humor
and unaffectedness made her that much more desirable among the many stiff and
pretentious ladies of Charles's court. When the Shanghai actress Jiang Qing met
Mao Zedong, in 1937, she did not have to do much to seduce him; the other women
in his mountain camp in Yenan dressed like men, and were decidedly unfeminine.
The sight alone of Jiang was enough to seduce Mao, who soon left his wife for
her. To make use of contrasts, either develop and display those attractive
attributes (humor, vivacity, and so on) that are the scarcest in your own
social group, or choose a group in which your natural qualities are rare, and
will shine. The use of contrasts has vast political ramifications, for a
political figure must also seduce and seem desirable. Leam to play up the
qualities that your rivals lack. Peter II, czar in eighteenth-century Russia,
was arrogant and irresponsible, so his wife, Catherine the Great, did all she
could to seem modest and dependable. When Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia in
1917 after Czar Nicholas II had been deposed, he made a show of decisiveness
It's annoying that our new acquaintance likes the boy. But aren't the best
things in life free to all? The sun shines on everyone. The moon, accompanied
by countless stars, leads even the beasts to pasture. What can you think of
lovelier than water? But it flows for the whole world. Is love alone then
something furtive rather than something to be gloried in? Exactly, that's just
it -/ don't want any of the good things of life unless people are envious of
them. -PETRONIUS, THE SATYRICON, SULLIVAN and discipline-precisely what no
other leader had at the time. In the American presidential race of 1980, the
irresoluteness of Jimmy Carter made the single-mindedness of Ronald Reagan look
desirable. Contrasts are eminently seductive because they do not depend on your
own words or self-advertisements. The public reads them unconsciously, and sees
what it wants to see. Finally, appearing to be desired by others will raise
your value, but often how you carry yourself can influence this as well. Do not
let your targets see you so often; keep your distance, seem unattainable, out
of their reach. An object that is rare and hard to obtain is generally more
prized. Symbol: The Trophy. What makes you want to win the trophy, and to see
it as something worth having, is the sight of the other competitors. Some, out
of a spirit of kindness, may want to reward everyonefor trying, but the Trophy
then loses its value. It must represent not only your victory but everyone
else's defeat. Reversal T here is no reversal. It is essential to appear desirable
in the eyes of others. 5. Create a Need- Stir Anxiety and Discontent. A
perfectly satisfied person cannot be seduced. Tension and disharmony must be
instilled in your targets' minds. Stir within them feelings of discontent, an
unhappiness with their circumstances and with themselves: their life lacks
adventure, they have strayed from the ideals of their youth, they have become
boring. Thefeelings of inadequacy that you create will give you space to
insinuate yourself, to make them see you as the answer to their problems. Pain
and anxiety are the proper precursors to pleasure. Learn to manufacture the
need that you can fill. Opening a Wound. I n the coal-mining town of Eastwood,
in central England, David Herbert Lawrence was considered something of a strange
lad. Pale and delicate, he had no time for games or boyish pursuits, but was
interested in literature; and he preferred the company of girls, who made up
most of his friends. Lawrence often visited the Chambers family, who had been
his neighbors until they moved out of Eastwood to a farm not far away.Heliked
to study with the Chambers sisters, particularly Jessie; she was shy and
serious, and getting her to open up and confide in him was a pleasurable
challenge. Jessie grew quite attached to Lawrence over the years, and they
became good friends. One day in 1906, Lawrence, twenty-one at the time, did not
show up at the usual hour for his study session with Jessie. He finally arrived
much later, in a mood she had never seen before-preoccupied and quiet. Now it
was her turn to make him open up. Linally he talked: he felt she was getting
too close to him. What about her future? Whom would she marry? Certainly not
him, he said, for they were just friends. But it was unfair of him to keep her
from seeing others. They should of course remain friends and have their talks,
but maybe less often. When he finished and left, she felt a strange emptiness.
She had yet to think much about love or marriage. Suddenly she had doubts. What
would her future be? Why wasn't she thinking about it? She felt anxious and
upset, without understanding why. Lawrence continued to visit, but everything
had changed. He criticized her for this and that. She wasn't very physical.
What kind of wife would she make anyway? A man needed more from a woman than
just talk. He likened her to a nun. They began to see each other less often.
When, some time later,Lawrence accepted a teaching position at a school outside
London, she felt part relieved to be rid of him for a while. But when he said
goodbye to her, and intimated that it might be for the last time, she broke
down and cried. Then he started sending her weekly letters. He would write
about girls he was seeing; maybe one of them would be his wife. Linally, at his
behest, she visited him in London. They got along well, as in the old times,
but he continued to badger her about her future, picking at that old wound. At
Christmas he was back in Eastwood, and when he visited her he seemed exultant.
He had decided that it was Jessie he should marry, that he had in fact been
attracted to her all along. They should keep it quiet for a while; although his
writing career was taking off (his first No one can fall in love if he is even
partially satisfied with what he has or who he is. The experience of falling in
love originates in an extreme depression, an inability to find something that
has value in everyday life. The "symptom" of the predisposition to
fall in love is not the conscious desire to do so, the intense desire to enrich
our lives; it is the profound sense of being worthless and of having nothing
that is valuable and the shame of not having it. . . . For this reason, falling
in love occurs more frequently among young people, since they are profoundly
uncertain, unsure of their worth, and often ashamed of themselves. The same
thing applies to people of other ages when they lose something in their lives -
when their youth ends or when they start to grow old. ALBERONI, FALLING IN
LOVE, "What can Love be then?" I said. "A mortal?"
"Far from it." "Well, what?" "As in my previous
examples, he is half-way between mortal and immortal." What sort of being
is he then, Diotima?" "He is a great spirit, Socrates; everything
that is of the nature of a spirit is half-god and halfman." "Who are
his parents?" I asked. "That is rather a long story," she
answered, "but I will tell you. On the day that Aphrodite was born the
gods were feasting, among them Contrivance the son of Invention; and after
dinner, seeing that a party was in progress, Poverty came to beg and stood at
the door. Now Contrivance was drunk with nectar - wine, I may say, had not yet
been discovered-and went out into the garden of Zeus, and was overcome by
sleep. So Poverty, thinking to alleviate her wretched condition by bearing a
child to Contrivance, lay with him and conceived Love. Since Love was begotten
on Aphrodite's birthday, and since he has also an innate passion for the
beautiful, and so for the beauty of Aphrodite herself, hebecame her follower
and servant. Again, having Contrivance for his father and Poverty for his
mother, he bears the following character. He is always poor, and, far from
being sensitive and beautiful, as most people imagine, he is hard and
weather-beaten, shoeless and homeless, always sleeping outfor want of a bed, on
the ground, on doorsteps, and in the street. So far he takes after his mother
and lives in want. But, being also his father's novel was about to be
published), he needed to make more money. Caught off guard by this sudden
announcement, and overwhelmed with happiness, Jessie agreed to everything, and
they became lovers. Soon, however, the familiar pattern repeated: criticisms,
breakups, announcements that he was engaged to another girl. This only deepened
his hold on her. It was not until 1912 that she finally decided never to see
him again, disturbed by his portrayal of her in the autobiographical novel Sons
and Lovers. But Lawrence remained a lifelong obsession for her. In 1913, a
young English woman named Ivy Low, who had read Lawrence's novels, began to correspond
with him, her letters gushing with admiration. By now Lawrence was married, to
a German woman, the Baroness Frieda von Richthofen. To Low's surprise, though,
he invited her to visit him and his wife in Italy. She knew he
wasprobablysomethingof a Don Juan, but was eager to meet him, and accepted his
invitation. Lawrence was not what she had expected: his voice was high-pitched,
his eyes were piercing, and there was something vaguely feminine about him.
Soon they were taking walks together, with Lawrence confiding in Low. She felt
that they were becoming friends, which delighted her. Then suddenly, just
before she was to leave, he launched into a series of criticisms of her-she was
so unspontaneous, so predictable, less human being than robot. Devastated by
this unexpected attack, she nevertheless had to agree- what he had said was
true. What could he have seen in her in the first place? Who was she anyway?
Low left Italy feeling empty-but then Lawrence continued to write to her, as if
nothing had happened. She soon realized that she had fallen hopelessly in love
with him, despite everything he had said to her. Or was it not despite what he
had said, but because of it? In 1914, the writer John Middleton-Murry received
a letter from Lawrence, a good friend of his. In the letter, out of nowhere,
Lawrence criticized Middleton-Murry for being passionless and not gallant
enough with his wife, the novelist Katherine Mansfield. Middleton-Murry later
wrote, "I had never felt for a man before what his letter made me feel for
him. It was a new thing, a unique thing, in my experience; and it was to rmain
unique." He felt that beneath Lawrence's criticisms lay some weird kind of
affection. Whenever he saw Lawrence from then on, he felt a strange physical
attraction that he could not explain. Interpretation. The number of women, and
of men, who fell under Lawrence's spell is astonishing given how unpleasant he
could be. In almost every case the relationship began in friendship-with frank
talks, exchanges of confidences, a spiritual bond. Then, invariably, he would
suddenly turn against them, voicing harsh personal criticisms. He would know
them well by that time, and the criticisms were often quite accurate, and hit a
nerve. This would inevitably trigger confusion in his victims, and a sense of
anxiety, a feeling that something was wrong with them. Jolted out of their
usual sense of normality, they would feel divided inside. With half of their
minds Create a Need-Stir Anxiety and Discontent •they wondered why he was doing
this, and felt he was unfair; with the other half, they believed it was all
true. Then, in those moments of selfdoubt, they would get a letter or a visit
from him in which he was his old charming self. Now they saw him differently
Now they were weak and vulnerable, in need of something; and he would seem so
strong. Now he drew them to him, feelings of friendship turning into affection
and desire. Once they felt uncertain about themselves, they were susceptible to
falling in love. Most of us protect ourselves from the harshness of life by
succumbing to routines and patterns, by closing ourselves off from others. But
underlying these habits is a tremendous sense of insecurity and defensiveness.
We feel we are not really living. The seducer must pick at this wound and bring
these semiconscious thoughts into full awareness. This was what Lawrence did;
his sudden, brutally unexpected jabs would hit people at their weak spot.
Although Lawrence had great success with his frontal approach, it is often
better to stir thoughts of inadequacy and uncertainty indirectly, by hinting at
comparisons to yourself or to others, and by insinuating somehow that your
victims' lives are less grand than they had imagined. You want them to feel at
war with themselves, torn in two directions, and anxious about it. Anxiety, a
feeling of lack and need, is the precursor of all desire. These jolts in the
victim's mind create space for you to insinuate your poison, the siren call of
adventure or fulfillment that will make them follow you into your web. Without
anxiety and a sense of lack there can be no seduction. son, he schemes to get
for himself whatever is beautiful and good; he is bold andforward and
strenuous,always devising tricks like a cunning huntsman." -PLATO,
SYMPOSIUM, We are all like pieces of the coins that children break in half for
keepsakes - making two out of one, like the flatfish-and each of us is forever
seeking the half that will tally with himself . And so all this to-do is a
relic of that original state of ours when we were whole, and now, when we are
longing for and following after that primeval wholeness, we say we are in love.
-ARISTOPHANES'S SPEECH IN PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM, QUOTED IN MANDRELL, DONJUAN AND
THE POINT OF HONOR Desire and love have for their object things or qualities
which a man does not at present possess but which he lacks. -SOCRATES Don John:
Well met, pretty lass! What! Are there such handsome Creatures as you amongst
these Fields, these Trees, and Rocks? • Charlotta: I Keys to Seduction E
veryone wears a mask in society; we pretend to be more sure of ourselves than
we are. We do not want other people to glimpse that doubting self within us. In
truth, our egos and personalities are much more fragile than they appear to be;
they cover up feelings of confusion and emptiness. As a seducer, you must never
mistake a person's appearance for the reality. People are always susceptible
tobeingseduced, because in fact everyone lacks a sense of completeness, feels
something missing deep inside. Bring their doubts and anxieties to the surface
and they can be led and lured to follow you. No one can see you as someone to
follow or fall in love with unless they first reflect on themselves somehow,
and on what they are missing. Before the seduction proceeds, you must place a
mirror in front of them in am as you see, Sir. • Don John: Are you of this
Village? • Charlotta: Yes, Sir. • Don John: What's your name? • Charlotta:
Charlotta, Sir, at your Service. • Don John: Ah what a fine Person 'tis! What
piercing Eyes! • Charlotta: Sir, you make me ashamed. Don John: Pretty
Charlotta, you are not marry'd, are you? • Charlotta: No, Sir, but I am soon to
be, with Pierrot, son to Goody Simonetta. • Don John: What! Shou'd such a one
as you be Wife to aPeasant! No, no; that's a profanation of so much Beauty. You
was not born to live in a Village. You certainly deserve a better Fortune, and
Heaven, which knows it well, brought me hither on purpose to hinder this
Marriage and do justice to your Charms; for in short, fair Charlotta, 1 love you
with all my Heart, and if you'll consent I'll deliver you from this miserable
Place, and put you in the Condition you deserve. This Love is doubtless sudden,
but 'tis an Effect of your great Beauty. I love you as much in a quarter of an
Hour as I shou'd another in six Months. -MOLIERE, DON JOHN; OR, THE
UBERTINE, IN OSCAR MANDEL, ED., THE
THEATRE OF DON JUAN For I stand tonight facing west on what was once the last
frontier. From the lands that stretch three thousand miles behind me, the
pioneers of old gave up their safety, their comfort, and sometimes their lives
to build a new world here in the West. They were not the captives of their own
doubts, the prisoners of their own price tags. Their motto was not "every
man for himself--but "all for the common cause." They were determined
to make that new world strong and free, to overcome its hazards and its
hardships, to conquer the enemies that threatened from without and within.
..." Today some would say that those struggles are all over-that all the
horizons have been explored, that all the battles have been won, that there is
no longer an which they glimpse that inner emptiness. Made aware of a lack,
they now can focus on you as the person who can fill that empty space.
Remember: most of us are lazy. To relieve our feelings of boredom or inadequacy
on our own takes too much effort; letting someone else do the job is both
easier and more exciting. The desire to have someone fill up our emptinessis
the weakness on which all seducers prey. Make people anxious about the future,
make them depressed, make them question their identity, make them sense the
boredom that gnaws at their life. The ground is prepared. The seeds of
seduction can be sown. In Plato's dialogue Symposium -the West's oldest
treatise on love, and a text that has had a determining influence on our ideas
of desire-the courtesan Diotima explains to Socrates the parentage of Eros, the
god of love. Eros's father was Contrivance, or Cunning, and his mother was
Poverty, or Need. Eros takes after his parents: he is constantly in need, which
he is constantly contriving to fill. As the god of love, he knows that love
cannot be induced in another person unless they too feel need. And that is what
his arrows do: piercing people's flesh, they make them feel a lack, an ache, a
hunger. This is the essence of your task as a seducer. Like Eros, you must
create a wound in your victim, aiming at their soft spot, the chink in their
self-esteem. If they are stuck in a rut, make them feel it more deeply,
"innocently" bringing it up and talking about it. What you want is a
wound, an insecurity you can expand a little, an anxiety that can best be
relieved by involvement with another person, namely you. They must feel the
wound before they fall in love. Notice how Lawrence stirred anxiety, always
hitting at his victims' weak spot: for Jessie Chambers, her physical coldness;
for Ivy Low, her lack of spontaneity; for Middleton-Murry, his lack of
gallantry. Cleopatra got Julius Caesar to sleep with her the first night he met
her, but the real seduction, the one that made him her slave, began later. In
their ensuing conversations she talked repeatedly of Alexander the Great, the
hero from whom she was supposedly descended. No one could compare to him. By
implication, Caesar was made to feel inferior. Understanding that beneath his
bravado Caesar was insecure, Cleopatra awakened in him an anxiety, a hunger to
prove his greatness. Once he felt this way he was easily further seduced.
Doubts about his masculinity was his tender spot. When Caesar was assassinated,
Cleopatra turned her sights on Mark Antony, one of Caesar's successors in the
leadership of Rome. Antony loved pleasure and spectacle, and his tastes were
crude. She appeared to him first on her royal barge, then wined and dined and
banqueted him. Everything was geared to suggest to him the superiority of the
Egyptian way of life over the Roman, at least when it came to pleasure. The
Romans were boring and unsophisticated by comparison. And once Antony was made
to feel how much he was missing in spending his time with his dull soldiers and
hismatronly Roman wife, he could be made to see Cleopatra as the incarnation of
all that was exciting. He became her slave. This is the lure of the exotic. In
your role of seducer, try to position yourself as coming from outside, as a
stranger of sorts. You represent change, difference, a breakup of routines.
Make your victims feel that by comparison their lives are boring and their
friends less interesting than they had thought. Lawrence made his targets feel
personally inadequate; if you find it hard to be so brutal, concentrate on
their friends, their circumstances, the externals of their lives. There are
many legends of Don Juan, but they often describe him seducing a village girl
by making her feel that her life is horribly provincial. He, meanwhile, wears
glittering clothes andhas a noble bearing. Strange and exotic, he is always
from somewhere else. First she feels the boredom of her life, then she sees him
as her salvation. Remember: people prefer to feel that if their life is
uninteresting, it not because of themselves but because of their circumstances,
the dull people they know, the town into which they were born. Once you make
them feel the lure of the exotic, seduction is easy. Another devilishly
seductive area to aim at is the victim's past. To grow old is to renounce or
compromise youthful ideals, to become less spontaneous, less alive in a way.
This knowledge lies dormant in all of us. As a seducer you must bring it to the
surface, make it clear how far people have strayed from their past goals and
ideals. You, in turn, present yourself as representing that ideal, as offering
a chance to recapture lost youth through adventure-through seduction. In her
later years. Queen Elizabeth I of England was known as a rather stern and
demanding ruler. She made it a point not to let her courtiers see anything soft
or weak in her. But then Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex, came to
court. Much younger than the queen, the dashing Essex would often chastize her
for her sourness. The queen would forgive him-he was so exuberant and
spontaneous, he could not control himself. But his comments got under her skin;
in the presence of Essex she came to remember all the youthful
ideals-spiritedness, feminine charm-that had since vanished from her life. She
also felt a little of that girlish spirit return when she was around him. He
quickly became her favorite, and soon she was in love with him. Old age is
constantly seduced by youth, but first the young people must make it clear what
the older ones are missing, how they have lost their ideals. Only then will
they feel that the presence of the young will let them recapture that spark,
the rebellious spirit that age and society have conspired to repress. This
concept has infinite applications. Corporations and politicians know that they
cannot seduce their public into buying what they want them to buy, or doing
what they want them to do, unless they first awaken a sense of need and
discontent. Make the masses uncertain about their identity and you can help
define it for them. It is as true of groups or nations as it is of individuals:
they cannot be seduced without being made to feel some lack. Part of John F.
Kennedy's election strategy in 1960 was to make Americans unhappy about the
1950s, and how far the country had strayed from its ideals. In talking about
the 1950s, he did not mention the nation's economic stability or its emergence
as a superpower. Instead, he implied that the period was marked by conformity,
a lack of risk and adventure, a loss of our frontier values. To vote for
Kennedy was to embark American frontier. • But I trust that no one in this vast
assemblage will agree with those sentiments. I tell you the New Frontier is
here, whether we seek it or not. ... It would be easier to shrink back from
that frontier, to look to the safe mediocrity of the past, to be lulled by good
intentions and high rhetoric-and those who prefer that course should not cast
their votesfor me, regardless of party. • But I believe that the times demand
invention, innovation, imagination,decision. I am asking each of you to be new
pioneers on that New Frontier. My call is to the young in heart, regardless of
age. -JOHN F. KENNEDY, ACCEPTANCE SPEECH AS THE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE OF THE
DEMOCRATIC PARTY, QUOTED IN JOHN HELLMANN, THE KENNEDY OBSESSION: THE AMERICAN
MYTH OF JFK The normal rhythm of life oscillates in general between a mild
satisfaction with oneself and a slight discomfort, originating in the knowledge
of one's personal shortcomings. We should like to be as handsome, young, strong
or clever as other people of our acquaintance. We wish we could achieve as much
as they do, longfor similar advantages, positions, the same or greater success.
To be delighted with oneself is the exception and, often enough, a smoke screen
which we produce for ourselves and of course for others. Somewhere in it is a
lingering feeling of discomfort with ourselves and a slight self-dislike. I
assert that an increase of this spirit of discontent renders a person
especially susceptible to "falling in love." ... In most cases this
attitude of disquiet is unconscious, but in some it reaches the threshold of
awareness in the form of a slight uneasiness, or a stagnant dissatisfaction, or
a realization of being upset without knowing why. -THEODOR REIK, OF LOVE AND
LUSTon a collective adventure, to go back to ideals we had given up. But before
anyone joined his crusade they had to be made aware of how much they had lost,
what was missing. A group, like an individual, can get mired in routine, losing
track of its original goals. Too much prosperity saps it of strength. You can
seduce an entire nation by aiming at its collective insecurity, that latent
sense that not everything is what it seems. Stirring dissatisfaction with the
present and reminding people about the glorious past can unsettle their sense
of identity. Then you can be the one to redefine it-a grand seduction. Symbol:
Cupid's Arrow. What awakens desire in the seduced is not a soft touch or a
pleasant sensation; it is a wound. The arrow creates a pain, an ache, a needfor
relief Before desire there must be pain. Aim the arrow at the victim's weakest
spot, creating a wound that you can open and reopen. Reversal I f you go too
far in lowering the targets' self-esteem they may feel too insecure to enter
into your seduction. Do not be heavy-handed; like Lawrence, always follow up
the wounding attack with a soothing gesture. Otherwise you will simply alienate
them. Charm is often a subtler and more effective route to seduction. The
Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli always made people feel better about
themselves. He deferred to them, made them the center of attention, made them
feel witty and vibrant. He was a boon to their vanity, and they grew addicted
to him. This is a kind of diffused seduction, lacking in tension and in the
deep emotions that the sexual variety stirs; it bypasses people's hunger, their
need for some kind of fulfillment. But if you are subtle and clever, it can be a
way of lowering their defenses, creating an unthreatening friendship. Once they
are under your spell in this way, you can then open the wound. Indeed, after
Disraeli had charmed Queen Victoria and established a friendship with her, he
made her feel vaguely inadequate in the establishment of an empire and the
realization of her ideals. Everything depends on the target. People who are
riddled with insecurities may require the gentler variety. Once they feel
comfortable with you, aim your arrows. 6 Master the Art of Insinuation Making
your targetsfeel dissatisfied and in need of your attention is essential, but
if you are too obvious, they will see through you and grow defensive. There is
no known defense, however, against insinuation-the art of planting ideas in
people's minds by dropping elusive hints that take root days later, even
appearing to them as their own idea. Insinuation is the supreme means of
influencing people. Create a sublanguage-bold statements followed by retraction
andapology, ambiguous comments, banal talk combined with alluring glances-that
enters the target's unconscious to convey your real meaning. Make everything
suggestive. Insinuating Desire. One evening in the 1770s, a young man went to
the Paris Opera to meet his lover, the Countess de_. The couple had been
fighting, and he was anxious to see her again. The countess had not arrived yet
at her box, but from an adjacent one a friend of hers, Madame de T_, called out
to the young man to join her, remarking that it was an excellent stroke of luck
that they had met that evening-he must keep her company on a trip she had to
take. The young man wanted urgently to see the countess, but Madame was
charming and insistent and he agreed to go with her. Before he could ask why or
where, she quickly escorted him to her carriage outside, which then sped off.
Now the young man enjoined his hostess to tell him where she was taking him. At
first she just laughed, but finally she told him: to her husband's chateau. The
couple had been estranged, but had decided to reconcile; her husband was a
bore, however, and she felt a charming young man like himself would liven
things up. The young man was intrigued: Madame was an older woman, with a
reputation for being rather formal, though he also knew she had a lover, a
marquis. Why had she chosen him for this excursion? Her story was not quite
credible. Then, as they traveled, she suggested he look out the window at the
passing landscape, as she was doing. He had to lean over toward her to do so,
and just as he did, the carriage jolted. She grabbed his hand and fell into his
arms. She stayed there for a moment, then pulled away from him rather abruptly.
After an awkward silence, she said, "Do you intend to convince me of my
imprudence in your regard?" He protested that the incident had been an
accident and reassured her he would behave himself. In truth, however, having
her in his arms had made him think otherwise. They arrived at the chateau. The
husband came to meet them, and the young man expressed his admiration of the
building: "What you see is nothing," Madame interrupted, "I must
take you to Monsieur's apartment." Before he could ask what she meant, the
subject was quickly changed. The husband was indeed a bore, but he excused
himself after supper. Now Madame and the young man were alone. She invited him
to walk with her in the gardens; it was a splendid evening, and as they walked,
she slipped her arm in his. She was not worried that he would take advantage of
her, she said, because she knew how attached he was to her good friend the
countess. They talked of other things, and then she returned to the topic of As
we were about to enter the chamber, she stopped me. "Remember," she
said gravely, "you are supposed never to have seen, never even suspected,
the sanctuary you're about to enter. All this was like an initiation rite. She
led me by the hand across a small, dark corridor. My heart was pounding as
though I were a young proselyte being put to the test before the celebration oj
the great mysteries. ."But your Countess ..." she said, stopping. I
was about to reply when the doors opened; my answer was interrupted by
admiration. I was astonished, delighted, I no longer know what became of me,
and I began in good faith to believe in magic. ... In truth, I found myself in
a vast cage of mirrors on which images were so artistically painted that they
produced the illusion of all the objects they represented. -VIVANT
DENON,"NO TOMORROW," IN MICHEL FEHER, ED., THE UBERTINE READER A few
short years ago, in our native city, wherefraud and cunning prosper more than
love or loyalty, there was a noblewoman of striking beauty and impeccable
breeding, who was endowed by Nature with as lofty a temperament and shrewd an
intellect as could be found in any other woman of her time. This lady, being of
gentle birth his lover: "Is she making you quite happy? Oh, I fear the
contrary, and this distresses me. . . . Are you not often the victim of her
strange whims?" To the young man's surprise, Madame began to talk of the
countess in a way that made it seem that she had been unfaithful to him (which
was something he had suspected). Madame sighed-she regretted saying such things
about her friend, and asked him to forgive her; then, as if a new thought had
occurred to her, she mentioned a nearby pavilion, a delightful place, full of
pleasant memories. But the shame of it was, it was locked and she had no key.
And yet they found their way to the pavilion, and lo and behold, the door had
been left open. It was dark inside, but the young man could sense that it was a
place for trysts. They entered and sank onto a sofa. and finding herself
married off to a master woollen- draper because he happened to be very rich,
was unable and before he knew what had come over him, he took her in his arms.
Madame seemed to push him away, but then gave in. Finally she came to her
senses: they must return to the house. Had he gone too far? He must to stifle
her heartfelt contempt, for she was firmly of the opinion that no man of low
condition, however wealthy, was deserving of a noble wife. And on discovering
that all he was capable of despite his massive wealth, was distinguishing wool
from cotton, supervising the setting up of a loom, or debating the virtues of a
particular yarn with a spinner-woman, she resolved that as far as it lay within
her power she would have nothing whatsoever to do with his beastly caresses.
Moreover she was determined to seek try to control himself. As they strolled
back to the house, Madame remarked, "What a delicious night we've just spent."
Was she referring to what had happened in the pavilion? "There is an even
more charming room in the chateau," she went on, "but I can't show
you anything," implying he had been too forward. She had mentioned this
room ("Monsieur's apartment") several times before; he could not
imagine what could be so interesting about it, but by now he was dying to see
it and insisted she show it to him. "If you promise to be good," she
replied, her eyes widening. Through the darkness of the house she led him into
the room, which, to his delight, was a kind of temple of pleasure: there were
mirrors on the walls, trompe l'oeil paintings evoking a forest scene, even a
dark grotto, and a garlanded statue of Eros. Overwhelmed by the mood of the
place, the young man quickly resumed what he had started in the pavilion, and
would have lost all track of time if a servant had not rushed in and warned
them that it was getting light outside-Monsieur would soon be up. her pleasure
elsewhere, in the company of one who seemed more worthy of her affection, and
so it was that she fell deeply in love with an extremely eligible man in his
middle thirties. And whenever a day passed without her having set eyes upon
him, she was restless for the whole of the following night. • However, the
gentleman suspected nothing of all this, and took no notice of her; andfor her
part, being very cautious, she would not venture to declare her love by
dispatching a maidservant or writing him They quickly separated. Later that
day, as the young man prepared to leave, his hostess said, "Goodbye,
Monsieur; I owe you so many pleasures; but I have paid you with a beautiful
dream. Now your love summons you to return. . . . Don't give the Countess cause
to quarrel with me." Reflecting on his experience on the way back, he
could not figure out what it meant. He had the vague sensation of having been
used, but the pleasures he remembered outweighed his doubts. Interpretation.
Madame de T_is a character in the eighteenth-century libertine short story "No
Tomorrow," by Vivant Denon. The young man is the story's narrator.
Although fictional, Madame's techniques were clearly based on those of several
well-known libertines of the time, masters of the game of seduction. And the
most dangerous of their weapons was insinuation-the means by which Madame cast
her spell on the young man, making him seem the aggressor, giving her the night
of pleasure she desired. Master the Art of Insinuation • 215 and safeguarding
her guiltless reputation, all in one stroke. After all, he was the one who
initiated physical contact, or so it seemed. In truth, she was the one in
control, planting precisely the ideas in his mind that she wanted. That first
physical encounter in the carriage, for instance, that she had set up by
inviting him closer: she later rebuked him for being forward, but what lingered
in his mind was the excitement of the moment. Her talk of the countess made him
confused and guilty; but then she hinted that his lover was unfaithful,
planting a different seed in his mind: anger, and the desire for revenge. Then
she asked him to forget what she had said and forgive her for saying it, a key
insinuating tactic: "I am asking you to forget what I have said, but I
know you cannot; the thought will remain in your mind." Provoked this way,
it was inevitable he would grab her in the pavilion. She several times
mentioned the room in the chateau-of course he insisted on going there. She
enveloped the evening in an air of ambiguity. Even her words "If you
promise to be good" could be read several ways. The young man's head and
heart were inflamed with all of the feelings-discontent, confusion, desirethat
she had indirectly instilled in him. Particularly in the early phases of a
seduction, learn to make everything you say and do a kind of insinuation.
Insinuate doubt with a comment here and there about other people in the
victim's life, making the victim feel vulnerable. Slight physical contact
insinuates desire, as does a fleeting but memorable look, or an unusually warm
tone of voice, both for the briefest of moments. A passing comment suggests
that something about the victim interests you; but keep it subtle, your words
revealing a possibility, creating a doubt. You are planting seeds that will
take root in the weeks to come. When you are not there, your targets will
fantasize about the ideas you have stirred up, and brood upon the doubts. They
are slowly being led into your web, unaware that you are in control. How can
they resist or become defensive if they cannot even see what is happening? What
distinguishes a suggestion from other kinds of psychical influence, such as a
command or the giving of a piece of information or instruction, is that in the
case of a suggestion an idea is aroused in another person's brain which is not
examined in regard to its origin but is accepted just as though it had arisen
spontaneously in that brain. -SIGMUND FREUD Keys to Seduction Y ou cannot pass
through life without in one way or another trying to persuade people of
something. Take the direct route, saying exactly what you want, and your
honesty may make you feel good but you are probably not getting anywhere.
People have their own sets of ideas, which are hardened into stone by habit;
your words, entering their minds, com- a letter, for fear of the dangers that
this might entail. But having perceived that he was on very friendly terms with
a certain priest, a rotund, uncouth, individual who was nevertheless regarded
as an outstandingly able friar on account of his very saintly way of life, she
calculated that this fellow would serve as an ideal go- betweenfor her and the
man she loved. And so, after reflecting on the strategy she would adopt, she
paid a visit, at an appropriate hour of the day, to the church where he was to
befound, and having sought him out, she asked him whether he would agree to
confess her. Since he could tell at a glance that she was a lady of quality,
the friar gladly heard her confession, and when she had got to the end of it,
she continued as follows: • "Father, as I shall explain to you presently,
there is a certain matter about which I am compelled to seek your advice and
assistance. Having already told you my name, I feel sure you will know my
family and my husband. He loves me more dearly than life itself, and since he
is enormously rich, he never has the slightest difficulty or hesitation in
supplying me with every single object for which I display a yearning.
Consequently, my love for him is quite unbounded, and if my mere thoughts, to
say nothing of my actual behavior, were to run contrary to his wishes and his
honor, I would be more deserving of hellfire than the wickedest woman who ever
lived. • "Now, there is a certain person, of respectable outward
appearance, who unless I am mistaken is a close acquaintance of yours. I really
couldn't say what his name is, but he is tall and handsome, his clothes are
brown and elegantly cut, and, possibly because he is unaware of my resolute
nature, he appears to have laid siege to me. He turns up infallibly whenever I
either look out of my window or stand at the front door or leave the house, and
I am surprised, in fact, that he is not here now. Needless to say, I am very
upset about all this, because his sort of conduct frequently gives an honest
woman a bad name, even though she is quite innocent. For the love of God,
therefore, I implore you to speak to him severely and persuade him to refrain
from his importunities. There are plenty of other women who doubtless find this
sort of thing amusing, and who will enjoy being ogled and spied upon by him,
but I personally have no inclination for it whatsoever, and I find
hisbehaviorexceedingly disagreeable." • And having reached the end of her
speech, the lady bowed head as though she were going to burst into tears. • The
reverend friar realized immediately who it was to whom she was referring, and
having warmly commended her purity of mind ... he promised to take all
necessary steps to ensure that the fellow ceased to annoy her. ..."
Shortly afterward, the gentleman in question paid one of his regular visits to
the reverendfriar, and after they had conversed together for a while on general
pete with the thousands of preconceived notions that are already there, and get
nowhere. Besides, people resent your attempt to persuade them, as if they were
incapable of deciding by themselves-as if you knew better. Consider instead the
power of insinuation and suggestion. It requires some patience and art, but the
results are more than worth it. The way insinuation works is simple: disguised
in a banal remark or encounter, a hint is dropped. It is about some emotional
issue-a possible pleasure not yet attained, a lack of excitement in a person's
life. The hint registers in the back of the target's mind, a subtle stab at his
or her insecurities; its source is quickly forgotten. It is too subtle to be
memorable at the time, and later, when it takes root and grows, it seems to
have emerged naturally from the target's own mind, as if it was there all
along. Insinuation lets you bypass people's natural resistance, for they seem
to be listening only to what has originated in themselves. It is a language on
its own, communicating directly with the unconscious. No seducer, no persuader,
can hope to succeed without mastering the language and art of insinuation. A
strange man once arrived at the court of Louis XV. No one knew anything about
him, and his accent and age were unplaceable. He called himself Count
Saint-Germain. He was obviously wealthy; all kinds of gems and diamonds
glittered on his jacket, his sleeves, his shoes, his fingers. He could play the
violin to perfection, paint magnificently. But the most intoxicating thing
about him was his conversation. In truth, the count was the greatest charlatan
of the eighteenth century-a man who had mastered the art of insinuation. As he
spoke, a word here and there would slip out-a vague allusion to the
philosopher's stone, which turned base metal into gold, or to the elixir of
life. He did not say he possessed these things, but he made you associate him
with their powers. Had he simply claimed to have them, no one would have
believed him and people would have turned away. The count might refer to a man
who had died forty years earlier as if he had known him personally; had this
been so, the count would have had to be in his eighties, although he looked to
be in his forties. He mentioned the elixir of life. ... he seems so young. . .
. The key to the count's words was vagueness. He always dropped his hints into
a lively conversation, grace notes in an ongoing melody. Only later would
people reflect on what he had said. After a while, people started to come to
him, inquiring about the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, not
realizing that it was he who had planted these ideas in their minds. Remember:
to sow a seductive idea you must engage people's imaginations, their fantasies,
their deepest yearnings. What sets the wheels spinning is suggesting things
that people already want to hear-the possibility of pleasure, wealth, health,
adventure. In the end, these good things turn out to be precisely what you seem
to offer them. They will come to you as if on their own, unaware that you
insinuated the idea in their heads. In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte decided it was
critical for him to win the Russian Czar Alexander I to his side. He wanted two
things out of the Master the Art of Insinuation • 217 czar: a peace treaty in
which they agreed to carve up Europe and the Middle East; and a marriage
alliance, in which he would divorce his wife Josephine and marry into the
czar's family. Instead of proposing these things directly, Napoleon decided to
seduce the czar. Using polite social encounters and friendly conversations as
his battlefields, he went to work. An apparent slip of the tongue revealed that
Josephine could not bear children; Napoleon quickly changed the subject. A
comment here and there seemed to suggest a linking of the destinies of France
and Russia.Just before they were to part one evening, he talked of his desire
for children, sighed sadly, then excused himself for bed, leaving the czar to
sleep on this. He escorted the czar to a play on the themes of glory, honor,
and empire; now, in later conversations, he could disguise his insinuations
under the cover of discussing the play. Within a few weeks, the czar was
speaking to his ministers of a marriage alliance and a treaty with France as if
they were his own ideas. Slips of the tongue, apparently inadvertent
"sleep on it" comments, alluring references, statements for which you
quickly apologize-all of these have immense insinuating power. They get under
people's skin like a poison, and take on a life of their own. The key to
succeeding with your insinuations is to make them when your targets are at
their most relaxed or distracted, so that they are not aware of what is
happening. Polite banter is often the perfect front for this; people are
thinking about what they will say next, or are absorbed in their own thoughts.
Your insinuations will barely register, which is how you want it. In one of his
early campaigns, John F. Kennedy addressed a group of veterans. Kennedy's brave
exploits during World War II-the PT-109 incident had made him a war hero-were
known to all; but in the speech, he talked of the other men on the boat, never
mentioning himself. He knew, however, that what he had done was on everyone's
mind, because in fact he had put it there. Not only did his silence on the
subject make them think of it on their own, it made Kennedy seem humble and
modest, qualities that go well with heroism. In seduction, as the French courtesan
Ninon de 1'Enclos advised, it is better not to talk about your love for a
person. Let your target read it in your manner. Your silence on the subject
will have more insinuating power than if you had addressed it directly. Not
only words insinuate; pay attention to gestures and looks. Madame Recamier's
favorite technique was to keep her words banal and the look in her eyes
enticing. The flow of conversation would keep men from thinking too deeply
about these occasional looks, but they would be haunted by them. Lord Byron had
his famous "underlook": while everyone was discussing some
uninteresting subject, he would seem to hang his head, but then a young woman
(the target) would see him glancing upward at her, his head still tilted. It
was a look that seemed dangerous, challenging, but also ambiguous; many women
were hooked by it. The face speaks its own language. We are used to trying to
read people's faces, which are often better indicators of their feelings than
what they say, which is so easy to control. topics, the friar drew him to one
side and reproached him in a very kindly sort of way for the amorous glances
which, as the lady had given him to understand, he believed him to be casting
in her direction. • Not unnaturally, the gentleman was amazed, for he had never
so much as looked at the lady and it was very seldom that he passed by her
house. The gentleman, being rather more perceptive than the reverendfriar, was
not exactly slow to appreciate the lady's cleverness, and putting on a somewhat
sheepish expression, he promised not to bother her any more. But after leaving
the friar, he made his way toward the house of the lady, who was keeping
continuous vigil at a tiny little window so that she would see him if he
happened to pass by. .. . Andfrom that day forward, proceeding with the maximum
prudence and conveying the impression that he was engaged in some other
business entirely, he became a regular visitor to the neighborhood. BOCCACCIO,
THE DECAMERON.Glances are the heavy artillery of the flirt: everything can be
conveyed in a look, yet that look can always be denied, for it cannot be quoted
word for word. -STENDHAL, QUOTED IN RICHARD DAVENPORT-HINES, ED., VICE: AN
ANTHOLOGY Since people are always reading your looks, use them to transmit the
insinuating signals you choose. Finally, the reason insinuation works so well
is not just that it bypasses people's natural resistance. It is also the
language of pleasure. There is too little mystery in the world; too many people
say exactly what they feel or want. We yearn for something enigmatic, for
something to feed our fantasies. Because of the lack of suggestion and
ambiguity in daily life, the person who uses them suddenly seems to have
something alluring and full of promise. It is a kind of titillating game-what
is this person up to? What does he or she mean? Hints, suggestions, and
insinuations create a seductive atmosphere, signaling that their victim is no
longer involved in the routines of daily life but has entered another realm.
Symbol: The Seed. The soil is carefully prepared. The seeds are planted months
in advance. Once they are in the ground, no one knows what hand threw them
there. They are part of the earth. Disguise your manipulations by planting
seeds that take root on their own. Reversal T he danger in insinuation is that
when you leave things ambiguous your target may misread them. There are
moments, particularly later on in a seduction, when it is best to communicate
your idea directly, particularly once you know the target will welcome it, Casanova
often played things that way. When he could sense that a woman desired him, and
needed little preparation, he would use a direct, sincere, gushing comment to
go straight to her head like a drug and make her fall under his spell. When the
rake and writer Gabriele D'Annunzio met a woman he desired, he rarely delayed.
Flattery flowed from his mouth and pen. He would charm with his
"sincerity" (sincerity can be feigned, and is just one stratagem
among others). This only works, however, when you sense that the target is
easily yours. If not, the defenses and suspicions you raise by direct attack
will make your seduction impossible. When in doubt, indirection is the better
route. 7. Enter Their Spirit. Most people are locked in their own worlds,
making them stubborn and hard to persuade. The way to lure them out of their
shell and set up your seduction is to enter their spirit. Play by their rules,
enjoy what they enjoy, adapt yourself to their moods. In doing so you will
stroke their deep-rooted narcissism and lower their defenses. Hypnotized by the
mirror image you present, they will open up, becoming vulnerable to your subtle
influence. Soon you can shift the dynamic: once you have entered their spirit
you can make them enter yours, at a point when it is too late to turn back.
Indulge your targets' every mood and whim, giving them nothing to react against
or resist. The Indulgent Strategy I n October of 1961, the American journalist
Cindy Adams was granted an exclusive interview with President Sukarno of Indonesia.
It was a remarkable coup, for Adams was a little-known journalist at the time,
while Sukarno was a world figure in the midst of a crisis. A leader of the
fight for Indonesia's independence, he had been the country's president since
1949, when the Dutch finally gave up the colony. By the early 1960s, his daring
foreign policy had made him hated in the United States, some calling him the
Hitler of Asia. Adams decided that in the interests of a lively interview, she
would not be cowed or overawed by Sukarno, and she began the conversation by
joking with him. To her pleasant surprise, her ice-breaking tactic seemed to
work: Sukarno warmed up to her. He let the interview run well over an hour, and
when it was over he loaded her with gifts. Her success was remarkable enough,
but even more so were the friendly letters she began to receive from Sukarno
after she and her husband had returned to New York. A few years later, he
proposed that she collaborate with him on his autobiography. Adams, who was
used to doing puff pieces on third-rate celebrities, was confused. She knew
Sukarno had a reputation as a devilish Don Juan -le grand seducteur, the French
called him. He had had four wives and hundreds of conquests. He was handsome,
and obviously he was attracted to her, but why choose her for this prestigious
task? Perhaps his libido was too power- fill for him to care about such things.
Nevertheless, it was an offer she could not refuse. In January of 1964, Adams
returned to Indonesia. Her strategy, she had decided, would stay the same: she
would be the brassy, straight-talking lady who had seemed to charm Sukarno
three years earlier. During her first interview with him for the book, she
complained in rather strong terms about the rooms she had been given as lodgings.
As if he were her secretary, she dictated a letter to him, which he was to
sign, detailing the special treatment she was to be given by one and all. To
her amazement, he dutifully copied out the letter, and signed it. Next on
Adams's schedule was a tour of Indonesia to interview people who had known
Sukarno in his youth. So she complained to him about the plane she had to fly
on, which she said was unsafe. "I tell you what, honey," she told
him, "I think you should give me my own plane." "Okay," he
an- You're anxious to keep your mistress? \ Convince her she's knocked you all
of a heap \ With her stunning looks. If it's purple she's wearing, praise
purple; \ When she's in a silk dress, say silk \ Suits her best of all. . .
Admire \ Her singing voice, her gestures as she dances, \ Cry
"Encore!" when she stops. You can even praise \ Her performance in
bed, her talentfor love-making - \ Spell out what turned you on. \ Though she
may show fiercer in action than any Medusa, \ Her lover will always describe
her as kind \ And gentle. But take care not to give yourself away while \
Making such tongue-in- cheek compliments, don't allow \ Your expression to ruin
the message. Art's most effective \ When concealed. Detection discredits you
for good. - OVID, THE ART OF LOVE. The little boy (or girl) seeks to fascinate
his or her parents. In Oriental literature, imitation is reckoned to be one of
the ways of attracting. The Sanskrit texts, for example, give an important part
to the trick of the woman copying the dress, expressions, and speech of her
beloved. This kind of mimetic drama is urged on the woman who, "being
unable to unite with her beloved, imitates him to distract his thoughts."
• The child too, using the devices of imitating attitudes, dress, and so on,
seeks to fascinate, until a magical intention, the father or mother and thus
"distract its thoughts." Identification means that one is abandoning
and not abandoning amorous desires. It is a lure which the child uses to
capture his parents and which, it must be admitted, they fall for. The same is
true for the masses, who imitate their leader, bear his name and repeat his
gestures. They bow to him, but at the same time they are unconsciously baiting
a trap to hold him. Great ceremonies and demonstrations are just as much
occasions when the multitudes charm the swered, apparently somewhat abashed.
One, however, was not enough, she went on; she required several planes, and a
helicopter, and her own personal pilot, a good one. He agreed to everything.
The leader of Indonesia seemed to be not just intimidated by Adams but totally
under her spell. He praised her intelligence and wit. At one point he confided,
"Do you know why I'm doing this biography? . . . Only because of you,
that's why." He paid attention to her clothes, complimenting her outfits,
noticing any change in them. He was more like a fawning suitor than the
"Hitler of Asia." Inevitably, of course, he made passes at her. She
was an attractive woman. First there was the hand on top of her hand, then a
stolen kiss. She spurned him every time,making it clear she was happily
married, but she was worried; if all he had wanted was an affair, the whole
book deal could fall apart. Once again, though, her straightforward strategy
seemed the right one. Surprisingly, he backed down without anger or resentment.
He promised that his affection for her would remain platonic. She had to admit
that he was not at all what she had expected, or what had been described to
her. Perhaps he liked being dominated by a woman. The interviews continued for
several months, and she noticed slight changes in him. She still addressed him
familiarly, spicing the conversation with brazen comments, but now he returned
them, delighting in this kind of saucy banter. He assumed the same lively mood
that she strategically forced on herself. At first he had dressed in military
uniform, or in his Italian suits. Now he dressed casually, even going barefoot,
conforming to the casual style of their relationship. One night he remarked
that he liked the color of her hair. It was Clairol, blue-black, she explained.
He wanted to have the same color; she had to bring him a bottle. She did as he
asked, imagining he was joking, but a few days later he requested her presence
at the palace to dye his hair for him. She did so, and now they had the exact
same hair color. leader as vice versa. The book, Sukarno: An Autobiography as
Told to Cindy Adams, was pub- -MOSCOVICI, THEAGE OF THE CROWD. My sixth
brother, he who had both his lips cut off, Prince of the Faithful, is called
Shakashik. • In his youth he was very poor. One day, as he was fished in 1965.
To American readers' surprise, Sukarno came across as remarkably charming and
lovable, which was indeed how Adams described him to one and all. If anyone
argued, she would say that they did not him the way she did. Sukarno was well
pleased, and had the book distributed far and wide. It helped gain sympathy for
him in Indonesia, where he was now being threatened with a military coup. And
Sukarno was not surprised-he had known all along that Adams would do a far
better job with his memoirs than any "serious" journalist. begging in
the streets of Baghdad, he passed by a splendid mansion, at the gates of which
stood an impressive array of attendants. Upon inquiry my brother was informed
Interpretation. Who was seducing whom? It was Sukarno who was doing the
seducing, and his seduction of Adams followed a classical sequence. First, he
chose the right victim. An experienced journalist would have resisted the lure
of a personal relationship with the subject, and a man would have been less
susceptible to his charm. And so he picked a woman, and Enter Their Spirit •
223 one whose journalistic experience lay elsewhere. At his first meeting with
Adams, he sent mixed signals: he was friendly to her, but hinted at another
kind of interest as well. Then, having insinuated a doubt in her mind (Perhaps
he just wants an affair?), he proceeded to mirror her. He indulged her every
mood, retreating every time she complained. Indulging a person is a form of
entering their spirit, letting them dominate for the time being. Perhaps
Sukarno's passes at Adams showed his uncontrollable libido at work, or perhaps
they were more cunning. He had a reputation as a Don Juan; failing to make a
pass at her would have hurt her feelings. (Women are often less offended at
being found attractive than one imagines, and Sukarno was clever enough to have
given each of his four wives the impression that she was his favorite.) The
pass out of the way, he moved further into her spirit, taking on her casual
air, even slightly feminizing himself by adopting her hair color. The result
was that she decided he was not what she had expected or feared him to be. He
was not in the least threatening, and after all, she was the one in control.
What Adams failed to realize was that once her defenses were lowered, she was
oblivious to how deeply he had engaged her emotions. She had not charmed him,
he had charmed her. What he wanted all along was what he got: a personal memoir
written by a sympathetic foreigner, who gave the world a rather engaging
portrait of a man of whom many were suspicious. Of all the seductive tactics,
entering someone's spirit is perhaps the most devilish of all. It gives your
victims the feeling that they are seducing you. The fact that you are indulging
them, imitating them, entering their spirit, suggests that you are under their
spell. You are not a dangerous seducer to be wary of, but someone compliant and
unthreatening. The attention you pay to them is intoxicating-since you are
mirroring them, everything they see and hear from you reflects their own ego
and tastes. What a boost to their vanity. All this sets up the seduction, the
series of maneuvers that will turn the dynamic around. Once their defenses are
down, they are open to your subtle influence. Soon you will begin to take over
the dance, and without even noticing the shift, they will find themselves
entering your spirit. This is the endgame. Women are not at their ease except
with those who take chances with them, and enter into their spirit. -NINON
DEL'ENCLOS Keys to Seduction O ne of the great sources of frustration in our
lives is other people's stubbornness. How hard it is to reach them, to make
them see thingsour way. We often have the impression that when they seem to be
listening to us, and apparently agreeing with us, it is all superficial-the
moment we are gone, they revert to their own ideas. We spend our lives butting
up that the house belonged to a member of the wealthy and powerful Barmecide
family. Shakashik approached the doorkeepers and solicited alms. "Go
in," they said, "and our master will give you all that you
desire." • My brother entered the lofty vestibule and proceeded to a
spacious, marble-paved hall, hung with tapestry and overlooking a beautiful
garden. He stood bewilderedfor a moment, not knowing where to turn his steps,
and then advanced to the far end of the hall. There, among the cushions,
reclined a handsome old man with a long beard, whom my brother recognized at once
as the master of the house. "What can I do for you, my friend?" asked
the old man, as he rose to welcome my brother. • When Shakashik replied that he
was a hungry beggar, the old man expressed the deepest compassion and rent his
fine robes, crying: "Is it possible that there should be a man as hungry
as yourself in a city where I am living? It is, indeed, a disgrace that I
cannot endure!" Then he comforted my brother, adding: "I insist that
you stay with me and partake of my dinner." • With this the master of the
house clapped his hands and called out to one of the slaves: "Bring in the
basin and ewer." Then he said to my brother: "Come forward, my
friend, and wash your hands." • Shakashik rose to do so, but saw neither
ewer nor basin. He was bewildered to see his host make gestures as though he
were pouring water on his hands from an invisible vessel and then drying them
with an invisible towel. When he finished, the host called out to his
attendants: "Bring in the table!" • Numerous servants hurried in and
out of the hall, as though they were preparingfor a meal. against people, as if
they were stone walls. But instead of complaining about how misunderstood or
ignored you are, why not try something different: instead of seeing other
people as spiteful or indifferent, instead of trying to figure out why they act
the way they do, look at them through the eyes of the seducer. The way to lure
people out of their natural intractability and self-obsession is to enter their
spirit. All of us are narcissists. When we were children our narcissism was My
brother could still see nothing. Yet his host invited him to sit at the
imaginary table, saying, "Honor me by eating of this meat." • The old
man moved his hands about as though he were touching invisible dishes, and also
moved his jaws and lips as though he were chewing. Then said he to Shakashik:
"Eat your fill, my friend, for you must be famished." • My brother
began to move his jaws, to chew and swallow, as though he were eating, while
the old man still coaxed him, saying: "Eat, my friend, and note the
excellence of this bread and its whiteness. " • "This man,"
thought Shakashik, "must be fond of practical jokes. " So he said,
"It is, sir, the whitest bread I have ever seen, and I have never tasted
the like in all my life. " • "This bread," said the host,
"was baked by a slave girl whom I bought for five hundred dinars."
Then he called out to one of his slaves: "Bring in the meat pudding, and
let there be plenty of fat in it!" • ... Thereupon the host moved his
fingers as though to pick up a morselfrom an imaginary dish, and popped the
invisible delicacy into my brother's mouth. • The old man continued to enlarge
upon the excellences of the various dishes, while my brother became so
ravenously hungry that he would have willingly died physical: we were
interested in our own image, our own body, as if it were a separate being. As
we grow older, our narcissism grows more psychological: we become absorbed in
our own tastes, opinions, experiences. A hard shell forms around us.
Paradoxically, the way to entice people out of this shell is to become more
like them, in fact a kind of mirror image of them. You do not have to spend
days studying their minds; simply conform to their moods, adapt to their
tastes, play along with whatever they send your way. In doing so you will lower
their natural defensiveness. Their sense of self-esteem does not feel
threatened by your strangeness or different habits. People truly love
themselves, but what they love most of all is to see their ideas and tastes
reflected in another person. This validates them. Their habitual insecurity
vanishes. Hypnotized by their mirror image, they relax. Now that their inner
wall has crumbled, you can slowly draw them out, and eventually turn the
dynamic around. Once they are open to you, it becomes easy to infect them with
your own moods and heat. Entering the other person's spirit is a kind of
hypnosis; it is the most insidious and effective form of persuasion known to
man. In the eighteenth-century Chinese novel The Dream of the Red Chamber, all
the young girls in the prosperous house of Chia are in love with the rakish Pao
Yu. He is certainly handsome, but what makes him irresistible is his uncanny
ability to enter a young girl's spirit. Pao Yu has spent his youth around
girls, whose company he has always preferred. As a result, he never comes over
as threatening and aggressive. He is granted entry to girls' rooms, they see
him everywhere, and the more they see him the more they fall under his spell.
It is not that Pao Yu is feminine; he remains a man, but one who can be more or
less masculine as the situation requires. His familiarity with young girls
allows him the flexibility to enter their spirit. This is a great advantage.
The difference between the sexes is what makes love and seduction possible, but
it also involves an element of fear and distrust. A woman may fear male
aggression and violence; a man is often unable to enter a woman's spirit, and
so he remains strange and threatening. The greatest seducers in history, from
Casanova to John F. Kennedy, grew up surrounded by women and had a touch of
femininity themselves. The philosopher Spren Kierkegaard, in his novel The
Seducer's Diary, recommends spending more time with the opposite sex, getting
to know the "enemy" and its weaknesses, so that you can turn this
knowledge to your advantage. Ninon de l'Enclos, one of the greatest
seductresses who ever lived, had definite masculine qualities. She could
impress a man with her intense philosophical keenness, and charm him by seeming
to share his interest in politics and warfare. Many men first formed deep
friendships with her, only to later fall madly in love. The masculine in a
woman is as soothing to men as the feminine in a man is to women. To a man, a
woman's strangeness can create frustration and even hostility. He may be lured
into a sexual encounter, but a longer-lasting spell cannot be created without
an accompanying mental seduction. The key is to enter his spirit. Men are often
seduced by the masculine element in a woman's behavior or character. In the
novel Clarissa (1748) by Samuel Richardson, the young and devout Clarissa
Harlowe is being courted by the notorious rake Lovelace. Clarissa knows
Lovelace's reputation, but for the most part he has not acted as she would
expect: he is polite, seems a little sad and confused. At one point she finds
out that he has done a most noble and charitable deed to a family in distress,
giving the father money, helping the man's daughter get married, giving them
wholesome advice. At last Lovelace confesses to Clarissa what she has
suspected: he wants to repent, to change his ways. His letters to her are
emotional, almost religious in their passion. Perhaps she will be the one to
lead him to righteousness? But of course Lovelace has trapped her: he is using
the seducer's tactic of mirroring her tastes, in this case her spirituality.
Once she lets her guard down, once she believes she can reform him, she is
doomed: now he can slowly insinuate his own spirit into his letters and
encounters with her. Remember: the operative word is "spirit," and
that is often exactly where to take aim. By seeming to mirror someone's
spiritual values you can seem to establish a deep-rooted harmony between the
two of you, which can then be transferred to the physical plane. When Josephine
Baker moved to Paris, in 1925, as part of an all-black revue, her exoticism
made her an overnight sensation. But the French are notoriously fickle, and
Baker sensed that their interest in her would quickly pass to someone else. To
seduce them for good, she entered their spirit. She learned French and began to
sing in it. She started dressing and acting as a stylish French lady, as if to
say that she preferred the French way of life to the American. Countries are
like people: they have vast insecurities, and they feel threatened by other
customs. It is often quite seductive to a people to see an outsider adopting
their ways. Benjamin Disraeli was born and lived all his life in England, but
he was Jewish by birth, and had exotic features; the provincial English
considered him an outsider. Yet he was more English in his manners and tastes
than many an Englishman, and this was part of his charm, which he proved by
becoming the leader of the Conservative Party. Should you be an outsider (as
most of us ultimately are), turn it to advantage: play on your alien nature in
such a way as to show the group how deeply you prefer their tastes and customs
to your own. In 1752, the notorious rake Saltykov determined to be the first man
in the Russian court to seduce the twenty-three-year-old grand duchess, the
future Empress Catherine the Great. He knew that she was lonely; her husband
Peter ignored her, as did many of the other courtiers. And yet the ob- Enter
Their Spirit • 225 for a crust of barley bread. • "Have you ever tasted
anything more delicious," went on the old man, "than the spices in
these dishes?" • "Never, indeed," replied Shakashik. • "Eat
heartily, then," said his host, "and do not be ashamed!" •
"I thank you, sir," answered Shakashik, "but I have already
eaten my fill. " • Presently, however, the old man clapped his hands again
and cried: "Bring in the wine!" "... "Sir," said
Shakashik, "your generosity overwhelms me!" He lifted the invisible
cup to his lips, and made as if to drain it at one gulp. • "Health and joy
to you!" exclaimed the old man, as he pretended to pour himself some wine
and drink it off. He handed another cup to his guest, and they both continued
to act in this fashion until Shakashik, feigning himself drunk, began to roll
his headfrom side to side. Then, taking his bounteous host unawares, he
suddenly raised his arm so high that the white of his armpit could be seen, and
dealt him a blow on the neck which made the hall echo with the sound. And this
he followed by a second blow. • The old man rose in anger and cried: "What
are you doing, vile creature?" • "Sir" replied my brother,
"you have received your humble slave into your house and loaded him with
your generosity; you havefed him with the choicestfood and quenched his thirst
with the most potent wines. Alas, he became drunk, and forgot his manners! But
you are so noble, sir, that you will 226 surely pardon his offence. " •
When he heard these words, the old man burst out laughing and said: "For a
long time I have jested with all types of men, but no one has ever had the
patience or the wit to enter into my humors as you have done. Now, therefore, I
pardon you, and ask you in truth to cat and drink with me, and to he my
companion as long as I live. " • Then the old man ordered his attendants
to serve all the dishes which they had consumed in fancy, and when he and my
brother had eaten their fill they repaired to the drinking chamber, where
beautiful young women sang and made music. The old Barmecide gave Shakashik a
robe of honor and made him his constant companion. - "THE TALE OF
SHAKASHIK, THE BARBER'S SIXTH BROTHER," TALES FROM THE THOUSAND AND ONE
NIGHTS. stacks were immense: she was spied on day and night. Still, Saltykov
managed to befriend the young woman, and to enter herall-too-small circle. He
finally got her alone, and made it clear to her how well he understood her
loneliness, how deeply he disliked her husband, and how much he shared her
interest in the new ideas that were sweeping Europe. Soon he found himself able
to arrange further meetings, where he gave her the impression that when he was
with her, nothing else in the world mattered. Catherine fell deeply in love
with him, and he did in fact become her first lover. Saltykov had entered her
spirit. When you mirror people, you focus intense attention on them. They will
sense the effort you are making, and will find it flattering. Obviously you
have chosen them, separating them out from the rest. There seems to be nothing
else in your life but them-their moods, their tastes, their spirit. The more
you focus on them, the deeper the spell you produce, and the intoxicating
effect you have on their vanity. Many of us have difficulty reconciling the
person we are right now with the person we want to be. We are disappointed that
we have compromised our youthful ideals, and we still imagine ourselves as that
person who had so much promise, but whom circumstances prevented from realizing
it. When you are mirroring someone, do not stop at the person they have become;
enter the spirit of that ideal person they wanted to be. This is how the French
writer Chateaubriand managed to become a great seducer, despite his physical
ugliness. When he was growing up, in the latter eighteenth century, romanticism
was coming into fashion, and many young women felt deeply oppressed by the lack
of romance in their lives. Chateaubriand would reawaken the fantasy they had
had as young girls of being swept off their feet, of fulfilling romantic
ideals. This form of entering another's spirit is perhaps the most effective
kind, because it makes people feel better about themselves. In your presence,
they live the life of the person they had wanted to be-a great lover, a
romantic hero, whatever it is. Discover those crushed ideals and mirror them,
bringing them back to life by reflecting them back to your target. Few can
resist such a lure. Symbol: The Hunter's Mirror. The lark is a savory bird, but
difficult to catch. In the field, the hunter places a mirror on a stand. The lark
lands in front of the glass, steps back and forth, entranced by its own moving
image and by the imitative mating dance it sees performed before its eyes.
Hypnotized, the bird loses all sense of its surroundings, until the hunter's
net traps it against the mirror. Enter Their Spirit • 227 Reversal I n 1897 in
Berlin, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose reputation would later circle the
world, met Lou Andreas-Salome, the Russianborn writer and beauty who was
notorious for having broken Nietzsche's heart. She was the darling of Berlin
intellectuals, and although Rilke was twenty-two and she was thirty-six, he
fell head over heels in love with her. He flooded her with love letters, which
showed that he had read all her books and knew her tastes intimately. The two
became friends. Soon she was editing his poetry, and he hung on her every word.
Salome was flattered by Rilke's mirroring of her spirit, enchanted by the
intense attention he paid her and the spiritual communion they began to
develop. She became his lover. But she was worried about his future; it was
difficult to make a living as a poet, and she encouraged him to learn her
native language, Russian, and become a translator. He followed her advice so
avidly that within months he could speak Russian. They visited Russia together,
and Rilke was overwhelmed by what he saw-the peasants, the folk customs, the
art, the architecture. Back in Berlin, he turned his rooms into a kind of
shrine to Russia, and started wearing Russian peasant blouses and peppering his
conversation with Russian phrases. Now the charm of his mirroring soon wore
off. At first Salome had been flattered that he shared her interests so
intensely, but now she saw this as something else: he seemed to have no real
identity. He had become dependent on her for his own self-esteem. It was all so
slavish. In 1899, much to his horror, she broke off the relationship. The
lesson is simple: your entry into a person's spirit must be a tactic, a way to
bring him or her under your spell. You cannot be simply a sponge, soaking up
the other person's moods. Mirror them for too long and they will see through
you and be repelled by you. Beneath the similarity to them that you make them
see, you must have a strong underlying sense of your own identity. When the time
comes, you will want to lead them into your spirit; you cannot live on their
turf. Never take mirroring too far, then. It is only useful in the first phase
of a seduction; at some point the dynamic must be reversed. This desire for a
double of the other sex that resembles us absolutely while still being other,
for a magical creature who is ourself while possessing the advantage, over all
our imaginings, of an autonomous existence. We find traces of it in even the
most banal circumstances of love: in the attraction linked to any change, any
disguise, as in the importance of unison and the repetition of self in the
other. The great, the implacable amorous passions are all linked to thefact
that a being imagines he sees his most secret self spying upon him behind the
curtain of another's eyes. -ROBERT MUSIL, QUOTED IN DENIS DE ROUGEMONT, LOVE
DECLARED Create Temptation Lure the target deep into your seduction by creating
the proper temptation: a glimpse of the pleasures to come. As the serpent
tempted Eve with the promise offorbidden knowledge, you must awaken a desire in
your targets that they cannot control. Find that weakness of theirs, that
fantasy that has yet to be realized, and hint that you can lead them toward it.
It could be wealth, it could be adventure, it could be forbidden and guilty
pleasures; the key is to keep it vague. Dangle the prize before their eyes,
postponing satisfaction, and let their minds do the rest. The future seems ripe
with possibility. Stimulate a curiosity stronger than the doubts and anxieties
that go with it, and they will follow you. The Tantalizing Object S ome time in
the 1880s, a gentleman named Don Juan de Todellas was wandering through a park
in Madrid when he saw a woman in her early twenties getting out of a coach, followed
by a two-year-old child and a nursemaid. The young woman was elegantly dressed,
but what took Don Juan's breath away was her resemblance to a woman he had
known nearly three years before. Surely she could not be the same person. The
woman he had known, Cristeta Moreruela, was a showgirl in a second-rate
theater. She had been an orphan and was quite poor-her circumstances could not
have changed that much. He moved closer: the same beautiful face. And For these
two crimes Tantalus was punished with the ruin of his kingdom and, after his
then he heard her voice. He was so shocked that he had to sit down: it was
dea,h Zeus ' s own hand indeed the same woman. Don Juan was an incorrigible
seducer, whose conquests were innumerable and of every variety. But he
remembered his affair with Cristeta quite clearly, because she had been so
young-the most charming girl he had ever met. He had seen her in the theater,
had courted her assiduously, and had managed to persuade her to take a trip
with him to a seaside town. Although they had separate rooms, nothing could
stop Don Juan: he made up a story about business troubles, gained her sympathy,
and in a tender moment took advantage of her weakness. A few days later he left
her, on the pretext that he had to attend to business. He believed he would
never see her again. Feeling a little guilty-a rare occurrence with him-he sent
her 5,000 pesetas, pretending he would eventually rejoin her. Instead he went
to Paris. He had only recently returned to Madrid. As he sat and remembered all
this, an idea troubled him: the child. with eternal torment in the company of
Ixion,Sisyphus, Tityus, the Danaids, and others. Now he hangs, perennially
consumed by thirst and hunger, from the bough of afruit tree which leans over a
marshy lake. Its waves lap against his waist, and sometimes reach his chin, yet
whenever he bends down to drink, they slip away, and nothing remains but the
black mud at his feet; or, if he ever succeeds in scooping up a handful of
water, it slips through his fingers before he can do Could the boy possibly be
his? If not, she must have married almost immediately after their affair. How
could she do such a thing? She was obviously wealthy now. Who could her husband
be? Did he know her past? Mixed with his confusion was intense desire. She was
so young and beautiful. Why had he given her up so easily? Somehow, even if she
was married, he had to more than wet his cracked lips, leaving him thirstier
than ever. The tree is laden with pears, shining apples, sweet figs, ripe olives
and pomegranates, which get her back. dangle against his shoulders; but
whenever he Don Juan began to frequent the park every day. He saw her a few
more reac hesfor the luscious times; their eyes met, but she pretended not to
notice him. Tracing the fruit, a gust of wind whirls nursemaid during one of
her errands, he struck up a conversation with her,,hem ol " °f,us reack
and asked her about her mistress's husband. She told him the man's name -robert
graves, the oreek was Senor Martinez, and that he was away on an extended
business trip; she also told him where Cristeta now lived. Don Juan gave her a
note to give to 231 232 Don Juan: Arminta, listen to the truth--for are not
women friends of truth? I am a nobleman, heir to the ancient family of the Tenorios,
the conquerors of Seville. After the king, my father is the most powerful and
considered man at court. ... By chance I happened on this road and saw you.
Love sometimes behaves in a manner that surprises even himself. .Arminta: I
don't know if what you're saying is truth or lying rhetoric. I am married to
Batricio, everybody knows it. How can the marriage be annulled, even if he
abandons me? • Don Juan: When the marriage is not consummated, whether by
malice or deceit, it can be annulled. Arminta: You are right. But, God help me,
won't you desert me the moment you have separated me from my husband? ..."
Don Juan: Arminta, light of my eyes, tomorrow your beautifulfeet will slip into
her mistress. Then he strolled by Cristeta's house-a beautiful palace. His
worst suspicions were confirmed: she had married for money. Cristeta refused to
see him. He persisted, sending more notes. Finally, to avoid a scene, she
agreed to meet him, just once, in the park. Heprepared for the meeting
carefully: seducing her again would be a delicate operation. But when he saw
her coming toward him, in her beautiful clothes, his emotions, and his lust,
got the better of him. She could only belong to him, never to another man, he
told her. Cristeta took offense at this; obviously her present circumstances
prevented even one more meeting. Still, beneath her coolness he could sense
strong emotions. He begged to see her again, but she left without promising
anything. He sent her more letters, meanwhile wracking his brains trying to
piece it all together: Who was this Senor Martinez? Why would he marry a
showgirl? How could Cristeta be wrested away from him? Finally Cristeta agreed
to meet Don Juan one more time, in the theater, where he dared not risk a
scandal. They took a box, where they could talk. She reassured him the child
was not his. She said he only wanted her now because she belonged to another,
because he could not have her. No, he said, he had changed; he would do
anything to get her back. Disconcertingly, at moments her eyes seemed to be
flirting with him. But then she seemed to be about to cry, and rested her head
on his shoulder-only to get up immediately, as if realizing this was a mistake.
This was their last meeting, she said, and quickly fled. Don Juan was beside himself.
She wasplaying with him; she was a coquette. He had only been claiming to have
changed, but perhaps it was true: no woman had ever treated him this way
before. He would never have allowed it. polished silver slippers with buttons
of the purest gold. And your alabaster throat will be imprisoned in beautiful
necklaces; on your fingers, rings set with amethysts will shine like stars,
andfrom your ears will da ngle orien tal pearls. • Arminta: I am yours. -TIRSO
DE MOLINA, THE PLAYBOY OF SEVILLE. IN
MANDEL, ED., THE THEATRE OF DON JUAN For the next few nights Don Juan slept
poorly. All he could think about was Cristeta. He had nightmares about killing
her husband, about growing old and being alone. It was all too much. He had to
leave town. He sent her a goodbye note, and to his amazement, she replied: she
wanted to see him, she had something to tell him. By now he was too weak to
resist. As she had requested, he met her on a bridge, at night. This time she
made no effort to control herself: yes, she still loved Don Juan, and was ready
to run away with him. But he should come to her house tomorrow, in broad
daylight, and take her away. There could be no secrecy. Beside himself with
joy, Don Juan agreed to her demands. The next day he showed up at her palace at
the appointed hour, and asked for Senora Martinez. There was no one there by
that name, said the woman at the door. Don Juan insisted: her name is Cristeta.
Ah, Cristeta, the woman said: she lives in the back, with the other tenants.
Confused, Don Juan went to Now the serpent was moresubtle than any other wild
creature that the LORD GOD had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say,
'You shall not cat of the back of the palace. There he thought he saw her son,
playing in the street in dirty clothes. But no, he said to himself, it must be
some other child. He came to Cristeta's door, and instead of her servant,
Cristeta herself opened it. He entered. It was the room of a poor person.
Hanging on improvised racks, however, were Cristeta's elegant clothes. As if in
a dream, he sat down, dumbfounded, and listened as Cristeta revealed the truth.
Create Temptation • 233 She was not married, she had no child. Months after he
had left her, she had realized that she had been the victim of a consummate
seducer. She still loved Don Juan, but she was determined to turn the tables.
Finding out through a mutual friend that he had returned to Madrid, she took
the five thousand pesetas he had sent her and bought expensive clothes. She
borrowed a neighbor's child, asked the neighbor's cousin to play the
child'snursemaid, and rented a coach-all to create an elaborate fantasy that
existed only in his mind. Cristeta did not even have to lie: she never actually
said she was married or had a child. She knew that being unable to have her
would make him want her more than ever. It was the only way to seduce a man
like him. Overwhelmed by the lengths she had gone to, and by the emotions she
had so skillfully stirred in him, Don Juan forgave Cristeta and offered to
marry her. To his surprise, and perhaps to his relief, she politely declined.
The moment they married, she said, his eyes would wander elsewhere. Only if
they stayed as they were could she maintain the upper hand. Don Juan had no
choice but to agree. Interpretation. Cristeta and Don Juan are characters in
the novel Dulce y Sabrosa (Sweet and Savory, 1891), by the Spanish writer
Jacinto Octavio Picon. Most of Picon's work deals with male seducers and their
feminine victims, a subject he studied and knew much about. Abandoned by Don
Juan, and reflecting on his nature, Cristeta decided to kill two birds with one
stone: she would get revenge and get him back. But how could she lure such a
man? The fruit once tasted, he no longer wanted it. What came easily to him, or
fell into his arms, held no allure for him. What would tempt Don Juan into
desiring Cristeta again, into pursuing her, was the sense that she was already
taken, that she was forbidden fruit. That was his weakness-that was why he
pursued virgins and married women, women he was not supposed to have. To a man,
she reasoned, the grass always seems greener somewhere else. She would make
herself that distant, alluring object, just out of reach, tantalizing him,
stirring up emotions he could not control. He knew how charming and desirable
she had once been to him. The idea of possessing her again, and the pleasure he
imagined it would bring, were too much for him: he swallowed the bait.
Temptation is a twofold process. First you are coquettish, flirtatious; you
stimulate a desire by promising pleasure and distraction from daily life. At
the same time, you make it clear to your targets that they cannot have you, at
least not right away. You are establishing a barrier, some kind of tension. In
days gone by such barriers were easy to create, by taking advantage of
preexisting social obstacles-of class, race, marriage, religion. Today the
barriers have to be more psychological: your heart is taken by someone else;
you are really not interested in the target; some secret holds you back; the
timing is bad; you are not good enough for the other person; the other any tree
of the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of
the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch
it, lest you die.' " But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not
die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you
will be like God, knowing good and evil. " So when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the
tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she
also gave some to her husband, and he ate. -GENESIS 3:1, OLD TESTAMENT Thou
strong seducer, Opportunity. -JOHN DRYDEN As he listened, Masetto experienced
such a longing to go and stay with these nuns that his whole body tingled with
excitement, for it was clear from what he had heard that he should be able to
achieve what he had in mind. Realizing, however, that he would get nowhere by
revealing his intentions to Nuto, he replied: • "How right you were to
come away from the [nunnery]! What sort of a life can any man lead when he's
surrounded by a lot of women? He might as well be living with a pack of devils.
Why, six times out oj seven they don't even know their own minds." • But
when they 234 had finished talking, Masetto began to consider what steps he
ought to take so that he could go and stay with them. Knowinghimself to be
perfectly capable of carrying out the duties mentioned by Nuto, he had no
worries about losing the job on that particular score, but he was afraid lest
he should be turned down because of his youth and his unusually attractive
appearance. And so, having rejected a number of other possible expedients, he
eventually thought to himself: "The convent is a long way off, and there's
nobody there who knows me. If I can pretend to be dumb, they'll take me on for
sure." Clinging firmly to this conjecture, he therefore dressed himself in
pauper's rags and slung an ax over his shoulder, and without telling anyone
where he was going, he set outfor the convent. On his arrival, he wandered into
the courtyard, where as luck would have it he came across the steward, and with
the aid ofgestures such as dumb people use, he conveyed the impression that he
was beggingfor something to eat, in return for which he would attend to any
wood-chopping that needed to be done. • The steward gladly provided him with
something to eat, after which he presented him with a pile of logs that Nuto
had been unable to chop. Mow, when the steward had discovered what an excellent
gardener he was, he gestured to Masetto, asking him whether he would like to
stay there, and the latter made signs to indicate that he was willing to do
whatever the steward person is not good enough for you; and so on. Conversely,
you can choose someone who has a built-in barrier: they are taken, they are not
meant to want you. These barriers are more subtle than the social or religious
variety, but they are barriers nevertheless, and the psychology remains the
same. are perversely excited by what they cannot or should not have. Create
this inner conflict-there is excitement and interest, but you are
unavailable-and you will have them grasping like Tantalus for water. And with
Don Juan and Cristeta, the more you make your targets pursue you, the more they
imagine that it is they who are the aggressors. Your seduction is perfectly
disguised. The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. -OSCAR
WILDE. Keys to Seduction M ost of the time, people struggle to maintain
security and a sense of balance in their lives. If they were always uprooting
themselves in pursuit of every new person or fantasy that passed them by, they
could not survive the daily grind. They usually win the struggle, but it does
not come easy. The world is full of temptation. They read about people who have
more than they do, about adventures others are having, about people who have
found wealth and happiness. The security that they strive for, and that they
seem to have in their lives, is actually an illusion. It covers up a constant
tension. As a seducer, you can never mistake people's appearance for reality.
You know that their fight to keep order in their lives is exhausting, and that
they are gnawed by doubts and regrets. It is hard to be good and virtuous,
always having to repress the strongest desires. With that knowledge in mind,
seduction is easier. What people want is not temptation; temptation happens every
day. What people want is to give into temptation, to yield. That is the only
way to get rid of the tension in their lives. It costs much more to resist
temptation than to surrender. Your task, then, is to create a temptation that
is stronger than the daily variety. It has to be focused on them, aimed at them
as individuals-at their weakness. Understand: everyone has a principal
weakness, from which others stem. Find that childhood insecurity, that lack in
their life, and you hold the key to tempting them. Their weakness may be greed,
vanity, boredom, some deeply repressed desire, a hunger for forbidden fruit.
They signal it in little details that elude their conscious control: their
style of clothing, an offhand comment. Their past, and particularly their past
romances, will be littered with clues. Give them a potent temptation, tailored
to their weakness, and you can make the hope of pleasure that you stir in them
figure more prominently than the doubts and anxieties that accompany it. In
1621, King Philip III of Spain desperately wanted to forge an al- Create
Temptation • 235 liance with England by marrying his daughter to the son of the
English king, James I. James seemed open to the idea, but he stalled for time.
Spain's ambassador to the English court, a man called Gondomar, was given the
task of advancing Philip's plan. He set his sights on the king's favorite, the
Duke (former Earl) of Buckingham. Gondomar knew the duke's main weakness:
vanity. Buckingham hungered for the glory and adventure that would add to his
fame; he was bored with his limited tasks, and he pouted and whined about this.
The ambassador first flattered him profusely-the duke was the ablest man in the
country and it was a shame he was given so little to do. Then, he began to whisper
to him of a great adventure. The duke, as Gondomar knew, was in favor of the
match with the Spanish princess, but these damned marriage negotiations with
King James were taking so long, and getting nowhere. What if the duke were to
accompany the king's son, his good friend Prince Charles, to Spain? Of course,
this would have to be done in secret, without guards or escorts, for the
English government and its ministers would never sanction such a trip. But that
would make it all the more dangerous and romantic. Once in Madrid, the prince
could throw himself at Princess Maria's feet, declare his undying love, and
carry her back to England in triumph. What a chivalrous deed it would be and
all for love. The duke would get all the credit and it would make his name
famous for centuries. The duke fell for the idea, and convinced Charles to go
along; after much arguing, they also convinced a reluctant King James. The trip
was a near disaster (Charles would have had to convert to Catholicism to win
Maria), and the marriage never happened, but Gondomar had done his job. He did
not bribe the duke with offers of money or power-he aimed at the childlike part
of him that never grew up. A child has little power to resist. It wants
everything, now, and rarely thinks of the consequences. A child lies lurking in
everyone-a pleasure that was denied them, a desire that was repressed. Hit at
that point, tempt them with the proper toy (adventure, money, fun), and they
will slough off their normal adult reasonableness. Recognize their weakness by
whatever childlike behavior they reveal in daily life-it is the tip of the
iceberg. Napoleon Bonaparte was appointed the supreme general of the French
army in 1796. His commission was to defeat the Austrian forces that had taken
over northern Italy. The obstacles were immense: Napoleon was only twenty-six
at the time; the generals below him were envious of his position and doubtful
of his abilities. His soldiers were tired, underfed, underpaid, and grumpy. How
could he motivate this group to fight the highly experienced Austrian army? As
he prepared to cross the Alps into Italy, Napoleon gave a speech to his troops
that may have been the turning point in his career, and in his life:
"Soldiers, you are half starved and half naked. The government owes you
much, but can do nothing for you. Your patience, your courage, do you honor,
but give you no glory. ... I will lead you into the most fertile plains of the
world. There you will find flourishing cities, teeming provinces. There you
will reap honor, glory, and wealth." The wanted. Now, one day, when
Masetto happened to he taking a rest after a spell of strenuous work, he was
approached by two very young nuns who were out walking in the garden. Since he
gave them the impression that he was asleep, they began to stare at him, and
the bolder of the two said to her companion: • "If I could be sure that
you would keep it a secret, I would tell you about an idea that has often
crossed my mind, and one that might well work out to our mutual benefit."
• "Do tell me," replied the other. "You can be quite certain
that I shan't talk about it to anyone. " • The bold one began to speak
more plainly. • "I wonder," she said, "whether you have ever
considered what a strict life we have to lead, and how the only men who ever
dare setfoot in this place are the steward, who is elderly, and this dumb
gardener of ours. Yet I have often heard it said, by of the ladies who have
come to visit us, that all other pleasures in the are mere trifles by
comparison with the one by a woman when she goes with a man. have thus been
thinking, since I have nobody else to hand, that I would like to discover with
the aid of this dumb fellow whether they are telling the truth. As it happens,
there couldn't be a better man for the, because even if he wanted to let the
cat out of the bag, he wouldn't be to. He wouldn't even know how to explain,
for you can see for yourself what a mentally retarded, dim-witted hulk of a
youth 236 the fellow is. I would be glad to know what you think of the
idea." • "Dear me!" said the other. "Don't you realize that
we have promised God to preserve our virginity?" • "Pah!" she
said. "We are constantly making Him promises that we never keep! What does
it matter if we fail to keep this one? He can always find other girls to
preserve their virginity for Him. " • . . . Before the time came for them
to leave, they had each made repeated trials of dumb fellow's riding ability,
and later on, when they were busily swapping tales about it all, they agreed
that it was every bit as pleasant an experience as they had been led to
believe, indeed more so. Andfrom then on, whenever the opportunity arose, they
whiled away many a pleasant hour in the dumb fellow's arms. • One day, however,
a companion of theirs happened to look out from the window of her cell, saw the
goings-on, and drew the attention of two others what was afoot. Having talked
the matter over between themselves, they at first decided to report the pair to
the abbess. But then they changed their minds, and by common agreement with the
other two, they took up shares in Masetto's holding. And because of various
indiscretions, these five were subsequently joined by the remaining three, one
after the other. • Finally, the abbess, who was still unaware of all this, was
taking a stroll one very hot day in the garden, all by herself when she came
across Masetto stretched out fast asleep in the shade of an almond speech had a
powerful effect. Days later these same soldiers, after a rough climb over the
mountains, gazed down on the Piedmont valley. Napoleon s words echoed in their
ears, and a ragged, grumbling gang became an inspired army that would sweep
across northern Italy in pursuit of the Austrians. Napoleon's use of temptation
had two elements: behind you is a grim past; ahead of you is a future of
wealthand glory, (/you follow me. Integral to the temptation strategy is a
clear demonstration that the target has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
The present offers little hope, the future can be full of pleasure and
excitement. Remember to keep the future gains vague, though, and somewhat out
of reach. Be too specific and you will disappoint; make the promise too close
at hand, and you will not be able to postpone satisfaction long enough to get
what you want. The barriers and tensions in temptation are there to stop people
from giving in too easily and too superficially. You want them to struggle, to
resist, to be anxious. Queen Victoria surely fell in love with her prime
minister, Benjamin Disraeli, but there were barriers of religion (he was a
dark-skinned Jew), class (she, of course, was a queen), social taste (she was a
paragon of virtue, he a notorious dandy). The relationship was never
consummated, but what deliciousness those barriers gave to their daily encounters,
which were full of constant flirtation. Many such social barriers are gone
today, so they have to be manufactured-it is the only way to put spice into
seduction. Taboos of any kind are a source of tension, and they are
psychological now, not religious. You are looking for some repression, some
secret desire that will make your victim squirm uncomfortably if you hit upon
it, but will tempt them all the more. Search in their past; whatever they seem
to fear or flee from might hold the key. It could be a yearning for a mother or
father figure, or a latent homosexual desire. Perhaps you can satisfy that
desire by presenting yourself as a masculine woman or a feminine man. For
others you play the Lolita, or the daddd-someone they are not supposed to have,
the dark side of their personality. Keep the connection vague-you want them to
reach for something elusive, something that comes out of their own mind. In
London in 1769, Casanova met a young woman named Charpillon. She was much
younger than he, as beautiful a woman as he had ever known, and with a
reputation for destroying men. In one of their first encounters she told him
straight out that he would fall for her and she would ruin him. To everyone's
disbelief, Casanova pursued her. In each encounter she hinted she might give
in-perhaps the next time, if he was nice to her. She inflamed his
curiosity-what pleasure she would yield; he would be the first, he would tame
her. "The venom of desire penetrated my whole being so completely,"
he later wrote, "that had she so wished it, she could have despoiled me of
everything I possessed. I would have beggared myself for one little kiss."
This "affair" indeed proved his ruin; she humiliated him. Charpillon
had rightly gauged that Casanova's primary weakness was his Create Temptation •
237 need for conquest, to overcome challenge, to taste what no other man had
tasted. Beneath this was a kind of masochism, a pleasure in the pain a woman
could give him. Playing the impossible woman, enticing and then frustrating
him, she offered the ultimate temptation. What will often do the trick is to
give the target the sense that you are a challenge, a prize to be won. In
possessing you they will get what no other has had. They may even get pain; but
pain is close to pleasure, and offers its own temptations. In the Old Testament
we read that "David arose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of
the king's house . . . [and] he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the
woman was very beautiful." The woman was Bathsheba. David summoned her,
seduced her (supposedly), then proceeded to get rid of her husband, Uriah, in
battle. In fact, however, it was Bathsheba who had seduced David. She bathed on
her roof at an hour when she knew he would be standing on his balcony. After
tempting a man she knew had a weakness for women, she played the coquette,
forcing him to come after her. This is the opportunity strategy: give someone
weak the chance to have what they lust after by merely placing yourself within
their reach, as if byaccident. Temptation is often a matter of timing, of
crossing the path of the weak at the right moment, giving them the opportunity
to surrender. Bathsheba used her entire body as a lure, but it is often more
effective to use only a part of the body, creating a fetishlike effect. Madame
Re- camier would let you glimpse her body beneath the sheer dresses she wore,
but only briefly, when she took off her overgarment to dance. Men would leave
that evening dreaming of what little they had seen. Empress Josephine made a point
of baring her beautiful arms in public. Give the target only a part of you to
fantasize about, thereby creating a constant temptation in their mind. Symbol:
The Apple in the Garden of Eden. The fruit looks deeply inviting, and you are
not supposed to eat of it; it is forbidden. But that is precisely why you think
of it day and night. You see it but cannot have it. And the only way to get rid
of this temptatree. Too much riding by night had left him with very little
strengthfor the day's labors, and so there he lay, with his clothes ruffled up
in front by the wind, leaving him all exposed. Finding herself alone, the lady
stood with her eyes riveted to this spectacle, and she was seized by the same
craving to which her young charges had already succumbed. So, having roused
Masetto, she led him away to her room, where she kept him for several days,
thus provoking bitter complaints from the nuns over the fact that the handyman
had suspended work in the garden. Before sending him back to his own quarters, she
repeatedly savored the one pleasure for which she had always reserved her most
fierce disapproval, and from then on she demanded regular supplementary
allocations, amounting to considerably more than her fair share. -BOCCACCIO,
THE DECAMERON tion is to yield and taste
the fruit. 238 Reversal T he reverse of temptation is security or satisfaction,
and both are fatal to seduction. If you cannot tempt someone out of their
habitual comfort, you cannot seduce them. If you satisfy the desire you have
awakened, the seduction is over. There is no reversal to temptation. Although
some stages can be passed over, no seduction can proceed without some form of
temptation, so it is always better to plan it carefully, tailoring it to the
weakness and childishness in your particular target. Phase Two Lead Astray -
Creating Pleasure and Confusion Your victims are sufficiently intrigued and
their desire for you is growing, but their attachment is weak and at any moment
they could decide to turn back. The goal in this phase is to lead your victims
so far astray-keeping them emotional and confused, giving them pleasure but
making them want more-that retreat is no longer possible. Springing on them a
pleasant surprise will make them see you as delightfully unpredictable, but will
also keep them off balance (9: Keep them in suspense-what comes next?). The
artful use of soft and pleasant words will intoxicate them and stimulate
fantasies (10: Use the demonic power of words to sow confusion). Aesthetic
touches and pleasant little rituals will titillate their senses, distract their
minds (11: Pay attention to detail). Your greatest danger in this phase is the
mere hint of routine orfamil- iarity. You need to maintain some mystery, to
keep a little distance so that in your absence your victims become obsessed
with you (12: Poeticize your presence). They may realize they are falling for
you, but they must never suspect how much of this has come from your
manipulations. A well-timed display of your weakness, of how emotional you have
become under their influence will help cover your tracks (13: Disarm through
strategic weakness and vulnerability). To excite your victims and make them
highly emotional, you must give them thefeeling that they are actually living
some of the fantasies you have stirred in their imagination (14: Confuse desire
and reality). By giving them only a part of the fantasy, you will keep them
coming backfor more. Focusing your attention on them so that the rest of the
world fades away, even taking them on a trip, will lead them far astray (15:
Isolate your victim). There is no turning back. 9 Keep Them in Suspense- What
Comes Next? The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your
spell on them is broken. More: you have ceded them power. The only way to lead
the seduced along and keep the upper hand is to create suspense, a calculated
surprise. People love a mystery, and this is the key to luring them further
into your web. Behave in a way that leaves them wondering, What are you up to?
Doing something they do not expectfrom you will give them a delightful sense of
spontaneity-they will not be able tofore- see what comes next. You are always
one step ahead and in control. Give the victim a thrill with a sudden change of
direction.The Calculated Surprise I n 1753, the twenty-eight-old Giovanni
Casanova met a young girlnamed Caterina with whom he fell in love. Her father
knew what kind of man Casanova was, and to prevent some mishap before he could
marry her off, he sent her away to a convent on the Venetian island of Murano,
where she was to remain for four years. Casanova, however, was not one to be
daunted. He smuggled letters to Caterina. He began to attend Mass at the
convent several times a week, catching glimpses of her. The nuns began to talk
among themselves: who was this handsome young man who appeared so often? One
morning, as Casanova, leaving Mass, was about to board a gondola, a servant
girl from the convent passed by and dropped a letter at his feet. Thinking it
might be from Caterina, he picked it up. It was indeed intended for him, but it
was not from Caterina; its author was a nun at the convent, who had noticed him
on his many visits and wanted to make his acquaintance. Was he interested? If
so, he should come to the convent's parlor at a particular time, when the nun
would be receiving a visitor from the outside world, a friend of hers who was a
countess. He could stand at a distance, observe her, and decide whether she was
to his liking. Casanova was most intrigued by the letter: its style was dignified,
but there was something naughty about it as well-particularly from a nun. He
had to find out more. At the appointed day and time, he stood to the side in
the convent parlor and saw an elegantly dressed woman talking with a nun seated
behind a grating. He heard the nun's name mentioned, and was astonished: it was
Mathilde M., a well-known Venetian in her early twenties, whose decision to
enter a convent had surprised the whole city. But what astonished him most was
that beneath her nun's habit, he could see that she was a beautiful young
woman, particularly in her eyes, which were a brilliant blue. Perhaps she
needed a favor done, and intended that he would serve as her cat's-paw. His
curiosity got the better of him. A few days later he returned to the convent
and asked to see her. As he waited for her, his heart was beating a mile a
minute-he did not know what to expect. She finally appeared and sat down behind
the grating. They were alone in the room, and she said that she could arrange
for them to have supper together at a little villa nearby. Casanova was
delighted, but wondered what kind of nun he was dealing with. "And-have
you no lover but me?" he asked. "I have a I count upon taking [the
French people ] by surprise. A bold deed upsets people's equanimity, and they
are dumbfounded by a great novelty. -NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, QUOTED IN EMIL LUDWIG,
NAPOLEON. PAUL The first care of any dandy is to never do what one expects them
to do, to always go beyond. The unexpected can be nothing more than a gesture,
but a gesture that is totally uncommon. Alcibiades cut off the tail of his dog
in order to surprise people. When he saw the looks on his friends as they gazed
upon the mutilated animal, he said: "Ah, that is precisely what I wanted
to happen: as long as the Athenians gossip about this, they will not say
anything worse about me." • Attracting attention is not the only goal of a
dandy, he wants to hold it by unexpected, even ridiculous means. After
Alcibiades, how many apprentice dandies cut off the tails of their dogs! The
243 244 baron of Saint-Cricq, for example, with his ice cream boots: one very
hot day, he ordered at Tortonis two ice creams, the vanilla served in his right
boot, the strawberry in his left boot. . . . The Count Saint-Germain loved to
bring his friends to the theater, in his voluptuous carriage lined in pink
satin and drawn by two black horses with enormous tails; he asked his friends
in that inimitable tone of his: "Which piece of entertainment did you wish
to see? Vaudeville, the Variety show, the Palais- Royal theater? I took the
liberty of purchasing a box for all three of them." Once the choice was
made, with a look of great disdain, he would take the unused tickets, roll them
up, and use them to light his cigar. - MAUD DE BELLEROCHE, DU DANDYAU PLAY-BOY
While Shahzaman sat at one of the windows overlooking the king's garden, he saw
a door open in the palace, through which came twenty slave girls and twenty
negroes. In their midst was his brother's [King Shahriyar's] queen, a woman of
surpassing beauty. They made their waytothe fountain, wherethey all undressed
and sat on the grass. The king's wife then called out: "Come
Mass'ood!" and there promptly came to her a black slave, who mounted her
after smothering her with embraces and kisses. So also did the negroes with the
slave girls, reveling together till the approach of night. And so friend, who is also absolutely my
master," she replied. "It is to him I owe my wealth." She asked
if he had a lover. Yes, he replied. She then said, in a mysterious tone,
"I warn you that if you once allow me to take her place in your heart, no
power on earth can tear me from it." She then gave him the key to the
villa and told him to meet her there in two nights. He kissed her through the
grating and left in a daze. "I passed the next two days in a state of
feverish impatience," he wrote, "which prevented me from sleeping or
eating. Over and above birth, beauty, and wit, my new conquest possessed an
additional charm: she was forbidden fruit. I was about to become a rival of the
Church." He imagined her in her habit, and with her shaven head. He
arrived at the villa at the appointed hour. Mathilde was waiting for him. To
his surprise, she wore an elegant dress, and somehow she had avoided having her
head shaved, for her hair was in a magnificent chignon. Casanova began to kiss
her. She resisted, but only slightly, and then pulled back, saying a meal was
ready for them. Over dinner she filled in a few more of the gaps: her money
allowed her to bribe certain people, so that she could escape from the convent
every so often. She had mentioned Casanova to her friend and master, and he had
approved their liaison. He must be old? Casanova asked. No, she replied, a
glint in her eye, he is in his forties, and quite handsome. After supper, a
bell rang-her signal to hurry back to the convent, or she would be caught. She
changed back into her habit and left. A beautiful vista now seemed to stretch
before Casanova, of months spent in the villa with this delightful creature,
all of it courtesy of the mysterious master who paid for it all. He soon
returned to the convent to arrange the next meeting. They would rendezvous in a
square in Venice, then retire to the villa. At the appointed time and place,
Casanova saw a man approach him. Fearing it was her mysterious friend, or some
other man sent to kill him, he recoiled. The man circled behind him, then came
up close: it was Mathilde, wearing a mask and men's clothes. She laughed at the
fright she had given him. What a devilish nun. He had to admit that dressed as
a man she excited him even more. Casanova began to suspect that all was not as
it seemed. For one, he found a collection of libertine novels and pamphlets in
Mathilde's house. Then she made blasphemous comments, for example about the joy
they would have together during Lent, "mortifying their flesh." Now
she referred to her mysterious friend as her lover. A plan evolved in his mind
to take her away from this man and from the convent, eloping with her and possessing
her himself. A few days later he received a letter from her, in which she made
a confession: during one of their more passionate trysts at the villa, her
lover had hidden in a closet, watching the whole thing. The lover, she told
him, was the French ambassador to Venice, and Casanova had impressed him.
Casanova was not one to be fooled with like this, yet the next day he was back
at the convent, submissively arranging for another tryst. This time she showed
up at the hour they had named, and he embraced her-only to Keep Them in
Suspense-What Comes Next? • 245 find that he was embracing Caterina, dressed up
in Mathilde's clothes. Mathilde had befriended Caterina and learned her story.
Apparently taking pity on her, she had arranged it so that Caterina could leave
the convent for the evening, and meet up with Casanova. Only a few months
before Casanova had been in love with this girl, but he had forgotten about
her. Compared to the ingenious Mathilde, Caterina was a simpering bore. He
could not conceal his disappointment. He burned to see Mathilde. Casanova was
angry at the trick Mathilde had played. But a few days later, when he saw her
again, all was forgiven. As she had predicted during their first interview, her
power over him was complete. He had become her slave, addicted to her whims,
and to the dangerous pleasures she offered. Who knows what rash act he might
have committed on her behalf had their affair not been cut short by
circumstance. Interpretation. Casanova was almost always in control in his
seductions. He was the one who led, taking his victim on a trip to an unknown
destination, luring her into his web. In all of his memoirs the story of
Mathilde is the only seduction in which the tables are happily turned: he is
the seduced, the bewildered victim. What made Casanova Mathilde's slave was the
same tactic he had used on countless girls: the irresistible lure of being led
by another person, the thrill of being surprised, the power of mystery. Each
time he left Mathilde his head was spinning with questions. Her ability to go
on surprising him kept her always in his mind, deepening her spell and blotting
Caterina out. Each surprise was carefully calculated for the effect it would
produce. The first unexpected letter piqued his curiosity, as did that first sight
of her in the waiting room; suddenly seeing her dressed as an elegant woman
stirred intense desire; then seeing her dressed as a man intensified the
excitingly transgressive nature of their liaison. The surprises put him off
balance, yet left him quivering with anticipation of the next one. Even an
unpleasant surprise, such as the encounter with Caterina that Mathilde had set
up, kept him emotional and weak. Meeting the somewhat bland Caterina at that
moment only made him long that much more for Mathilde. In seduction, you need
to create constant tension and suspense, a feeling that with you nothing is
predictable. Do not think of this as a painful challenge. You are creating
drama in real life, so pour your creative energies into it, have some fun. There
are all kinds of calculated surprises you can spring on your victims-sending a
letter from out of the blue, showing up unexpectedly, taking them to a place
they have never been. But best of all are surprises that reveal something new
about your character. This needs to be set up. In those first few weeks, your
targets will tend to make certain snap judgments about you, based on
appearances. Perhaps they see you as a bit shy, practical, puritanical. You
know that this is not the real you, but it is how you act in social situations.
Let them, however, have these impressions, and in fact accentuate them a
little, without overacting: for instance.Shahzamanrelated to [his brother King
Shahriyar] all that he had seen in the king's garden that day. Upon this Shahriyar
announced his intention to set forth on another expedition. The troops went out
of the city with the tents, and King Shahriyar followed them. And after he had
stayed a while in the camp, he gave orders to his slaves that no one was to be
admitted to the king's tent. He then disguised himself and returned unnoticed
to the palace, where his brother was waiting for him. They both sat at one of
the windows overlooking the garden; and when they had been there a short time,
the queen and her women appeared with the black slaves, and behaved as
Shahzaman had described. .As soon as they entered the palace, King Shahriyar
put his wife to death, together with her women and the black slaves.
Thenceforth he made it his custom to take a virgin in marriage to his bed each
night, and kill her the next morning. This he continued to do for three years,
until a clamor rose among the people, some of whom fled the country with their
daughters. • Now the vizier had two daughters. The elder was called Shahrazad,
and the younger Dunyazad. Shahrazad possessed many accomplishments and was
versed in the wisdom of the poets and the legends of ancient kings. • That day
Shahrazad noticed her father's anxiety and asked him what it was that troubled
him. When the vizier told her of his predicament, she said: "Give me in
marriage to 246 this king; either I shall die and be a ransom for the daughters
of Moslems, or live and be the cause of their deliverance." He earnestly
pleaded with her against such a hazard; but Shahrazad was resolved, and would
not yield to her father's entreaties. So the vizier arrayed his daughter in
bridal garments and decked her with jewels and made ready to announce
Shahrazad's wedding to the king. • Before saying farewell to her sister,
Shahrazad gave her these instructions: "When I am received by the king, I
shall send for you. Then when the king has finished his act with me, you must
say: 'Tell me, my sister, some tale of marvel to beguile the night.' Then I
will tell you a tale which, if Allah wills, shall be the means of our
deliverance. " • The vizier went with his daughter to the king. And when
the king had taken the maiden Shahrazad to his chamber and had lain with her,
she wept and said: "I have a young sister to whom I wish to bid farewell."
• The king sent for Dunyazad. When she arrived, she threw her arms around her
sister's neck, and seated herself by her side. • Then Dunyazad said to
Shahrazad: "Tell us, my sister, a tale of marvel, so that the night may
pass pleasantly." • "Gladly," she answered, "if the king
permits. " • And the king, who was troubled with sleeplessness, eagerly
listened to the tale of Shahrazad: Once upon the time, in the city of Basrah,
there lived a prosperous tailor who was fond of sport and merriment. ..."
[Nearly seem a little more reserved than usual. Now you have room to suddenly
surprise them with some bold or poetic or naughty action. Once they have
changed their minds about you, surprise them again, as Mathilde did with
Casanova-first a nun who wants an affair, then a libertine, then a seductress
with a sadistic streak. As they strain to figure you out, they will be thinking
about you all of the time, and will want to know more about you. Their
curiosity will lead them further into your web, until it is too late for them to
turn back. This is always the law for the interesting. . . . If one just knows
how to surprise, one always wins the game. The energy of the person involved is
temporarily suspended; one makes it impossible for her to act. -S0REN
KIERKEGAARD Keys to Seduction A child is usually a willful, stubborn creature
who will deliberately do the opposite of what we ask. But there is one scenario
in which children will happily give up their usual willfulness: when they are
promised a surprise. Perhaps it is a present hidden in a box, a game with an
unforeseeable ending, a journey with an unknown destination, a suspenseful
story with a surprise finish. In those moments when children are waiting for a
surprise, their willpower is suspended. They are in your thrall for as long as
you dangle possibility before them. This childish habit is buried deep within
us, and is the source of an elemental human pleasure: being led by a person who
knows where they are going, and who takes us on a journey. (Maybe our joy in
being carried along involves a buried memory of being literally carried, by a
parent, when we are small.) We get a similar thrill when we watch a movie or
read a thriller: we are in the hands of a director or author who is leading us
along, taking us through twists and turns. We stay in our seats, we turn the
pages, happily enslaved by the suspense. It is the pleasure a woman has in
being led by a confident dancer, letting go of any defensiveness she may feel
and letting another person do the work. Falling in love involves anticipation;
we are about to head off in a new direction, enter a new life, where everything
will be strange. The seduced wants to be led, to be carried along like a child.
If you are predictable, the charm wears off; everyday life is predictable. In the
Arabian Talesfrom the Thousand and One Nights, each night King Shahriyar takes
a virgin as his wife, then kills her the following morning. One such virgin,
Shahrazad, manages to escape this fate by telling the king a story that can
only be completed the following day. She does this night after night, keeping
the king in constant suspense. When one story finishes, she quickly starts up
another. She does this for nearly three years, until the king finally decides
to spare her life. You are like Shahrazad: with- Keep Them in Suspense-What
Comes Next? • 247 out new stories, without a feeling of anticipation, your
seduction will die. Keep stoking the fires night after night. Your targets must
never know what's coming next-what surprises you have in store for them. As
with King Shahriyar, they will be under your control for as long as you can
keep them guessing. In 1765, Casanova met a young Italian countess named
Clementina who lived with her two sisters in a chateau. Clementina loved to
read, and had little interest in the men who swarmed around her. Casanova added
himself to their number, buying her books, engaging her in literary
discussions, but she was no less indifferent to him than she had been to them.
Then one day he invited the entire family on a little trip. He would not tell
them where they were going. They piled into the carriage, all the way trying to
guess their destination. A few hours later they entered Milan-what joy, the
sisters had never been there. Casanova led them to his apartment, where three
dresses had been laid out-the most magnificent dresses the girls had ever seen.
There was one for each of the sisters, he told them, and the green one was for
Clementina. Stunned, she put it on, and her face lit up. The surprises did not
stop-there was a delicious meal, champagne, games. By the time they returned to
the chateau, late in the evening, Clementina had fallen hopelessly in love with
Casanova. The reason was simple: surprise creates a moment when people's
defenses come down and new emotions can rush in. If the surprise is
pleasurable, the seductive poison enters their veins without their realizing
it. Any sudden event has a similar effect, striking directly at our emotions
before we get defensive. Rakes know this power well. A young married woman in
the court of Louis XV, in eighteenth- century France, noticed a handsome young
courtier watching her, first at the opera, then in church. Making inquiries,
she found it was the Due de Richelieu, the most notorious rake in France. No
woman was safe from this man, she was warned; he was impossible to resist, and
she should avoid him at all costs. Nonsense, she replied, she was happily
married. He could not possibly seduce her. Seeing him again, she laughed at his
persistence. He would disguise himself as a beggar and approach her in the
park, or his coach would suddenly come alongside hers. He was never aggressive,
and seemed harmless enough. She let him talk to her at court; he was charming
and witty, and even asked to meet her husband. The weeks passed, and the woman
realized she had made a mistake: she looked forward to seeing the marquis. She
had let down her guard. This had to stop. Now she started avoiding him, and he
seemed to respect her feelings: he stopped bothering her. Then one day, weeks later,
she was at the country manor of a friend when the marquis suddenly appeared.
She blushed, trembled, walked away, but his unexpected appearance had caught
her unawares-it had pushed her over the edge. A few days later she became
another of Richelieu's victims. Of course he had set the whole thing up,
including the supposed surprise encounter. Not only does suddenness create a
seductive jolt, it conceals manipula- three years pass.] Now during this time
Shahrazad had borne King Shahriyar three sous. On the thousand and first night,
when she had ended the tale of Ma'aruf she rose and kissed the ground before
him, saying: "Great King, for a thousand and one nights I have been
recounting to you the fables of past ages and the legends of ancient kings. May
I be so bold as to crave a favor of your majesty?" • The king replied:
"Ask, and it shall be granted. " • Shahrazad called out to the
nurses, saying: "Bring me my children. " "Behold these three
[little boys] whom Allah has granted to us. For their sake I implore you to
spare my life. For if you destroy the mother of these infants, they will find
none among women to love them as I would." • The king embraced his three
sous, and his eyes filled with tears as he answered: "I swear by Allah,
Shahrazad, that you were already pardoned before the coming of these children.
I loved you because I found you chaste and tender, wise and eloquent. May Allah
bless you, and bless your father and mother, your ancestors, and all your
descendants. O, Shahrazad, this thousand and first night is brighter for us
than the day!" -TALES FROM THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. tions. Appear
somewhere unexpectedly, say or do something sudden, and people will not have
time to figure out that your move was calculated. Take them to some new place
as if it only just occurred to you, suddenly reveal some secret. Made
emotionally vulnerable, they will be too bewildered to see through you.
Anything that happens suddenly seems natural, and anything that seems natural
has a seductive charm. Only months after arriving in Paris in 1926, Josephine
Baker had completely charmed and seduced the French public with her wild
dancing.But less than a year later she could feel their interest wane. Since
childhood she had hated feeling out of control of her life. Why be at the mercy
of the fickle public? She left Paris and returned a year later, her manner
completely altered-now she played the part of an elegant Frenchwoman, who
happened to be an ingenious dancer and performer. The French fell in love
again; the power was back on her side. If you are in the public eye, you must
learn from this trick of surprise. People are bored, not only with their own
lives but with people who are meant to keep them from being bored. The minute
they feel they can predict your next step, they will eat you alive. The artist
Andy Warhol kept moving from incarnation to incarnation, and no one could
predict the next one-artist, filmmaker, society man. Always keep a surprise up
your sleeve. To keep the public's attention, keep them guessing. Let the
moralists accuse you of insincerity, of having no core or center. They are
actually jealous of the freedom and playfulness you reveal in your public
persona. Finally, you might think it wiser to present yourself as someone
reliable, not given to caprice. If so, you are in fact merely timid. It takes
courage and effort to mount a seduction. Reliability is fine for drawing people
in, but stay reliable and you stay a bore. Dogs are reliable, a seducer is not.
If, on the other hand, you prefer to improvise, imagining that any kind of
planning or calculation is antithetical to the spirit of surprise, you are
making a grave mistake. Constant improvisation simply means you are lazy, and
thinking only about yourself. What often seduces a person is the feeling that
you have expended effort on their behalf. You do not need to trumpet this too
loudly, but make it clear in the gifts you make, the little journeys you plan,
the little teases you lure people with. Little efforts like these will be more
than amply rewarded by the conquest of the heart and willpower of the seduced.
Symbol: The Roller Coaster. The car rises slowly to the top, then suddenly
hurtles you into space, whips you to the side, throws you upside down, in every
possible direction. The riders laugh and scream. What thrills them is to let
go, to grant control to someone else, who propels them in unexpected
directions. What new thrill awaits them around the next corner ? Keep Them in
Suspense-What Comes Next? • 249 Reversal S urprise can be unsurprising if you
keep doing the same thing again and again. Jiang Qing would try to surprise her
husband Mao Zedong with sudden changes of mood, from harshness to kindness and
back. At first he was captivated; he loved the feeling of never knowing what
was coming. But it went on for years, and was always the same. Soon, Madame
Mao's supposedly unpredictable mood swings just annoyed him. You need to vary
the method of your surprises. When Madame de Pompadour was the lover of the
inveterately bored King Louis XV, she made each surprise different- a new
amusement, a new game, a new fashion, a new mood. He could never predict what
would come next, and while he waited for the next surprise, his willpower was
temporarily suspended. No man was ever more of a slave to a woman than was
Louis to Madame de Pompadour. When you change direction, make the new direction
truly new. 10 Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow Confusion nis hard to make
people listen; they are consumed with their own thoughts and desires, and have
little timefor yours. The trick to making them listen is to say what they want
to hear, to fill their ears with whatever is pleasant to them. This is the
essence of seductive language. Inflame people's emotions with loaded phrases,
flatter them, comfort their insecurities, envelop them infantasies, sweet
words, and promises, and not only will they listen to you, they will lose their
will to resist you. Keep your language vague, letting them read into it what
they want. Use writing to stir upfantasies and to create an idealized portrait
of yourself. Seductive Oratory O n May 13, 1958, right-wing Frenchmen and their
sympathizers in the army seized control of Algeria, which was then a French
colony. They had been afraid that France's socialist government would grant
Algeria its independence. Now, with Algeria under their control, they
threatened to take over all of France. Civil war seemed imminent. At this dire
moment all eyes turned to General Charles de Gaulle, the World War II hero who
had played a crucial role in liberating France from the Nazis. For the last ten
years de Gaulle had stayed away from politics, disgusted with the infighting
among the various parties. He remained very popular, and was generally seen as
the one man who could unite the country, but he was also a conservative, and
the right-wingers felt certain that if he came to power he would support their
cause. Days after the May 13 coup, the French government-the Fourth
Republic-collapsed, and the parliament called on de Gaulle to help form a new
government, the Fifth Republic. He asked for and was granted full powers for
four months. On June 4, days after becoming the head of government, de Gaulle
flew to Algeria. The French colonials were ecstatic. It was their coup that had
indirectly brought de Gaulle to power; surely, they imagined, he was coming to
thank them, and to reassure them that Algeria would remain French. When he
arrived in Algiers, thousands of people filled the city's main plaza. The mood
was extremely festive-there were banners, music, and endless chants of
"Algerie jkmgaise," the French-colonial slogan. Suddenly de Gaulle
appeared on a balcony overlooking the plaza. The crowd went wild. The general,
an extremely tall man, raised his arms above his head, and the chanting doubled
in volume. The crowd was begging him to join in. Instead he lowered his arms
until silence fell, then opened them wide, and slowly intoned, in his deep
voice, "Je vous ai compris "-I have understood you. There was a
moment of quiet, and then, as his words sank in, a deafening roar: he
understood them. That was all they needed to hear. De Gaulle proceeded to talk
of the greatness of France. More cheers. He promised there would be new
elections, and "with those elected representatives we will see how to do
the rest." Yes, a new government, just what the crowd wanted-more cheers.
He would "find the place for Algeria" in the French
"ensemble." There must be "total discipline, without
qualification and without conditions"-who could argue with that? He closed
with a loud call: "Vive la Republique! Vive la France!" the emotional
slogan that After Operation Sedition, we are being treated to Operation
Seduction. -MAURICEKRIEGEL- VALRIMONT ON CHARLES DE GAULLE, SHORTLY AFTER THE
GENERAL ASSUMED POWER My mistress staged a lockout. ... \ I went back to verses
and compliments, \ My natural weapons. Soft words \ Remove harsh door-chains.
There's magic in poetry, its power \ Can pull down the bloody moon, \ Turn bach
the sun, make serpents burst asunder \ Or rivers flow upstream. \ Doors are no
match for such spellbinding, the toughest \ Locks can be opeu-sesamed by its
charms. \ But epic's a dead loss for me. I'll get nowhere with swift-footed \
Achilles, or with either of Atreus' sons. \ Old what's- his-name wasting twenty
years on war and travel, \ Poor Hector dragged in the dust - \ No good. But
lavish fine words on some young girl's profile \ And sooner or later shell
tender herself as the fee, \ An ample reward for your labors. So farewell, heroic \ Figures of
legend-the quid \ Pro quo you offer won't tempt me. A bevy of beauties \ All
swooning over my love-songs - that's what I want. -OVID, THE AMORES, TRANSLATED
BY PETER GREEN When she has received a letter, when its sweet poison has
entered her blood, then a word is sufficient to wake her love burst forth. . .
. My personal presence will prevent ecstasy. If I am present only in a letter,
then she can easily cope with me; to some extent, shemistakesme for a more
universal creature who dwells in her love. Then, too, in a letter one can more
readily havefree rein; in a letter I can throw myself at herfeet in superb
fashion, etc.-something that would easily seem like nonsense if I did it in
person, and the illusion would be lost. . . . • On the whole, letters are and
will continue to be a priceless means of making an impression on a young girl;
the dead letter of writing often has much more influence than the living word.
A letter is a secretive communication; one is master of the situation, feels no
pressure from anyone's actual presence, and I do believe a young girl would
prefer to be alone with her ideal. - S0REN KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY,
TRANSLATED BY HOWARD V. HONG AND EDNA H. HONG had been the rallying cry in the
fight against the Nazis. Everyone shouted it back. In the next few days de
Gaulle made similar speeches around Algeria, to equally delirious crowds. Only
after de Gaulle had returned to France did the words of his speeches sink in:
not once had he promised to keep Algeria French. In fact he had hinted that he
might give the Arabs the vote, and might grant an amnesty to the Algerian
rebels who had been fighting to force the French from the country. Somehow, in
the excitement his words had created, the colonists had failed to focus on what
they had actually meant. De Gaulle had duped them. And indeed, in the months to
come, he worked to grant Algeria its independence-a task he finally
accomplished in 1962. Interpretation. De Gaulle cared little about an old
French colony, and about what it symbolized to some French people. Nor did he
have any sympathy for anyone who fomented civil war. His one concern was to
make France a modern power. And so, when he went to Algiers, he had a long-term
plan: weaken the right-wingers by getting them to fight among themselves, and
work toward Algerian independence. His short-term goal had to be to defuse the
tension and buy himself some time. He would not lie to the colonials by saying
he supported their cause-that would cause trouble back home. Instead he would
beguile them with seductive oratory, intoxicate them with words. His famous
"I have understood you" could easily have meant, "I understand
what a danger you represent." But ajubi- lant crowd expecting his support
read it the way they wanted. To keep them at a fever pitch, de Gaulle made
emotional references-to the French Resistance during World War II, for example,
and to the need for "discipline," a word with great appeal to
right-wingers. He filled their ears with promises-a new government, a glorious
future. He got them to chant, creating an emotional bond. He spoke with
dramatic pitch and quivering emotion. His words created a kind of delirium. De
Gaulle was not trying to express his feelings or speak the truth; he was trying
to produce an effect. This is the key to seductive oratory. Whether you are
talking to a single individual or to a crowd, try a little experiment: rein in
your desire to speak your mind. Before you open your mouth, ask yourself a
question: what can I say that will have the most pleasant effect on my
listeners? Often this entails flattering their egos, assuaging their
insecurities, giving them vague hopes for the future, sympathizing with their
travails ("I have understood you"). Start off with something pleasant
and everything to come will be easy: people's defenses will go down. They will
grow amenable, open to suggestion. Think of your words as an intoxicating drug
that will make people emotional and confused. Keep your language vague and
ambiguous, letting your listeners fill in the gaps with their fantasies and
imaginings. Instead of tuning you out, getting irritated or defensive, being
impatient for you to shut up, they will be pliant, happy with your
sweet-sounding words. Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow Confusion • 255
Seductive Writing O ne spring afternoon in the late 1830s, in a street in
Copenhagen, a man named Johannes caught a glimpse of a beautiful young girl.
Self- absorbed yet delightfully innocent, she fascinated him, and he followed
her, from a distance, and found out where she lived. Over the next few weeks he
made inquiries and found out more about her. Her name was Cordelia Wahl, and
she lived with her aunt. The two led a quiet existence; Cordelia liked to read,
and to be alone. Seducing young girls was Johannes's specialty, but Cordelia
would be a catch; she had already turned down several eligible suitors.
Johannes imagined that Cordelia might hunger for something more out of life,
something grand, something resembling the books she had read and the daydreams
that presumably filled her solitude. He arranged an introduction and began to
frequent her house, accompanied by a friend of his named Edward. This young man
had his own thoughts of courting Cordelia, but he was awkward, and strained to
please her. Johannes, on the other hand, virtually ignored her, instead
befriending her aunt. They would talk about the most banal things-farm life,
whatever was in the news. Occasionally Johannes would veer off into a more
philosophical discussion, for he had noticed, out of the corner of his eye,
that on these occasions Cordelia would listen to him closely, while still
pretending to listen to Edward. This went on for several weeks. Johannes and
Cordelia barely spoke, but he could tell that he intrigued her, and that Edward
irritated her to no end. One morning, knowing her aunt was out, he visited
their house. It was the first time he and Cordelia had been alone together. As
dryly and politely as possible, he proceeded to propose to her. Needless to say
she was shocked and flustered. A man who had shown not the slightest interest
in her suddenly wanted to marry her? She was so surprised that she referred the
matter to her aunt, who, as Johannes had expected, gave her approval. Had
Cordelia resisted, her aunt would have respected her wishes; but she did not.
On the outside, everything had changed. The couple were engaged. Johannes now
came to the house alone, sat with Cordelia, held her hand, talked with her. But
inwardly he made sure things were the same. He remained distant and polite. He
would sometimes warm up, particularly when talking about literature (Cordelia's
favorite subject), but at a certain point he always went back to more mundane
matters. He knew this frustrated Cordelia, who had expected that now he would
be different. Yet even when they went out together, he took her to formal
socials arranged for engaged couples. How conventional! Was this what love and
marriage were supposed to be about, these prematurely aged people talking about
houses and their own drab futures? Cordelia, who was shy at the best of times,
asked Johannes to stop dragging her to these affairs. The battlefield was
prepared. Cordelia was confused and anxious. Let wax pave the way for you,
spread out on smooth tablets, \ Let wax go before as witness to your mind - \
Bring her your flattering words, words that ape the lover: \ And remember,
whoever you are, to throw in some good \ Entreaties. Entreaties are what made
Achilles give back \ Hector's Body to Priam; even an angry god \ Is moved by
the voice of prayer. Make promises, what's the harm in \ Promising? Here's
where anyone can play rich.... \ A persuasive letter's \ The thing to lead off
with, explore her mind, \ Reconnoiter the landscape. A message scratched on an
apple \ Betrayed Cydippe: she was snared by her own words. \ My advice, then,
young men of Rome, is to learn the noble \ Advocate's arts-not only to let you
defend \ Some trembling client: a woman, no less than the populace, \ Elite
senator, or grave judge, \ Will surrender to eloquence. Nevertheless, dissemble
\ Your powers, avoid long words, \ Don't look too highbrow. Who but a mindless
ninny \ Declaims to his mistress? An overlettered style \ Repels girls as often
as not. Use ordinary language, \ Familiar yet coaxing words -as though \ You
were there, in her presence.If she refuses your letter, \ Sends it back unread,
persist. - OVID, THE ART OF LOVE., GREEN Therefore, the person who is unable to
write letters and notes never becomes a dangerous seducer. KIERKEGAARD,
EITHER/OR. TRANSLATED BY HOWARD V. HONG AND EDNA H. HONG Standing on a crag of
Olympus \ Gold-throned Hera saw her brother, \ Who was her husband's brother
too, \ Busy on the fields of human glory, \ And her heart sang. Then she saw
Zeus \ Sitting on the topmost peak of Ida \ And was filled with resentment.
Cow-eyed Hera \ Mused for a while on how to trick \ The mind of Zeus
Aegis-holder, \ And the plan that seemed best to her \ Was to make herself up
and go to Ida, \ Seduce him, and then shed on his eyelids \ And cunning mind a
sleep gentle and warm. . . . \ When everything was perfect, she stepped \ Out
of her room and called Aphrodite \ And had a word with her in private: \
"My dear child, will you do something for me, \ I wonder, or will you
refuse, angry because \ I favor the Greeks and you the Trojans?" \ And
Zeus' daughter Aphrodite replied: \ "Goddess revered as Cronus's daughter,
\ Speak your mind. Tell me what you want \And I'll oblige you if I possibly
can." \And Hera, with every intention to deceive: \ "Give me now the
Sex and Desire \ You use to subdue immortals and humans. ..." \And
Aphrodite, who loved to smile: \ "How could I, or would I, refuse someone
\ Who sleeps in the anus of Then, a few weeks after their engagement, Johannes
sent her a letter. Here he described the state of his soul, and his certainty
that he loved her. He spoke in metaphor, suggesting that he had been waiting
for years, lantern in hand, for Cordelia's appearance; metaphor melted into
reality, back and forth. The style was poetic, the words glowed with desire,
but the whole was delightfully ambiguous-Cordelia could reread the letter ten
times without being sure what it said. The next day Johannes received a
response. The writing was simple and straightforward, but full of sentiment:
his letter had made her so happy, Cordelia wrote, and she had not imagined this
side to his character. He replied by writing that he had changed. He did not
say how or why, but the implication was that it was because of her. Now his
letters came almost daily. They were mostly of the same length, in a poetic
style that had a touch of madness to it, as if he were intoxicated with love.
He talked of Greek myth, comparing Cordelia to a nymph and himself to a river
that fell in love with a maiden. His soul, he said, merely reflected back her
image; she was all he could see or think of. Meanwhile he detected changes in
Cordelia: her letters became more poetic, less restrained. Without realizing it
she repeated his ideas, imitating his style and his imagery as if they were her
own. Also, when they saw each other in person, she was nervous. He made a point
of remaining the same, aloof and regal, but he could tell that she saw him
differently, sensing depths in him that she could not fathom. In public she
hung on his every word. She must have memorized his letters, for she referred
to them constantly in their talks. It was a secret life they shared. When she
held his hand, she did so more tightly than before. Her eyes expressed an
impatience, as if she were hoping that at any moment he would do something
bold. Johannes made his letters shorter but more numerous, sometimes sending
several in one day. The imagery became more physical and more suggestive, the
style more disjointed, as if he could barely organize his thoughts. Sometimes
he sent a note of just a sentence or two. Once, at a party at Cordelia's house,
he dropped such a note into her knitting basket and watched as she ran away to
read it, her face flushed. In her letters he saw signs of emotion and turmoil.
Echoing a sentiment he had hinted at in an earlier letter, she wrote that she
hated the whole engagement business- it was so beneath their love. Everything
was ready. Soon she would be his, the way he wanted it. She would break off the
engagement. A rendezvous in the country would be simple to arrange-in fact she
would be the one to propose it. This would be his most skillful seduction.
Interpretation. Johannes and Cordelia are characters in the loosely
autobiographical novel The Seducer's Diary (1843), by the Danish philosopher Spren
Kierkegaard. Johannes is a most experienced seducer, who specializes in working
on his victim's mind. This is precisely where Cordelia's previous Use the
Demonic Power of Words to Sow Confusion • 257 suitors have failed: they have
begun by imposing themselves, a common mistake. We think that by being
persistent, by overwhelming our targets with romantic attention, we are
convincing them of our affection. Instead we are convincing them of our
impatience and insecurity. Aggressive attention is not flattering because it is
not personalized. It is unbridled libido at work; the target sees through it.
Johannes is too clever to begin so obviously. Instead, he takes a step back,
intriguing Cordelia by acting a little cold, and carefully creating the
impression of a formal, somewhat secretive man. Only then does he surprise her
with his first letter. Obviously there is more to him than she has thought, and
once she has come to believe this, her imagination runs rampant. Now he can
intoxicate her with his letters, creating a presence that haunts her like a
ghost. His words, with their images and poetic references, are constantly in
her mind. And this is the ultimate seduction: to possess her mind before moving
to conquer her body. The story of Johannes shows what a weapon in a seducer's
armory a letter can be. But it is important to learn how to incorporate letters
in seduction. It is best not to begin your correspondence until at least
several weeks after your initial contact. Let your victims get an impression of
you: you seem intriguing, yet you show no particular interest in them. When you
sense that they are thinking about you, that is the time to hit them with your
first letter. Any desire you express for them will come as a surprise; their
vanity will be tickled and they will want more. Now make your letters frequent,
in fact more frequent than your personal appearances. This will give them the
time and space to idealize you, which would be more difficult if you were
always in their face. After they have fallen under your spell, you can always
take a step back, making the letters fewer-let them think you are losing
interest and they will be hungry for more. Design your letters as homages to
your targets. Make everything you write come back to them, as if they were all
you could think about-a delirious effect. Ifyoutell an anecdote, make it
somehow relate to them. Your correspondence is a kind of mirror you are holding
up to them-they get to see themselves reflected through your desire. If for
some reason they do not like you, write to them as if they did. Remember: the
tone of your letters is what will get under their skin. If your language is
elevated, poetic, creative in its praise, it will infect them despite
themselves. Never argue, never defend yourself, never accuse them of being
heartless. That would ruin the spell. A letter can suggest emotion by seeming
disordered, rambling from one subject to another. Clearly it is hard for you to
think; your love has unhinged you. Disordered thoughts are exciting thoughts. Do
not waste time on real information; focus on feelings and sensations, using
expressions that are ripe with connotation. Plant ideas by dropping hints,
writing suggestively without explaining yourself. Never lecture, never seem
intellectual or superior-you will only make yourself pompous, which is deadly.
Far better to speak colloquially, though with a poetic edge to lift the
language above the commonplace. Do not become sentimental-it is tiring, and too
almighty Zeus?" \ And with that she unbound from her breast \ An ornate
sash inlaid with magical charms. \ Sex is in it, and Desire, and seductive \
Sweet Talk, that fools even the wise. Hera was fast approaching Gargarus, \
Ida's highest peak, when Zeus saw her. \ And when he saw her, lust enveloped
him, \ Just as it had the first time they made love, \ Slipping off to bed
behind their parents' backs. \ He stood close to her and said: \ "Hera,
why have you left Olympus? \ And where are your horses and chariot?" \ And
Hera, with every intention to deceive: \ "I'm off to visit the ends of the
earth \ And Father Ocean and Mother Tethys \ Who nursed and doted on me in
their house. And Zeus, clouds scudding about him: \ "You can go there
later just as well. \ Let's get in bed now ami make love. \ No goddess or woman
has ever \ Made me feel so overwhelmed with lust. I've never loved anyone as I
love you now, \ Never been in the grip of desire so sweet. " \ And Hera,
with every intention to deceive: \ "What a thing to say, my awesome lord.
\ The thought of us lying down here on Ida \ Ami making love outdoors in broad
daylight! \ What if one of the Immortals saw us \ Asleep, and went to all the
other gods \Aud told them? I could never get up \ And go back home. It would be
shameful. \ But if you really do want to do this, \ There is the bedroom your
dear son Hephaestus \ Built for you, with good solid doors. Let's go \ There
and lie down, since you're in the mood. And Zeus, who masses the clouds,
replied: \ "Hera, don't worry about any god or man \ Seeing us. I'll enfold
you in a cloud so dense \ And golden not even Helios could spy on us, \ And his
light is the sharpest vision there is." -HOMER, THE ILIAD, TRANSLATED BY
STANLEY LOMBARDO ANTONY: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; \ I
come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. \ The evil that men do lives after
them; \ The good is oft interred with their bones. \ So let it be with Caesar.
... \ I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, \ But here I am to speak what
I do know. \ You all did love him once, not without cause. \ What cause
withholds you then to mourn for him? \ O judgment, thou art fled to brutish
beasts, \ And men have lost their reason! Bear with me. \ My heart is in the
coffin there with Caesar, \And I must pause till it come back to me. . . . \
PLEBEIAN: Poor soul! his eyes are red asfi r e with weeping. \ PLEBEIAN:
There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony. \ PLEBEIAN: Now mark him. He
begins again to speak. \ ANTONY: But yesterday the word of Caesar might \ Have
stood against the world. Now lies he there, \ And none so poor to do him
reverence. \ O masters! If I were disposed to stir \ Your hearts and minds to
mutiny and rage, \ I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, \
Who,youallknow,aredirect. Better to suggest the effect your target has on you
than to gush about how you feel. Stay vague and ambiguous, allowing the reader
the space to imagine and fantasize. The goal of your writing is not to express
yourself but to create emotion in the reader, spreading confusion and desire.
You will know that your letters are having the proper effect when your targets
come to mirror your thoughts, repeating words you wrote, whether in their own
letters or in person. This is the time to move to the more physical and erotic.
Use language that quivers with sexual connotation, or, better still, suggest
sexuality by making your letters shorter, more frequent, and even more
disordered than before. There is nothing more erotic than the short abrupt
note. Your thoughts are unfinished; they can only be completed by the other
person. Sganarelle to Don Juan: Well, what I have to say is ... I don't know
what to say; for you turn things in such a manner with your words, that it
seems that you are right; and yet, the truth of it is, you are not. I had the
finest thoughts in the world, and your words have totally scrambled them up.
-MOLIERE Keys to Seduction W e rarely think before we talk. It is human nature
to say the first thing that comes into our head-and usually what comes first is
something about ourselves. We primarily use words to express our ownfeelings,
ideas, and opinions. (Also to complain and to argue.) This is because we are
generally self-absorbed-the person who interests us most is our own self. To a
certain extent this is inevitable, and through much of our lives there is
nothing much wrong with it; we can function quite well this way. In seduction,
however, it limits our potential. You cannot seduce without an ability to get
outside your own skin and inside another person's, piercing their psychology. The
key to seductive language is not the words you utter, or your seductive tone of
voice; it is a radical shift in perspective and habit. You have to stop saying
the first thing that comes to your mind-you have to control the urge to prattle
and vent your opinions. The key is to see words as a tool not for communicating
true thoughts and feelings but for confusing, delighting, and intoxicating. The
difference between normal language and seductive language is like the
difference between noise and music. Noise is a constant in modern life,
something irritating we tune out if we can. Our normal language is like
noise-people may half-listen to us as we go on about ourselves, butjust as
often their thoughts are a million miles away. Every now and then their ears
prick up when something we say touches on them, but this lasts only until Use
the Demonic Power of Words to SowConfusion • 259 we return to yet another story
about ourselves. As early as childhood we leant to tune out this kind of noise
(particularly when it comes from our parents). Music, on the other hand, is
seductive, and gets under our skin. It is intended for pleasure. A melody or
rhythm stays in our blood for days after we have heard it, altering our moods
and emotions, relaxing or exciting us. To make music instead of noise, you must
say things that please-things that relate to people's lives, that touch their
vanity. If they have many problems, you can produce the same effect by
distracting them, focusing their attention away from themselves by saying
things that are witty and entertaining, or that make the future seem bright and
hopeful. Promises and flattery are music to anyone's ears. This is language
designed to move people and lower their resistance. It is language designed for
them, not directed at them. The Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio was
physically unattractive, yet women could not resist him. Even those who knew of
his Don luan reputation and disliked him for it (the actress Eleanora Duse and
the dancer Isadora Duncan, for instance) fell under his spell. The secret was
the flow of words in which he enveloped a woman. His voice was musical, his
language poetic, and most devastating of all, he knew how to flatter. His
flattery was aimed precisely at a woman's weaknesses, the areas where she
needed validation. A woman was beautiful, yet lacked confidence in her own wit
and intelligence? He made sure to say that he was bewitched not by her beauty
but by her mind. He might compare her to a heroine of literature, or to a
chosen mythological figure. Talking to him, her ego would double in size.
Flattery is seductive language in its purest form. Its purpose is not to
express a truth or a real feeling, but only to create an effect on the
recipient. Like D'Annunzio, learn to aim your flattery directly at a person's
insecurities. For instance, if a man is a fine actor and feels confident about
his professional skills, to flatter him about his acting will have little
effect, and may even accomplish the opposite-he could feel that he is above the
need to have his ego stroked, and your flattery will seem to say otherwise. But
let us say that this actor is an amateur musician or painter. He does this work
on his own, without professional support or publicity, and he is well aware
that others make their living at it. Flattery of his artistic pretensions will
go straight to his head and earn you double points. Learn to sniff out the
parts of a person's ego that need validation. Make it a surprise, something no
one else has thought to flatter before-something you can describe as a talent
or positive quality that others have not noticed. Speak with a little tremor,
as if your target's charms had overwhelmed you and made you emotional. Flattery
can be a kind of verbal foreplay. Aphrodite's powers of seduction, which were
said to come from the magnificent girdle she wore, involved a sweetness of
language-a skill with the soft, flattering words that prepare the way for
erotic thoughts. Insecurities and nagging self-doubts have a dampening effect
on the libido. Make your targets feel secure and alluring through your
flattering words and their resistance will melt away. honorable men. \ I will
not do them wrong. . . . \ But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar. \ I
found it in his closet; 'tis his will. \ Let but the commons hear this
testament, \ Which (pardon me) I do not mean to read, \And they would go and
kiss dead Caesar's wounds \ And dip their napkins in his sacred blood. . . . \
PLEBEIAN: We'll hear the will! Read it, Mark Antony. \ ALL: The will, the will!
We will hear Caesar's will! \ ANTONY: Have patience, gentle friends; I must not
read it. \ It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you. \ You are not wood,
you are not stones, but men; \ And being men, hearing the will of Caesar, \ It
will inflame you, it will make you mad. \ 'Tis good you know not that you are
his heirs; \ For if you should, O, what would come ofit?. . . \ If you have
tears, prepare to shed them now. \ You all do know this mantle. I remember \
The first time ever Caesar put it on. .. . \ Look, in this place ran Cassius'
dagger through. \ See what a rent the envious Casca made. \ Through this the
well- beloved Brutus stabbed; \ And as he plucked his cursed steel away, \ Mark
how the blood of Caesar followed it. . . . \ For Brutus, as you know, was
Caesar's angel. \ Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him! \ This was
the most unkindest cut of all; \ For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, \
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, \ Quite vanquished him. . . . \
O, now you weep, and I perceive you feel \ The dint of pity. These are gracious
260 drops. \ Kind souls, what weep you when you but behold \ Our Caesar's
vesture wounded? Look you here! \ Here is himself, marred as you see until
traitors. -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, JULIUS CAESAR Sometimes the most pleasant thing
to hear is the promise of something wonderful, a vague but rosy future that is
just around the corner. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his public
speeches, talked little about specific programs for dealing with the
Depression; instead he used rousing rhetoric to paint a picture of America's
glorious future. In the various legends of Don Juan, the great seducer would
immediately focus women's attention on the future, a fantastic world to which
he promised to whisk them off. Tailor your sweet words to your targets'
particular problems and fantasies. Promise something realizable, something
possible, but do not make it too specific; you are inviting them to dream. If
they are mired in dull routine, talk of adventure, preferably with you. Do not
discuss how it will be accomplished; speak as if it magically already existed,
somewhere in the future. Lift people's thoughts into the clouds and they will
relax, their defenses will come down, and it will be that much easier to
maneuver and lead them astray. Your words become a kind of elevating drug. The
most anti-seductive form of language is argument. How many silent enemies do we
create by arguing? There is a superior way to get people to listen and be
persuaded: humor and a light touch. The nineteenth- century English politician
Benjamin Disraeli was a master at this game. In Parliament, to fail to reply to
an accusation or slanderous comment was a deadly mistake; silence meant the
accuser was right. Yet to respond angrily, to get into an argument, was to look
ugly and defensive. Disraeli used a different tactic: he stayed calm. When the
time came to reply to an attack, he would slowly make his way to the speaker's
table, pause, then utter a humorous or sarcastic retort. Everyone would laugh.
Now that he had warmed people up, he would proceed to refute his enemy, still
mixing in amusing comments; or perhaps he would simply move on to another
subject, as if he were above it all. His humor took out the sting of any attack
on him. Laughter and applause have a domino effect: once your listeners have
laughed, they are more likely to laugh again. In this lighthearted mood they
are also more apt to listen. A subtle touch and a bit of irony give you room to
persuade them, move them to your side, mock your enemies. That is the seductive
form of argument. Shortly after the murder of Julius Caesar, the head of the
band of conspirators who had killed him, Brutus, addressed an angry mob. He
tried to reason with the crowd, explaining that he had wanted to save the Roman
Republic from dictatorship. The people were momentarily convinced- yes, Brutus
seemed a decent man. Then Mark Antony took the stage, and he in turn delivered
a eulogy for Caesar. He seemed overwhelmed with emotion. He talked of his love
for Caesar, and of Caesar's love for the Roman people. He mentioned Caesar's
will; the crowd clamored to hear it, but Antony said no, for if he read it they
would know how deeply Caesar had loved them, and how dastardly this murder was.
The crowd again insisted he read the will; insteadheheld up Caesar's
bloodstained cloak, noting its rents and tears. This was where Brutus had
stabbed the great general, he said; Cassius had stabbed him here. Then finally
he read the will, which Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow Confusion • 261
told how much wealth Caesar had left to the Roman people. This was the coup de
grace-the crowd turned against the conspirators and went off to lynch them.
Antony was a clever man, who knew how to stir a crowd. According to the Greek
historian Plutarch, "When he saw that his oratory had cast a spell over
the people and that they were deeply stirred by his words, he began to
introduce into his praises [of Caesar] a note of pity and of indignation at
Caesar's fate." Seductive language aims at people's emotions, for
emotional people are easier to deceive. Antony used various devices to stir the
crowd: a tremor in his voice, a distraught and then an angry tone. An emotional
voice has an immediate, contagious effect on the listener. Antony also teased
the crowd with the will, holding off the reading of it to the end, knowing it
would push people over the edge. Holding up the cloak, he made his imagery
visceral. Perhaps you are not trying to whip a crowd into a frenzy; you just
want to bring people over to your side. Choose your strategy and words
carefully. You might think it is better to reason with people, explain your
ideas. But it is hard for an audience to decide whether an argument is
reasonable as they listen to you talk. They have to concentrate and listen
closely, which requires great effort. People are easily distracted by other
stimuli, and if they miss a part of your argument, they will feel confused,
intellectually inferior, and vaguely insecure. It is more persuasive to appeal
to people's hearts than their heads. Everyone shares emotions, and no one feels
inferior to a speaker who stirs up their feelings. The crowd bonds together,
everyone contagiously experiencing the same emotions. Antony talked of Caesar
as if he and the listeners were experiencing the murder from Caesar's point of
view. What could be more provocative? Use such changes of perspective to make
your listeners feel what you are saying. Orchestrate your effects. It is more
effective to move from one emotion to another than to just hit one note. The
contrast between Antony's affection for Caesar and his indignation at the
murderers was much more powerful than if he had stayed with one feeling or the
other. The emotions you are trying to arouse should be strong ones. Do not
speak of friendship and disagreement; speak of love and hate. And it is crucial
to try to feel something of the emotions you are trying to elicit. You
willbemorebelievablethat way. This should not be difficult: imagine the reasons
for loving or hating before you speak. If necessary, think of something from
your past that fills you with rage. Emotions are contagious; it is easier to
make someone cry if you are crying yourself. Make your voice an instrument, and
train it to communicate emotion. Learn to seem sincere. Napoleon studied the
greatest actors of his time, and when he was alone he would practice putting
emotion into his voice. The goal of seductive speech is often to create a kind
of hypnosis: you are distracting people, lowering their defenses, making them
more vulnerable to suggestion. Learn the hypnotist's lessons of repetition and
affirmation, key elements in putting a subject to sleep. Repetition involves
using 262 the same words over and over, preferably a word with emotional
content: "taxes," "liberals," "bigots." The
effect is mesmerizing-ideas can be permanently implanted in people's
unconscious simply by being repeated often enough. Affirmation is simply the
making of strong positive statements, like the hypnotist's commands. Seductive
language should have a kind of boldness, which will cover up a multitude of
sins. Your audience will be so caught up in your bold language that they won't
have time to reflect on whether or not it is true. Never say "I don't
think the other side made awise decision"; say "We deserve
better," or "They have made a mess of things." Affirmative
language is active language, full of verbs, imperatives, and short sentences.
Cut out "I believe," "Perhaps," "In my opinion."
Head straight for the heart. You are learning to speak a different kind of
language. Most people employ symbolic language-their words stand for something
real, the feelings, ideas, and beliefs they really have. Or they stand for
concrete things in the real world. (The origin of the word "symbolic"
lies in a Greek word meaning "to bring things together"-in this case,
a word and something real.) As a seducer you are using the opposite: diabolic
language. Your words do not stand for anything real; their sound, and the
feelings they evoke, are more important than what they are supposed to stand
for. (The word "diabolic" ultimately means to separate, to throw
things apart-here, words and reality.) The more you make people focus on your
sweet-sounding language, and on the illusions and fantasies it conjures, the
more you diminish their contact with reality. You lead them into the clouds,
where it is hard to distinguish truth from untruth, real from unreal. Keep your
words vague and ambiguous, so people are never quite sure what you mean. Envelop
them in demonic, diabolical language and they will notbe able to focus on your
maneuvers, on the possible consequences of your seduction. And the more they
lose themselves in illusion, the easier it will be to lead them astray and
seduce them. Symbol: The Clouds. In the clouds it is hard to see the exact
forms of things. Everything seems vague; the imagination runs wild, seeing
things that are not there. Your words must lift people into the clouds, where
it is easy for them to lose their way. Use the Demonic Power of Words to Sow
Confusion • 263 Reversal D o not confuse flowery language with seduction: in
using flowery language you run the risk of wearing on people's nerves, of
seeming pretentious. Excess verbiage is a sign of selfishness, of your inability
to rein in your natural tendencies. Often with language, less is more; the
elusive, vague, ambiguous phrase leaves the listener more room for imagination
than does a sentence full of bombast and self-indulgence. You must always think
first of your targets, and of what will be pleasant to their ears. There will
be many times when silence is best. What you do not say can be suggestive and
eloquent, making you seem mysterious. In the eleventh-century Japanese court
diary The Pillow Book ofSei Shonagon, the counselor Yoshichika is intrigued by
a lady he sees in a carriage, silent and beautiful. He sends her a note, and
she sends one back; he is the only one to read it, but by his reaction everyone
can tell it is in bad taste, or badly written. It spoils the effect of her
beauty. Shonagon writes, "I have heard people suggest that no reply at all
is better than a bad one." If you are not eloquent, if you cannot master
seductive language, at least learn to curb your tongue-use silence to cultivate
an enigmatic presence. Finally, seduction has a pace and rhythm. In phase one,
you are cautious indirect. It is often best to disguise your intentions, to put
your target at ease with deliberately neutral words. Your conversation should
be harmless, even a bit bland. In this second phase, you turn more to the
attack; this is the time for seductive language. Now when you envelop them in
your seductive words and letters, it comes as a pleasant surprise. It gives
them the immensely pleasing feeling that they are the ones to suddenly inspire
you with such poetry and intoxicating words. 11 Pay Attention to Detail Lofty
words and grand gestures can be suspi: why are you trying so hard to please?
The details of a seduction-the subtle gestures, the offhand things you do - are
often more charming and revealing. You must learn to distract your victims with
a myriad of pleasant little rituals-thoughtful gifts tailored just for them,
clothes and adornments designed to please them, gestures that show the time and
attention you are paying them. All of their senses are engaged in the details
you orchestrate. Create spectacles to dazzle their eyes; mesmerized by what
they see, they will not notice what you are really up to. Learn to suggest the
proper feelings and moods through details. The Mesmerizing Effect I n December
1898, the wives of the seven major Western ambassadors to China received a
strange invitation: the sixty-three-year-old Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi was
hosting a banquet in their honor in the Forbidden City in Beijing. The ambassadors
themselves had been quite displeased with the empress dowager, for several
reasons. She was a Manchu, a race of northerners who had conquered China in the
early seventeenth century, establishing the Ching Dynasty and ruling the
country for nearly three hundred years. By the 1890s, the Western powers had
begun to carve up parts of China, a country they considered backward. They
wanted China to modernize, but the Manchus were conservative, and resisted all
reform. Earlier in 1898, the Chinese Emperor Kuang Hsu, the empress dowager's
twenty-seven-year-old nephew, had actually begun a series of reforms, with the
blessings of the West. Then, one hundred days into this period of reform, word
reached the Western diplomats from the Forbidden City that the emperor
wasquiteill, and that the empress dowager had taken power. They suspected foul
play; the empress had probably acted to stop the reforms. The emperor was being
mistreated, probably poisoned- perhaps he was already dead. When the seven
ambassadors' wives were preparing for their unusual visit, their husbands
warned them: Do not trust the empress dowager. A wily woman with a cruel
streak, she had risen from obscurity to become the concubine of a previous
emperor and had managed over the years to accumulate great power. Far more than
the emperor, she was the most feared person in China. On the appointed day, the
women were borne into the Forbidden City a procession of sedan chairs carried
by court eunuchs in dazzling uniforms. The women themselves, not to be outdone,
wore the latest Western fashions-tight corsets, long velvet dresses with
leg-of-mutton sleeves, billowing petticoats, tall plumed hats. The residents of
the Forbidden City looked at their clothes in amazement, and particularly at
the way their dresses displayed their prominent bosoms. The wives felt sure
they had impressed their hosts. At the Audience Hall they were greeted by
princes and princesses, as well as lower royalty. The Chinese women were
wearing magnificent Manchu costumes with the traditional high, jewel-encrusted
black headdresses; theywerearranged in a hierarchical order reflected in the
color of their dresses, an astounding rainbow of color. The wives were served
tea in the most delicate porcelain cups, then The barge she sat in, like a
burnish'd throne, \Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; \ Purple the
sails, and so perfumed that \ The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were
silver, \ Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made \ The water which
they beat to follow faster, \ As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
\ It beggar'd all description: she did lie \ In her pavilion - cloth-of-gold of
tissue - \ O'er picturing that Venus where we see \ The fancy outwork nature:
on each side her \ Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, \ With
divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem \ To glow the delicate cheeks which
they did cool, \ And what they undid did. . . . \ Her gentlewomen, like the
Nereids, \ So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes, \ And made their bends
adornings: at the helm \ A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle \ Swell
with the touches of those flower-soft hands \ That yarely frame the office.
From the barge \A strange invisible perfume hits the sense \ Of the adjacent
wharfs. The city cast \ Her people out upon her; and Antony, \ Enthron'd i' the
marketplace, did sit alone, \ Whistling to the air; which, butfor vacancy, \
Hadgone to gaze on Cleopatra too \ And made a gap in nature. -WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA In the palmy days of the gay quarters at Edo
there was a connoisseur of fashion named Sakakura who grew intimate with the
great courtesan Chitose. This woman was much given to drinking sake; as a side
dish she relished the so-called flower crabs, to be found in the Mogami River
in the East, and these she had pickled in salt for her enjoyment. Knowing this,
Sakakura commissioned a painter of the Kano School to execute her bamboo crest
in powdered gold on the tiny shells of these crabs; he fixed the price of each
painted shell at one rectangular piece of gold, and presented them to Chitose
throughout the year, so that she never lacked for them. -IHARA SAIKAKU, THE
LIFE OF AN AMOROUS WOMAN. AND OTHER WRITINGS For such men as have practised
love, have ever held this a sound maxim that there is naught to be compared
with a woman in her clothes. Again when you reflect how a man doth brave,
rumple, squeeze and make light of his lady's finery, and how he doth were
escorted into the presence of the empress dowager. The sight took their breath
away. The empress was seated on the Dragon Throne, which was studded with
jewels. She wore heavily brocaded robes, a magnificent headdress bearing
diamonds, pearls, andjade, and an enormous necklace of perfectly matched
pearls. She was a tiny woman, but on the throne, in that dress, she seemed a
giant. She smiled at the ladies with much warmth and sincerity. To their
relief, seated below her on a smaller throne was her nephew the emperor. He
looked pale, but he greeted them enthusiastically and seemed in good spirits.
Maybe he was indeed simply ill. The empress shook the hand of each of the
women. As she did so, an attendant eunuch handed her a large gold ring set with
a large pearl, which she slipped onto each woman's hand. After this introduction,
the wives were escorted into another room, where they again took tea, and then
were led into a banqueting hall, where the empress now sat on a chair of yellow
satin-yellow being the imperial color. She spoke to them for a while; she had a
beautiful voice. (It was said that her voice could literally charm birds out of
trees.) At the end of the conversation, she took the hand of each woman again,
and with much emotion, told them, "One family-all one family." The
women then saw a performance in the imperial theater. Finally the empress
received them one last time. She apologized for the performance they had just
seen, which was certainly inferior to what they wereusedto in the West. There
was one more round of tea, and this time, as the wife of the American
ambassador reported it, the empress "stepped forward and tipped each cup
of tea to her own lips and took a sip, then lifted the cup on the other side,
to our lips, and said again, 'One family-all one family' " The women were
given more gifts, then were escorted back to their sedan chairs and borne out
of the Forbidden City. The women relayed to their husbands their earnest belief
that they had all been wrong about the empress. The American ambassador's wife
reported, "She was bright and happy and her face glowed with good will.
There was no trace of cruelty to be seen. . . . Her actions were full of
freedom and warmth. [We left] full of admiration for her majesty and hopes for
China." The husbands reported back to their governments: the emperor was
fine, and the empress could be trusted. Interpretation. The foreign contingent
in China had no idea what was really happening in the Forbidden City. In truth,
the emperor had conspired to arrest and possibly murder his aunt. Discovering
the plot, a terrible crime in Confucian terms, she forced him to sign his own
abdication, had him confined, and told the outside world that he was ill. As
part of his punishment, he was to appear at state functions and act as if
nothing had happened. The empress dowager loathed Westerners, whom she
considered barbarians. She disliked the ambassadors' wives, with their ugly
fashions and simpering ways. The banquet was a show, a seduction, to appease
the West- Pay Attention to Detail • 269 ern powers, which had been threatening
invasion if the emperor had been killed. The goal of the seduction was simple:
dazzle the wives with color, spectacle, theater. The empress applied all her
expertise to the task, and she was a genius for detail. She had designed the
spectacles in a rising order- the uniformed eunuchs first, then the Manchu
ladies in their headdresses, and finally the empress herself. It was pure
theater, and it was overwhelming. Then the empress brought the spectacle down a
notch, humanizing it with gifts, warm greetings, the reassuring presence of the
emperor, teas, and entertainments, which were in no way inferior to anything in
the West. She ended the banquet on another high note-the little drama with the
sharing of the teacups, followed by even more magnificent gifts. The women's
heads were spinning when they left. In truth they had never seen such exotic
splendor-and they never understood how carefully its details had been
orchestrated by the empress. Charmed by the spectacle, they transferred their
happy feelings to the empress and gave her their approvalallthatsherequired.The
key to distracting people (seduction is distraction) is to fill their eyes and
ears with details, little rituals, colorful objects. Detail is what makes
things seem real and substantial. A thoughtful gift won't seem to have an
ulterior motive. A ritual full of charming little actions is so enjoyable to
watch. Jewelry, handsome furnishings, touches of color in clothing, dazzle the
eye. It is a childish weakness of ours: we prefer to focus on the pleasant
little details rather than on the larger picture. The more senses you appeal
to, the more mesmerizing the effect. The objects you use in your seduction
(gifts, clothes, etc.) speak their own language, and it is a powerful one.
Never ignore a detail or leave one to chance. Orchestrate them into a spectacle
and no one will notice how manipulative you are being. The Sensuous Effect O ne
day a messenger told Prince Genji-the aging but still consummate seducer in the
Heian court of late-tenth-century Japan-that one of his youthful conquests had
suddenly died, leaving behind an orphan, a young woman named Tamakazura. Genji
was not Tamakazura s father, but he decided to bring her to court and be her
protector anyway. Soon after her arrival, men of the highest rank began to woo
her. Genji had told everyone she was a lost daughter of his; as a result, they
assumed that she was beautiful, for Genji was the handsomest man in the court.
(At the time, men rarely saw a young girl's face before marriage; in theory,
they were allowed to talk to her only if she was on the other side of a
screen.) Genji showered her with attention, helping her sort through all the
love letters she was receiving and advising her on the right match. As
Tamakazura's protector, Genji was able to see her face, and she was indeed
beautiful. He fell in love with her. What a shame, he thought, to give this
lovely creature away to another man. One night, overwhelmed by work ruin and
loss to the grand cloth ofgold and web of silver, to tinsel and silken stuffs,
pearls and precious stones, 'tis plain how his ardour and satisfaction be
increased manifold-far more than with some simple shepherdess or other woman of
like quality, be she as fair as she may. • And why of yore was Venus found so
fair and so desirable, if not that with all her beauty she was always
gracefully attired likewise, and generally scented, that she did ever smell
sweet an hundred paces away? For it hath ever been held of all how that
perfumes be a great incitement to love. • This is the reason why the Empresses
and great dames of Rome did make much usage of these perfumes, as do likewise
our great ladies of France-and above all those of Spain and Italy, which from
the oldest times have been more curious and more exquisite in luxury than
Frenchwomen, as well in perfumes as in costumes and magnificent attire, whereof
thefair ones of France have since borrowed the patterns and copied the dainty
workmanship. Moreover the others, Italian and Spanish, had learned the samefrom
old models and ancient statues of Roman ladies, the which are to be seen among
sundry other antiquities yet extant in Spain and Italy; the which, if any man
will regard them carefully, will befound very perfect in mode of hair-dressing
and fashion of robes, and very meet to incite love. -SEIGNEUR DE BRANTOME,
LIVES OF FAIR et GALLANT LADIES. For years after her entry into the palace, a
large number of court-maidens were especially set aside for preparing Kuei-fei
's dresses, which were chosen and fashioned according to the flowers of the
season. For instance, for New Year (spring) she had blossoms of apricot, plum
and narcissus; for summer, she adopted the lotus; for autumn, she patterned
them after the peony; for winter, she employed the chrysanthemum. Of jewelry
she was fondest of pearls, and the finest products of the world found their way
into her boudoir and were frequently embroidered on her numerous dresses. •
Kuei- fei was the embodiment of all that was lovely and extravagant.Nowonder
that no king, prince, courtier or humble attendant who ever met her could
resist the allurementof her charms. Besides, she was the most artful of women
and knew how to use her natural gifts to the best purpose. The Emperor Ming
Huang, supreme in the land and with thousands of the most handsome maidens to
choose from, became a complete slave to her magnetic powers . . . spending day
and night in her company and giving up his whole kingdom for her sake. -
SHU-CHIUNG, YANG KUEI- FEI: THE MOST FAMOUS BEAUTY OF CHINA Then [ Pao-yu ]
called Bright Design to him and said to her, "Go and see what [Black Jade
] is doing. If she asks about me, just say that I am quite all her charms, he
held her hand and told her how much she resembled her mother, whom he once had
loved. She trembled-not with excitement, however, but with fear, for although
he was not her father, he was supposed to be her protector, not a suitor. Her
attendants were away and it was a beautiful night. Genji silently threw off his
perfumed robe and pulled her down beside him. She began to cry, and to resist.
Always a gentleman, Genji told her that he would respect her wishes, he would
always care for her, and she had nothing to fear. He then politely excused
himself. Several days later Genji was helping Tamakazura with her correspondence
when he read a love letter from his younger brother. Prince Hotaru, who
numbered among her suitors. In the letter, Hotaru berated Tamakazura for not
letting him get physically close enough to talk to her and tell her his
feelings. Tamakazura had not replied; unused to the manners of the court, she
had felt shy and intimidated. As if to help her, Genji got one of his servants
to write to Hotaru in her name. The letter, written on beautiful perfumed
paper, warmly invited the prince to visit her. Hotaru appeared at the appointed
hour. He smelled a beguiling incense, mysterious and seductive. (Mixed into
this scent was Genji's own perfume.) The prince felt a wave of excitement.
Approaching the screen behind which Tamakazura sat, he confessed his love for
her. Without making a sound, she retreated to another screen, farther away.
Suddenly there was a flash of light, as if a torch had flared up, and Hotaru
saw her profile behind the screen: she was more beautiful than he had imagined.
Two things delighted the prince: the sudden, mysterious flash of light, and the
brief glimpse of his beloved. Now he was truly in love. Hotaru began to court
her assiduously. Meanwhile, feeling reassured that Genji was no longer chasing
her, Tamakazura saw her protector more often. And now she could not help
noticing little details: Genji's robes seemed to glow, in pleasing and vibrant
colors, as if dyed by unworldly hands. Hotaru's robes seemed drab by
comparison. And the perfumes burned into Genji's garments, how intoxicating they
were. No one else bore such a scent. Hotaru's letters were polite and well
written, but the letters Genji sent her were on magnificent paper, perfumed and
dyed, and they quoted lines of poetry, always surprising yet always appropriate
for the occasion. Genji also grew and gathered flowers-wild carnations, for
instance-that he gave as gifts and that seemed to symbolize his unique charm.
One evening Genji proposed to teach Tamakazura how to play the koto. She was
delighted. She loved to read romance novels, and whenever Genji played the
koto, she felt as if she were transported into one of her books. No one played
the instrument better than Genji; she would be honored to leam from him. Now he
saw her often, and the method of his lessons was simple: she would choose a
song for him to play, and then would try to imitate him. After they played,
they would lie down side by side, their heads resting on the koto, staring up
at the moon. Genji would have torches set up in the garden, giving the view the
softest glow. The more Tamakazura saw of the court-of Prince Hotaru, the other
Pay Attention to Detail • 271 suitors, the emperor himself-themore she realized
that none could compare to Genji. He was supposed to be her protector, yes,
that was still true, but was it such a sin to fall in love with him? Confused,
she found herself giving in to the caresses and kisses that he began to
surprise her with, now that she was too weak to resist. Interpretation. Genji
is the protagonist in the eleventh-century novel The Tale of Genji, written by
Murasaki Shikibu, a woman of the Heian court. The character was most likely
inspired by the real-life seducer Fujiwara no Korechika. In his seduction of
Tamakazura, Genji's strategy was simple: he would make her realize indirectly
how charming and irresistible he was by surrounding her with unspoken details.
He also brought her in contact with his brother; comparison with this drab,
stiff figure would make Genji's superiority clear. The night Hotaru first
visited her, Genji set everything up, as if to support Hotaru's seducing-the
mysterious scent, then the flash of light by the screen. (The light came from a
novel effect: earlier in the evening, Genji had collected hundreds of fireflies
in a cloth bag. At the proper moment he let them all go at once.) But when
Tamakazura saw Genji encouraging Hotaru's pursuit of her, her defenses against
her protector relaxed, allowing her senses to be filled by this master of
seductive effects. Genji orchestrated every possible detail-the scented paper, the
colored robes, the lights in the garden, the wild carnations, the apt poetry,
the koto lessons which induced an irresistible feeling of harmony. Tamakazura
found herself dragged into a sensual whirlpool. Bypassing the shyness and
mistrust that words or actions would only have worsened, Genji surrounded his
ward with objects, sights, sounds, and scents that symbolized the pleasure of
his company far more than his actual physical presence would have-in fact his
presence could only have been threatening. He knew that a young girl's senses
are her most vulnerable point. The key to Genji's masterful orchestration of
detail was his attention to the target of his seduction. Like Genji, you must
attune your own senses to your targets, watching them carefully, adapting to
their moods. You sense when they are defensive and retreat. You also sense when
they are giving in, and move forward. In between, the details you set up-gifts,
entertainments, the clothes you wear, the flowers you choose-are aimed
precisely at their tastes and predilections. Genji knew he was dealing with a
young girl who loved romantic novels; his wild flowers, koto playing, and
poetry brought their world to life for her. Attend to your targets' every move
and desire, and reveal your attentiveness in the details and objects you
surround them with, filling their senses with the mood you need to inspire.
They can argue with your words, but not with the effect you have on their
senses. right now. " • "You'll have to think of a better excuse than
that," Bright Design said. "Isn't there anything that you can send or
want to borrow? I don't want to go there and feel like a fool without anything
to say. " • Pao-yu thought for a moment and then took two handkerchiefs
from under his pillow and gave them to the maid, saying, "Well then, tell
her that I sent you with these," • "What a strange present to
send" the maid smiled. "What does she want two old handkerchiefs for?
She will be angry again and say that you are trying to make fun of her." •
"Don't worry" Pao-yu assured her. "She will understand." •
Black Jade had already retired when Bright Design arrived at the Bamboo
Retreat. "What brought you at this hour?" Black Jade asked. •
"[Pao-yu] asked me to bring these handkerchiefs for [Black Jade]." •
For a moment Black Jade was at a loss to see why Pao-yu should send her such a
present at that particular moment. She said, "I suppose they must be
something unusual that somebody gave him. Tell him to keep them himself or give
them to someone who will appreciate them. I have no need of them." •
"They are nothing unusual," Bright Design said. "Just
twoordinaryhandkerchiefs that he happened to have around. " Black Jade was
even more puzzled, and then it suddenly dawned upon her: Pao-yu knew that she
would weep for him and so sent two handkerchiefs of his own. • "You can
leave them, then," she said to Bright Design, who in turn was272 surprised
that Black Jade did not take offense at what seemed to her a crude joke. • As
Black Jade thought over the significance of the handkerchiefs she was happy and
sad by turns: happy because Pao- yu read her innermost thoughts and sad because
she wondered if what was uppermost in her thoughts would ever befulfdled.
Thinking thus to herself of the future and of the past, she could notfall
asleep. Despite Purple Cuckoo's remonstrances, she had her lamp relit and began
to compose a series of quatrains, writing them directly on the handkerchiefs
which Pao-yu had sent. - TSAO HSUEH CHIN, DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER, Therefore
in my view when the courtier wishes to declare his love he should do so by his
actions rather than by speech, for a man's feelings are sometimes more clearly
revealed by ... a gesture of respect or a certain shyness than by volumes of
words. CASTIGLIONE Keys to Seduction W hen we were children, our senses were
much more active. The colors of a new toy, or a spectacle such as a circus,
held us in thrall; a smell or a sound could fascinate us. In the games we
created, many of them reproducing something in the adult world on a smaller
scale, what pleasure we took in orchestrating every detail. We noticed
everything. As we grow older our senses get dulled. We no longer notice as
much, for we are constantly hurrying to get things done, to move on to the next
task. In seduction, you are always trying to bring the target back to the
golden moments of childhood. A child is less rational, more easily deceived. A
child is also more attuned to the pleasures of the senses. So when your targets
are with you, you must never give them the feeling they normally get in the
real world, where we are all rushed, ruthless, out for ourselves. You need to
deliberately slow things down, and return them to the simpler times of their
youth. The details that you orchestrate-colors, gifts, little ceremonies-are
aimed at their senses, at the childish delight we take in the immediate charms
of the natural world. Their senses filled with delightful things, they grow
less capable of reason and rationality. Pay attention to detail and you will
find yourself assuming a slower pace; your targets will not focus on what you
might be after (sexual favors, power, etc.) because you seem so
considerate,soattentive.In the childish realm of the senses in which you
envelop them, they get a clear sense that you are involving them in something
distinct from the real world-an essential ingredient of seduction. Remember:
the more you get people to focus on the little things, the less they will
notice your larger direction. The seduction will assume the slow, hypnotic pace
of a ritual, in which the details have a heightened importance and the moments
are full of ceremony. In eighth-century China, Emperor Ming Huang caught a
glimpse of a beautiful young woman, combing her hair beside an imperial pool.
Her name was Yang Kuei-fei, and even though she was the concubine of the
emperor's son, he had to have her for himself. Since he was emperor, nobody
could stop him. The emperor was a practical man-he had many concubines, and
they all had their charms, but he had never lost his head over a woman. Yang
Kuei-fei, though, was different. Her body exuded the most wonderful fragrance.
She wore gowns made of the sheerest silk gauze, each embroidered with different
flowers, depending on the season. In walking she seemed to float, her tiny steps
invisible beneath her gown. She Pay Attention to Detail• 273 danced to
perfection, wrote songs in Ms honor that she sang magmficently, had a way of
looking at him that made Ms blood boil with desire.She quickly became Ms
favorite. Yang Kuei-fei drove the emperor to distraction. He built palaces for
her, spent all Ms time with her, satisfied her every whim. Before long Ms
kingdom was bankrupt and ruined. Yang Kuei-fei was an artful seductress who had
a devastating effect on all of the men who crossed her path. There were so many
ways her presence charmed-the scents, the voice, the movements, the witty
conversation, the artful glances, the embroidered gowns. These pleasurable
details turned a mighty king into a distracted baby. Since time immemorial, women
have known that within the most apparently self-possessed man is an animal whom
they can lead by filling Ms senses with the proper physical lures. The key is
to attack on as many fronts as possible. Do not ignore your voice, your
gestures, your walk, your clothes, your glances. Some of the most alluring
women in history have so distracted their victims with sensual detail that the
men fail to notice it is all an illusion. From the 1940s on into the early
1960s, Pamela Churchill Harriman had a series of affairs with some of the most
prominent and wealthy men in the world-Averill Harriman (whom years later she
married), Gianni Agnelli (heir to the Fiat fortune), Baron Elie de Rothschild.
What attracted these men, and kept them in tMall, was not her beauty or her
lineage or her vivacious personality, but her extraordinary attention to
detail. It began with her attentive look as she listened to your every word,
soaking up your tastes. Once she found her way into your home, she would fill
it with your favorite flowers, get your chef to cook that dish you had tasted
only in the finest restaurants. You mentioned an artist you liked? A few days
later that artist would be attending one of your parties. She found the perfect
antiques for you, dressed in the way that most pleased or excited you, and she
did this without your saying a word-she spied, gathered information from third
parties, overheard you talking to someone else. Harriman's attention to detail
had an intoxicating effect on all the men in her life. It had something in
common with the pampering of a mother, there to bring order and comfort into
their lives, attending to their needs. Life is harsh and competitive. Attending
to detail in a way that is soothing to the other person makes them dependent
upon you. The key is probing their needs in a way that is not too obvious, so
that when you make precisely the right gesture, it seems uncanny, as if you had
read their mind. This is another way of returning your targets to childhood,
when all of their needs were met. In the eyes of women all over the world,
Rudolph Valentino reigned as the Great Lover through much of the 1920s. The
qualities behind Ms appeal certainly included Ms handsome, almost pretty face,
Ms dancing skills, the strangely exciting streak of cruelty in Ms manner. But
his perhaps most endearing trait was his time-consuming approach to courtship.
His films would show him seducing a woman slowly, with careful details- sending
her flowers (choosing the variety to match the mood he wanted to 274 The Art of
Seduction induce), taking her hand, lighting her cigarette, escorting her to
romantic places, leading her on the dance floor. These were silent movies, and
his audiences never got to hear him speak-it was all in his gestures. Men came
to hate him, for their wives and girlfriends now expected the slow, careful
Valentino treatment. Valentino had a feminine streak; it was said that he wooed
a woman the way another woman would. But femininity need not figure in this
approach to seduction. In the early 1770s, Prince Gregory Potemkin began an
affair with Empress Catherine the Great of Russia that was to last many years.
Potemkin was a manly man, and not at all handsome. But he managed to win the
empress's heart by the many little things he did, and continued to do long
after the affair had begun. He spoiled her with wonderful gifts, never tired of
writing her long letters, arranged for all kinds of entertainments forher,
composed songs to her beauty. Yet he would appear before her barefoot, hair
uncombed, clothes wrinkled. There was no kind of fussiness in his attention,
which, however, did make it clear he would go to the ends of the earth for her.
A woman's senses are more refined than a man's; to a woman, Yang Kuei-fei's
overt sensual appeal would seem too hurried and direct. What that means,
though, is that all the man really has to do is take it slowly, making
seduction a ritual full of all kinds of little things he has to do for his
target. If he takes his time, he will have her eating out of his hand. Everything
in seduction is a sign, and nothing more so than clothes. It is not that you
have to dress interestingly, elegantly, or provocatively, but that you have to
dress for your target-have to appeal to your target's tastes. When Cleopatra
was seducing Mark Antony, her dress was not brazenly sexual; she dressed as a
Greek goddess, knowing his weakness for such fantasy figures. Madame de
Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV, knew the king's weakness, his chronic
boredom; she constantly wore different clothes, changing not only their color
but their style, supplying the king with a constant feast for his eyes. Pamela
Harriman was subdued in the fashions she wore, befitting her role as a
high-society geisha and reflecting the sober tastes of the men she seduced.
Contrast works well here; at work or at home, you might dress
nonchalantly-Marilyn Monroe, for example, wore jeans and a T-shirt at home-but
when you are with the target you wear something elaborate, as if you were
putting on a costume. Your Cinderella transformation will stir excitement, and
the feeling that you have done somethingjust for the person you are with.
Whenever your attention is individualized (you would not dress like that for
anyone else), it is infinitely more seductive. In the 1870s, Queen Victoria
found herself wooed by Benjamin Disraeli, her own prime minister. Disraeli's
words were flattering and his manner insinuating; he also sent her flowers,
valentines, gifts-but not just any flowers or gifts, the kind that most men
would send. The flowers were primroses, symbols of their simple yet beautiful
friendship. From then on, whenever Victoria saw a primrose she thought of
Disraeli. Or he would Pay Attention to Detail • 275 write on a valentine that
he, "no longer in the sunset, but the twilight of his existence, must
encounter a life of anxiety and toil; but this, too, has its romance, when he
remembers that he labors for the most gracious of beings!" Or he might
send her a little box, with no inscription, but with a heart transfixed by an
arrow on one side and the word "Fideliter," or
"Faithfully,"onthe other. Victoria fell in love with Disraeli. A gift
has immense seductive power, but the object itself is less important than the
gesture, and the subtle thought or emotion that it communicates. Perhaps the
choice relates to something from the target's past, or symbolizes something
between you, or merely represents the lengths you will go to to please. It was
not the money Disraeli spent that impressed Victoria, but the time he took to
find the appropriate thing or make the appropriate gesture. Expensive gifts
have no sentiment attached; they may temporarily excite their recipient but
they are quickly forgotten, as a child forgets a new toy. The object that
reflects its giver's attentiveness has a lingering sentimental power, which
resurfaces every time its owner sees it. In 1919, the Italian writer and war
hero Gabriele D'Annunzio managed to put together a band of followers and take
over the town of Fiume, on the Adriatic coast (now part of Slovenia). They
established their own government there, which lasted for over a year.
D'Annunzio initiated a series of public spectacles that were to be immensely
influential on politicians elsewhere. He would address the public from a
balcony overlooking the town's main square, which would be full of colorful
banners, flags, pagan religious symbols, and, at night, torches. The speeches
would be followed by processions. Although D'Annunzio was not at all a Fascist,
what he did in Fiume crucially affected Benito Mussolini, who borrowed his
Roman salutes, his use of symbols, his mode of public address. Spectacles like
these have been used since then by governments everywhere, even democratic
ones. Their overall impression may be grand, but it is the orchestrated details
that make them work-the number of senses they appeal to, the variety of
emotions they stir. You are aiming to distract people, and nothing is more
distracting than a wealth of detail-fireworks, flags, music, uniforms, marching
soldiers, the feel of the crowd packed together. It becomes difficult to think
straight, particularly if the symbols and details stir up patriotic emotions.
Finally, words are important in seduction, and have a great deal of power to
confuse, distract, and boost the vanity of the target. But what is most
seductive in the long run is what you do not say, what you communicate
indirectly. Words come easily, and people distrust them. Anyone can say the
right words; and once they are said, nothing is binding, and they may even be forgotten
altogether. The gesture, the thoughtful gift, the little details seem much more
real and substantial. They are also much more charming than lofty words about
love, precisely because they speak for themselves and let the seduced read into
them more than is there. Never tell someone what you are feeling; let them
guess it in your looks and gestures. That is the more convincing language. 276
Symbol: The Banquet. A feast has been prepared in your honor. Everything has
been elaborately coordinated-the flowers, the decorations, the selection of
guests, the dancers, the music, the five-course meal, the endlessly flowing
wine. The Banquet loosens your tongue, and also your inhibitions. Reversal T
here is no reversal. Details are essential to any successful seduction, and
cannot be ignored. 12 Poeticize Your Presence Important things happen when your
targets are alone: the slightestfeeling of relief that you are not there, and
it is all over. Familiarity and overexposure will cause this reaction. Remain elusive,
then, so that when you are away, they will yearn to see you again, and will
associate you only with pleasant thoughts. Occupy their minds by alternating an
exciting presence with a cool distance, exuberant moments followed by
calculated absences. Associate yourself with poetic images and objects, so that
when they think ofyou, they begin to see you through an idealized halo. The
more you figure in their minds, the more they will envelop you in seductive
fantasies. Feed these fantasies by subtle inconsistencies and changes inyour
behavior. Poetic Presence/Absence I n 1943, the Argentine military overthrew
the government. A popular forty-eight-year old colonel, Juan Peron, was named
secretary of labor and social affairs. Peron was a widow who had a fondness for
young girls; at the time of his appointment he was involved with a teenager
whom he introduced to one and all as his daughter. One evening in January of
1944, Peron was seated among the other military leaders in a Buenos Aires
stadium, attending an artists' festival. It was late and there were some empty
seats around him; out of nowhere two beautiful young actresses asked his
permission to sit down. Were they joking? He would be delighted. He recognized
one of the actresses-it was Eva Duarte, a star of radio soap operas whose
photograph was often on the covers of the tabloids. The other actress was
younger and prettier, but Peron could not take his eyes off Eva, who was
talking to another colonel. She was really not his type at all. She was twenty-four,
far too old for his taste; she was dressed rather garishly; and there was
something a little icy in her manner. But she looked at him occasionally, and
her glance excited him. He looked away for a moment, and the next thing he knew
she had changed seats and was sitting next to him. They started to talk. She
hung on his every word. Yes, everything he said was precisely how she felt-the
poor, the workers, they were the future of Argentina. She had known poverty
herself. There were almost tears in her eyes when she said, at the end of the
conversation, "Thank you for existing." In the next few days, Eva
managed to get rid of Peron's "daughter" and establish herself in his
apartment. Everywhere he turned, there she was, fixing him meals, caring for
him when he was ill, advising him on politics. Why did he let her stay? Usually
he would have a fling with a superficial young girl, then get rid of her when
she seemed to be sticking around too much. But there was nothing superficial
about Eva. As time went by he found himself getting addicted to the feeling she
gave him. She was intensely loyal, mirroring his every idea, puffing him up
endlessly. He felt more masculine in her presence, that was it, and more
powerful-she believed he would make the country's ideal leader, and her belief
affected him. She was like the women in the tango ballads he loved so much-the
suffering women of the streets who became saintly mother figures and looked
after their men. Peron saw her every day, but he never felt he fully knew her;
one day her comments were a little obscene, the next she was He who does not
know how to encircle a girl so that she loses sight of everything he does not want
her to see, he who does not know how to poetize himself into a girl so that it
isfrom her that everything proceeds as he wants it-he is and remains a bungler.
To poetize oneself into a girl is an art. KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY.
What else? If she's out, reclining in her litter, \ Make your approach
discreet, \ And-just to fox the sharp ears of those around you - \ Cleverly
riddle each phrase \ With ambiguous subtleties. If she's taking a leisurely \
Stroll down the colonnade, then you stroll there too - \ Vary your pace to
hers, march ahead, drop behind her, \ Dawdling and brisk by turns. Be bold, \
Dodge in round the columns between you, brush your person \ Lingeringly past
hers. You must never fail \ 279 280 To attend the theater when she does, gaze
at her beauty - \ From the shoulders up she's time \ Most delectably spent, a
feast for adoring glances, \ For the eloquence of eyebrows, the speaking sign.
\ Applaud when some male dancer struts on as the heroine, \ Cheer for each
lover's role. \ When she leaves, leave too-but sit there as long as she does: \
Waste time at your mistress's whim. Get her accustomed to you; \ Habit's the
key, spare no pains till that's achieved. \ Let her always see you around,
always hear you talking, \ Showher your face night and day. \ When you're
confident you'll be missed, when your absence \ Seems sure to cause her regret,
\ Then give her some respite: a field improves when fallow, \ Parched soil
soaks up the rain. \ Demophoon 's presence gave Phyllis no more than mild
excitement; \ It was his sailing caused arson in her heart. \ Penelope was
racked by crafty Ulysses's absence, \ Protesilaus, abroad, made Laodameia burn.
\ Short partings do best, though: time wears out affections, \ The absent
lovefades, a new one takes its place. \ With Menelaus away, Helen's
disinclination for sleeping \ Alone led her into her guest's \ Warm bed at
night. Were you crazy, Menelaus? - OVID, THE ART OF LOVE. Concerning the Birth
of Love • Here is what happens in the soul: • 1. Admiration. • 2. You think,
"Mow delightful it the perfect lady. He had one worry: she was angling to
get married, and he could never marry her-she was an actress with a dubious
past. The other colonels were already scandalized by his involvement with her.
Nevertheless, the affair went on. In 1945, Peron was dismissed from his post
and jailed. The colonels feared his growing popularity and distrusted the power
of his mistress, who seemed to have total influence over him. It was the first
time in almost two years that he was truly alone, and truly separated from Eva.
Suddenly he felt new emotions sweeping over him: he pinned her photographs all
over the wall. Outside, massive strikes were being organized to protest his
imprisonment, but all he could think about was Eva. She was a saint, a woman of
destiny, a heroine. He wrote to her, "It is only being apart from loved
ones that we can measure our affection. From the day I left you ... I have not
been able to calm my sad heart. . . . My immense solitude is full of your
memory." Now he promised to marry her. The strikes grew in intensity.
After eight days, Peron was released from prison; he promptly married Eva. A
few months later he was elected president. As first lady, Eva attended state
functions in her somewhat gaudy dresses andjewelry; she was seen as a former
actress with a large wardrobe. Then, in 1947, she left for a tour of Europe,
and Argentines followed her every move-the ecstatic crowds that greeted her in
Spain, her audience with the pope-and in her absence their opinion of her
changed. How well she represented the Argentine spirit, its noble simplicity,
its flair for drama. When she returned a few weeks later, they overwhelmed her
with attention. Eva too had changed during her trip to Europe: now her dyed
blond hair was pulled into a severe chignon, and she wore tailored suits. It
was a serious look, befitting a woman who was to become the savior of the poor.
Soon her image could be seen everywhere-her initials on the walls, the sheets,
the towels of the hospitals for the poor; her profile on the jerseys of a
soccer team from the poorest part of Argentina, whose club she sponsored; her
giant smiling face covering the sides of buildings. Since finding out anything
personal about her had become impossible, all kinds of elaborate fantasies
began to spring up about her. And when cancer cut her life short, in 1952, at
the age of thirty-three (the age of Christ when he died), the country went into
mourning. Millions filed past her embalmed body. She was no longer a radio
actress, a wife, a first lady, but Evita, a saint. Interpretation. Eva Duarte
was an illegitimate child who had grown up in poverty, escaped to Buenos Aires
to become an actress, and been forced to do many tawdry things to survive and
get ahead in the theater world. Her dream was to escape all of the constraints
on her future, for she was intensely ambitious. Peron was the perfect victim.
He imagined himself a great leader, but the reality was that he was fast
becoming a lecherous old man who was too weak to raise himself up. Eva injected
poetry into his Poeticize Your Presence • 281 life. Her language was florid and
theatrical; she surrounded him with attention, indeed to the point of
suffocation, but a woman's dutiful service to a great man was a classic image,
and was celebrated in innumerable tango ballads. Yet she managed to remain
elusive, mysterious, like a movie star you see all the time on the screen but
never really know. And when Peron was finally alone, in prison, these poetic
images and associations burst forth in his mind. He idealized her madly; as far
as he was concerned, she was no longer an actress with a tawdry past. She
seduced an entire nation the same way. The secret was her dramatic poetic
presence, combined with a touch of elusive distance; over time, you would see
whatever you wanted to in her. To this day people fantasize about what Eva was
really like. Familiarity destroys seduction. This rarely happens early on;
there is so much to leam about a new person. But a midpoint may arrive when the
target has begun to idealize and fantasize about you, only to discover that you
are not what he or she thought. It is not a question of being seen too often,
of being too available, as some imagine. In fact, if your targets see you too
rarely, you give them nothing to feed on, and their attention may be caught by
someone else; you have to occupy their mind. It is more a matter of being too
consistent, too obvious, too human and real. Your targets cannot idealize you
if they know too much about you, if they start to see you as all too human. Not
only must you maintain a degree of distance, but there must be something
fantastical and bewitching about you, sparking all kinds of delightful
possibilities in their mind. The possibility Eva held out was the possibility
that she was what in Argentine culture was considered the ideal woman-devoted,
motherly, saintly-but there are any number of poetic ideals you can try to
embody. Chivalry, adventure, romance, and so on, are just as potent, and if you
have a whiff of them about you, you can breathe enough poetry into the air to
fill people's minds with fantasies and dreams. At all costs, you must embody
something, even if it is roguery and evil. Anything to avoid the taint of
familiarity and commonness. What I need is a woman who is something, anything;
either very beautiful or very kind or in the last resort very wicked; very
witty or very stupid, but something. -ALFRED DE MUSSET Keys to Seduction W e
all have a self-image that is more flattering than the truth; we think of
ourselves as more generous, selfless, honest, kindly, intelligent, or
good-looking than in fact we are. It is extremely difficult for us to be honest
with ourselves about our own limitations; we have a desperate need to idealize
ourselves. As the writer Angela Carter remarks, we would rather align ourselves
with angels than with the higher primates from which we are actually descended.
would be to kiss her, to be kissed by her," and so on. .Hope. You observe
her perfections, and it is at this moment that a woman really ought to
surrender, for the utmost physical pleasure. Even the most reserved women blush
to the whites of their eyes at this moment of hope. The passion is so strong,
and the pleasure so sharp, that they betray themselves unmistakably. • 4. Love
is born. To love is to enjoy seeing, touching, and sensing with all the senses,
as closely as possible, a lovable object which loves in return. The first
crystallization begins. If you are sure that a woman loves you, it is a
pleasure to endow her with a thousand perfections and to count your blessings
with infinite satisfaction. In the end you overrate wildly, and regard her as
something fallen from Heaven, unknown as yet, but certain to be yours. • Leave
a lover with his thoughts for twenty four hours, and this is what will happen:
• At the salt mines of Salzburg, they throw a leafless wintry bough into one of
the abandoned workings. Two or three months later they haul it out covered with
a shining deposit of crystals. The smallest twig, no bigger than a tom-tit's
claw, is studded with a galaxy of scintillating diamonds. The original branch
is no longer recognizable. • What I have called crystallization is a mental
process which draws from everything that happens new proofs of the perfection
of the loved one. . . . • A man in love sees every perfection in the object of
his love, but his attention is liable to 282 wander after a time because one
gets tired of anything uniform, even perfect happiness. • This is what happens
next to fix the attention: Doubt creeps in. . . . He is met indifference,
coldness, or even anger if he appears confident. . . . The lover begins to be
less sure the good fortune he was grounds for hope to a critical examination. •
He to recoup by indulging in other pleasures but finds them inane. He is seized
the dread of a frightful calamity and now concentrates fully. Thus : The second,
which deposits diamond layers of that "she loves me." • Every few
minutes the night which follows the birth of doubt, the lover has a moment of
dreadful misgiving, and then reassures himself "she loves me"; and
crystallization begins to reveal new charms. Then once again the haggard eye of
doubt pierces him and he This need to idealize extends to our romantic
entanglements, because of ourselves. The choice we make in deciding to become
involved with another person reveals something important and intimate about us:
we seeing ourselves as having fallen for someone whoischeapor tacky or
tasteless, because it reflects badly on who we are. Furthermore, we are often
likely to fall for someone who resembles us in some way. Should that person be
deficient, or worst of all ordinary, then there is something deficient and
ordinary about us. No, at all costs the loved one must be overvalued and
idealized, at least for the sake of our own self-esteem. Besides, in a world
that is harsh and full of disappointment, it is a great pleasure to be able to
fantasize about a person you are involved with. This makes the seducer's task
easy: people are dying to be given the chance to fantasize about you. Do not
spoil this golden opportunity by overexposing yourself, or becoming so familiar
and banal that the target sees you exactly as you are. You do not have to be an
angel, or a paragon of virtue-that would be quite boring. You can be dangerous,
naughty, even somewhat vulgar, depending on the tastes of your victim. But
never be oror limited. In poetry (as opposed to reality), anything is possible.
Soon after we fall under a person's spell, we form an image in our minds of who
they are and what pleasures they might offer. Thinking of them when we are
alone, we tend to make this image more and more idealized. The novelist
Stendhal, in his book On Love, calls this phenomenon
"crystallization," telling the story of how, in Salzburg,Austria,
they used to throw a leafless branch into the abandoned depths of a salt mine
in the middle of winter. When the branch was pulled out months later, it would
be covered with spectacular crystals. That is what happens to a loved one in
minds. stops transfixed. He forgets to draw breath and mutters, "But does
she love me?" Torn between doubt and delight, the poor lover convinces
himself that she could give him such pleasure as he could find nowhere else on
earth. -STENDHAL, LOVE, Falling in love automatically tends toward madness.
Left to itself it goes to utter extremes. This is well known by the
"conquistadors " of both sexes. Once a woman's According to Stendhal,
though, there are two crystallizations. The first happens when we first meet
the person. The second and more important one happens later, when a bit of
doubt creeps in-you desire the other person, but they elude you, you are not
sure they are yours. This bit of doubt is critical-it makes your imagination
work double, deepens the poeticizing process. In the seventeenth century, the
great rake the Due de Lauzun pulled off one of the most spectacular seductions
in history-that of the Mademoiselle, the cousin of King Louis XTV, and the
wealthiest and most powerful woman in France. He tickled her imagination with a
few brief encounters at the court, letting her catch glimpses of his wit, his
audacity, his cool manner. She would begin to think of him when she was alone.
Next she started to bump into him more often at court, and they would have
little conversations or walks. When these meetings were over, she would be left
with a doubt: is he or is he not interested in me? This made her want to see
him more, in order to allay her doubts. She began to idealize him all out of
proportion to the reality, for the duke was an incorrigible scoundrel.
Remember: if you are easily had, you cannot be worth that much. It is Poeticize
Your Presence • 283 hard to wax poetic about a person who comes so cheaply. If,
after the initial interest, you make it clear that you cannot be taken for
granted, if you stir a bit of doubt, the target will imagine there is something
special, lofty, and unattainable about you. Your image will crystallize in the
other person's mind. Cleopatra knew that she was really no different from any
other woman, and in fact her face was not particularly beautiful. But she knew
that men have a tendency to overvalue a woman. All that is required is to hint
that there is something different about you, to make them associate you with
something grand or poetic. She made Caesar aware of her connection to the great
kings and queens of Egypt's past; with Antony, she created the fantasy that she
was descended from Aphrodite herself. These men were cavorting not just with a
strong-willed woman but a kind of goddess. Such associations might be difficult
to pull off today, but people still get deep pleasure from associating others
with some kind of childhood fantasy figure. John F. Kennedy presented himself
as a figure of chivalry-noble, brave, charming. Pablo Picasso was not just a
great painter with a thirst for young girls, he was the Minotaur of Greek
legend, or the devilish trickster figure that is so seductive to women. These
associations should not be made too early; they are only powerful once the
target has begun to fall under your spell, and is vulnerable to suggestion. A
man who had just met Cleopatra would have found the Aphrodite association
ludicrous. But a person who is falling in love will believe almost anything.
The trick is to associate your image with something mythic, through the clothes
you wear, the things you say, the places you go. In Marcel Proust's novel
Remembrance of Things Past, the character Swann finds himself gradually seduced
by a woman who is not really his type. He is an aesthete, and loves the finer
things in life. She is of a lower class, less refined, even a little tasteless.
What poeticizes her in his mind is a series of exuberant moments they share
together, moments that from then on he associates with her. One of these is a
concert in a salon that they attend, in which he is intoxicated by a little
melody in a sonata. Whenever he thinks of her, he remembers this little phrase.
Little gifts she has given him, objects she has touched or handled, begin to
assume a life of their own. Any kind of heightened experience, artistic or
spiritual, lingers in the mind much longer than normal experience. You must
find a way to share such moments with your targets-a concert, a play, a
spiritual encounter, whatever it takes-so that they associate something
elevated with you. Shared moments of exuberance have immense seductive pull.
Also, any kind of object can be imbued with poetic resonance and sentimental
associations, as discussed in the last chapter. The gifts you give and other
objects can become imbued with your presence; if they are associated with
pleasant memories, the sight of them keeps you in mind and accelerates the
poeti- cization process. Although it is said that absence makes the heart grow
fonder, an absence too early will prove deadly to the crystallization process.
Like Eva attention is fixed upon a man, it is very easy for him to dominate her
thoughts completely. A simple game of blowing hot and cold, of solicitousness
and disdain, of presence and absence isallthatisrequired. The rhythm of that
techniqueacts upon a woman's attention like a pneumatic machine and ends by
emptying her of all the rest of the world. How well our people put it: "to
suck one's senses"! In fact: one is absorbed-absorbed by an object! Most
"love affairs" are reduced to this mechanical play of the beloved
upon the lover's attention. • The only thing that can save a lover is a violent
shock from the outside, a treatment which is forced upon him. Many think that
absence and long trips are a good cure for lovers. Observe that these are cures
for one's attention. Distance from the beloved starves our attention toward
him; it prevents anything further from rekindling the attention. Journeys, by
physically obliging us to come out of ourselves and resolve hundreds of little
problems, by uprooting us from our habitual setting and forcing hundreds of
unexpected objects upon us, succeed in breaking down the maniac's haven and
opening channels in his sealed consciousness, through which fresh air and
normal perspective enter. - JOS6 ORTEGA Y GASSET, ON LOVE: ASPECTS OF A SINGLE
THEME, Excessive familiarity can destroy
crystallization. A charming girl of sixteen was becoming too fond of ahandsome
young man of the same age, who used to make a practice of passing beneath her
window every evening at nightfall. Her mother invited him to Peron, you must
surround your targets with focused attention, so that in those critical moments
when they are alone, their mind is spinning with a kind of afterglow. Do
everything you can to keep the target thinking about you. Letters, mementos,
gifts, unexpected meetings-all these give you an omnipresence. Everything must
remind them of you. Finally, if your targets should see you as elevated and
poetic, there is much to be gained by making them feel elevated and poeticized
in their turn. The French writer Chateaubriand would make a woman feel like a
spend a week with them in the country. It was a bold remedy, I admit, but the
girl was of a romantic disposition, and the young man a trifle dull; within
three days she despised him. -STENDHAL, LOVE, goddess, she had such a powerful
effect on him. He would send her poems that she supposedly had inspired. To
make Queen Victoria feel as if she were both a seductive woman and a great
leader, Benjamin Disraeli would compare her to mythological figures and great
predecessors, such as Queen Elizabeth I. By idealizing your targets this way,
you will make them idealize you in return, since you must be equally great to
be able to appreciate and see all of their fine qualities. They will also grow
addicted to the elevatedfeeling you give them. Symbol: The Halo.Slowly, when
the target is alone, he or she begins to imagine a kind of faint glow around
your head, formed by all of the possible pleasures you might offer, the
radiance of your charged presence, your noble qualities. The Halo separates youfrom
other people. Do not make it disappear by becoming familiar and ordinary.
Reversal I t might seem that the reverse tactic would be to reveal everything
about yourself, to be completely honest about your faults and virtues. This
kind of sincerity was a quality Lord Byron had-he almost got a thrill out of
disclosing all of his nasty, ugly qualities, even going so far, later on in his
life, as to tell people about his incestuous involvements with his half sister.
This kind of dangerous intimacy can be immensely seductive. The target will
poeticize your vices, and your honesty about them; they will start to see more
than is there. In other words, the idealization process is unavoidable. The
only thing that cannot be idealized is mediocrity, but there is nothing
seductive about mediocrity. There is no possible way to seduce without creating
some kind of fantasy and poeticization. 13 Disarm Through Strategic Weakness
and Vulnerability Too much maneuvering on your part may raisesuspicion. The
best way to cover your tracks is to make the other person feel superior and
stronger. If you seem to be weak, vulnerable, enthralled by the other person,
and unable to control yourself, you will make your actions look more natural,
less calculated. Physical weakness - tears, bashfulness, paleness-will help
create the effect, To further win trust, exchange honesty for virtue: establish
your "sincerity" by confessing some sin on your part-it doesn't have
to be real. Sincerity is more important than goodness. Play the victim, then
transform your target's sympathy into love. The Victim Strategy T hat
sweltering August in the 1770s when the Presidente de Tourvel was visiting the
chateau of her old friend Madame de Rosemonde, leaving her husband at home, she
was expecting to be enjoying the peace and quiet of country life more or less
on her own. But she loved the simple pleasures, and soon her daily life at the
chateau assumed a comfortable pattern-daily Mass, walks in the country,
charitable work in the neighboring villages, card games in the evening. When
Madame de Rosemonde's nephew arrived for a visit, then, the Presidente felt
uncomfortable-but also curious. The nephew, the Vicomte de Valmont, was the
most notorious libertine in Paris. He was certainly handsome, but he was not
what she had expected: he seemedsad, somewhat downtrodden, and strangest of
all, he paid hardly any attention to her. The Presidente was no coquette; she
dressed simply, ignored fashions, and loved her husband. Still, she was young
and beautiful, and was used to fending off men's attentions. In the back of her
mind, she was slightly perturbed that he took so little notice of her. Then, at
Mass one day, she caught a glimpse of Valmont apparently lost in prayer. The
idea dawned on her that he was in the midst of a period of soul-searching. As
soon as word had leaked out that Valmont was at the chateau, the Presidente had
received a letter from a friend warning her against this dangerous man. But she
thought of herself as the last woman in the world to be vulnerable to him.
Besides, he seemed on the verge of repenting his evil past; perhaps she could
help move him in that direction. What a wonderful victory that would be for
God. And so the Presidente took note of Val- mont's comings and goings, trying
to understand what was happening in his head. It was strange, for instance,
that he would often leave in the morning to go hunting, yet would never return
with any game. One day, she decided to have her servant do a little harmless
spying, and she was amazed and delighted to learn that Valmont had not gone
hunting at all; he had visited a local village, where he had doled out money to
a poor family about to be evicted from their home. Yes, she was right, his
passionate soul was moving from sensuality to virtue. How happy that made her
feel. That evening, Valmont and the Presidente found themselves alone for the
first time, and Valmont suddenly burst out with a startling confession. He was
head-over-heels in love with the Presidente, and with a love he had The weak ones
do have a power over us. The clear, forceful ones I can do without. I am weak
and indecisive by nature myself and a woman who is quiet and withdrawn and
follows the wishes of a man even to the point of letting herself be used has
much the greater appeal. A man can shape and mold her as he wishes, and becomes
fonder of her all the while. -MURASAKI SHIKIBU, THE TALE OF GENJI. Hera,
daughter of Cronus and Rhea, having been born on the island of Samos or, some
say, at Argos, was brought up in Arcadia by Temenus, sou of Pelasgus. The
Seasons were her nurses. After banishing theirfather Cronus, Hera's twin
brother Zeus sought her out at Cnossus in Crete or, some say, on Mount Thornax
(now called Cuckoo Mountain) in Argolis, where he courted her, at first unsuccessfully.
She took pity on him only when he adopted the 287 288 disguise of a bedraggled
cuckoo and tenderly warmed him in her bosom. There he at once resumed his true
shape and ravished her, so that she was shamed into marrying him. -ROBERT
GRAVES, THE GREEK MYTHS In a strategy (?) of seduction one draws the other into
one's area of weakness, which is also his or her area of weakness. A calculated
weakness, an incalculable weakness: one challenges the other to be taken i n .
. . . • To seduce is to appear weak. To seduce is to render weak. We seduce
with our weakness, never with strong signs or powers. In seduction we enact
this weakness, and this is what gives seduction its strength. • We seduce with
our death, our vulnerability, and with the void that haunts us. The secret is
to know how to play with death in the absence of a gaze or gesture, in the
absence of knowledge or meaning. • Psychoanalysis tells us to assume our
fragility and passivity, but in almost religious terms, turns them into aform
of resignation and acceptance in order to promote a well- tempered psychic
equilibrium. Seduction, by contrast, plays trumph- antty with weakness, making
a game of it, with its own rules. -JEAN BAUDRILLARD, SEDUCTION never
experienced before: her virtue, her goodness, her beauty, her kind ways had
completely overwhelmed him. His generosity to the poor that afternoon had been
for her sake-perhaps inspired by her, perhaps something more sinister: it had
been to impress her. He would never have confessed to this, but finding himself
alone with her, he could not control his emotions. Then he got down on his
knees and begged for her to help him, to guide him in his misery. The
Presidente was caught off guard, and began to cry. Intensely embarrassed, she
ran from the room, and for the next few days pretended to be ill. She did not
know how to react to the letters Valmont now began to send her, begging her to
forgive him. He praised her beautiful face and her beautiful soul, and claimed
she had made him rethink his whole life. These emotional letters produced
disturbing emotions, and Tourvel prided herself on her calmness and prudence.
She knew she should insist that he leave the chateau, and wrote him to that
effect; he reluctantly agreed, but on one condition-that she allow him to write
to her from Paris. She consented, as long as the letters were not offensive.
When he told Madame de Rose- monde that he was leaving, the Presidente felt a
pang of guilt: his hostess and aunt would miss him, and he looked so pale. He
was obviously suffering. Now the letters from Valmont began to arrive, and
Tourvel soon regretted allowing him this liberty. He ignored her request that
heavoid the subject of love-indeed he vowed to love her forever. He rebuked her
for her coldness and insensitivity. He explained his bad path in life-it was
not his fault, he had had no direction, had been led astray by others. Without
her help he would fall back into that world. Do not be cruel, he said, you are
the one who seduced me. I am your slave, the victim of your charms and
goodness; since you are strong, and do not feel as I do, you have nothing to
fear. Indeed the Presidente de Tourvel came to pity Valmont-he seemed so weak,
so out of control. How could she help him? And why was she even thinking of him,
which she now did more and more? She was a happily married woman. No, she must
at least put an end to this tiresome correspondence. No more talk of love, she
wrote, or she would not reply. His letters stopped coming. She felt relief.
Finally some peace and quiet. One evening, however, as she was seated at the
dinner table, she suddenly heard Valmont's voice from behind her, addressing
Madame de Rose- monde. On the spur of the moment, he said, he had decided to
return for a short visit. She felt a shiver up and down her spine, her face
flushed; he approached and sat down beside her. He looked at her, she looked
away, and soon made an excuse to leave the table and go up to her room. But she
could not completely avoid him over the next few days, and she saw that he
seemed paler than ever. He was polite, and a whole day might pass without her
seeing him, but these brief absences had a paradoxical effect: now Tourvel
realized what had happened. She missed him, she wanted to see him. This paragon
of virtue and goodness had somehow fallen in love with an incorrigible rake.
Disgusted with herself and what she had allowed to Disarm Through Strategic
Weakness and Vulnerability • 289 happen, she left the chateau in the middle of
the night, without telling anyone, and headed for Paris, where she planned
somehow to repent this awful sin. Interpretation. The character of Valmont in
Choderlos de Laclos's epistolary novel Dangerous Liaisons is based on several
of the great real-life libertines of eighteenth-century France. Everything
Valmont does is calculated for effect-the ambiguous actions that make Tourvel
curious about him, the act of charity in the village (he knows he is being
followed), the return visit to the chateau, the paleness of his face (he is
having an affair with a girl at the chateau, and their all-night carousals give
him a wasted look). Most devastating of all is his positioning of himself as
the weak one, the seduced, the victim. How can the Presidente imagine he is
manipulating her when everything suggests he is simplyoverwhelmed by her
beauty, whether physical or spiritual? He cannot be a deceiver when he
repeatedly makes a point of confessing the "truth" about himself: he
admits that his charity was questionably motivated, he explains why he has gone
astray, he lets her in on his emotions. (All of this "honesty," of
course, is calculated.) In essence he is like a woman, or at least like a woman
of those times- emotional, unable to control himself, moody, insecure. She is
the one who is cold and cruel, like a man. In positioning himself as Tourvel's
victim, Valmont can not only disguise his manipulations but elicit pity and
concern. Playing the victim, he can stir up the tender emotions produced by a
sick child or a wounded animal. And these emotions are easily channeled into
love-as the Presidente discovers to her dismay. Seduction is a game of reducing
suspicion and resistance. The cleverest way to do this is to make the other
person feel stronger, more in control of things. Suspicion usually comes out of
insecurity; if your targets feel superior and secure in your presence, they are
unlikely to doubt your motives. You are too weak, too emotional, to be up to
something. Take this game as far as it will go. Flaunt your emotions and how
deeply they have affected you. Making people feel the power they have over you
is immensely flattering to them. Confess to something bad, or even to something
bad that you did, or contemplated doing, to them. Honesty is more important
than virtue, and one honest gesture will blind them to many deceitful acts.
Create an impression of weakness-physical, mental, emotional. Strength and
confidence can be frightening. Make your weakness a comfort, and play the
victim-of their power over you, of circumstances, of life in general. This is
the best way to cover your tracks. You know, a man ain't worth a damn if he
can't cry at the right time. -LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON The old American proverb
says if you want to con someone, you must first get him to trust you, or at
least feel superior to you (these two ideas are related), and get him to let
down his guard. The proverb explains a great deal about television commercials.
If we assume that people are not stupid, they must react to TV commercials with
a feeling of superiority that permits them to believe they are in control. As
long as this illusion of volition persists, they would consciously have nothing
to fear from the commercials. People are prone to trust anything over which
they believe they have control. ..." TV commercials appear foolish,
clumsy, and ineffectual on purpose. They are made to appear this way at the
conscious level in order to be consciously ridiculed and rejected. . . . Most
ad men will confirm that over the years the seemingly worst commercials have
sold the best. An effective TV commercial is purposefully designed to insult
the viewer's conscious intelligence, thereby penetrating his defenses. -WILSON
BRYAN KEY, SUBLIMINAL SEDUCTION It takes great art to use bashfulness, but one
does achieve a great deal with it. How often I have used bashfulness to trick a
little miss! Ordinarily, young girls speak very harshly about bashful men, but
secretly they like them. A little bashfulness flatters a teenage girl's vanity,
makes her feel superior; it is her 290 earnest money. When they are lulled to
sleep, then at the very time they believe you are about to perish from
bashfulness, you show them that you are so far from it that you are quite
self-reliant. Bashfulness makes a man lose his masculine significance, and
therefore it is a relatively good means for neutralizing the sex relation.
-S0REN KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY. Yet anotherform of Charity is there,
which is oft times practised towards poor prisoners who are shut up in dungeons
and robbed of all enjoyments with women. On such do the gaolers' wives and
women that have charge over them, or chatelaines who have prisoners of war in
their Castle, take pity and give them share of their love out of very charity
and mercifulness. . . . • Thus do these gaolers' wives, noble chatelaines and
others, treat their prisoners, the which, captive and unhappy though they be,
yet cease not for that to feel the prickings of the flesh, as much as ever they
did in their best days. ...• To confirm what I say, I will instance a tale that
Captain Beaulieu, Captain of the King's Galleys, of whom I have before spoke
once and again, did tell me. He was in the service of the late Grand Prior of
France, a member of the house of Lorraine, who was much attached to him. Going
one time to take his patron on board at Malta in a Keys to Seduction W e all
have weaknesses, vulnerabilities, frailnesses in our mental makeup. Perhaps we
are shy or oversensitive, or need attention- whatever the weakness is, it is
something we cannot control. We may try to compensate for it, or to hide it,
but this is often a mistake: people sense something inauthentic or unnatural.
Remember: what is natural to your character is inherently seductive. A person's
vulnerability, what they seem to be unable to control, is often what is most
seductive about them. People who display no weaknesses, on the other hand,
often elicit envy, fear, and anger-we want to sabotage themjust to bring them
down.Do not struggle against your vulnerabilities, or try to repressthem,butput
them into play. Learn to transform them into power. The game is subtle: if you
wallow in your weakness, overplay your hand, you will be seen as angling for
sympathy, or, worse, as pathetic. No, what works best is to allow people an
occasional glimpse into the soft, frail side of your character, and usually
only after they have known you for a while. That glimpse will humanize you,
lowering their suspicions, and preparing the ground for a deeper attachment.
Normally strong and in control, at moments you let go, give in to your
weakness, let them see it. Valmont used his weakness this way. He had lost his
innocence long ago, and yet, somewhere inside, he regretted it. He was
vulnerable to someone truly innocent. His seduction of the Presidente was
successful because it was not totally an act; there was a genuine weakness on
his part, which even allowed him to cry at times. He let the Presidente see
this side to him at key moments, in order to disarm her. Like Valmont, you can
be acting and sincere at the same time. Suppose you are genuinely shy-at
certain moments, give your shyness a little weight, lay it on a little thick.
It should be easy for you to embellish a quality you already have. After Lord
Byron published his first major poem, in 1812, he became an instant celebrity. Beyond
being a talented writer, he was so handsome, even pretty, and he was as
brooding and enigmatic as the characters he wrote about. Women went wild over
Lord Byron. He had an infamous "underlook," slightly lowering his
head and glancing upward at a woman, making her tremble. But Byron had other
qualities: when you first met him, you could not help noticing his fidgety
movements, his ill-fitting clothes, his strange shyness, and his noticeable
limp. This infamous man, who scorned all conventions and seemed so dangerous,
was personally insecure and vulnerable. In Byron's poem Don Juan, the hero is
less a seducer of women than a man constantly pursued by them. The poem was
autobiographical; women wanted to take care of this somewhat fragile man, who
seemed to have little control over his emotions. More than a century later,
John F. Kennedy, as a boy, became obsessed with Byron, the man he most wanted
to emulate. He even tried to borrow Byron's "underlook." Kennedy
himself was a frail youth, with constant health problems. He was also a little
pretty, and friends Disarm Through Strategic Weakness and Vulnerability • 291
saw something slightly feminine in him. Kennedy's weaknesses-physical and
mental, for he too was insecure, shy, and oversensitive-were exactly what drew
women to him. If Byron and Kennedy had tried to cover up their vulnerabilities
with a masculine swagger they would have had no seductive charm. Instead, they
learned how to subtly display their weaknesses, letting women sense this soft
side to them. There are fears and insecurities peculiar to each sex; your use
of strategic weakness must always take these differences into account. A woman,
for instance, may be attracted by a man's strength and self-confidence, but too
much of it can create fear, seeming unnatural, even ugly Particularly
intimidating is the sense that the man is cold and unfeeling. She may feel
insecure that he is only after sex, and nothing else. Male seducers long ago
learned to become more feminine-to show their emotions, and to seem interested
in their targets' lives. The medieval troubadours were the first to master this
strategy; they wrote poetry in honor of women, emoted endlessly about their
feelings, and spent hours in their ladies' boudoirs, listening to the women's
complaints and soaking up their spirit. In return for their willingness to play
weak, the troubadours earned the right to love. Little has changed since then.
Some of the greatest seducers in recent history-Gabriele D' Annunzio, Duke
Ellington, Errol Flynn-understood the value of acting slavishly to a woman,
like a troubadour on bended knee. The key is to indulge your softer side while
still remaininasmasculineas possible. This may include an occasional show of
bashfulness, which the philosopher Sprcn Kierkegaard thought an extremely
seductive tactic for a man-it gives the woman a sense of comfort, and even of
superiority. Remember, though, to keep everything in moderation. A glimpse of
shyness is sufficient; too much of it and the target will despair, afraid that
she will end up having to do all the work. man's fears and insecurities often
concern his sense of masculinity; he usually will feel threatened by a woman
who is too overtly manipulative, who is too much in control. The greatest
seductresses in history knew how to cover up their manipulations by playing the
little girl in need of masculine protection. A famous courtesan of ancient
China, Su Shou, used to make up her face to look particularly pale and weak.
She would also walk in a way that made her seem frail. The great
nineteenth-century courtesan Pearl would literally dress and act like a little
girl. Marilyn Monroe knew how to give the impression that she depended on a
man's strength to survive. In all of these instances, the women were the ones
in control of the dynamic, boosting a man's sense of masculinity in order to
ultimately enslave him. To make this most effective, a woman should seem both
in need of protection and sexually excitable, giving the man his ultimate
fantasy. The Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, won dominance over
her husband early on through a calculated coquetry. Later on, though, she held
on to that power through her constant-and not so innocent-use of tears. Seeing
someone cry usually has an immediate effect on our emo- frigate, he was taken
by the Sicilian galleys, and carried prisoner to the Castel-a- mare at Palermo,
where he was shut up in an exceeding narrow, dark and wretched dungeon, and
very ill entreated by the space of three months. By good hap the Governor of
the Castle, who was a Spaniard, had two very fair daughters, who hearing him
complaining and making moan, did one day ask leave of theirfather to visit him,
for the honor of the good God; and this he did freely give them permission to
do. And seeing the Captain was of a surety a right gallant gentleman, and as
ready- tongued as most, he was able so to withem over at this, the very first
visit, that they did gain their father's leave for him to quit his wretched
dungeon and to be put in a seemly enough chamber and receive better treatment.
Nor was this all, for they did crave and get permission to come and see him
freely every day and converse with him. • And this didfall out so well that
presently both the twain of them were in love with him, albeit he was not
handsome to look upon, and they very fair ladies. And so, without a thought of
the chance of more rigorous imprisonment or even death, but rather tempted by
such opportunities, he did set himself to the enjoyment of the two girls with
good will and hearty appetite. And these pleasures did continue without any
scandal, for so fortunate was he in this conquest of his for the space of eight
whole months, that no scandal did ever hap all that time, and no ill, 292
inconvenience, nor any surprise or discovery at all. For indeed the two sisters
had so good an understanding between them and did so generously lend a hand to
each other and so obligingly play sentinel to one another, that no ill hap did
ever occur. And he swore to me, being my very intimate friend as he was, that
never in his days of greatest liberty had he enjoyed so excellent entertainment
orfelt keener ardor or better appetitefor it than in the said prison-which
truly was a right good prison for him, albeitfolk say no prison can be good.
And this happy time did continue for the space of eight months, till the truce
was made betwixt the Emperor and Henri II., King of France, whereby all
prisoners did leave their dungeons and were released. He sware that never was
he more grieved than at quitting this good prison of his, but was exceeding
sorry to leave thesefair maids, with whom he was in such high favor, and who
did express all possible regrets at his departing. -SEIGNEUR DE BRANT6ME, LIVES
OF FAIR et GALLANT LADIES. TRANSLATED BY A. R. ALLINSON tions: we cannot remain
neutral. We feel sympathy, and most often will do anything to stop the
tears-including things that we normally would not do. Weeping is an incredibly
potent tactic, but the weeper is not always so innocent. There is usually
something real behind the tears, but there may also be an element of acting, of
playing for effect. (And if the target senses this the tactic is doomed.)
Beyond the emotional impact of tears, there is something seductive about
sadness. We want to comfort the other person, and as Tourvel discovered, that
desire quickly turns into love. Affecting sadness, even crying sometimes, has
great strategic value, even for a man. It is a skill you can learn. The central
character of the eighteenth-century French novel Marianne, by Marivaux, would
think of something sad in her past to make herself cry or look sad in the
present. Use tears sparingly, and save them for the right moment. Perhaps this
might be a time when the target seems suspicious of your motives, or when you
are worrying about having no effect on him or her. Tears are a sure barometer
of how deeply the other person is falling for you. If they seem annoyed, or
resist the bait, your case is probably hopeless. In social and political
situations, seeming too ambitious, or too controlled, will make people fear
you; it is crucial to show your soft side. The display of a single weakness
will hide a multitude of manipulations. Emotion or even tears will work here
too. Most seductive of all is playing the victim. For his first speech in
Parliament, Benjamin Disraeli prepared an elaborate oration, but when he
delivered it the opposition yelled and laughed so loudly that hardly any of it
could be heard. He plowed ahead and gave the whole speech, but by the time he
sat down he felt he had failed miserably. Much to his amazement, his colleagues
told him the speech was a marvelous success. It would have been a failure if he
had complained or given up; but by going ahead as he did, he positioned himself
as the victim of a cruel and unreasonable faction. Almost everyone sympathized
with him now, which would serve him well in the future. Attacking your
mean-spirited opponents can make you seem ugly as well; instead, soak up their
blows, and play the victim. The public will rally to your side, in an emotional
response that will lay the groundwork for a grand political seduction. Symbol:
The Blemish. A beautifulface is a delight to look at, but if it is too perfect
it leaves us cold, and even slightly intimidated. It is the little mole, the
beauty mark, that makes the face human and lovable. So do not conceal all of
your blemishes. You need them to soften your features and elicit tender
feelings. Disarm Through Strategic Weakness and Vulnerability • 293 Reversal T
iming is everything in seduction; you should always look for signs that the
target is falling under your spell. A person falling in love tends to ignore
the other person's weaknesses, or to see them as endearing. An unseduced,
rational person, on the other hand, may find bashfulness or emotional outbursts
pathetic. There are also certain weaknesses that have no seductive value, no
matter how in love the target may be. The great seventeenth-century courtesan
Ninon de l'Enclos liked men with a soft side. But sometimes a man would go too
far, complaining that she did not love him enough, that she was too fickle and
independent, that he was beingmistreatedandwronged. For Ninon, such behavior
would break the spell, and she would quickly end the relationship. Complaining,
whining, neediness, and actively appealing for sympathy will appear to your
targets not as charming weaknesses but as manipulative attempts at a kind of
negative power. So when you play the victim, do it subtly, without
overadvertising it. The only weaknesses worth playing up are the ones that will
make you seem lovable. All others should be repressed and eradicated at all
costs. H Confuse Desire and Reality- The Perfect Illusion To compensate for the
difficulties in their lives, people spend a lot of their time daydreaming,
imagining a future full of adventure, success, and romance. If you can create
the illusion that through you they can live out their dreams, you will have
them at your mercy. It is important to start slowly, gaining their trust, and
gradually constructing the fantasy that matches their desires. Aim at secret
wishes that have been thwarted or repressed, stirring up uncontrollable
emotions, clouding their powers of reason. The perfect illusion is one that
does not depart too muchfrom reality, but has a touch of the unreal to it, like
a waking dream, head the seduced to a point of confusion in which they can no
longer tell the difference between illusion and reality. Fantasy in the Flesh I
n 1964, a twenty-year-old Frenchman named Bernard Bouriscout arrived in
Beijing, China, to work as an accountant in the French embassy. His first weeks
there were not what he had expected. Bouriscout had grown up in the French
provinces, dreaming of travel and adventure. When he had been assigned to come
to China, images of the Forbidden City, and of the gambling dens of Macao, had
danced in his mind. But this was Communist China, and contact between
Westerners and Chinese was almost impossible at the time. Bouriscout had to
socialize with the other Europeans stationed in the city, and what a boring and
cliquish lot they were. He grew lonely, regretted taking the assignment, and
began making plans to leave. Then, at a Christmas party that year, Bouriscout's
eyes were drawn to a young Chinese man in a corner of the room. He had never
seen anyone Chinese at any of these affairs. The man was intriguing: he was
slender and and introduced himself. The man, Shi Pei Pu, proved to be a writer
of Chinese-opera librettos who also taught Chinese to members of the French
embassy. Aged twenty-six, he spoke perfect French. Everything about him
fascinated Bouriscout; his voice was like music, soft and whis- pery, and he
left you wanting to know more about him. Bouriscout, although usually shy,
insistedonexchangingtelephone numbers. Perhaps Pei Pu could be his Chinese
tutor. They met a few days later in a restaurant. Bouriscout was the only
Westerner there-at last a taste of something real and exotic. Pei Pu, it turned
out, had been a well-known actor in Chinese operas and came from a family with
connections to the former ruling dynasty. Now he wrote operas about the
workers, but he said this with a look of irony They began to meet regularly,
Pei Pu showing Bouriscout the sights of Beijing. Bouriscout loved his
stories-Pei Pu talked slowly, and every historical detail seemed to come alive
as he spoke, his hands moving to embellish his words. This, he might say, is
where the last Ming emperor hung himself, pointing to the spot and telling the
story at the same time. Or, the cook in the restaurant we just ate in once
served in the palace of the last emperor, and then another magnificent tale
would follow. Pei Pu also talked of life in the Beijing Opera, where men often
played women's parts, and sometimes became famous for it. Lovers and madmen have
such seething brains, \ Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend \ More than cool
reason ever comprehends. SHAKESPEARE, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM He was not a
sex person. He was like . . . somebody who had come down from the clouds. He
was not human. You could notsayhe was a man friend or a woman friend; he was
somebody different anyway. . . . Youfeel he was only a friend who was coming
from another planet and so nice also, so overwhelming and separated from the
life of the ground. -BERNARD BOURISCOUT, IN JOYCE WADLER, LIAISON Romance had
again come her way personified by a handsome young German officer, Lieutenant
Konrad Friedrich, who called upon her at Neuilly to ask her help. He wanted
Pauline [Bonaparte ] to use her 291 298 influence with Napoleon in connection
with providing for the needs of the French troops in the Papal States. He made
an instantaneous impression on the princess, who escorted him around her garden
until they arrived at the rockery. There she stopped and, looking into the
young man's eyes mysteriously, commanded him to return to this same spot at the
same hour next day when she might have some good news for him. The young
officer bowed and took his leave. ... In his memoirs he revealed in detail what
took place after the first meeting with Pauline: • "At the hour agreed on
I again proceeded to Neuilly, made my way to the appointed spot in the garden
and stood waiting at the rockery. I had not been there very long when a lady
made her appearance, greeted me pleasantly and led me through a side door into
the interior oftherockerywhere there were several rooms and galleries and in
one splendid salon a luxurious-looking bath. The adventure was beginning to
strike me as very romantic, almost like a fairy tale, and just as I was
wondering what the outcome might be a woman in a robe of the sheerest cambric
entered by a side door, came up to me, and smilingly asked how I liked being
there. I at once recognized Napoleon's beautiful sister, whose perfect figure
was clearly outlined by every movement of her robe. She held out her handfor me
to kiss and told me to sit down on the couch beside her. On this occasion I
certainly was not the The two men became friends. Chinese contact with
foreigners was restricted, but they managed to find ways to meet. One evening
Bouriscout tagged along when Pei Pu visited the home of a French official to
tutor the children. He listened as Pei Pu told them "The Story of the
Butterfly," a tale from the Chinese opera: a young girl yearns to attend
an imperial school, but girls are not accepted there. She disguises herself as
a boy, passes the exams, and enters the school. A fellow student falls in love
with her, and she is attracted to him, so she tells him that she is actually a
girl. Like most of these tales, the story ends tragically. Pei Pu told it with
unusual emotion; in fact he had played the role of the girl in the operA few
nights later, as they were walking before the gates of the Forbidden City, Pei
Pu returned to "The Story of the Butterfly" "Look at my
hands," he said, "Look at my face. That story of the butterfly, it is
my story too." In his slow, dramatic delivery he explained that his
mother's first two children had been girls. Sons were far more important in
China; if the third child was a girl, the father would have to take a second
wife. The third child came: another girl. But the mother was too frightened to
reveal the truth, and made an agreement with the midwife: they would say that
the child was a boy, and it would be raised as such. This third child was Pei
Pu. Over the years, Pei Pu had had to go to extreme lengths to disguise her
sex. She never used public bathrooms, plucked her hairline to look as if she
were balding, on and on. Bouriscout was enthralled by the story, and also
relieved, for like the boy in the butterfly tale, deep down he felt attracted
to Pei Pu. Now everything made sense-the small hands, the high-pitched voice,
the delicate neck. He had fallen in love with her, and, it seemed, the feelings
were reciprocated. Pei Pu started visiting Bouriscout's apartment, and soon
they were sleeping together. She continued to dress as a man, even in his
apartment, but women in China wore men's clothes anyway, and Pei Pu acted more
like a woman than any oftheChinese women he had seen. In bed, she had a shyness
and a way of directing his hands that was both exciting and feminine. She made
everything romantic and heightened. When he was away from her, her every word
and gesture resonated in his mind. What made the affair all the more exciting
was the fact that they had to keep it secret. In December of 1965, Bouriscout
left Beijing and returned to Paris. He traveled, had other affairs, but his
thoughts kept returning to Pei Pu. The Cultural Revolution broke out in China,
and he lost contact with her. Before he had left, she had told him she was
pregnant with their child. He had no idea whether the baby had been born. His
obsession with her grew too strong, and in 1969 he finagled another government
job in Beijing. Contact with foreigners was now even more discouraged than on
his first visit, but he managed to track Pei Pu down. She told him she had
borne a son, in 1966, but he had looked like Bouriscout, and given the growing
hatred of foreigners in China, and the need to keep the secret of her sex, she
had him sent him away to an isolated region near Russia. It was so cold
there-perhaps he was dead. She showed Bouriscout photographs Confuse Desire and
Reality- of the boy, and he did see some resemblance. Over the next few weeks
they managed to meet here and there, and then Bouriscout had an idea: he
sympathized with the Cultural Revolution, and he wanted to get around the
prohibitions that were preventing him from seeing Pei Pu, so he offered to do
some spying. The offer was passed along to the right people, and soon
Bouriscout was stealing documents for the Communists. The son, named Bertrand,
was recalled to Beijing, and Bouriscout finally met him. Now a threefold
adventure filled Bouriscout's life: the alluring Pei Pu, the thrill of being a
spy, and the illicit child, whom he wanted to bring back to France. In 1972,
Bouriscout left Beijing. Over the next few years he tried repeatedly to get Pei
Pu and his son to France, and a decade later he finally succeeded; the three
became a family In 1983, though, the French authorities grew suspicious of this
relationship between a Foreign Office official and a Chinese man, and with a
little investigating they uncovered Bouriscout's spying. He was arrested, and
soon made a startling confession: the man he was living with was really a
woman. Confused, the French ordered an examination of Pei Pu; as they had
thought, he was very much a man. Bouriscout went to prison. Even after
Bouriscout had heard his former lover's own confession, he was still convinced
that Pei Pu was a woman. Her soft body, their intimate relationship-how could
he be wrong? Onlywhen Pei Pu, imprisoned in the same jail, showed him the
incontrovertible proof of his sex did Bouriscout finally accept it.
Interpretation. The moment Pei Pu met Bouriscout, he realized he had found the
perfect victim. Bouriscout was lonely, bored, desperate. The way he responded
to Pei Pu suggested that he was probably also homosexual, or perhaps
bisexual-at least confused. (Bouriscout in fact had had homosexual encounters
as a boy; guilty about them, he had tried to repress this side of himself.) Pei
Pu had played women's parts before, and was quite good at it; he was slight and
effeminate; physically it was not a stretch. But who would believe such a
story, or at least not be skeptical of it? The critical component of Pei Pu's
seduction, in which he brought the Frenchman's fantasy of adventure to life,
was to start slowly and set up an idea in his victims mind. In his perfect
French (which, however, was full of interesting Chinese expressions), he got
Bouriscout used to hearing stories and tales, some true, some not, but all
delivered in that dramatic yet believable tone. Then he planted the idea of
gender impersonation with his "Story of the Butterfly." By the time
he confessed the "truth" of his gender, Bouriscout was already
completely enchanted with him. Bouriscout warded off all suspicious thoughts
because he wanted tobelieve Pei Pu's story. From there it was easy Pei Pu faked
his periods; it didn't take much money to get hold of a child he could
reasonably pass off as their son. More important, he played the fantasy role to
the hilt, remaining elusive and mysterious (which was what a Westerner would
expect from an The Perfect Illusion • 299 seducer. .After an interval Pauline
pulled a hell rope and ordered the woman who answered to prepare a hath which
she asked me to share. Wearing bathgowns of the finest linen we remained for
nearly an hour in the crystal-clear bluish water. Then we had a grand dinner
served in another room and lingered on together until dusk. When I left I had
to promise to return again soon and I spent many afternoons with the princess
in the same way." BRENT, PAULINE
BONAPARTE: A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS The courtesan is meant to be a half-defined,
floating figure never fixing herself surely in the imagination. She is the
memory of an experience, the point at which a dream is transformed into reality
or reality into a dream. The bright colors fade, her name becomes a mere
echo-echo of an echo, since she has probably adopted it from some ancient
predecessor. The idea of the courtesan is a garden of delights in which the
lover walks, smelling first this flower and then that but
neverunderstandingwhence comes the fragrance that intoxicates him. Why should
the courtesan not elude analysis? She does not want to be recognized for what
she is, but rather to be allowed to be potent and effective. She offers the
truth of herself- - or, rather, of the passions that become directed toward
her. And what she gives back is one's self and an hour of grace in her
presence. Love revives 300 when you look at her: is that not enough? She is the
generative force of an illusion, the birth point of desire, the threshold of
contemplation of bodily beauty. -LYNNE LAWNER, LIVES OF THE COURTESANS:
PORTRAITS OF THE RENAISSANCE It was on March 16, the same day the Duke of
Gloucester wrote to Sir William, that Goethe recorded the first known
performance of what were destined to be called Emma's Attitudes. Just what
these were, we shall learn shortly. First, it must be emphasized that the
Attitudes were a show for favored eyes only. • . . . Goethe, disciple of
Winckelmann, was at this date thrilled by the human form, as a contemporary
writes. Here was the ideal spectatorfor the classical drama Emma and Sir
William had wrought in the long winter evenings.Let us take our seats beside
Goethe and settle to watch the show as he describes it. • "Sit William
Hamilton . . . has now, after many years of devotion to the arts and the study
of nature, found the acme of these delights in the person of an English girl of
twenty with a beautifulface and a perfect figure. He has had a Greek costume
made for her which becomes her extremely. Dressed in this, he lets down her
hair and, with a few shawls, gives so much variety to her poses, gestures,
expressions, etc. that the spectator can hardly believe his eyes. He sees what
thousands of artists would have liked to Asian woman) while enveloping his past
and indeed their whole experience in titillating bits of history. As Bouriscout
later explained, "Pei Pu screwed me in the head. ... I was having
relations and in my thoughts, my dreams, I was light-years away from what was
true." Bouriscout thought he was having an exotic adventure, an enduring
fantasy of his. Less consciously, he had an outlet for his repressed
homosexuality. Pei Pu embodied his fantasy, giving it flesh, by working first
on his mind. The mind has two currents: it wants to believe in things that are
pleasant to believe in, yet it has a self-protective need to be suspicious of
people. If you start off too theatrical, trying too hard to create a fantasy,
you will feed that suspicious side of the mind, and once fed, the doubts will
not go away. Instead, you must start slowly, building trust, while perhaps letting
people see a little touch of something strange or exciting about you to tease
their interest. Then you build up your story, like any piece of fiction. You
have established a foundation of trust-now the fantasies and dreams you envelop
them in are suddenly believable. Remember: people want to believe in the
extraordinary; with a little groundwork, a little mental foreplay, they will
fall for your illusion. If anything, err on the side of reality: use real props
(like the child Pei Pu showed Bouriscout) and add thefantastical touches in
your words, or an occasional gesture that gives you a slight unreality. Once
you sense that they are hooked, you can deepen the spell, go further and
further into the fantasy. At that point they will have gone so far into their
own minds that you will no longer have to bother with verisimilitude. Wish
Fulfillment I n 1762, Catherine, wife of Czar Peter III, staged a coup against
her ineffectual husband and proclaimed herself empress of Russia. Over the next
few years Catherine ruled alone, but kept a series of lovers. The Russians
called these men th evremienchiki, "the men of the moment," and in
1774 the man of the moment was Gregory Potemkin, a thirty-five-year-old
lieutenant, ten years younger than Catherine, and a most unlikely candidate for
the role. Potemkin was coarse and not at all handsome (he had lost an eye in an
accident). But he knew how to make Catherine laugh, and he worshiped her so
intensely that she eventually succumbed. He quickly became the love of her life.
Catherine promoted Potemkin higher and higher in the hierarchy, eventually
making him the governor of White Russia, a large southwestern area including
the Ukraine. As governor, Potemkin had to leave St. Petersburg and go to live
in the south. He knew that Catherine could not do without male companionship,
so he took it upon himself to name Catherine's subsequent vremienchiki. She not
only approved of this arrangement, she made it clear that Potemkin would always
remain her favorite. Catherine's dream was to start a war with Turkey,
recapture Constan- Confuse Desire and Reality-The Perfect Illusion • 301
tinople for the Orthodox Church, and drive the Turks out of Europe. She offered
to share this crusade with the young Hapsburg emperor, Joseph II, but Joseph
never quite brought himself to sign the treaty that would unite them in war.
Growing impatient, in 1783 Catherine annexed the Crimea, a southern peninsula
that was mostly populated by Muslim Tartars. She asked Potemkin to do there
what he had already managed to do in the Ukraine- rid the area of bandits,
build roads, modernize the ports, bring prosperity to the poor. Once he had
cleaned it up, the Crimea would make the perfect launching post for the war
against Turkey The Crimea was a backward wasteland, but Potemkin loved the
challenge. Getting to work on a hundred different projects, he grew intoxicated
with visions of the miracles he would perform there. He would establish a
capital on the Dnieper River, Ekaterinoslav ("To the glory of Catherine"),
that would rival St. Petersburg and would house a university outshining
anything in Europe. The countryside would hold endless fields of corn, orchards
with rare fruits from the Orient, silkworm farms, new towns with bustling
marketplaces. On a visit to the empress in 1785, Potemkin talked of these
things as if they already existed, so vivid were his descriptions. The empress
was delighted, but her ministers were skeptical-Potemkin loved to talk.
Ignoring their warnings, in 1787 Catherine arranged for a tour of the area. She
asked Joseph II to join her-he would be so impressed with the modernization of
the Crimea that he would immediately sign on for the war against Turkey.
Potemkin, naturally, was to organize the whole affair. And so, in May of that
year, after the Dnieper had thawed, Catherine prepared for a journey from Kiev,
in the Ukraine, to Sebastopol, in the Crimea. Potemkin arranged for seven
floating palaces to carry Catherine and her retinue down
theriver.Thejourneybegan,andasCatherine,Joseph,and the courtiers looked at the
shores to either side, they saw triumphal arches in front of clean-looking
towns, their walls freshly painted; healthy-looking cattle grazing in the
pastures; streams of marching troops on the roads; buildings going up everywhere.
At dusk they were entertained by bright-costumed peasants, and smiling girls
with flowers in their hair, dancing on the shore. Catherine had traveled
through this area many years before, and the poverty of the peasantry there had
saddened her-she had determined then that she would somehow change their lot.
To see before her eyes the signs of such a transformation overwhelmed her, and
she berated Potemkin's critics: Look at what my favorite has accomplished, look
at these miracles! They anchored at three towns along the way, staying in each
place in a magnificent, newly built palace with artificial waterfalls in the
English-style gardens. On land they moved through villages with vibrant
marketplaces; the peasants were happily at work, building and repairing.
Everywhere they spent the night, some spectacle filled their eyes-dances,
parades, mythological tableaux vivants, artificial volcanoes illuminating
Moorish gardens. Finally, at the end of the trip, in the palace at Sebastopol,
Catherine and express realized before him
inmovementsandsurprisingtransformationsstanding, kneeling, sitting, reclining,
serious, sad, playful, ecstatic, contrite, alluring, threatening, anxious, one
pose follows another without a break. She knows how to arrange the folds of her
veil to match each mood, and has a hundred ways of turning it into a headdress.
The old knight idolizes her and isquite enthusiastic about everything she does.
In her he has found all the antiquities, all the profiles of Sicilian coins,
even the Apollo Belvedere. This much is certain: as a performance it's like
nothing you ever saw before in your life. We have already enjoyed it on two
evenings." -FLORA FRASER, EMMA. LADY HAMILTON For this uncanny is in
reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-
established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the
process of repression. This reference to the factor of repression enables us,
furthermore, to understand Schelling's definition of the uncanny as something
which ought to have remained hidden but has come to light. .There is one more
point of general application which I should like to add. This is that an
uncanny ffkt is often and easily produced when the distinction between
imagination and reality is effaced, as when something that we have hitherto
regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality, or when a symbol takes over
the full functionsof the thing it symbolizes, and so on. It is this factor
which contributes not a little to the uncanny effect attaching to magical
practices. The infantile element in this, which also dominates the minds of
neurotics, is the overaccentuation of psychical reality in comparison with
material Joseph discussed the war with Turkey. Joseph reiterated his concerns.
Suddenly Potemkin interrupted: "I have 100,000 troops waiting for me to
say 'Go!' " At that moment the windows of the palace were flung open, and
to the sounds of booming cannons they saw lines of troops as far as the eye
could see, and a fleet of ships filling the harbor. Awed by the sight, images
of Eastern European cities retaken from the Turks dancing in his mind, Joseph
II finally signed the treaty. Catherine was ecstatic, and her love for Potemkin
reached new heights. He had made her dreams come true. Catherine never suspected
that almost everything she had seen was pure fakery, perhaps the most elaborate
illusion ever conjured up by one man. reality-a feature closely allied to the
belief in the omnipotence of thoughts. FREUD, "THE UNCANNY," IN
PSYCHOLOGICAL WRITINGSANDLETTERS Interpretation. In the four years that he had
been governor of the Crimea, Potemkin had accomplished little, for this
backwater would take decades to improve. But in the few months before
Catherine's visit he had done the following: every building that faced the road
or the shore was given a fresh coat of paint; artificial trees were set up to
hide unseemly spots in the view; broken roofs were repaired with flimsy boards
painted to look like tile; everyone the party would see was instructed to wear
their best clothes and look happy; everyone old and infirm was to stay indoors.
Floating in their palaces down the Dnieper, the imperial entourage saw
brand-new villages, but most of the buildings were only facades. The herds of
cattle were shipped from great distances, and were moved at night to fresh
fields along the route. The dancing peasants were trained for the
entertainments; after each one they were loaded into carts and hurriedly
transported to a new downriver location, as were the marching soldiers who
seemed to be everywhere. The gardens of the new palaces were filled with
transplanted trees that died a few days later. The palaces themselves were
quickly and badly built, but were so magnificently furnished that no one
noticed. One fortress along the way had been built of sand, and was destroyed a
little later by a thunderstorm. The cost of this vast illusion had been
enormous, and the war with Turkey would fail, but Potemkin had accomplished his
goal. To the observant, of course, there were signs along the way that all was
not as it seemed, but when the empress herself insisted that everything was
real and glorious, the courtiers could only agree. This was the essence of the
seduction: Catherine had wanted so desperately to be seen as a loving and progressive
ruler, one who would defeat the Turks and liberate Europe, that when she saw
signs of change in the Crimea, her mind filled in the picture. When our
emotions are engaged, we often have trouble seeing things as they are. Feelings
of love cloud our vision, making us color events to coincide with our desires.
To make people believe in the illusions you create, you need to feed the
emotions over which they have least control. Often the best way to do this is
to ascertain their unsatisfied desires, their wishes crying out for
fulfillment. Perhaps they want to see themselves as noble or romantic, but life
has thwarted them. Perhaps they want an adventure. If Confuse Desire and
Reality-The Perfect Illusion something seems to validate this wish, they become
emotional and irrational, almost to the point of hallucination. Remember to
envelop them in your illusion slowly. Potemkin did not start with grand
spectacles, but with simple sights along the way, such as grazing cattle. Then
he brought them on land, heightening the drama, until the calculated climax
when the windows were flung open to reveal a mighty war machine-actually a few
thousand men and boats lined up in such a way as to suggest many more. Like
Potemkin, involve the target in some kind ofjourney, physical or otherwise. The
feeling of a shared adventure is rife with fantasy associations. Make people
feel that they are getting to see and live out something that relates to their
deepest yearnings and they will see happy, prosperous villages where there are
only facades. Here the real journey through Potemkin's fairyland began. It was
like a dream-the waking dream of some magician who had discovered the secret of
materializing his visions. . . . [Catherine] and her companions had left the
world of reality behind. Their talk was of Iphigenia and the ancient gods, and
Catherine felt that she was both Alexander and Cleopatra. - GINA KAUS Keys to
Seduction T he real world can be unforgiving: events occur over which we have
little control, other people ignore our feelings in their quests to get what
they need, time runs out before we accomplish what we had wanted. If we ever
stopped to look at the present and future in a completely objective way, we
would despair. Fortunately we develop the habit of dreaming early on. In this
other, mental world that we inhabit, the future is full of rosy possibilities.
Perhaps tomorrow we will sell that brilliant idea, or meet the person who will
change our lives. Our culture stimulates these fantasies with constant images and
stories of marvelous occurrences and happy romances. The problem is, these
images and fantasies exist only in our minds, or on-screen. They really aren't
enough-we crave the real thing, not this endless daydreaming and titillation.
Your task as a seducer is to bring some flesh and blood into someone's fantasy
life by embodying a fantasy figure, or creating a scenario resembling that
person's dreams. No one can resist the pull of a secret desire that has come to
life before their eyes. You must first choose targets who have some repression
or dream unrealized-always the most likely victims of a seduction. Slowly and
gradually, you will build up the illusion that they are getting to see and feel
and live those dreams of theirs. Once they have this sensation they will lose
contact with reality, and begin to see your fantasy as more real than anything
else. And once they 304 The Art of Seduction lose touch with reality, they are
(to quote Stendhal on Lord Byron's female victims) like roasted larks that fall
into your mouth. Most people have a misconception about illusion. As any
magician knows, it need not be built out of anything grand or theatrical; the
grand and theatrical can in fact be destructive, calling too much attention to
you and your schemes. Instead create the appearance of normality. Once your
targets feel secure-nothing is out of the ordinary-you have room to deceive
them. Pei Pu did not spin the lie about his gender immediately; he took his
time, made Bouriscout come to him. Once Bouriscout had fallen for it, Pei Pu
continued to wear men's clothes. In animating a fantasy, the great mistake is
imagining it must be larger than life. That would border on camp, which is
entertaining but rarely seductive. Instead, what you aim for is what Freud called
the "uncanny," something strange and familiar at the same time, like
a deja vu, or a childhood memory-anything slightly irrational and dreamlike.
The uncanny, the mix of the real and the unreal, has immense power over our
imaginations. The fantasies you bring to life for your targets should not be
bizarre or exceptional; they should be rooted in reality, with a hint of the
strange, the theatrical, the occult (in talk of destiny, for example). You
vaguely remind people of something in their childhood, or a character in a film
or book. Even before Bouriscout heard Pei Pu's story, he had the uncanny
feeling ofsomethingremarkable and fantastical in this normal-looking man. The
secret to creating an uncanny effect is to keep it subtle and suggestive. Emma
Hart came from a prosaic background, her father a country blacksmith in
eighteenth-century England. Emma was beautiful, but had no other talents to her
credit. Yet she rose to become one of the greatest seductresses in history,
seducing first Sir William Hamilton, the English ambassador to the court of
Naples, and then (as Lady Hamilton, Sir William's wife) Vice-Admiral Lord
Nelson. What was strangest when you met her was an uncanny sense that she was a
figure from the past, a woman out of Greek myth or ancient history. Sir William
was a collector of Greek and Roman antiquities; to seduce him, Emma cleverly
made herself resemble a Greek statue, and mythical figures in paintings of the
time. It was not just the way she wore her hair, or dressed, but her poses, the
way she carried herself. It was as if one of the paintings he collected had
come to life. Soon Sir William began to host parties in his home in Naples at
which Emma would wear costumes and pose, re-creating images from mythology and
history. Dozens of men fell in love with her, for she embodied an image from
their childhood, an image of beauty and perfection. The key to this fantasy
creation was some sharedcultural association-mythology, historical seductresses
like Cleopatra. Every culture has a pool of such figures from the distant and
not-so-distant past. You hint at a similarity, in spirit and in appearance-but
you are flesh and blood. What could be more thrilling than the sense of being
in the presence of some fantasy figure going back to your earliest memories?
One night Pauline Bonaparte, the sister of Napoleon, held a gala affair Confuse
Desire and Reality-The Perfect Illusion • 305 in her house. Afterward, a
handsome German officer approached her in the garden and asked for her help in
passing along a request to the emperor. Pauline said she would do her best, and
then, with a rather mysterious look in her eye, asked him to come back to the
same spot the next night. The officer returned, and was greeted by a young
woman who led him to some rooms near the garden and then to a magnificent
salon, complete with an extravagant bath. Moments later, another young woman
entered through a side door, dressed in the sheerest garments. It was Pauline.
Bells were rung, ropes were pulled, and maids appeared, preparing the bath,
giving the officer a dressing gown, then disappearing. The officer later
described the evening as something out of a fairy tale, and he had the feeling
that Pauline was deliberately acting the part of somemythical seductress.
Pauline was beautiful and powerful enough to get almost any man she wanted, and
she wasn't interested simply in luring a man into bed; she wanted to envelop
him in romantic adventure, seduce his mind. Part of the adventure was the
feeling that she was playing a role, and was inviting her target along into
this shared fantasy. Role playing is immensely pleasurable. Its appeal goes
back to childhood, where we first leam the thrill of trying on different parts,
imitating adults or figures out of fiction. As we get older and society fixes a
role on us, a part of us yearns for the playful approach we once had, the masks
we were able to wear. We still want to play that game, to act a different role
in life. Indulge your targets in this wish by first making it clear that you
are playing a role, then inviting them to join you in a shared fantasy. The
more you set things up like a play or a piece of fiction, the better. Notice
how Pauline began the seduction with a mysterious request that the officer
reappear the next night; then a second woman led him into a magical series of
rooms. Pauline herself delayed her entrance, and when she appeared, she did not
mention his business with Napoleon, or anything remotely banal. She had an
ethereal air about her; he was being invited to enter a fairy tale. The evening
was real, but had an uncanny resemblance to an erotic dream. Casanova took role
playing still further. He traveled with an enormous wardrobe and a trunk full
of props, many of them gifts for his targets- fans, jewels, other accouterments.
And some of the things he said and did were borrowed from novels he had read
and stories he had heard. He enveloped women in a romantic atmosphere that was
heightened yet quite real to their senses. Like Casanova, you must see the
world as a kind of theater. Inject a certain lightness into the roles you are
playing; try to create a sense of drama and illusion; confuse people with the
slight unreality of words and gestures inspired by fiction; in daily life, be
the consummate actor. Our culture reveres actors because of their freedom to
play roles. It is something that all of us envy. For years, the Cardinal de
Rohan had been afraid that he had somehow offended his queen, Marie Antoinette.
She would not so much as look at him. Then, in 1784, the Comtesse de
Lamotte-Valois suggested to him that the queen was prepared not only to change
this situation but actually to befriend him. The queen, said Lamotte-Valois,
would indicate this in her next formal reception-she would nod to him in a
particular way. During the reception, Rohan indeed noticed a slight change in
the queen's behavior toward him, and a barelyperceptibleglance at him. He was
oveijoyed. Now the countess suggested they exchange letters, and Rohan spent
days writing and rewriting his first letter to the queen. To his delight he
received one back. Next the queen requested a private interview with him in the
gardens of Versailles. Rohan was beside himself with happiness and anxiety. At
nightfall he met the queen in the gardens, fell to the ground, and kissed the
hem of her dress. "You may hope that the past will be forgotten," she
said. At this moment they heard voices approaching, and the queen, frightened
that someone would see them together, quickly fled with her servants. But Rohan
soon received a request from her, again through the countess: she desperately
wanted to acquire the most beautiful diamond necklace ever created. She needed
a go-between to purchase it for her, since the king thought it too expensive.
She had chosen Rohan for the task. The cardinal was only too willing; in
performing this task he would prove his loyalty, and the queen would be
indebted to him forever. Rohan acquired the necklace. The countess was to
deliver it to the queen. Now Rohan waited for the queen both to thank him and
slowly to pay him back. Yet this never happened. The countess was in fact a
grand swindler; the queen had never nodded to him, he had only imagined it. The
letters he had received from her were forgeries, and not even very good ones.
The woman he had met in the park had been a prostitute paid to dress and act
the part. The necklace was of course real, but once Rohan had paid for it, and
handed it over to the countess, it disappeared. It was broken into parts, which
were hawked all over Europe for enormous amounts. And when Rohan finally
complained to the queen, news of the extravagant purchase spread rapidly. The
public believed Rohan's story-that the queen had indeed bought the necklace,
and was pretending otherwise. This fiction was the first step in the ruin of
her reputation. Everyone has lost something in life, has felt the pangs of
disappointment. The idea that we can get something back, that a mistake can be
righted, is immensely seductive. Under the impression that the queen was
prepared to forgive some mistake he had made, Rohan hallucinated all kinds of
things-nods that did not exist, letters that were the flimsiest of forgeries, a
prostitute who became Marie Antoinette. The mind is infinitely vulnerable to
suggestion, and even more so when strong desires are involved. And nothing is
stronger than the desire to change the past, right a wrong, satisfy a
disappointment. Find these desires in your victims and creating a believable
fantasy will be simple for you: few have the power to see through anillusion
they desperately want to believe in. Confuse Desire and Reality-The Perfect
Illusion • 307 Symbol: Shangri-La. Everyone has a vision in their mind of a
perfect place where people are kind and noble, where their dreams can be
realized and their wishes fulfilled, where life isfull of adventure and
romance. Lead the target on a journey there, give them a glimpse of
Shangri- La through the mists on the mountain, and they willfall in love.
Reversal T here is no reversal to this chapter. No seduction can proceed
without creating illusion, the sense of a world that is real but separate from
reality. 15 Isolate the Victim An isolated person is weak. By slowly isolating
your victims, you make them more vulnerable to your influence. Their isolation
may be psychological: by filling their field of vision through the pleasurable
attention you pay them, you crowd out everything else in their mind. They see
and think only of you. The isolation may also be physical: you take them away
from their normal milieu, friends, family, home. Give them the sense of being
marginalized, in limbo-they are leaving one world behind and entering another.
Once isolated like this, they have no outside support, and in their confusion
they are easily led astray. Lure the seduced into your lair, where nothing is
familiar. Isolation-the Exotic Effect I n the early fifth century B.C., Fu
Chai, the Chinese king of Wu, defeated his great enemy, Kou Chien, the king of
Yueh, in a series of battles. Kou Chien was captured and forced to serve as a groom
in Fu Chai's stables. He was finally allowed to return home, but every year he
had to pay a large tribute of money and gifts to Fu Chai. Over the years, this
tribute added up, so that the kingdom of Wu prospered and Fu Chai grew wealthy
One year Kou Chien sent a delegation to Fu Chai: they wanted to know if he
would accept a gift of two beautiful maidens as part of the tribute. Fu Chai
was curious, and accepted the offer. The women arrived a few days later, amid
much anticipation, and the king received them in his palace. The two approached
the throne-their hair was magnificendy coiffured, in what was called "the
cloud-cluster" style, ornamented with pearl ornaments and kingfisher
feathers. As they walked, jade pendants hanging from their girdles made the
most delicate sound. The air was full of some delightful perfume. The king was
extremely pleased. The beauty of one of the girls far surpassed that of the
other; her name was Hsi Shih. She looked him in the eye without a hint of
shyness; in fact she was confident and coquettish, something he was not used to
seeing in such a young girl. Fu Chai called for festivities to
commemoratetheoccasion. The halls of the palace filled with revelers; inflamed
with wine, Hsi Shih danced before the king. She sang, and her voice was
beautiful. Reclining on a couch of white jade, she looked like a goddess. The
king could not leave her side. The next day he followed her everywhere. To his
astonishment, she was witty, sharp, and knowledgeable, and could quote the
classics better than he could. When he had to leave her to deal with royal
affairs, his mind was full of her image. Soon he brought her with him to his
councils, asking her advice on important matters. She told him to listen less
to his ministers; he was wiser than they were, his judgment superior. Hsi
Shill's power grew daily. Yet she was not easy to please; if the king failed to
grant some wish of hers, tears would fill her eyes, his heart would melt, and
he would yield. One day she begged him to build her a palace outside the
capital. Of course, he obliged her. And when he visited the palace, he was
astounded at its magnificence, even though he had paid the bills: Hsi Shih had
filled it with the most extravagant furnishings. The grounds contained an
artificial lake with marble bridges crossing over it. Fu Chai spent more and
more time here, sitting by a pool and watching Hsi In the state of Wu great
preparations had been made for the reception of the two beauties. The king
received them in audience surrounded by his ministers and all his court. As
they approached him the jade pendants attached to their girdles made a musical
sound and the air was fragrant with the scent of their gowns. Pearl ornaments
and kingfisher feathers adorned their hair. • Fu Chai, the king of Wu, looked
into the lovely eyes of Hsi Shih (495-472 B.C.) and forgot his people and his
state. Now she did not turn away and blush as she had done three
yearspreviously beside the little brook. She was complete mistress of the art
of seduction and she knew how to encourage the king to look again. Fu Chai
hardly noticed the second girl, whose quiet charms did not attract him. He had
eyes only for Hsi Shih, and before the audience was over those at court
realized that the girl would be a force to be reckoned with and that she would
be able to influence the king either for good or ill. ..." Amidst the
revelers in the halls of Wu, Hsi Shih wove her net offascination about the
heart of the susceptible monarch. . . . "Inflamed by wine, she now begins
to sing / The songs of Wu to please the fatuous king; / And in the dance of Tsu
she subtly blends /All rhythmic movements to her sensuous ends." . . . But
she could do more than sing and dance to amuse the king. She had wit, and her
grasp of politics astonished him. When there was anything she wanted she could
shed tears which so moved her lover's heart that he could refuse her nothing.
For she was, as Fan Li had said, the one and only, the incomparable Hsi Shih,
whose magnetic personality attracted everyone, many even against their own
will. Embroidered Shih comb her hair, using the pool as a mirror. He would
watch her playing with her birds, in their jeweled cages, or simply walking
through the palace, for she moved like a willow in the breeze. The months went
by; he stayed in the palace. He missed councils, ignored his family and
friends, neglected his public functions. He lost track of time. When a
delegation came to talk to him of urgent matters, he was too distracted to
listen. If anything but Hsi Shih took up his time, he worried unbearably that
she would be angry. Finally word reached him of a growing crisis: the fortune
he had spent on the palace had bankrupted the treasury, and the people were
discontented. He returned to the capital, but it was too late: an army from the
kingdom of Yueh had invaded Wu, and had reached the capital. All was lost. Fu
Chai had no time to rejoin his beloved Hsi Shih. Instead of letting himself be
captured by the king of Yueh, the man who had once served in his stables, he
committed suicide. Little did he know that Kou Chien had plotted this invasion
for years, and that Hsi Shift's elaborate seduction was the main part of his
plan. Interpretation. Kou Chien wanted to make sure that his invasion of Wu
would not fail. His enemy was not Fu Chai's armies, or his wealth and his
resources, but his mind. If he could be deeply distracted, his mind filled with
something other than affairs of state, he would fall like ripe fruit. Kou Chien
found the most beautiful maiden in his realm. For three silk curtains encrusted
with coral and gems, scented furniture and screens inlaid with jade and
mother-of- pearl were among the luxuries which surrounded the favorite. . . .
On one of the hills near the palace there was a celebrated pool of clear water which
has been known ever since as the pool of the king of Wu. Here, to amuse her
lover, Hsi Shih would make her toilet, using the pool as a mirror while the
infatuated king combed her hair. HIBBERT, EMBROIDERED GAUZE: PORTRAITS OR
FAMOUS CHINESE LADIES years he had her trained in all of the arts-not just
singing, dancing, and calligraphy, but how to dress, how to talk, how to play
the coquette. And it worked: Hsi Shih did not allow Fu Chai a moment's rest.
Everything about her was exotic and unfamiliar. The more attention he paid to
her hair, her moods, her glances, the way she moved, the less he thought about
diplomacy and war. Hewas driven to distraction. All of us today are kings
protecting the tiny realm of our own lives, weighed down by all kinds of responsibilities,
surrounded by ministers and advisers. A wall forms around us-we are immune to
the influence of other people, because we are so preoccupied. Like Hsi Shih,
then, you must lure your targets away, gently, slowly, from the affairs that
fill their mind. And what will best lure them from their castles is the whiff
of the exotic. Offer something unfamiliar that will fascinate them and hold
their attention. Be different in your manners and appearance, and slowly
envelop them in this different world of yours. Keep your targets off balance
with coquettish changes of mood. Do not worry that the disruption you represent
is making them emotional-that is a sign of their growing weakness. Most people
are ambivalent: on the one hand they feel comforted by their habits and duties,
on the other they are bored, and ripe for anything that seems exotic, that
seems to come from somewhere else. They may struggle or have doubts, but exotic
pleasures are irresistible. The more you can get them Isolate the Victim • 313
into your world, the weaker they become. As with the king of Wu, by the time
they realize what has happened, it is too late. Isolation-The "Only
You" Effect I n 1948, the twenty-nine-year-old actress Rita Hayworth,
known as Hollywood's Love Goddess, was at a low point in her life. Her marriage
to Orson Welles was breaking up, her mother had died, and her career seemed
stalled. That summer she headed for Europe. Welles was in Italy at the time,
and in the back of her mind she was dreaming of a reconciliation. Rita stopped
first at the French Riviera. Invitations poured in, particularly from wealthy
men, for at the time she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world.
Aristotle Onassis and the Shah of Iran telephoned her almost daily, begging for
a date. She turned them all down. A few days after her arrival, though, she
received an invitation from Elsa Maxwell, the society hostess, who was giving a
little party in Cannes. Rita balked but Maxwell insisted, telling her to buy a
new dress, show up a little late, and make a grand entrance. Rita played along,
and arrived at the party wearing a white Grecian gown, her red hair falling
over her bare shoulders. She was greeted by a reaction she had grown used to:
all conversation stopped as both men and women turned in their chairs, the men
gazing in amazement, the women jealous. A man hurried to her side and escorted
her to her table. It was thirty-seven-year-old Prince Aly Khan, the son of the
Aga Khan III, who was the worldwide leader of the Islamic Ismaili sect andone
of the richest men in the world. Rita had been warned about Aly Khan, a
notorious rake. To her dismay, they were seated next to each other, and he
never left her side. He asked her a million questions-about Hollywood, her
interests, on and on. She began to relax a little and open up. There were other
beautiful women there, princesses, actresses, but Aly Khan ignored them all,
acting as if Rita were the only woman there. He led her onto the dance floor,
and though he was an expert dancer, she felt uncomfortable-he held her a little
too close. Still, when he offered to drive her back to her hotel, she agreed.
They sped along the Grande Corniche; it was a beautiful night. For one evening
she had managed to forget her many problems, and she was grateful, but she was
still in love with Welles, and an affair with a rake like Aly Khan was not what
she needed. Aly Khan had to fly off on business for a few days; he begged her
to stay at the Riviera until he got back. While he was away, he telephoned constantly.
Every morning a giant bouquet of flowers arrived. On the telephone he seemed
particularly annoyed that the Shah of Iran was trying hard to see her, and he
made her promise to break the date to which she had finally agreed. During this
time, a gypsy fortune-teller visited the hotel, and Rita agreed to have her
fortune read. "Youareaboutto embark on the In Cairo Aly bumped into [the
singer ] Juliette Greco again. He asked her to dance. • "You have too bad
a reputation," she replied. "We're going to sit very much apart.
" • "What are you doing tomorrow?" he insisted. • "Tomorrow
I take a plane to Beirut." • When she boarded the plane, Aly was already
on it, grinning at her surprise. . . . • Dressed in tight black leather slacks
and a black sweater [Greco] stretched languorously in an armchair of her Paris
house and observed: • "They say I am a dangerous woman. Well, Aly was a
dangerous man. He was charming in a very special way. There is a kind of man
who is very clever with women. He takes you out to a restaurant and if the most
beautiful woman comes in, he doesn't look at her. He makes youfeel you are a
queen. Of course, I understood it. I didn't believe it. I would laugh and point
out the beautiful woman. But that is me. . . . Most women are made very happy
by that kind of attention. It's pure vanity. She thinks, 'I'll be the one and
the others will leave.' • "... With Aly, how the woman felt was most
important. . . . He was a great charmer, a great seducer. He made you feel fine
and that everything was easy. No problems. Nothing to worry about. Or regret.
It was always, 'What can I do for you? What do you need?' Airplane tickets,
cars, boats; you felt you were on a pink cloud." -LEONARD SLATER, ALY: A
BIOGRAPHY 314 ANNE: Didst thou not kill this king [Henry VI]? \ RICHARD: I
grant ye. . . . \ ANNE: And thou unfit for any place, but hell. \ RICHARD: Yes,
one place else, if you will hear me name it. \ ANNE: Some dungeon. \ RICHARD:
Your bedchamber, \ ANNE: III rest betide the chamber where thou liest! \ RICHARD:
So will it, madam, till I lie with you. . . . But gentle Lady Anne . . . \ Is
not the causer of the timeless deaths \ Of these Plantagenets, Henry and
Edward, \ As blameful as the executioner? \ ANNE: Thou wast the cause and most
accursed effect. \ RICHARD: Your beauty was the cause of that effect - \ Your
beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep \ To undertake the death of all the
world, \ So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom. -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III My child, my sister, dream \ How sweet all
things would seem \ Were we in that kind land to live together, \And there love
slow and long, \ There love and die among \ Those scenes that image you, that
sumptuous weather. \ Drowned suns that glimmer there \ Through cloud-dishevelled
air \ Move me with such a mystery as appears \ Within those other skies \ Of
your treacherous eyes \ When I behold them shining through their tears. \
There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, \ Richness, quietness, and
pleasure. . . . \ See, greatest romance of your life," the gypsy told her.
"He is somebody you already know. . . . You must relent and give in to him
totally. Only if you do that will you find happiness at long last." Not
knowing who this man could be, Rita, who had a weakness for the occult, decided
to extend her stay. Aly Khan came back; he told her that his chateau
overlooking the Mediterranean was the perfect place to escape from the press
and forget her troubles, and that he would behave himself. She relented. Life
in the chateau was like a fairy tale; wherever she turned, his Indian helpers
were there to attend to her every wish. At night he would take her into his
enormous ballroom, where they would dance all by themselves. Could this be the
man the fortune-teller meant? Aly Khan invited his friends over to meet her.
Among this strange company she felt alone again, and depressed; she decided to
leave the chateau. Just then, as if he had read her thoughts, Aly Khan whisked
her off to Spain, the country that fascinated her most. The press caught on to
the affair, and began to hound them in Spain: Rita had had a daughter with
Welles-was this any way for a mother to act? Aly Khan's reputation did not
help, but he stood by her, shielding her from the press as best he could. Now
she was more alone than ever, and more dependent on him. Near the end of the
trip, Aly Khan proposed to Rita. She turned him down; she did not think he was
the kind of man you married. He followed her to Hollywood, where her former
friends were less friendly than before. Thank God she had Aly Khan to help her.
A year later she finally succumbed, abandoning her career, moving to Aly Khan's
chateau, and marrying him. Interpretation. Aly Khan, like a lot of men, fell in
love with Rita Hayworth the moment he saw the film Gilda, in 1948. He made up
his mind that he would seduce her somehow. The moment he heard she was coming
to the Riviera, he got his friend Elsa Maxwell to lure her to the party and
seat her next to him. He knew about the breakup of her marriage, and how
vulnerable she was. His strategy was to block out everything else in her
world-problems, other men, suspicion of him and his motives, etc. His campaign
began with the display of an intense interest in her life- constant phone
calls, flowers, gifts, all to keep him in her mind. He set up the
fortune-teller to plant the seed. When she began to fall for him, he introduced
her to his friends, knowing she would feel alienated among them, and therefore
dependent on him. Her dependence was heightened by the trip to Spain, where she
was on unfamiliar territory, besieged by reporters, and forced to cling to him
for help. He slowly came to dominate her thoughts. Everywhere she turned, there
he was. Finally she succumbed, out of weakness and the boost to her vanity that
his attention represented. Under his spell, she forgot about his horrid
reputation, relinquishing the suspicions that were the only thing protecting
her from him. It was not Aly Khan's wealth or looks that made him a great
seducer. Isolate the Victim • 315 He was not in fact very handsome, and his
wealth was more than offset by his bad reputation. His success was strategic:
he isolated his victims, working so slowly and subtly that they did not notice
it. The intensity of his attention made a woman feel that in his eyes, at that
moment, she was the only woman in the world. This isolation was experienced as
pleasure; the woman did not notice her growing dependence, how the way he
filled up her mind with his attention slowly isolated her from her friends and
her milieu. Her natural suspicions of the man were drowned out by his
intoxicating effect on her ego. Aly Khan almost always capped off his
seductions by taking the woman to some enchanted place on the globe-a place
that he knew well, but where the woman felt lost. Do not give your targets the
time or space to worry about, suspect, or resist you. Flood them with the kind
of attention that crowds out all other thoughts, concerns, and problems.
Remember-people secretly yearn to be led astray by someone who knows where they
are going. It can be a pleasure to let go, and even to feel isolated and weak,
if the seduction is done slowly and gracefully. Put them in a spot where they
have no place to go, and they will die before fleeing. shelteredfrom the swells
\ There in the still canals \ Those drowsy ships that dream of sailingforth; \
It is to satisfy \ Your least desire, they ply \ Hither through all the waters
of the earth. \ The sun at close of day \ Clothes the fields of hay, \ Then the
canals, at last the town entire \ In hyacinth and gold: \ Slowly the land is
rolled \ Sleepward under a sea of gentle fire. \ There, there is nothing else
but grace and measure, \ Richness, quietness, and pleasure. -CHARLES
BAUDELAIRE, "INVITATION TO THEVOYAGE," THE FLOWERS OF EVIL, Keys to
Seduction T he people around you may seem strong, and more or less in control
of their lives, but that is merely a facade. Underneath, people are more
brittle than they let on. What lets them seem strong is the series of nests and
safety nets they envelop themselves in-their friends, their families, their
daily routines, which give them a feeling of continuity, safety, and control.
Suddenly pull the rug out from under them, drop them alone into some foreign
place where the familiar signposts are gone or scrambled, and you will see a
very different person. A target who is strong and settled is hard to seduce.
But even the strongest people canbe made vulnerable if you can isolate them
from their nests and safety nets. Block out their friends and family with your
constant presence, alienate them from the world they are used to, and take them
to places they do not know. Get them to spend time in your environment.
Deliberately disturb their habits, get them to do things they have never done.
They will grow emotional, making it easier to lead them astray. Disguise all
this in the form of a pleasurable experience, and your targets will wake up one
day distanced from everything that normally comforts them. Then they will turn
to you for help, like a child crying out for its mother when the lights are
turned out. In seduction, as in warfare, the isolated target is weak and
vulnerable. In Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, written in 1748, the rake Lovelace
is The Art of Seduction attempting to seduce the novel's beautiful heroine.
Clarissa is young, virtuous, and very much protected by her family. But
Lovelace is a conniving seducer. First he courts Clarissa's sister, Arabella. A
match between them seems likely. Then he suddenly switches attention to
Clarissa, playing on sibling rivalry to make Arabella furious. Their brother,
James, is angered by Lovelace's change in sentiments; he fights with Lovelace
and is wounded. The whole family is in an uproar, united against Lovelace, who,
however, manages to smuggle letters to Clarissa, and to visit her when she is
at the house of a friend. The family finds out, and accuses her of disloyalty.
Clarissa is innocent; she has not encouraged Lovelace's letters or visits. But
now her parents are determined to marry her off, to a rich older man. Alone in
the world, about to be married to a man she finds repulsive, she turns to
Lovelace as the only one who can save her from this mess. Eventually he rescues
her by getting her to London, where she can escape this dreaded marriage, but
where she is also hopelessly isolated. In these circumstances her feelings
toward him soften. All of this has been masterfully orchestrated by Lovelace
himself-the turmoil within the family, Clarissa's eventual alienation from
them, the whole scenario. Your worst enemies in a seduction are often your
targets' family and friends. They are outside your circle and immune to your
charms; they may provide a voice of reason to the seduced. You must work
silently and subtly to alienate the target from them. Insinuate that they are
jealous of your target's good fortune in finding you, or that they are parental
figures who have lost a taste for adventure. The latter argument is extremely
effective with young people, whose identities are in flux and who are more than
ready to rebel against any authority figure,particularly their parents. You
represent excitement and life; the friends and parents represent habit and
boredom. In Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King Richard III, Richard, when still
the Duke of Gloucester, has murdered King Henry VI and his son. Prince Edward.
Shortly thereafter he accosts Lady Anne, Prince Edward's widow, who knows what
he has done to the two men closest to her, and who hates him as much as a woman
can hate. Yet Richard attempts to seduce her. His method is simple: he tells
her that what he did, he did because of his love for her. He wanted there to be
no one in her life but him. His feelings were so strong he was driven to
murder. Of course Lady Anne not only resists this line of reasoning, she abhors
him. But he persists. Anne is at a moment of extreme vulnerability-alone in the
world, with no one to support her, at the height of grief. Incredibly, his
words begin to have an effect. Murder is not a seductive tactic, but the seducer
does enact a kind of killing-a psychological one. Our past attachments are a
barrier to the present. Even people we have left behind can continue to have a
hold on us. As a seducer you will be held up to the past, compared to previous
suitors, perhaps found inferior. Do not let it get to that point. Crowd out the
past with your attentions in the present. If necessary, find waysto disparage
their previous lovers-subtly or not so subtly, depending on the situation. Even
go so far as to open old wounds, making them feel old pain and seeing by con-
Isolate the Victim trast how much better the present is. The more you can
isolate them from their past, the deeper they will sink with you into the
present. The principle of isolation can be taken literally by whisking the
target off to ait exotic locale. This was Aly Khan's method; a secluded island
worked best, and indeed islands, cut off from the rest of the world, have
always been associated with the pursuit of sensual pleasures. The Roman Emperor
Tiberius descended into debauchery once he made his home on the island of
Capri. The danger of travel is that your targets are intimately exposed to
you-it is hard to maintain an air of mystery. But if you take them to a place
alluring enough to distract them, you will prevent them from focusing on
anything banal in your character. Cleopatra lured Julius Caesar into taking a
voyage down the Nile. Moving deeper into Egypt, he was further isolated from
Rome, and Cleopatra was all the more seductive. The early-twentieth-century
lesbian seductress Natalie Barney had an on- again-off-again affair with the
poet Renee Vivien; to regain her affections, she took Renee on a trip to the
island of Lesbos, a place Natalie had visited many times. In doing so she not
only isolated Renee but disarmed and distracted her with the associations of
the place, the home of the legendary lesbian poet Sappho. Vivien even began to
imagine that Natalie was Sappho herself. Do not take the target just anywhere;
pick the place that will have the most effective associations. The seductive
power of isolation goes beyond the sexual realm. When new adherents joined
Mahatma Gandhi's circle of devoted followers, they were encouraged to cut off
their ties with the past-with their family and friends. This kind of
renunciation has been a requirement of many religious sects over the centuries.
People who isolate themselves in this way are much more vulnerable to influence
and persuasion. A charismatic politician feeds off and even encourages people's
feelings of alienation. John F. Kennedy did this to great effect when he subtly
disparaged the Eisenhower years; the comfort of the 1950s, he implied,
compromised American ideals. He invited Americans to join him in a new life, on
a "New Frontier," full of danger and excitement. It was an extremely
seductive lure, particularly for the young, who were Kennedy's most
enthusiastic supporters. Finally, at some point in the seduction there must be
a hint of danger in the mix. Your targets should feel that they are gaining a
greatadventure in following you, but are also losing something-a part of their
past, their cherished comfort. Actively encourage these ambivalent feelings. An
element of fear is the proper spice; although too much fear is debilitating, in
small doses it makes us feel alive. Like diving out of an airplane, it is
exciting, a thrill, at the same time that it is a little frightening. And the
only person there to break the fall, or catch them, is you. Symbol: The Pied
Piper. A jolly fellow in his red and yellow cloak, he lures the childrenfrom
their homes with the delightful sounds of his flute. Enchanted, they do not
notice how far they are walking, how they are leaving their families behind.
They do not even notice the cave he eventually leads them into, and which
closes upon them forever. Reversal T he risks of this strategy are simple:
isolate someone too quickly and you will induce a sense of panic that may end
up in the target's taking flight. The isolation you bring must be gradual, and
disguised as pleasure- the pleasure of knowing you, leaving the world behind.
In any case, some people are too fragile to be cut off from their base of
support. The great modern courtesan Pamela Harriman had a solution to this
problem: she isolated her victims from their families, their former or present
wives, and in place of those old connections she quickly set up new comforts
for her lovers. She overwhelmed them with attention, attending to their every
need. In the case of Averill Harriman, the billionaire who eventually married
her, she literally established a new home for him, one that had no associations
with the past and was full of the pleasures of the present. It is unwise to
keep the seduced dangling in midair for too long, with nothing familiar or
comforting in sight. Instead, replace the familiar things you have cut them off
from with a new home, a new series of comforts. Phase Three ThePrecipice -
Deepening the Effect Through Extreme Measures The goal in this phase is to make
everything deeper-the effect you have on their mind, feelings of love and
attachment, tension within your victims. With your hooks deep into them, you
can then push them back andforth, between hope and despair, until they weaken
and snap. Showing how far you are willing to go for your victims, doing some
noble or chivalrous deed (16: Prove yourself) will create a powerful jolt,
spark an intensely positive reaction. Everyone has scars, repressed desires,
and unfinished business from childhood. Bring these desires and wounds to the
surface, make your victims feel they are getting what they never got as a child
and you will penetrate deep into their psyche, stir uncontrollable emotions
(17: Effect a regression).Now you can take your victims past their limits,
getting them to act out their dark sides, adding a sense of danger to your
seduction (18: Stir up the transgressive and taboo). You need to deepen the
spell, and nothing will more confuse and enchant your victims than giving your
seduction a spiritual veneer. It is not lust that motivates you, but destiny,
divine thoughts and everything elevated (19: Use spiritual lures). The erotic
lurks beneath the spiritual. Now your victims have been properly set up. By
deliberately hurting them, instilling fears and anxieties, you will lead them
to the edge of the precipicefrom which it will be easy to push and make them
fall (20: Mix pleasure with pain). They feel great tension and are yearning for
relief. i6 Prove Yourself Most people want to be seduced. If they resist your
efforts, it is probably because you have not gone far enough to allay their
doubts-about your motives, the depth of your feelings, and so on. One
well-timed action that shows how far you are willing to go to win them over
will dispel their doubts. Do not worry about looking foolish or making a
mistake-any kind of deed that is self-sacrificing and for your targets' sake
will so overwhelm their emotions, they won't notice anything else. Never appear
discouraged by people 's resistance, or complain. Instead, meet the challenge
by doing something extreme or chivalrous. Conversely, spur others to prove
themselves by making yourself hard to reach, unattainable, worth fighting over.
Seductive Evidence A nyone can talk big, say lofty things about their feelings,
insist on how much they care for us, and also for all oppressed peoples in the
far reaches of the planet. But if they never behave in a way that will back up
their words, we begin to doubt their sincerity-perhaps we are dealing with a
charlatan, or a hypocrite or a coward. Flattery and fine words can only go so
far. A time will eventually arrive when you will have to show your victim some
evidence, to match your words with deeds. This kind of evidence has two
functions. First, it allays any lingering doubts about you. Second, an action
that reveals some positive quality in you is immensely seductive in and of
itself. Brave or selfless deeds create a powerful and positive emotional
reaction. Don't worry, your deeds do not have to be so brave and selfless that
you lose everything in the process. The appearance alone of nobility will often
suffice. In fact, in a world where people overanalyze and talk too much, any
kind of action has a bracing, seductive effect. It is normal in the course of a
seduction to encounter resistance. The more obstacles you overcome, of course,
the greater the pleasure that awaits you, but many a seduction fails because
the seducer does not correctly read the resistances of the target. More often
than not, you give up too easily. First, understand a primary law of seduction:
resistance is a sign that the other person's emotions are engaged in the
process. The only person you cannot seduce is somebody distant and cold.
Resistance is emotional, and can be transformed into its opposite, much as, in
jujitsu, the physical resistance of an opponent can be used to make him fall.
If people resist you because they don't trust you, an apparently selfless deed,
showing how far you are willing to go to prove yourself, is a powerful remedy.
If they resist because they are virtuous, or because they are loyal to someone
else, all the better-virtue and repressed desire are easily overcome by action.
As the great seductress Natalie Barney once wrote, "Most virtue is a
demand for greater seduction." There are two ways to prove yourself.
First, the spontaneous action: a situation arises in which the target needs
help, a problem needs solving, or, simply, he or she needs a favor. You cannot
foresee these situations, but you must be ready for them, for they can spring
up at any time. Impress the target by going further than really
necessary-sacrificing more money, more time, more effort than they had
expected. Your target will often use these Loveisa species of warfare. Slack
troopers, go elsewhere! It takes more than cowards to guard \ These standards.
Night- duty in winter, long-route marches, every \ Hardship, all forms of
suffering: these await \ The recruit who expects a soft option. You'll often be
out in \ Cloudbursts, and bivouac on the bare \ Ground. . . . Is lasting \ Love
your ambition? Then put away all pride. \ The simple, straightforward way in
may be denied you, \ Doors bolted, shut in your face - \ So be ready to slip
down from the roof through a lightwell, \ Or sneak in by an upper-floor window.
She'll be glad \ To know you 're risking your neck, andfor her sake: that will
offer \ Any mistress sure proof of your love. OVIDIO (si veda), THE ART OF
LOVE. The man says: " . . .A fruit
picked from one's own orchard ought to taste sweeter than one obtained from a
stranger's tree, and what has been attained by greater effort is cherished more
dearly than what is gained with little trouble. As the proverb says: 'Prizes
great cannot be won unless some heavy labor's done. The woman says: "If no
great prizes can be won unless some heavy labor's done, you must suffer the
exhaustion of many toils to be able to attain thefavors you seek, since what
you ask for is a greater prize. " • The man says: "I give you all the
thanks that I can express for sosagely promising me your love when I have
performed great toils. Godforbid that I or any other could win the love of so
worthy a woman without first attaining it by many labors." ANDREAS
CAPELLANUS ON LOVE. One day, [Saint-Preuil] pleaded more than usual that
[Madame de la Maisonfort ] grant him the ultimate favors a woman could offer,
and he went beyond just words in his pleading. Madame, saying he had gone way
too far, ordered him to never ever appear before her again. He left her room.
Only an hour later, the lady was taking her customary walk along one of those
beautiful canals at Bagnolet, when Saint-Preuil leapt outfrom behind a hedge,
totally naked, and standing before his mistress in this state, he cried out,
"For the last time, Madame - Goodbye!" Thereupon, he threw himself
into the canal, head first. The lady, terrified by such a sight, moments, or
even manufacture them, as a kind of test: will you retreat? Or will you rise to
the occasion? You cannot hesitate or flinch, even for a moment, or all is lost.
If necessary, make the deed seem to have cost you more than it has, never with
words, but indirectly-exhausted looks, reports spread through a third party,
whatever it takes. The second way to prove yourself is the brave deed that you
plan and execute in advance, on your own and at the right moment-preferably
some way into the seduction, when any doubts the victim still has about you are
more dangerous than earlier on. Choose a dramatic, difficult action that
reveals the painful time and effort involved. Danger can be extremely
seductive. Cleverly lead your victim into a crisis, a moment of danger, or
indirectly put them in an uncomfortable position, and you can play the rescuer,
the gallant knight. The powerful feelings and emotions this elicits can easily
be redirected into love. Some Examples 1 . In France in the 1640s, Marion de
l'Orme was the courtesan men lusted after the most. Renowned for her beauty,
she had been the mistress of Cardinal Richelieu, among other notable political
and military figures. To win her bed was a sign of achievement. For weeks the
rake Count Grammont had wooed de l'Orme, and finally she had given him an
appointment for a particular evening. The count prepared himself for a
delightful encounter, but on the day of the appointment he received a letter
from her in which she expressed, in polite and tender terms, her terrible
regrets-she had the most awful headache, and would have to stay in bed that
evening. Their appointment would have to be postponed. The count felt certain
he was being pushed to the side for someone else, for de l'Orme was as
capricious as she was beautiful. Grammont did not hesitate. At nightfall he
rode to the Marais, where de l'Orme lived, and scouted the area. In a square
near her home he spotted a man approaching on foot. Recognizing the Due de
Brissac, he immediately knew that this man was to supplant him in the
courtesan's bed. Brissac seemed unhappy to see the count, and so Grammont
approached him hurriedly and said, "Brissac, my friend, you must do me a
service of the greatest importance: I have an appointment, for the first time,
with a girl who lives near this place; and as this visit is only to concert
measures, I shall make but a very short stay. Be so kind as to lend me your
cloak, and walk my horse a little, until I return; but above all, do not go far
from this place." Without waiting for an answer, Grammont took the duke's
cloak and handed him the bridle of his horse. Looking back, he saw that Brissac
was watching him, so he pretended to enter a house, slipped out through the
back, circled around, and reached de l'Orme's house without being seen. Prove
Yourself • 325 Grammont knocked at the door, and a servant, mistaking him for
the duke, let him in. He headed straight for the lady's chamber, where he found
her lying on a couch, in a sheer gown. He threw off Brissac's cloak and she
gasped in fright. "What is the matter, my fair one?" he asked.
"Your headache, to all appearance, is gone?" She seemed put out,
exclaimed she still had the headache, and insisted that he leave. It was up to
her, she said, to make or break appointments. "Madam," Grammont said
calmly, "I know what perplexes you: you are afraid lest Brissac should
meet me here; but you may make yourself easy on that account." He then
opened the window and revealed Brissac out in the square, dutifully walking
back and forth with a horse, like a common stable boy. He looked ridiculous; de
l'Orme burst out laughing, threw her arms around the count, and exclaimed, "My
dear Chevalier, I can hold out no longer; you are too amiable and too eccentric
not to be pardoned." He told her the whole story, and she promised that
the duke could exercise horses all night, but she would not let him in. They
made an appointment for the following evening. Outside, the count returned the
cloak, apologized for taking so long, and thanked the duke. Brissac was most
gracious, even holding Grammont's horse for him to mount, and waving goodbye as
he rode off. Interpretation. Count Grammont knew that most would-be seducers
give up too easily, mistaking capriciousness or apparent coolness as a sign of
a genuine lack of interest. In fact it can mean many things: perhaps the person
is testing you, wondering if you are really serious. Prickly behavior is
exactly this kind of test-if you give up at the first sign of difficulty, you
obviously do not want them that much. Or it could be that they themselves are
uncertain about you, or are trying to choose between you and someone else. In
any event, it is absurd to give up. One incontrovertible demonstration of how
far you are willing to go will overwhelm all doubts. It will also defeat your
rivals, since most people are timid, worried about making fools of themselves,
and so rarely risk anything. When dealing with difficult or resistant targets,
it is usually best to improvise, the way Grammont did. If your action seems
sudden and a surprise, it will make them more emotional, loosen them up. A
little roundabout accumulation of information-a little spying-is always a good
idea. Most important is the spirit in which you enact your proof. If you are
lighthearted and playful, if you make the target laugh, proving yourself and
amusing them at the same time, it won't matter if you mess up, or if they see
you have employed a little trickery. They will give in to the pleasant mood you
have created. Notice that the count never whined or grew angry or defensive.
All he had to do was pull back the curtain and reveal the duke walking his
horse, melting de l'Orme's resistance with laughter. In one well-executed act,
he showed whathe would do for a night of her favors. began to cry and to run in
the direction of her house, where upon arriving, she fainted. As soon as she
could speak, she ordered that someone go and see what had happened to
Saint-Preuil, who in truth had not stayed very long in the canal, and having
quickly put his clothes back on, hurried to Paris where he hid himselffor
several days. Meanwhile, the rumor spread that he had died. Madame de la
Maisnnfort was deeply moved by the extreme measures he had adopted to prove his
sentiments. This act of his appeared to her to be a sign of an extraordinary
love; and having perhaps noticed some charms in his naked presence that she had
not seen fully clothed, she deeply regretted her cruelty, and publicly stated
her feeling of loss. Word of this reached Saint-Preuil, and he immediately
resurrected himself and did not lose time in taking advantage of such
afavorable feeling in his mistress. - COUNT BUSSY-RABUTIN, HISTOIRES AMOUREUSES
DES GAULES To become a lady's vassal . . . the troubadour was expected to pass
through four stages, i.e.: aspirant, supplicant, postulant, and lover. When he
had attained the last stage of amorous initiation he made a vow of fidelity and
this homage was sealed by a kiss. • In this idealistic form of courtly love
reservedfor the aristocratic elite of chivalry, the phenomenon of love was
considered to be a state of grace, while the initiation that followed, and the
final sealing of the pact-or equivalent of the knightly accolade - were linked
with the rest of a nobleman's training and valorous exploits. The hallmarks of
a true lover and of a perfect knight were almost identical. The lover was bound
to serve and obey his lady as a knight served his lord. In both cases the
pledge was of a sacred nature. - NINA EPTON, LOVE AND THE FRENCH one of the
goodly towns of the kingdomof France there dwelt a nobleman of good birth, who
attended the schools that he might learn how virtue and honor are to be acquired
among virtuous men. But although he was so accomplished that at the age of
seventeen or eighteen years he was, as it were, both precept and example to
others, Love failed not to add his lesson to the rest; and, that he might be
the better harkened to and received, concealed himself in the face and the eyes
of the fairest lady in the whole country round, who had come to the city in
order to advance a suit-at- law. But before Love sought to vanquish the
gentleman by means of this lady's beauty, he had first won her heart by letting
her see the perfections of this young lord; for in good looks, grace, sense and
excellence of speech he was surpassed by none. • You, who know what speedy way
is made by the fire of love when once it fastens on the heart andfancy, will 2.
Pauline Bonaparte, the sister of Napoleon, had so many affairs with different
men over the years that doctors were afraid for her health. She could not stay
with one man for more than a few weeks; novelty was her only pleasure. After
Napoleon married her off to Prince Camillo Borghese, in 1803, her affairs only
multiplied. And so, when she met the dashing Major Jules de Canouville, in
1810, everyone assumed the affair would last no longer than the others. Of
course the major was a decorated soldier, well educated, an accomplished
dancer, and one of the most handsome men in the army. But Pauline, thirty years
old at the time, had had affairs with dozens of men who could have matched that
resume. A few days after the affair began, the imperial dentist arrived chez
Pauline. A toothache had been causing her sleepless nights, and the dentist saw
he would have to pull out the bad tooth right then and there. No painkillers
were used at the time, and as the man began to take out his various
instruments, Pauline grew terrified. Despite the pain of the tooth, she changed
her mind and refused to have it pulled. Major Canouville was lounging on a
couch in a silken robe. Taking all this in, he tried to encourage her to have
it done: "A moment or two of pain and it's over forever. ... A child could
go through with it and not utter a sound." "I'd like to see you do
it," she said. Canouville got up, went over to the dentist, chose a tooth
in the back of his own mouth, and ordered that it be pulled. A perfectly good
tooth was extracted, and Canouville barely batted an eyelash. After this, not
only did Pauline let the dentist do his job, her opinion of Canouville changed;
no man had ever done anything like this for her before. The affair had been
going to last but a few weeks; now it stretched on. Napoleon was not pleased.
Pauline was a married woman; short affairs were allowed, but a deep attachment
was embarrassing. He sent Canouville to Spain, to deliver a message to a
general there. The mission would take weeks, and in the meantime Pauline would
find someone else. Canouville, though, was not your average lover. Riding day
and night, without stopping to eat or sleep, he arrived in Salamanca within a
few days. There he found that he could proceed no farther, since communications
had been cut off, and so, without waiting for further orders, he rode back to
Paris, without an escort, through enemy territory. He could meet with Pauline
only briefly; Napoleon sent him right back to Spain. It was months before he
was finally allowed to return, but when he did, Pauline immediately resumed her
affair with him-an unheard-of act of loyalty on her part. This time Napoleon
sent Canouville to Germany and finally to Russia, where he died bravely in
battle in 1812. He was the only lover Pauline ever waited for, and the only one
she ever mourned. Interpretation. In seduction, the time often comes when the
target has begun to fall for you, but suddenly pulls back. Your motives have
begun toseem dubious-perhaps all you are after is sexual favors, or power, or
money. Most people are insecure and doubts like these can ruin the seductive
illusion. In the case of Pauline Bonaparte, she was quite accustomed to using
men for pleasure, and she knew perfectly well that she was being used in turn.
She was totally cynical. But people often use cynicism to cover up insecurity.
Pauline's secret anxiety was that none of her lovers had ever really loved
her-that all of them to a man had really just wanted sex or political favors
from her. When Canouville showed, through concrete actions, the sacrifices he
would make for her-his tooth, his career, his life- he transformed a deeply
selfish woman into a devoted lover. Not that her response was completely
unselfish: his deeds were a boost to her vanity. If she could inspire these
actions from him, she must be worth it. But if he was going to appeal to the
noble sede of her nature, she had to rise to that level as well, and prove
herself by remaining loyal to him. Making your deed as dashing and chivalrous
as possible will elevate the seduction to a new level, stir up deep emotions,
and conceal any ulterior motives you may have. The sacrifices you are making
must be visible; talking about them, or explaining what they have cost you,
will seem like bragging. Lose sleep, fall ill, lose valuable time, put your
career on the line, spend more money than you can afford. You can exaggerate
all this for effect, but don't get caught boasting about it or feeling sorry
for yourself: cause yourself pain and let them see it. Since almost everyone
else in the world seems to have an angle, your noble and selfless deed will be
irresistible. Throughout the 1890s and into the early twentieth century,
Gabriele D'Annunzio was considered one of Italy's premier novelists and
playwrights. Yet many Italians could not stand the man. His writing was florid,
and in person he seemed full of himself, overdramatic-riding horses naked on
the beach, pretending to be a Renaissance man, and more of the kind. His novels
were often about war, and about the glory of facing and defeating death-an
entertaining subject for someone who had never actually done so. And so, at the
start of World War I, no one was surprised that D'Annunzio led the call for
Italy to side with the Allies and enter the fiay. Everywhere you turned, there
he was, giving a speech in favor of war- a campaign that succeeded in 1915,
when Italy finally declared war on Germany and Austria. D'Annunzio's role so
far had been completely predictable. But what did surprise the Italian public
was what this fifty-two- year-old man did next: he joined the army. He had
never served in the military, boats made him seasick, but he could not be
dissuaded. Eventually the authorities gave him a post in a cavalry division,
hoping to keep him out of combat. Italy had little experience in war, and its
military was somewhat chaotic. The generals somehow lost track of
D'Annunzio-who, in any readily imagine that between two subjects so perfect as
these it knew little pause until it had them at its will, and had so filled
them with its clear light, that thought, wish, and speech were all aflame with
it. Youth, begetting fear in the young lord, led him to urge his suit with all
the gentleness imaginable; but she, being conquered by love, had no need
offorce to win her. Nevertheless, shame, which tarries with ladies as long as
it can, for some time restrained her from declaring her mind. But at last the
heart's fortress, which is honor's abode, was shattered in such sort that the
poor lady consented to that which she had never been minded to refuse. • In
order, however, to make trial of her lover's patience, constancy, and love, she
granted him what he sought on a very hard condition, assuring him that if he
fulfilled it she would love him perfectly forever; whereas, if he failed in it,
he would certainly never win her as long as he lived. And the condition was
this: she would be willing to talk with him, both being in bed together, clad
in their linen only, but he was to ask nothinginore from her than words and kisses.
• He, thinking there was no joy to be compared to that which she promised him,
agreed to the proposal, and that evening the promise was kept; in such wise
that, despite all the caresses she bestowed on him and the temptations that
beset him, he would not break his oath. And albeit his torment seemed to him no
less than that of Purgatory, yet was his love so great and his hope so strong,
sure as he felt of the ceaseless continuance of the love he had thus painfully
won, that he preserved his patience and rose from beside her without having
done anything contrary to her expressed wish. • The lady was, I think, more
astonished than pleased by such virtue; and giving no heed to the honor,
patience, and faithfulness her lover had shown in the keeping of his oath, she
forthwith suspected that his love was not so great as she had thought, or else
that he had found her less pleasing than he had expected. • She therefore
resolved, before keeping her promise, to make afurther trial of the love he
bore her; and to this end she begged him to talk to a girl in her service, who
was younger than herself and very beautiful, bidding him make love speeches to
her, so that those who saw him come so often to the house might think that it
was for the sake of this damsel and not of herself • The young lord,feeling
sure that his own love was returned in equal measure, was wholly obedient to
her commands, and for love of her compelled himself to make love to the girl;
and she, finding him so handsome and well-spoken, believed his lies more than
other truth, and loved him as much as though she herself were greatly loved by
him. • The mistress finding that matters were thus well advanced, albeit the
young lord did not cease to claim her promise, granted him permission to come
and see her at one hour after midnight, saying that after case, had decided to
leave his cavalry division and form units of his own. (He was an artist, after
all, and could not be subjected to army discipline.) Calling himself
Commandante, he overcame his habitual seasickness and directed a series of
daring raids, leading groups of motorboats in the middle of the night into
Austrian harbors and firing torpedoes at anchored ships. He also learned how to
fly, and began to lead dangerous sorties. In August of 1915, he flew over the
city of Trieste, then in enemy hands, and dropped Italian flags and thousands
of pamphlets containing a message of hope, written in his inimitable style:
"The end of your martyrdom is at hand! The dawn of your joy is imminent.
From the heights of heaven, on the wings of Italy, I throw you this pledge,
this message from my heart." He flew at altitudes unheard of at the time,
and through thick enemy fire. The Austrians put a price on his head. On a
mission in 1916, D'Annunzio fell against his machine gun, permanently injuring
one eye and seriously damaging the other. Told his flying days were over, he
convalesced in his home in Venice. At the time, the most beautiful and
fashionable woman in Italy was generally considered to be the Countess Morosini,
former mistress of the German Kaiser. Her palace was on the Grand Canal,
opposite the home of D'Annunzio. Now she found herself besieged by letters and
poems from the writer-soldier, mixing details of his flying exploits with
declarations of his love. In the middle of air raids on Venice, he would cross
the canal, barely able to see out of one eye, to deliver his latest poem.
D'Annunzio was much beneath Morosini's station, a mere writer, but his
willingness to brave anything on her behalf won her over. The fact that his
reckless behavior could get him killed any day only hastened the seduction.
D'Annunzio ignored the doctors' advice and returned to flying, leading even
more daring raids than before. By the end of the war, he was Italy's most
decorated hero. Now, wherever in the nation he appeared, the public filled the
piazzas to hear his speeches. After the war, he led a march on Fiume, on the
Adriatic coast. In the negotiations to settle the war, Italians believed they
should have been awarded this city, but the Allies had not agreed. D'Annunzio's
forces took over the city and the poet became a leader, ruling Fiume for more
than a year as an autonomous republic. By then, everyone had forgotten about
his less-than-glorious past as a decadent writer. Now he could do no wrong.
Interpretation. The appeal of seduction is that of being separated from our
normal routines, experiencing the thrill of the unknown. Death is the ultimate
unknown. In periods of chaos, confusion, and death-the plagues that swept Europe
in the Middle Ages, the Terror of the French Revolution, the air raids on
London during World War II-people often let go of their usual caution and do
things they never would otherwise. They experience a kind of delirium. There is
something immensely seductive about danger, about heading into the unknown.
Show that you have a reckless streak and a daring nature, that you lack the
usual fear of death, and you are instantly fascinating to the bulk of humanity.
What you are proving in this instance is not how you feel toward another person
but something about yourself: you are willing to go out on a limb. You are not
just another talker and braggart. It is a recipe for instant charisma. Any
political figure-Churchill, de Gaulle, Kennedy-whohas proven himself on the
battlefield has an unmatchable appeal. Many had thought of ANNUNZIO (si veda) as
a foppish womanizer; his experience in the war gave him a heroic sheen, a
Napoleonic aura. In fact he had always been an effective seducer, but now he
was even more devilishly appealing. You do not necessarily have to risk death,
but putting yourself in its vicinity will give you a seductive charge. (It is
often best to do this some way into the seduction, making it come as a pleasant
surprise.) You are willing to enter the unknown. No one is more seductive than
the person who has had a brush with death. People will be drawn to you; perhaps
they are hoping that some of your adventurous spirit will rub off on them. 4.
According to one version of the Arthurian legend, the great knight Sir Lancelot
once caught a glimpse of Queen Guinevere, King Arthur's wife, and that glimpse
was enough-he fell madly in love. And so when word reached him that Queen
Guinevere had been kidnapped by an evil knight, Lancelot did not hesitate-he
forgot his other chivalrous tasks and hurried in pursuit. His horse collapsed
from the chase, so he continued on foot. Finally it seemed that he was close,
but he was exhausted and could go no farther. A horse-driven cart passed by;
the cart was filled with loathsome- looking men shackled together. In those
days it was the tradition to place criminals-murderers, traitors, cowards,
thieves-in such a cart, which then passed through every street in town so that
people could see it. Once you had ridden in the cart, you lost all feudal
rights for the rest of your life. The cart was such a dreadful symbol that
seeing an empty one made you shiver and give the sign of the cross. Even so.
Sir Lancelot accosted the cart's driver, a dwarf: "In the name of God, tell
me if you've seen my lady the queen pass by this way?" "If you want
to get into this cart I'm driving," said the dwarf, "by tomorrow
you'll know what has become of the queen." Then he drove the cart onward.
Lancelot hesitated for but two of the horse's steps, then ran after it and
climbed in. Wherever the cart went, townspeople heckled it. They were most
curious about the knight among the passengers. What was his crime? How will he
be put to death-flayed? Drowned? Burned upon a fire of thorns? Finally the
dwarf let him get out, without a word as to the whereabouts of the queen. To
make matters worse, no one now would go near or talk to Lancelot, for he had
been in the cart. He kept on chasing the queen, and all along the way he was
cursed at, spat upon, challenged by other knights. He having so fully tested
the love and obedience he had shown towards her, it was but just that heshould
be rewardedfor his long patience. Of the lover's joy on hearing this you need
have no doubt, and he failed not to arrive at the appointed time. • But the
lady, still wishing to try the strength of his love, had said to her beautiful
damsel-"I am well aware of the love a certain nobleman bears to you, and I
think you are no less in love with him; and I feel so much pity for you both,
that I have resolved to afford you time and place that you may converse
together at your ease." • The damsel was so enchanted that she could not
conceal her longings, but answered that she would notfail to be present. • In
obedience, therefore, to her mistress's counsel and command, she undressed
herself and lay down on a handsome bed, in a room the door of which the lady
left half open, whilst within she set a light so that the maiden's beauty might
be clearly seen. Then she herself pretended to go away, but hid herself near to
the bed so carefully that she could not be seen. • Her poor lover, thinking to
find her according to her promise, failed not to enter the room as softly as he
could, at the appointed hour; and after he had shut the door and put off his
garments and fur shoes, he got into the bed, where he looked to find what he
desired. But no sooner did he put out his arms to embrace her whom he believed
to be his mistress, than the poor girl, believing him entirely her own, had her
arms round his neck, speaking to him the while in such loving words and with so
beautiful a countenance, that there is not a hermit so holy but he would have
forgotten his beads for love of her. • But when the gentleman recognized her
with both eye and ear, and found he was not with her for whose sake he had so
greatly suffered, the love that had made him get so quickly into the bed, made
him risefrom it still more quickly. And in anger equally with mistress and
damsel, he said - "Neither yourfolly nor the malice of her who put you
there can make me other than I am. But do you try to be an honest woman, for
you shall never lose that good name through me. " • So saying he rushed
out of the room in the greatest wrath imaginable, and it was long before he
returned to see his mistress. However love, which is never without hope,
assured him that the greater and more manifest his constancy was proved to be
by all these trials, the longer and more delightful would be his bliss. • The
lady, who had seen and heard all that passed, was so delighted and amazed at
beholding the depth and constancy of his love, that she was impatient to sec
him again in order to ask h is fo rgiven ess for the sorrow that she had caused
him to endure. And as soon as she could meet with him, she failed not to
address him in such excellent and pleasant words, that he not only forgot all
his troubles but even deemed them very fortunate, seeing that their issue was
to the glory of his constancy and the perfect had disgraced knighthood by
riding in the cart. But no one could stop him or slow him down, and finally he
discovered that the queen's kidnapper was the wicked Meleagant. He caught up
with Meleagant and the two fought a duel. Still weak from the chase, Lancelot
seemed to be near defeat, but when word reached him that the queen was watching
the battle, he recovered his strength and was on the verge of killing Meleagant
when a truce was called. Guinevere was handed over to him. Lancelot could
hardly contain his joy at the thought of finally being in his lady's presence.
But to his shock, she seemed angry, and would not look at her rescuer. She told
Meleagant's father, "Sire, in truth he has wasted his efforts. I shall
always deny that I feel any gratitude toward him." Lancelot was mortified
but he did not complain. Much later, after undergoing innumerable further
trials, she finally relented and they became lovers. One day he asked her: when
she had been abducted by Meleagant, had she heard the story of the cart, and
how he had disgraced knighthood? Was that why she had treated him so coldly
that day? The queen replied, "By delaying for two stepsyou showed your
unwillingness to climb into it. That, to tell the truth, is why I didn't wish
to see you or speak with you." Interpretation. The opportunity to do your
selfless deed often comes upon you suddenly. You have to show your worth in an
instant, right there on the spot. It could be a rescue situation, a gift you
could make or a favor you could do, a sudden request to drop everything and
come to their aid. What matters most is not whether you act rashly, make a
mistake, and do something foolish, but that you seem to act on their behalf
without thought for yourself or the consequences. At moments like these,
hesitation, even for a few seconds, can ruin all the hard work of your
seduction, revealing you as self-absorbed, unchival- rous, and cowardly. This,
at any rate, is the moral of Chretien de Troyes's twelfth-century version of
the story of Lancelot. Remember: not only what you do matters, but how you do
it. If you are naturally self-absorbed, learn to disguise it. React as
spontaneously as possible, exaggerating the effect by seeming flustered,
overexcited, even foolish-love has driven you to that point. If you have to
jump into the cart for Guinevere's sake, make sure she sees that you do it
without the slightest hesitation. 5. In Rome sometime around 1531, word spread
of a sensational young woman named Tullia d'Aragona. Bythe standards of the
period, Tullia was not a classic beauty; she was tall and thin, at a time when
the plump and voluptuous woman was considered the ideal. And she lacked the
cloying, giggling manner of most young girls who wanted masculine attention.
No, her quality was nobler. Her Latin was perfect, she could discuss the latest
literature, she played the lute and sang. In other words, she was a novelty,
and since that was all most men were looking for, they began to visit her in
Prove Yourself • 331 great numbers. She had a lover, a diplomat, and the
thought that one man had won her physical favors drove them all mad. Her male
visitors began to compete for her attention, writing poems in her honor, vying
to become her favorite. None of them succeeded, but they kept on trying. Of
course there were some who were offended by her, stating publicly that she was
no more than a high-class whore. They repeated the rumor (perhaps true) that
she had made older men dance while she played the lute, and if their dancing
pleased her, they could hold her in their arms. To Tullia's faithful followers,
all of noble birth, this was slander. They wrote a document that was
distributed far and wide: "Our honored mistress, the well-born and
honorable lady Tullia d'Aragona, doth surpass all ladies of the past, present,
or future by herdazzlingqualities. Anyone who refuses to conform to this
statement is hereby charged to enter the lists with one of the undersigned
knights, who will convince him in the customary manner." Tullia left Rome
in 1535, going first to Venice, where the poet Tasso became her lover, and eventually
to Ferrara, which was then perhaps the most civilized court in Italy. And what
a sensation she caused there. Her voice, her singing, even her poems were
praised far and wide. She opened a literary academy devoted to ideas of
freethinking. She called herself a muse and, as in Rome, a group of young men
collected around her. They would follow her around the city, carving her name
in trees, writing sonnets in her honor, and singing them to anyone who would
listen. One young nobleman was driven to distraction by this cult of adoration:
it seemed that everyone loved Tullia but no one received her love in return.
Determined to steal her away and marry her, this young man tricked her into
allowing him to visit her at night. He proclaimed his undying devotion, showered
her with jewels and presents, and asked for her hand. She refused. He pulled
out a knife, she still refused, and so he stabbed himself. He lived, but now
Tullia's reputation was even greater than before: not even money could buy her
favors, or so it seemed. As the years went by and her beauty faded, some poet
or intellectual would always come to her defense and protect her. Few of them
ever pondered the reality: that Tullia was indeed a courtesan, one of the most
popular and well paid in the profession. Interpretation. All of us have defects
of some sort. Some of these we are born with, and cannot help. Tullia had many
such defects. Physically she was not the Renaissance ideal. Also, her mother
had been a courtesan, and she was illegitimate. Yet the men who fell under her
spell did not care. They were too distracted by her image-the image of an
elevated woman, a woman you would have to fight over to win. Her pose came
straight out of the Middle Ages, the days of knights and troubadours. Then, a
woman, most often married, was able to control the power dynamic between the
sexes by withholding her favors until the knight somehow proved his worth
assurance of his love, the fruit of which he enjoyed from that time as fully as
he could desire. - QUEEN MARGARET OF NAVARRE, THE HEPTAMERON. QUOTED IN THE
VICE ANTHOLOGY, DAVENPORT-HINES A soldier lays siege to cities, a lover to
girls' houses, \ The one assaults city gates, the other front doors. \ Love,
like war, is a toss-up. The defeated can recover, \ While some you might think
invincible collapse; \ So ifyou've got love written off as an easy option \
You'd better think twice. Love calls \ For guts and initiative. Great Achilles
sulks for Briseis - \ Quick, Trojans, smash through the Argive wall! \ Hector
went into battle from Andromache's embraces \ Helmeted by his wife. \ Agamemnon
himself, the Supremo, was struck into raptures \ At the sight of Cassandra's
tumbled hair; \ Even Mars was caught on the job, felt the blacksmith's meshes -
\ Heaven's best scandal in years. Then take \ My own case. I was idle, born to
leisure en deshabille, \ Mind softened by lazy scribbling in the shade. \ But
love for a pretty girl soon drove the sluggard \ To action, made him join up.
\And just look at me now-fighting fit, dead keen on night exercises: \ If you
want a cure for slackness, fall in love! - OVID, THE AMORES. and the sincerity
of his sentiments. He could be sent on a quest, or made to live among lepers,
or compete in a possibly fatal joust for her honor. And this he had to do
without complaint. Although the days of the troubadour are long gone, the
pattern remains: a man actually loves to be able to prove himself, to be
challenged, to compete, to undergo tests and trials and emerge victorious. He
has a masochistic streak; a part of him loves pain. And strangely enough, the
more a woman asks for, theworthier she seems. A woman who is easy to get cannot
be worth much. Make people compete for your attention, make them prove
themselves in some way, and you will find them rising to the challenge. The
heat of seduction is raised by such challenges-show me that you really love me.
When one person (of either sex) rises to the occasion, often the other person
is now expected to do the same, and the seduction heightens. By making people
prove themselves, too, you raise your value and cover up your defects. Your
targets are too busy trying to prove themselves to notice your blemishes and
faults. Symbol: The Tournament. On the field, with its bright pennants and
caparisoned horses, the lady looks on as knights fight for her hand. She has
heard them declare love on bended knee, their endless songs and pretty
promises. They are all good at such things. But then the trumpet sounds and the
combat begins. In the tournament there can be no faking or hesitation. The
knight she chooses must have blood on hisface, and afew broken limbs. Reversal
W hen trying to prove that you are worthy of your target, remember that every
target sees things differently. A show of physical prowess not impress someone
who does not value physical prowess; it will just that you are after attention,
flaunting yourself. Seducers must adapt way of proving themselves to the doubts
and weaknesses of the seduced. For some, fine words are better proofs than
daredevil deeds, particularly if they are written down. With these people show
your sentiments in a letter-a different kind of physical proof, and one with
more poetic appeal than some showy bit of action. Know your target well, and
aim your seductive evidence at the source of their doubts or resistance. 17
Effect a Regression People who have experienced a certain kind of in the past
will try to repeat or relive are usually thosefrom earliest childhood, and are
often unassociated with a parental figure. Bring your tartheir emotional
response, they willfall in love with you. Alternatively, you too can regress,
letting them play the role of the protecting, nursing parent. In either case
you are offering the ultimate fantasy: the chance to have an intimate relawith
mommy or daddy, son or daughter. A s adults we tend to overvalue our childhood.
In their dependency and powerlessness, children genuinely suffer, yet when we
get older we conveniently forget about that and sentimentalize the supposed
paradise we have left behind. We forget the pain and remember only the
pleasure. ? Because the responsibilities of adult life are a burden so
oppressive at times that we secretly yearn for the dependency of childhood, for
that perwho looked after our every need, assumed our cares and worries. This
being dependent on the parent is charged with sexual undertones. Give and they
will project all kinds of fantasies onto you, including feelings of or sexual
attraction that they will attribute to something else. We won't admit it, but
we long to regress, to shed our adult exterior and vent childish emotions that
linger beneath the surface. in his career, Sigmund Freud confronted a strange
problem: many of his female patients were falling in love with him. He thought
he knew what was happening: encouraged by Freud, the patient would delve into
would talk about her relationship with her father, her earliest experiprocess
would stir up powerful emotions and memories. In a way, she be transported back
into her childhood. Intensifying this effect was the fact that Freud himself
said little and made himself a little cold and dis, although he seemed to be
caring-in other words, quite like the traditional father figure. Meanwhile the
patient was lying on a couch, in a helpless or passive position, so that the
situation duplicated the roles of parent and child. Eventually she would begin
to direct some of the confused emotions she was dealing with toward Freud
himself. Unaware of what was happening, she would relate to him as to her
father. She would regress and in love. Freud called this phenomenon
"transference," and it would become an active part of his therapy. By
getting patients to transfer some of their repressed feelings onto the
therapist, he would bring their problems into the open, where they could be
dealt with on a conscious level. The transference effect was so potent, though,
that Freud was often unable to move his patients past their infatuation. In
fact transference is a powerful way of creating an emotional attachment-the
goal of any seduc- [In Japan,] much in the traditional way of childrearing
seems to foster passive dependence. The child is rarely left alone, day or
night, for it usually sleeps with the mother. it goes out the child is not
pushed ahead in a pram, to face the world alone, but is tightly bound to the
mother's back in a snug cocoon. When the mother bows, the child does too, so
the social graces are acquired automatically while feeling the mother's
heartbeat. Thus emotional security tends to depend
almostentirelyonthephysicalpresence of the mother. "... Children learn
that a show of passive dependence is the best way to getfavors as well as
affection. There is a verb for this in Japanese: amaeru, translated in the
dictionary as "to presume upon another's love; to play the baby." According
to the psychiatrist Doi Takeo this is the main key to understanding the
Japanese personality. It goes on in adult life too: juniors do it to seniors in
companies, or any other group, women do it to men, men do it to their mothers,
and sometimes wives. A magazine called Young Lady featured an article (January
1982) on "how to make ourselves beautiful." How, in other, to attract
men. An American or European magazine would then go on to tell the reader how
to be sexually desirable, no doubt suggesting various puff's, creams, and
sprays. Not so with Young Lady. "The most attractive," it informs us,
"are women full of maternal love. Women maternal love are the types men
never want to marry. One has to look at men through the of a mother. " -
IAN BURUMA, BEHIND THE : ON SEXUAL DEMONS. SACRED MOTHERS. . GANGSTERS, DRIFTERS
AND OTHER JAPANESE CULTURAL HEROES I have stressed the fact that substitute for
the ideal ego. Two people who love each other are interchanging ego-ideals.
That they love the ideal of themselves in the otherone.There would be no love
on earth if this phantom were not there. Wefall in love because we cannot
attain the image that is our better self and the best of our self From this
concept it is obvious that love itself is only possible on a certain cultural
level or after a certain phase in the development of the personality has been
reached. The creation of an ego-ideal itself marks human progress. When are
entirely satisfied tion. The method has infinite applications outside
psychoanalysis. To pracit in real life, you need to play the therapist,
encouraging people to talk memories are so vivid and emotional that a part of
us regresses just in talking about our early years. Also, in the course of
talking, little secrets slip out: we reveal all kinds of valuable information
about our weaknesses and our mental makeup, information you must attend to and
remember. Do not take your targets' words at face value; they will often
sugarcoat or overdramatize events in childhood. But pay attention to their tone
of voice, to any nervous tics as they talk, and particularly to anything they
do not want talk about, anything they deny or that makes them emotional. Many
statefor instance, you can be sure that they are hiding a lot of
disappointment- that they actually loved their father only too much, and
perhaps never quite what they wanted from him. Listen closely for recurring
themes and stories. Most important, learn to analyze emotional responses and
see what lies behind them. While they talk, maintain the therapist's
pose-attentive but quiet, making occasional, nonjudgmental comments. Be caring
yet distant- somewhat blank, in fact-and they will begin to transfer emotions
and project fantasies onto you. With the information you have gathered about
their childhood, and the trusting bond you have forged, you can now begin to
effect the regression. Perhaps you have uncovered a powerful attachment to a
parent, a sibling, a teacher, or any early infatuation, a person who casts a
shadow over their present lives. Knowing what it was about this person that
affected them so powerfully, you can now take over that role. Or perhaps you
have learned of an immense gap in their childhood-a neglectful father, for
instance. You act like that parent now, but you replace the original neglect
with the attention and affection that the real parent never supplied. Everyone
has unfinished business from childhood-disappointments, lacks, painful
memories. Finish what is unfinished. Discover what your target never got and
you have the ingredients for a deep-rooted seduction. The key is not just to
talk about memories-that is weak. What you want is to get peopletoactoutintheir
present old issues from their past, without their being aware of what is
happening. The regressions you can effect fall into four main types. The
Infantile Regression. The first bond-the bond between a mother and her
infant-is the most powerful one. Unlike other animals, human babies have a long
period of helplessness during which they are dependent on their mother, creating
an attachment that influences the rest of their lives. The key to effecting
this regression is to reproduce the sense of unconditional love a mother has
for her child. Never judge your targets-let them do whatever they want,
including behaving badly; at the same time surthem with loving attention,
smother them with comfort. A part of Effect a Regression • 331 them will
regress to those earliest years when their mother took care of everything and
rarely left them alone. This works on almost everyone, for unconditional love
is the rarest and most treasured form. You do not even have to tailor your
behavior to anything specific in their childhood; most of us have experienced
this kind of attention. Meanwhile, create atmospheres that reinforce the feeling
you are generating-warm environments, playful activities, bright, happy colors.
with their actual selves, love is impossible. • The of the ego-ideal to a
person is the most characteristic trait of love. -THEODOR REIK, OF LOVE AND
LUST The Oedipal Regression. After the bond between mother and child the
oedipal triangle of mother, father, and child. This triangle forms during the
period of the child's earliest erotic fantasies. A boy wants his mother to
himself, a girl does the same with her father, but they never quite have it
that way, for a parent will always have competing connections a spouse or to
other adults. Unconditional love has gone; now, inevitably, the parent must
sometimes deny what the child desires. Transport your victims back to this period.
Play a parental role, be loving, but also sometimes scold and instill some
discipline. Children actually love a little -it makes them feel that the adult
cares about them. And adult children too will be thrilled if you mix your
tenderness with a little toughness and punishment. Unlike infantile regression,
oedipal regression must be tailored to your target. It depends on the
information you have gathered. Without knowing enough, you might treat a person
like a child, scolding them now and then, only to discover that you are
stirring up ugly memories-they had too with the regression until you have
learned everything you can about their -what they had too much of, what they
lacked, and so on. If the target was strongly attached to a parent, but that
attachment was parnegative, the oedipal regression strategy can still be quite
effective. We always feel ambivalent toward a parent; even as we love them, we
resent having had to depend on them. Don't worry about stirring up these am,
which don't keep us from being tied to our parents. Remember include an erotic
component in your parental behavior. Now your tarare not only getting their
mother or father all to themselves, they are something more, something
previously forbidden but now allowed. gave [S ylphide] the eyes of one girl in
the village, fresh complexion of another. The portraits of great ladies of the
time of Francis 1, Henry IV, and XIV, hanging in our room, lent me
otherfeatures, and I even beauties from the pictures of the Madonna in
churches. This magic invisibly everywhere, I with her as if changed her
appearance according to the degree of without a veil, Diana rose, Thalia in a
laughing mask, Hebe with the goblet of youth-or she became a delusion lasted
two whole years, in the course of which my soul attained the highest peak of
exaltation. -CHATEAUBRIAND, MEMOIRS QUOTED IN FRIEDRICH SIEBURG, CHATEAUBRIAND.
The Ego Ideal Regression. As children, we often form an ideal figure out of our
dreams and ambitions. First, that ideal figure is the person we want to be. We
imagine ourselves as brave adventurers, romantic figures. Then, in our
adolescence, we turn our attention to others, often projecting our ideals onto
them. The first boy or girl we fall in love with may seem to have the ideal
qualities we wanted for ourselves, or else may make us feel that we can play
that ideal role in relation to them. Most of us carry these ideals around with
us, buried just below the surface. We are secretly disappointed in how much we
have had to compromise, how far below the ideal we have fallen as we have
gotten older. Make your targets feel they are living out this youthful ideal,
and coming closer to being the person they wanted to be, and you will effect a
different kind of regression, creating a feeling reminiscent of adolescence.
The relationship between you and the seduced is in this instance more equal
than in the previous kinds of regressions-more like the affection between
siblings. In fact the ideal is often modeled on a brother or sister. To create
this effect, strive to reprothe intense, innocent mood of a youthful
infatuation. The Reverse Parental Regression. Here you are the one to regress:
you deliberately play the role of the cute, adorable, yet also sexually charged
child. Older people always find younger people incredibly seductive. In the
presence of youth, they feel a little of their own youth return; but they are
in fact older, and mixed into the invigoration they feel in young people's
company is the pleasure of playing the mother or father to them. If a child has
erotic feelings toward a parent, feelings that are quickly repressed, the
parent must deal with the same problem in reverse. Assume the role of the child
in relation to your targets, however, and they get to act out some of those
repressed erotic sentiments. The strategy may seem to call for a difference in
age, but this is actually not critical. Marilyn Monroe's exaggerated
little-girl qualities worked just fine on men her age. Emphasizing a weakness
or vulnerability on your part will give the target a chance to play the
protector. Some Examples 1. The parents of Victor Hugo separated shortly after
the novelist was born, in 1802. Hugo's mother, Sophie, had been carrying on an
affair with her husband's superior officer, a general. She took the three Hugo
boys away from their father and went off to Paris to raise them on her own. the
boys led a tumultuous life, featuring bouts of poverty, frequent moves, and
their mother's continued affair with the general. Of all the boys, Victor was
the most attached to his mother, adopting all her ideas and pet peeves,
particularly her hatred of his father. But with all the turmoil in his
childhood he never felt he got enough love andattention from the mother he
adored. When she died, in 1821, poor and debt-ridden, he was devastated. The
following year Hugo married his childhood sweetheart, Adele, who physically
resembled his mother. It was a happy marriage for a while, but soon Adele came
to resemble his mother in more ways than one: in 1832, he discovered that she
was having an affair with the French literary critic Sainte-Beuve, who also
happened to be Hugo's best friend at the Effect Regression • 339 time. Hugo was
a celebrated writer by now, but he was not the calculating type. He generally
wore his heart on his sleeve. Yet he could not confide in anyone about Adele's
affair; it was too humiliating. His only solution was to have affairs of his
own, with actresses, courtesans, married women. Hugo had a prodigious appetite,
sometimes visiting three different women in the same day. Near the end of 1832,
production began on one of Hugo's plays, and he was to supervise the casting. A
twenty-six-year-old actress named Juliette Drouet auditioned for one of the
smaller roles. Normally quite adroit with the ladies, Hugo found himself
stuttering in Juliette's presence. She was quite simply the most beautiful
woman he had ever seen, and this and her composed manner intimidated him.
Naturally, Juliette won the part. He found himself thinking about her all the
time. She always seemed to be surrounded by a group of adoring men. Clearly she
was not interested in him, or so he thought. One evening, though, after a
performance of the play, he followed her home, to find that she was neither
angry nor surprised- indeed she invited him up to her apartment. He spent the
night, and soon he was spending almost every night there. Hugo was happy again.
To his delight, Juliette quit her career in the theater, dropped her former
friends, and learned to cook. She had loved fancy clothes and social affairs;
now she became Hugo's secretary, rarely leaving the apartment in which he had
established her and seeming to live only for his visits. After a while,
however, Hugo returned to his old ways and started to have little affairs on
the side. She did not complain-as long as she remained the one woman he kept
returning to. And Hugo had in fact grown quite dependent on her. In 1843,
Hugo's beloved daughter died in an accident and he sank into a depression. The
only way he knew to get over his grief was to have an afwith someone new. And
so, shortly thereafter, he fell in love with a young married aristocrat named
Leonie d'Aunet. He began to see Juliette less and less. A few years later,
Leonie, feeling certain she was the preferred one, gave him an ultimatum: stop
seeing Juliette altogether, or it wasover. Hugo refused. Instead he decided to
stage a contest: he would continue to see both women, and in a few months his
heart would tell him which one he preferred. Leonie was furious, but she had no
choice. Her affair with Hugo had already ruined her marriage and her standing
in society; she was dependent on him. Anyway, how could she lose-she was in the
prime of life, whereas Juliette had gray hair by now. So she pretended to go
along with this contest, but as time went on, she grew increasingly resentful
about it, and complained. Juliette, on the other hand, behaved as if nothing
had changed. Whenever he visited, she treated him as she always had, dropping
everything to comfort and mother him. The contest lasted several years. In
1851, Hugo was in trouble with Louis-Napoleon, the cousin of Napoleon Bonaparte
and now the president of France. Hugo had attacked his dictatorial tendencies
in the press, bitterly and perhaps recklessly, for Louis-Napoleon was a
vengeful man. Fearing for the writer's life, Juliette managed to hide him in a
friend's house and arranged for a false passport, a disguise, and safe passage
to Brussels. Everything went according to plan; Juliette joined him a few days
later, carrying his most valuable possessions. Clearly her heroic actions had
won the contest for her. And yet, after the novelty of Hugo's new life wore
off, his affairs resumed. Finally, fearing for his health, and worried that she
could no longer compete with yet another twenty-year-old coquette, Juliette
made a calm but stern demand: no more women or she was leaving him. Taken
completely by surprise, yet certain that she meant every word, Hugo broke down
and sobbed. An old man by now, he got down on his knees and, on the Bible and
then on a copy of his famous novel Les Miserables, he would stray no more.
Until Juliette's death, in 1883, her spell over him was complete.
Interpretation. Hugo's love life was determined by his relationship with his
mother. He never felt she had loved him enough. Almost all the women he had
affairs with bore a physical resemblance to her; somehow he would make up for
her lack of love for him by sheer volume. When Juliette met, she could not have
known all this, but she must have sensed two things: he was extremely
disappointed in his wife, and he had never really up. His emotional outbursts
and his need for attention made him a little boy than a man. She would gain
ascendancy over him for the of his life by supplying the one thing he had never
had: complete, unmother-love. Juliette never judged Hugo, or criticized him for
his naughty ways. She lavished him with attention; visiting her was like
returning to thewomb. In her presence, in fact, he was more a little boy than
ever. How could he refuse her a favor or ever leave her? And when she finally
threatened to leave him, he was reduced to the state of a wailing infant crying
for his mother. In the end she had total power over him. Unconditional love is
rare and hard to find, yet it is what we all crave, since we either experienced
it once or wish we had. You do not have to go as far as
Juliette Drouet; the mere hint of devoted attention, of accepting your lovers
for who they are, of meeting their needs, will place them in an infantile
position. A sense of dependency may frighten them a little, and they may feel
an undercurrent of ambivalence, a need to assert themselves periodically, as
Hugo did through his affairs. But their ties to you will be strong and they
will keep coming back for more, bound by the illusion that they are recapturing
the mother-love they had seemingly lost forever, or never had. 2. Around the
turn of the twentieth century. Professor Mut, a schoolmaster at a college for
young men in a small German town, began to de- Effect Regression velop a keen
hatred of his students. Mut was in his late fifties, and had worked at the same
school for many years. He taught Greek and Latin and was a distinguished
classical scholar. He had always felt a need to impose discipline, but now it
was getting ugly: the students were simply not interested in Homer anymore.
They listened to bad music and only liked modern literature. Although they were
rebellious, Mut considered them soft and undisciplined. He wanted to teach them
a lesson and make their lives miserable; his usual way of dealing with their
bouts of rowdiness was sheer bullying, and most often it worked. One day a
student Mut loathed-a haughty, well-dressed young man named Lohmann-stood up in
class and said, "I can't go on working in this room. Professor. There is
such a smell of mud." Mud was the boys' nickname for Professor Mut. The
professor seized Lohmann by the arm, twisted it hard, then banished him from
the room. He later noticed that Lohmann had left his exercise book behind, and
thumbing through it he saw a paragraph about an actress named Rosa Frohlich. A
plot hatched in Mut's mind: he would catch Lohmann cavorting with this actress,
no doubt a woman of ill repute, and would get the boy kicked out of school.
First he had to find out where she performed. He searched high and low, finally
finding her name up outside a club called the Blue Angel. He went in. It was a
smoke-filled place, full of the working-class types he looked down on. Rosa was
onstage. She was singing a song; the way she looked everyone in the audience in
the eye was rather brazen, but for some reason Mut found this disarming. He
relaxed a little, had some wine. After her performance he made his way to her
dressing room, determined to grill her about Lohmann. Once there he felt
strangely uncomfortable, but he gathered up his courage, accused her of leading
schoolboys astray, and threatened to get the police to close the place down.
Rosa, however, was not intimidated. She turned all of Mut's sentences around:
perhaps he was the one leading boys astray. Her tone was cajoling and teasing.
Yes, Lohmann had bought her flowers and champagne-so what? No one had ever
talked to Mut this way before; his authoritative tone usually made people give
way. He should have felt offended: she was low class and a woman, and he was a
schoolmaster, but she was talking to him as if they were equals. Instead,
however, he neither got angry nor left-something compelled him to stay. Now she
was silent. She picked up a stocking and started to darn it, ignoring him; his
eyes followed her every move, particularly the way she rubbed her bare knee.
Finally he brought up Lohmann again, and the police. "You've no idea what
this life's like," she said. "Everyone who comes here thinks he's the
only pebble on the beach. If you don't give them what they want they threaten
you with the police!" "I certainly regret having hurt a lady's
feelings," he replied sheepishly. As she got up from her chair, their
knees rubbed, and he felt a shiver up his spine. Now she was nice to him again,
and poured him some more wine. She invited him to come back, then left abruptly
to perform another number. The Art of Seduction The next day he kept thinking
about her words, her looks. Thinking about her while he was teaching gave him a
kind of naughty thrill. That night he went back to the club, still determined
to catch Lohmann in the act, and once again found himself in Rosa's dressing
room, drinking wine and becoming strangely passive. She asked him to help her
get dressed; that seemed quite an honor and he obliged her. Helping her with
her corset and her makeup, he forgot about Lohmann. He felt he was being
initiated into some new world. She pinched his cheeks and stroked his chin, and
occasionally let him glimpse her bare leg as she rolled up a stocking. Now
Professor Mut showed up night after night, helping her dress, watching her
perform, all with a strange kind of pride. He was there so often that Lohmann
and his friends no longer showed up. He had taken their place-he was the one to
bring her flowers, pay for her champagne, the one to serve her. Yes, an old man
like himself had bested the youthful Lohmann, who thought himself so suave! He
liked it when she stroked his chin, complimented him for doing things right,
but he felt even more excited when she rebuked him, throwing a powder puff in
his face or pushing him off a chair. It meant she liked him. And so, gradually,
he began to pay for all her caprices. It cost him a pretty penny but kept her
away from other men. Eventually he proposed to her. They married, and scandal
ensued: he lost hisjob, and soon all his money; finally he landed in prison. To
the very end, however, he could never get angry with Rosa. Instead he felt
guilty: he had never done enough for her. Interpretation. Professor Mut and
Rosa Frohlich are characters in the novel The Blue Angel, written by Heinrich
Mann in 1905, and later made into a film starring Marlene Dietrich. Rosa's
seduction of Mut follows the classic oedipal regression pattern. First, the
woman treats the man the way a mother would treat a little boy. She scolds him,
but the scolding is not threatening; it is tender, and has a teasing edge. Like
a mother, she knows she is dealing with someone weak, who cannot help his
naughty behavior. She mixes plenty of praise and approval in with her taunts.
Once the man begins to regress, she adds physical excitement-some bodily
contact to excite him, subtle sexual overtones. As a reward for his regression,
the man may get the thrill of finally sleeping with his mother. But there is
always an element of competition, which the mother figure must heighten. The
man gets to possess her all on his own, something he could not do with father
in the way, but he first has to win her away from others. The key to this kind
of regression is to see and treat your targets as children. Nothing about them
intimidates you, no matter how much authority or social standing they have.
Your manner makes it clear that you feel you are the stronger party. To
accomplish this it may be helpful to imagine or them as the children they once
were; suddenly, powerful people do not seem so powerful and threatening when
you regress them in your imagination. Keep in mind that certain types are more
vulnerable to an Effect Regression • 343 regression. Look for those who, like
Professor Mut, seem outwardly most adult-straitlaced, serious, a little full of
themselves. They are struggling to repress their regressive tendencies,
overcompensating for their weaknesses. Often those who seem the most in command
of themselves are the ripest for regression. In fact they are secretly longing
for it, because their power, position, and responsibilities are more a burden
than a pleasure. 3. Born in 1768, the French writer Francois Rene de
Chateaubriand grew in a medieval castle in Brittany. The castle wascold and
gloomy, as if inhabited by the ghosts of its past. The family lived there in
semiseclusion. Chateaubriand spent much of his time with his sister Lucile, and
his attachment to her was strong enough that rumors of incest made the rounds.
But when he was around fifteen, a new woman named Sylphide entered his -a woman
he created in his imagination, a composite of all the heroines, goddesses, and
courtesans he had read about in books. He was constantly seeing her features in
his mind, and hearing her voice. Soon she was taking walks with him, carrying
on conversations. He imagined her innocent and exalted, yet they would
sometimes do things that were not so innocent. He carried on this relationship
for two whole years, until finally he left for Paris, and replaced Sylphide
with women of flesh and blood. The French public, weary after the terrors of
the 1790s, greeted Chateaubriand's first books enthusiastically, sensing a new
spirit in them. His novels were full of windswept castles, brooding heroes, and
passionate heroines. Romanticism was in the air. Chateaubriand himself
resembled the characters in his novels, and despite his rather unattractive
appearance, women went wild over him-with him, they could escape their boring
marriages and live out the kind of turbulent romance he wrote about.
Chateaubriand's nickname was the Enchanter, and although he was married, and an
ardent Catholic, the number of his affairs increased with the years. But he had
a restless nature-he traveled to the Middle East, to the United States, all
over Europe. He could not find what he was looking for anywhere, and not the
right woman either: after the novelty of an affair wore off, he would leave. By
1807 he had had so many affairs, and still felt so unsatisfied, that he decided
to retire to his country estate, called Vallee aux Loups. He filled the place
with trees from all over the world, transforming the grounds into something out
of one of his novels. There he began to write the memoirs that he envisioned
would be his masterpiece. By 1817, however, Chateaubriand's life had fallen
apart. Money problems had forced him to sell Vallee aux Loups. Almost fifty, he
suddenly felt old, his inspiration dried up. That year he visited the writer Madame
de Stael, who had been ill and was now close to death. He spent several days at
her bedside, along with her closest friend, Juliette Recamier. Madame Re-
camier's affairs were infamous. She was married to a much older man, but they
had not lived together for some time; she had broken the hearts of the most
illustrious men in Europe, including Prince Metternich, the Duke of 344 The Art
of Seduction Wellington, and the writer Benjamin Constant. It had also been
rumored that despite all her flirtations she was still a virgin. She was now
almost forty, but she was the type of woman who seems youthful at any age.
Drawn together by their grief over de Stael's death, she and Chateaubriand
became friends. She listened so attentively to him, adopting his moods and
echoing his sentiments, that he felt that he had at last met a woman who
understood him. There was also something rather ethereal about Madame Recamier.
Her walk, her voice, her eyes-more than one man had compared her to some
unearthly angel. Chateaubriand soon burned with the desire to possess her
physically. The year after their friendship began, she had a surprise for him:
she had convinced a friend to purchase Vallee aux Loups. The friend was away
for a few weeks, and she invited Chateaubriand to spend some time with her at
his former estate. He happily accepted. He showed her around, explaining what
each little patch of ground had meant to him, the memories the place conjured
up. He felt youthful feelings welling up inside him, feelings he had forgotten
about. He delved further into the past, describing events in his childhood. At
moments, walking with Madame Recamier and looking into those kind eyes, he felt
a shiver of recognition, but he could not quite identify it. All he knew was
that he had to go back to the memoirs that he had laid aside. "I intendto
employ the little time that is left to me in describing my youth," he
said, "so long as its essence remains palpable to me." It seemed that
Madame Recamier returned Chateaubriand's love, but as usual she struggled to
keep it a spiritual affair. The Enchanter, however, deserved his nickname. His
poetry, his air of melancholy, and his persistence finally won the day and she
succumbed, perhaps for the first time in her life. Now, as lovers, they were inseparable.
But as always with Chateaubriand, over time one woman was not enough. The
restless spirit returned. He began to have affairs again. Soon he and Recamier
stopped seeing each other. In 1832, Chateaubriand was traveling through
Switzerland. Once again his life had taken a downward turn; only this time he
truly was old, in body and spirit. In the Alps, strange thoughts of his youth
began to assail him, memories of the castle in Brittany. Word reached him that
Madame Recamier was in the area. He had not seen her in years, and he hurried
to the inn where she was staying. She was as kind to him as ever; during the
day they took walks together, and at night they stayed up late, talking. One
day, Chateaubriand told Recamier he had finally decided to finish his memoirs.
And he had a confession to make: he told her the story of Sylphide, his
imaginary lover when he was growing up.He had once hoped to meet a Sylphide in
real life, but the women he had known had paled in comparison. Over the years
he had forgotten about his imaginary lover, but now he was an old man, and he
not only thought of her again, he could see her face and hear her voice. And
with those memories he realized that he had in fact met Sylphide in real
life-it was Madame Re- Effect Regression • 345 camier. The face and voice were
close. More important, there was the calm spirit, the innocent, virginal
quality. Reading to her the prayer to Sylphide he had just written, he told her
he wanted to be young again, and seeing her had brought his youth back to him.
Reconciled with Madame Re- camier, he began to work again on the memoirs, which
were eventually published under the title Memoirsfrom Beyond the Grave. Most
critics agreed that the book was his masterpiece. The memoirs were dedicated to
Madame Recamier, to whom he remained devoted until his death, in 1848.
Interpretation. All of us carry within us an image of an ideal type of person
whom we yearn to meet and love. Most often the type is a composite made up of
bits and pieces of different people from our youth, and even of characters in
books and movies. People who influenced us inordinately-a teacher for
instance-may also figure. The traits have nothing to do with superficial
interests. Rather, they are unconscious, hard to verbalize. We searched hardest
for this ideal type in our adolescence, when we were more idealistic. Often our
first loves have more of these traits than our subsequent affairs. For
Chateaubriand, living with his family in their secluded castle, his first love
was his sister Lucile, whom he adored and idealized. But since love with her
was impossible, he created a figure out of his imagination who had all her
positive attributes-nobility of spirit, innocence, courage. Madame Recamier
could not have known about Chateaubriand's ideal, but she did know something
about him, well before she ever met him. She had read all of his books, and his
characters were highly autobiographical. She knew of his obsession with his
lost youth; and everyone knew of his endless and unsatisfying affairs with
women, his hyperrestless spirit. Madame Recamier knew how to mirror people,
entering their spirit, and one of her first acts was to take Chateaubriand to
Vallee aux Loups, where he felt he had left part of his youth. Alive with
memories, he regressed further into his childhood, to the days in the castle.
She actively encouraged this. Most important, she embodied a spirit that came
naturally to her, but that matched his youthfulideal; innocent, noble, kind.
(The fact that so many men fell in love with her suggests that many men had the
same ideals.) Madame Recamier was Lucile/Sylphide. It took him years to realize
it, but when he did, her spell over him was complete. It is nearly impossible
to embody someone's ideal completely. But if you come close enough, if you
evoke some of that ideal spirit, you can lead that person into a deep
seduction. To effect this regression you must play the role of the therapist.
Get your targets to open up about their past, particularly their former loves
and most particularly their first love. Pay attento any expressions of
disappointment, how this or that person did not give them what they wanted.
Take them to places that evoke their youth. In this regression you are creating
not so much a relationship of depen- 346 • The Art of Seduction dency and
immaturity but rather the adolescent spirit of a first love. There is a touch
of innocence to the relationship. So much of adult life involves compromise,
conniving, and a certain toughness. Create the ideal atmosphere by keeping such
things out, drawing the other person into a kind of mutual weakness, conjuring
a second virginity. There should be a dreamlike quality to the affair, as if
the target were reliving that first love but could not quite believe it. Let
all of this unfoldslowly,each encounter revealing more ideal qualities. The
sense of reliving a past pleasure is simply impossible to resist. . Some time
in the summer of 1614, several members of England's upper, including the
Archbishop of Canterbury, met to decide what to about the Earl of Somerset, the
favorite of King James I, who was forty-eight at the time. After eight years as
the favorite, the young earl had accumulated such power and wealth, and so many
titles, that nothing was left for anyone else. But how to get rid of this
powerful man? For the time A few weeks later the king was inspecting the royal
stables when he year-old George Villiers, a member of the lower nobility. The
courtiers who accompanied the king that day watched the king's eyes following
Villiers, and saw with what interest he asked about this young man. Indeed an
angel and a charmingly childish manner. When news of the king's intersupplant
the dreaded favorite. Left to nature, though, the seduction would never happen.
They had to help it along. So, without telling Villiers of their plan, they
befriended him. James was the son of Mary Queen of Scots. His childhood had
been a nightmare: his father, his mother's favorite, and his own regents had
been murdered; his mother had first been exiled, later executed. When James was
young, to escape suspicion he played the part of a fool. He hated the sight of
a sword and could not stand the slightest sign of argument. surrounded himself
with bright, happy young men, and seemed king was inconsolable. He needed
distraction and good cheer, and his faon Villiers, under the guise of trying to
help him advance within the court. They supplied him with a magnificent
wardrobe, jewels, a glittering carriage, the kind of things the king noticed.
They worked on his riding. Effect Regression • 347 fencing, tennis, dancing, Ms
skills with birds and dogs. He was instructed in conspirators managed to get
him appointed the royal cup-bearer; every night he poured out the king's wine,
so that the king could see him up close. After a few weeks, the king was in
love. The boy seemed to crave attention and tenderness, exactly what he yearned
to offer. How wonderful it be to mold and educate him. And what a perfect
figure he had! The conspirators convinced Villiers to break off his engagement
to a young lady; the king was single-minded in Ms affections, and could not
competition. Soon James wanted to be around Villiers all the time, spirit. The
king appointed Villiers gentleman of the bedchamber, making it for them to be
alone together. What particularly charmed James was that Villiers never asked
for anything, which made it all the more deto spoil him. By 1616, Villiers had
completely supplanted the former favorite. He . To the conspirators' dismay,
however, he quickly accumulated even him sweetheart in public, fix his
doublets, comb his hair. James zealously his favorite, anxious to preserve the
young man's innocence. He tended to the youth's every whim, in effect became
his slave. In fact the tered the room, he started to act like a child. The two
were inseparable until the king's death, in 1625. Interpretation. We are most
definitely stamped forever by our parents, in and seduced by the child. They
may play the role of the protector, but in the process they absorb the child's
spirit and energy, relive a part of their own childhood. And just as the child
struggles against sexual feelings toward the parent, the parent must repress
comparable erotic feelings that beneath the tenderness they feel. The best and
most insidious way to seduce people is often to position yourself as the child.
Imagining themstronger, more in control, they will be lured into your web. They
will they have nothing to fear. Emphasize your immaturity, your weakness, and
you let them indulge in fantasies of protecting and parenting you-a desire as
people get older. What they do not realize is that you are getting under their
skin, insinuating yourself-it is the child who is conthe adult. Your innocence
makes them want to protect you, but it is also sexually charged. Innocence is
highly seductive; some people even long play the corrupter of innocence. Stir
up their latent sexual feelings and you can lead them astray with the hope of
fulfilling a strong yet repressed gin to regress as well, infected by your
childish, playful spirit. Most of this came naturally to Villiers, but you will
probably have to use some calculation. Fortunately, all of us have strong
childish tendencies within us that are easy to access and exaggerate. Make your
gestures seem spontaneous and unplanned. Any sexual element of your behavior
should seem innocent, unconscious. Like Villiers, don't push for favors.
Parents prefer to spoil children who don't ask for things but invite them in
their manner. Seeming nonjudgmental and uncritical of those around you will
make everything you do seem more natural and naive. Have a happy, cheerful
demeanor, but with a playful edge. Emphasize any weaknesses you might have,
things you cannot control. Remember: most of us remember our early years
fondly, but often, paradoxically, the people with the strongest attachment to
those times are the ones who had the most difficult childhoods. Actually,
circumstances kept them from getting to be children, so they never really grew
up, and they long for the paradise they never got to experience. James I falls
into this category. These types are ripe targets for a reverse regression.
Symbol: The Bed. Lying alone in bed, the child feels unprotected, afraid, and
needy. In a nearby room, there is the parent's bed. It is large and forbidding,
site of things you are not supposed to know about. Give the seduced both
feelings-helplessness and transgression-as you lay them into bed and put them
to sleep. Reversal T o reverse the strategies of regression, the parties to a
seduction would have to remain adults during the process. This is not only
rare, it is not very pleasurable. Seduction means realizing certain fantasies.
Being a mture and responsible adult is not a fantasy, it is a duty.
Furthermore, a person who remains an adult in relation to you is harder to
seduce. In all kinds of seduction-political, media, personal-the target must
regress. The only danger is that the child, wearying of dependence, turns
against the parent and rebels. You must be prepared for this, and unlike a
parent, never take it personally. i8 Stir Up the Transgressive and Taboo There
are always social limits on what one can do. of these, the most elemental
taboos, go back centuries; others are more superficial, simply defining polite
and acceptable behavior. Making your targets feel that you are leading them
past either kind of limit is immensely seductive. People yearn to explore their
dark side. Not everything in romantic love is supposed to be tender and soft;
hint that you have a cruel, even sadistic streak. the desire to transgress
draws your targets to you, it will be hardfor them to stop. Take themfurther
than they imagined-the shared feeling of guilt and complicity will create a
powerful bond.The Lost Self I n March of 1812,the twenty-four-year-old George
Gordon Byron published the first cantos of his poem Childe Harold. The poem was
filled with familiar gothic imagery-a dilapidated abbey, debauchery, travels to
the mysterious East-but what made it different was that the hero of the poem
was also its villain: Harold was a man who led a life of vice, disdaining
society's conventions yet somehow going unpunished. Also, the poem was not set
in some faraway land but in present-day England. Childe Harold created an
instant stir, becoming the talk of London. The first printing quickly sold out.
Within days a rumor made the rounds: the poem, about a debauched young
nobleman, was in fact autobiographical. Now the cream of society clamored to
meet Lord Byron, and many of them left their calling cards at his London residence.
Soon he was showing up at their homes. Strangely enough, he exceeded their
expectations. He was devilishly handsome, with curling hair and the face of an
angel. His black attire set off his pale complexion. He did not talk much,
which made an impression of itself, and when he did, his voice was low and
hypnotic and his tone a little disdainful. He had a limp (he was born with a
clubfoot), so when an orchestra struck up a waltz (the dance craze of 1812), he
would stand to the side, a faraway look in his eye. The ladieswent wild over
Byron. Upon meeting him. Lady Roseberry felt her heart beating so violently (a
mix of fear and excitement) that she had to walk away. Women fought to be
seated next to him, to win his attention, to be seduced by him. Was it true
that he was guilty of a secret sin, like the hero of his poem? Lady Caroline
Lamb-wife of William Lamb, son of Lord and Lady Melbourne-was a glittering
young woman on the social scene, but deep inside she was unhappy. As a young
girl she had dreamt of adventure, romance, travel. Now she was expected to play
the role of the polite young wife, and it did not suit her. Lady Caroline was
one of the first to read Childe Harold, and something more than its novelty
stirred her. When she saw Lord Byron at a dinner party, surrounded by women,
she looked at his face, then walked away; that night she wrote of him in her
journal, "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know." She added, "That
beautiful pale face is my fate." The next day, to Lady Caroline's
surprise. Lord Byron called on her. Evidently he had seen her walking away from
him, and her shyness had intrigued him-he disliked the aggressive women who
were constantly at his It is a matter of a certain hind of feeling: that of
being overwhelmed. There are many who have a great fear of bring overwhelmed by
someone; for example, someonewhomakes them laugh against their will, or tickles
them to death, or, worse, tells them things that they sense to be accurate but
which they do not quite understand, things that go beyond their prejudices and
received wisdom, In other words, they do not want to be seduced, since
seduction means confronting people with their limits, limits that are supposed
to be set and stable but that the seducer suddenly causes to . Seduction is the
desire of being overwhelmed, taken beyond. SIBONY, L'AMOUR INCONSCIENT Just
lately I saw a tight- reined stallion \ Get the bit in his teeth and bolt \
Like lightning-yet the minute hefelt the reins slacken, \ Drop loose on his
flying mane, \ He stopped dead. We eternally chafe at restrictions, covet \
Whatever's forbidden. (Look how a sick man who's told \ No immersion hangs
round the bathhouse.) \ . . . Desire \ Mounts for what's kept out of reach. A
thief s attracted \ By burglar-proof premises. How often will love \ Thrive on
a rival's approval? It's not your wife's beauty, but your own \ Passion for her
that gets -she must \ Have something, just to have hooked you. A girl locked up
by her \ Husband's not chaste but pursued, her fear's \ A bigger draw than her
figure. Illicit passion - like it \ Or not-is sweeter. It only turns me on \
When the girl says, "I'm frightened." - OVID, THE AMORES, It is often
not possible for [women] later on to undo the connection thus formed in their
minds between sensual activities and something forbidden, and they turn out to
be psychically impotent, i.e. frigid, when at last such activities do become
permissible. This is the source of the desire in so many women to keep even
legitimate relations secret for a time; and of the appearance of the capacity
for normal sensation in others as soon as the condition of prohibition is
restored by a secret intrigue-untrue to the husband, they can keep a second
order offaith with the lover. • In my opinion the necessary condition of
forbiddenness in the erotic life of women holds the same place as the man's
heels, as it seemed he disdained everything, including his success. Soon he was
visiting Lady Caroline daily. He lingered in her boudoir, played with her
children, helped her choose her dress for the day. She pressed him to talk of
his life: he described his brutal father, the untimely deaths that seemed to be
a family curse, the crumbling abbey he had inherited, his adventures in Turkey
and Greece. His life was indeed as gothic as that of Childe Harold. Within days
the two became lovers. Now, though, the tables turned: Lady Caroline pursued
Byron with unladylike aggression. She dressed as a page and sneakedinto hiscarriage,wrotehimextravagantly
emotional letters, flaunted the affair. At last, a chance to play the grand
romantic role of her girlhood fantasies. Byron began to turn against her. He
already loved to shock; now he confessed to her the nature of the secret sin he
had alluded to in Childe Harold -his homosexual affairs during his travels. He
made cruel remarks, grew indifferent. But this only seemed to push her further.
She sent him the customary lock of hair, but from her pubis; she followed him
in the street, made public scenes-finally her family sent her abroad to avoid
further scandal. After Byron made it clear the affair was over, she descended
into a madness that would last several years. In 1813, an old friend of
Byron's, James Webster, invited the poet to stay at his country estate. Webster
had a young and beautiful wife. Lady Frances, and he knew Byron's reputation as
a seducer, but his wife was quiet and chaste-surely she would resist the
temptation of a man such as Byron. To Webster's relief, Byron barely spoke to
Frances, who seemed equally uninterested in him. Yet several days into Byron's
stay, she contrived to be alone with him in the billiards room, where she asked
him a question: how could a woman who liked a man inform him of it when he did
not perceive it? Byron scribbled a racy reply on a piece of paper, which made her
blush as she read it. Soon thereafter he invited the couple to stay with him at
his infamous abbey. There, the prim and proper Lady Frances saw him drink wine
from a human skull. They stayed up late in one of the abbey's secret chambers,
reading poetry and kissing. With Byron, it seemed. Lady Frances was only too
eager to explore adultery. That same year. Lord Byron's half sister Augusta
arrived in London to get away from her husband, who was having money troubles.
Byron had not seen Augusta for some time. The two were physically similar-the
same face, the same mannerisms; she was Lord Byron as a woman. And his behavior
toward her was more than brotherly. He took her to the theater, to dances,
received her at home, treating her with an intimate spirit that Augusta soon
returned. Indeed the kind and tender attention that Byron showered on her soon
became physical. Augusta was a devoted wife with three children, yet she
yielded to her half brother's advances. How could she help herself? He stirred
up a strange passion in her, a stronger passion than she felt for any other
man, including her husband. For Byron, his relationship with Augusta was the
ultimate and crowning sin of his career. And soon he was writing to his
friends, openly Stir Up the Transgressive and Taboo • 353 confessing it. Indeed
he delighted in their shocked responses, andhislong narrative poem. The Bride
ofAbydos, takes brother-sister incest as its theme. Rumors began to spread of
Byron's relations with Augusta, who was now pregnant with his child. Polite
society shunned him-but women were more drawn to him than before, and his books
were more popular than ever. Annabella Milbanke, Lady Caroline Lamb's cousin,
had met Byron in those first months of 1812 when he was the toast of London.
Annabella was sober and down to earth, and her interests were science and
religion. But there was something about Byron that attracted her. And the
feeling seemed to be returned: not only did the two become friends, to her
bewilderment he showed another kind of interest in her, even at one point
proposing marriage. This was in the midst of the scandal over Byron and
Caroline Lamb, and Annabella did not take the proposal seriously. Over the next
few months she followed his career from a distance, and heard the rumors of
incest. Yet in 1813, she wrote her aunt, "I consider his acquaintance as
so desirable that I would incur the risk of being called a Flirt for the sake
of enjoying it." Reading his new poems, she wrote that his
"description of Love almost makes me in love." She was developing an
obsession with Byron, of which word soon reached him. They renewed their
friendship, and in 1814 he proposed again; this time she accepted. Byron was a
fallen angel and she would be the one to reform him. It did not turn out that
way. Byron had hoped that married life would calm him down, but after the
ceremony he realized it was a mistake. He told Annabella, "Now you will
find that you have married a devil." Within a few years the marriage fell
apart. In 1816, Byron left England, never to return. He traveled through Italy
for a while; everyone knew his story-the affairs, the incest, the cruelty to
his lovers. But wherever he went, Italian women, particularly married
noblewomen, pursued him, making it clear in their own way how prepared they
were to be the next Byronic victim. In truth, the women had become the
aggressors. As Byron told the poet Shelley, "No one has been more carried
off than poor dear me-I've been ravished more often than anyone since the
Trojan war." Interpretation. Women of Byron's time were longing to play a
different role than society allowed them. They were supposed to be the decent,
moralizing force in culture; only men had outlets for their darker impulses.
Underlying the social restrictions on women, perhaps, was a fear of the more
amoral and unbridled part of the female psyche. Feeling repressed and restless,
women of the time devoured gothic novels and romances, stories in which
womenwere adventurous, and had the same capacity for good and evil as men. Books
like these helped to trigger a revolt, with women like Lady Caroline playing
out a little of the fantasy life they had had in their girlhood, where it had
to some extent been permit- need to lower his sexual object. . . . Women
belonging to the higher levels of civilization do not usually transgress the
prohibition against sexual activities during the period of waiting, and thus
they acquire this close association between the forbidden and the sexual. . . .
• The injurious results of the deprivation of sexual enjoyment at the beginning
manifest themselves in lack offull satisfaction when sexual desire is later
given free rein in marriage. But, on the other hand, unrestrained sexual
liberty from the beginning leads to no better result. It is easy to show that
the value the mind sets on erotic needs instantly sinks as soon as satisfaction
becomes readily obtainable. Some obstacle is necessary to swell the tide of the
libido to its height; and at all periods of, wherever natural barriers in the
way of satisfaction have not sufficed, mankind has erected conventional ones in
to be able to enjoy . This is true both of individuals and of nations. In times
during which no obstacles to sexual existed, such as, maybe, during the decline
of the civilizations of antiquity, love became worthless, lifebecameempty, and
strong reaction- formations were necessary before the indispensable emotional
value of love could be recovered. FREUD,
"CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE," SEXUALITY AND THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE This is how Monsieur Maudair analyzed men's toward
prostitutes: Neither the love of a passionate but well- brought-up mistress,
nor his marriage to a woman he respects, can replace the prostitute for the
animal in those moments when he covets the pleasure of himself without his
social prestige. can replace this bizarre and powerful of being able to parody
without any fear of revolt against organized society, his organized, educated
self and especially his Mauclair hears the call of Devil in this dark poetized
by prostitute represents the us to put aside our ." LOVE AND THE FRENCH
brought them joy; spoil their game, he only them the more passionate about it,
God . ... so it was with Tristan and Isolde. As soon as they wereforbidden
their desires, and prevented from enjoying one another by spies and guards,
they began to suffer intensely. Desire now seriously tormented them by its
magic, many times worse than before; their need for one another was more ted.
Byron arrived on the scene at the right time. He became the lightning rod for
women's unexpressed desires; with him they could go beyond the limits society
had imposed. For some the lure was adultery, for others it was romantic
rebellion, or a chance to become irrational and uncivilized. (The desire to
reform him merely covered up the truth-the desire to be overwhelmed by him.) In
all cases it was the lure of the forbidden, which in this case was more than
merely a superficial temptation: once you became involved with Lord Byron, he
took you further than you had imagined or wanted, since he recognized no
limits. Women did notjust fall in love with him, they let him turn their lives
upside down, even ruin them. They preferred that fate to the safe confines of
marriage. In some ways, the situation of women in the early nineteenth century
has become generalized in the early twenty-first. The outlets for male bad
behavior-war, dirty politics, the institution of mistresses and courtesans-
have faded away; today, notjust women but men are supposed to be
eminentlycivilizedandreasonable.Andmany have a hard time living up to this. As
children we are able to vent the darker side of our characters, a side that all
of us have. But under pressure from society (at first in the form of our
parents), we slowly repress the naughty, rebellious, perverse streaks in our
characters. To get along, we leam to repress our dark sides, which become a
kind of lost self, a part of our psyche buried beneath our polite appearance.
As adults, we secretly want to recapture that lost self-the more adventurous,
less respectful, childhood part of us. We are drawn to those who live out their
lost selves as adults, even if it involves some evil or destruction. Like
Byron, you can become the lightning rod for such desires. You must leam,
however, to keep this potential under control, and to use it strategically. As
the aura of the forbidden around you is drawing targets into your web, do not
overplay your dangerousness, or they will be frightened away. Once you feel
them falling under your spell, you have freer rein. If they begin to imitate
you, as Lady Caroline imitated Byron, then take it -mix in some cruelty,
involve them in sin, crime, taboo activity, whatever it takes. Unleash the lost
self within them; the more they act it out, the deeper your hold over them.
Going halfway will break the spell and create self-consciousness. Take it as
far as you can. Baseness attracts everybody. -JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE Keys to
Seduction S ociety and culture are based on limits-this kind of behavior is
acceptable, that is not. The limits are fluid and change with time, but there
are always limits. The alternative is anarchy, the lawlessness of nature, which
we dread. But we are strange animals: the moment any kind of limit is im- Stir
Up the Transgressive and Taboo • 355 posed, physically or psychologically, we
are instantly curious. A part of us wants to go beyond that limit, to explore
what is forbidden. If, as children, we are told not to go past a certain point
in the woods, that is precisely where we want to go. But we grow older, and
become polite and deferential; more and more boundaries encumber our lives. Do
not confuse politeness with happiness, however. It covers up frustration,
unwanted compromise. How can we explore the shadow side of our personality
without incurring punishment or ostracism? It seeps out in our dreams. We
sometimes wake up with a sense of guilt at the murder, incest, adultery, and
mayhem that goes on in our dreams, until we realize no one needs to know about
it but ourselves. But give a person the sense that with you they will have a
chance to explore the outer reaches of acceptable, polite behavior, that with
you they can vent some of their closeted personality, and you create the
ingredients for a deep and powerful seduction. You will have to go beyond the
point of merely teasing them with an elusive fantasy. The shock and seductive
power will come from the reality of what you are offering them. Like Byron, at
a certain point you can even press it further than they may want to go. If they
have followed you merely out of curiosity, they may feel some fear and
hesitation, but once they are hooked, they will fond you hard to resist, for it
is hard to return to a limit once you have transgressed and gone past it. The
human cries out for more, and does not know when to stop. You will determine
for them when it is time to stop. The moment people feel that something is
prohibited, a part of them will want it. That is what makes a married man or
woman such a delicious target-the more someone is prohibited, the greater the
desire. George Vil-, the Earl of Buckingham, was the favorite first of King
James I, then of James's son. King Charles I. Nothing was ever denied him. In
1625, on a visit to France, he met the beautiful Queen Anne and fell hopelessly
in love. What could be more impossible, more out of reach, than the queen of a
rival power? He could have had almost any other woman, but the prohibited
nature of the queen completely enflamed him, until he embarrassed himself
andhiscountry by trying to kiss her in public. Since what is forbidden is
desired, somehow you must make yourself seem forbidden. The most blatant way to
do this is to engage in behavior that gives you a dark and forbidden aura.
Theoretically you are someone to avoid; in fact you are too seductive to
resist. That was the allure of the actor Errol Flynn, who, like Byron, often
found himself the pursued rather than pursuer. Flynn was devilishly handsome,
but he also had something else: a definite criminal streak. In his wild youth
he engaged in all kinds of activities. In the 1950s he was charged with rape, a
permanent stain on his reputation even though he was acquitted; but his
popularity among women only increased. Play up your dark side and you will have
a similar effect. For your targets to be involved with you means going beyond
their limits, doing something naughty and unacceptable-to society, to their
peers. For many that is reason to bite the bait. painful and urgent than it had
ever been. • . . . just because they are forbidden, which they would certainly
not do if they were not forbidden. . . . Our Lord God gave Eve the freedom to
do what she would with all the fruits, flowers, and plants there were in
Paradise, except for only one, which he forbade her to touch on pain of death.
She look the fruit and broke God's but it is my firm belief now that Eve would
never have done this, if she had not been forbidden to. STRASSBURG, TRISTAN UND
ISOLDE. QUOTED IN ANDREA HOPKINS, THE BOOK OF COURTLY LOVE One of Monsieur
Leopold Stern's friends rented a bachelor's pied-a-terre where he received his
wife as a mistress, served her with port and petits-fours and "experienced
all the tingling excitement of adultery." He told Stern that it was a
delightful sensation to cuckold himself. -NINAEPTON, LOVE AND THE FRENCH The
Art of Seduction In Junichiro Tanazaki's 1928 novel Quicksand, Sonoko Kakiuchi,
the wife of a respectable lawyer, is bored and decides to take art classes to
wile away the time. There, she finds herself fascinated with a fellow female
student, the beautiful Mitsuko, who befriends her, then seduces her. Kakiuchi
is forced to tell endless lies to her husband about her involvement with and
their frequent trysts. Mitsuko slowly involves her in all kinds of nefarious
activities, including a love triangle with a bizarre young man. Each time
Kakiuchi is made to explore some forbidden pleasure, Mitsuko challenges her to
go further and further. Kakiuchi hesitates, feels remorse- she knows she is in
the clutches of a devilish young seductress who has played on her boredom to
lead her astray. But in the end, she cannot help following Mitsuko's lead-each
transgressive act makes her want more. Once your targets are drawn by the lure
of the forbidden, dare them to match you in transgressive behavior. Any kind of
challenge is seductive. Take it slowly heightening the challenge only after
they show signs of yielding to you. Once they are under your spell, they may
not even notice how far out on a limb you have taken them. The great
eighteenth-century rake Due de Richelieu had a prediliction for young girls and
he would often heighten the seduction by enveloping them in transgressive
behavior, to which the young are particularly susceptible. For instance, he
would find a way into the young girl's house and lure her into her bed; the
parents would be just down the hall, adding the proper spice. Sometimes he
would act as if they were about to be discov, the momentary fright sharpening
the overall thrill. In all cases, he would try to turn the young girl against her
parents, ridiculing their religious zeal or prudery or pious behavior. The
duke's stategy was to attack the values that his targets held dearest-precisely
the values that represent a limit. In a young person, family ties, religious
ties, and the like are useful to the seducer; young people barely need a reason
to rebel against them. The, though, can be applied to a person of any age: for
every deeply held value there is a shadow side, a doubt, a desire to explore
what those values forbid. hi Renaissance Italy, a prostitute would dress as a
lady and go to church. Nothing was more exciting to a man than to exchange
glances with a woman whom he knew to be a whore as he was surrounded by his
wife, family, peers, and church officials. Every religion or value system
creates a dark side, the shadow realm of everything it prohibits. Tease your
targets, get them to flirt with whatever transgresses their family values,
which are often emotional yet superficial, since they are imposed front the
outside. One of the most seductive men of the twentieth century, Rudolph
Valentino, was known as the Sex Menace. His appeal for women was twofold; he
could be tender and attentive, but he also hinted of cmelty. At any moment he
could become dangerously bold, perhaps even a little violent. The studios
played up this double image as much as possible-when it was reported that he
had been abusive to his wife, for example, they ex- Stir Up the Transgressive
and Tabooploited the story. A mix of the masculine and the feminine, the violent
and the tender, will always seem transgressive and appealing. Love is supposed
to be tender and delicate, but in fact it can release violent and destructive
emotions; and the possible violence of love, the way it breaks down our normal
reasonableness, is just what attracts us. Approach romance's violent side by
mixing a cruel streak into your tender attentions, particularly in the latter
stages of the seduction, when the target is in your clutches. The Lola Montez
was known to turn to violence, using a whip now and then, and Lou
Andreas-Salome could be exceptionally cruel to her men, playing coquettish
games, turning alternately icy and demanding. Her cruelty only kept her targets
coming back for more. A masochistic involvecan represent a great transgressive
release. The more illicit your seduction feels, the more powerful its effect.
Give your targets the feeling that they are committing a kind of crime, a deed
whose guilt they share with you. Create public moments in which the two of you
know something that those around you do not. It could be phrases and looks that
only you recognize, a secret. Byron's seductive appeal to Lady Frances was
connected to the nearness of her husband-in his company, for example, she had a
love letter of Byron's hidden in her bosom. Johannes, the protagonist of Spren
Kierkegaard's The Seducer's Diary, sent a message to his target, the young
Cordelia, in the middle of a dinner party they were both attending; she could
not reveal to the other guests that it was from him, for then she wouldhaveto
do some explaining. He might also say something in public that would have a
special meaning for her, since it referred to something in one of his letters.
All of this added spice to the affair by giving it a feeling of a shared
secret, even a guilty crime. It is critical to play on tensions like these in
public, creating a sense of complicand collusion against the world. In the
Tristan and Isolde legend, the famous lovers reach the heights of and
exhilaration exactly because of the taboos they break. Isolde is engaged to
King Mark; she will soon be a married woman. Tristan is a loyal subject and
warrior in the service of King Mark, who is his father's age. The whole affair
has a feeling of stealing away the bride from the father. Epitomizing the
concept of love in the Western world, the legend has had immense influence over
the ages, and a crucial part of it is the idea that without obstacles, without
a feeling of transgression, love is weak and flavorless. People may be
straining to remove restrictions on private behavior, to make everything freer,
in the world today, but that only makes seduction more difficult and less
exciting. Do what you can to reintroduce a feeling of transgression and crime,
even if it is only psychological or illusory. There must be obstacles to
overcome, social norms to flout, laws to break, before the seduction can be
consummated. It might seem that a permissive society imposes few limits; find
some. There will always be limits, sacred cows, behavioral standards-endless
ammunition for stirring up the transgressive and taboo. Symbol: The Forest. The
children are told not to go into the forest that lies just beyond the safe
confines of their home. There is no law there, only wilderness, wild animals,
and . But the chance to explore, the alluring darkness, and the fact that it is
prohibited are impossible to resist. And once inside, they want to go farther
andfarther. Reversal T he reversal of stirring up taboos would be to stay
within the limits of acceptable behavior. That would make for a very tepid
seduction. Which is not to say that only evil or wild behavior is seductive;
goodness, kindness, and an aura of spirituality can be tremendously attractive,
they are rare qualities. But notice that the game is the same. A person who is
kind or good or spiritual within the limits that society prescribes has weak
appeal. It is those who go to the extreme-the Gandhis, the Krish- namurtis-who
seduce us. They do not merely expound a spiritual life, they do away with all
personal material comfort to live out their ascetic ideals. They too go beyond
the limits, transgressing acceptable behavior, because societies would find it
hard to function if everyone wenttosuchlengths.Inseduction, there is absolutely
no power in respecting boundaries and limits. IQ Use Spiritual Lures Everyone
has doubts and insecurities-about their body, their self-worth, their
sexuality. If your seduction appeals exclusively to the, you will stir up these
doubts and make your targets self-conscious. Instead, lure out of their
insecurities by making them focus on something sublime and spiritual: a
religious experience, a lofty work of art, the occult. Play up your divine
qualities; affect an air of discontent with things; speak of the stars,
destiny, the hidden threads that unite you and the object of the seduction.
Lost in a spiritual mist, the target will feel light and uninhibited. Deepen
the effect of your seduction by making its sexual culmination seem like the
spiritual union of two souls. Object of Worship L iane de Pougy was the
reigning courtesan of 1890s Paris. Slender and androgynous, she was a novelty,
and the wealthiest men in Europe vied to possess her. By late in the decade,
however, she had grown tired of it all. "What a sterile life," she
wrote a friend. "Always the same routine: the Bois, the races, fittings;
and to end an insipid day: dinner!" What wearied the most was the constant
attention of her male admirers, who sought to monopolize her physical charms.
One spring day in 1899, Liane was riding in an open carriage through the Bois
de Boulogne. As usual, men tipped their hats at her as she passed by. But one
of these admirers caught her by surprise: a young woman with blond hair, who
gave her an intense, worshipful stare. Liane smiled at woman, who smiled and
bowed in return. A few days later Liane began to receive cards and flowers from
a twenty-three-year-old American named Natalie Barney, who identified herself
as the blond admirer in the Bois de Boulogne, and asked for a ren. Liane invited
Natalie to visit, but to amuse herself she decided to play a little joke: a
friend would take her place, lounging on her bed in the dark boudoir, while
Liane would hide behind a screen. Natalie arrived at bouquet of flowers.
Kneeling before the bed, she began to praise the courtesan, comparing her to a
Era Angelico painting. All too soon, she someone laugh-and standing up she
realized the joke that had been played on her. She blushed and made for the
door. When Liane hurried "Come back tomorrow morning. I'll be alone."
The young American showed up the next day, wearing the same outfit. was witty
and spirited; Liane relaxed in her presence, and invited her to stay for the
courtesan's morning ritual-the elaborate makeup, clothes, and beautiful woman
she had ever seen. Playing the part of the page, she followed Liane to the
carriage, opened the door for her with a bow, and accompanied her on her
habitual ride through the Bois de Boulogne. Once inside the park, Natalie knelt
on the floor, out of sight of the passing gentlemen who tipped their hats to
Liane. She recited poems she had writ- Ah! always to be able to freely love the
one whom one loves! To spend my life at yourfeet like our last days together.
To protect only one to throw you on this bed of moss. . . . We'll find each
other again falls, we'll go deep in the to lose the paths island of describe
for you those delicate female couples, and far from the cities and the, we'll
forget everything but the Ethics of Beauty. BARNEY, LETTER TO LIANE DE
POUGY,QUOTED IN CHALON, PORTRAIT OF A NATALIE BARNEY, Natalie, who used to ravage the land of love.
by husbands since no one could resist her could see how women abandon their
potions. Natalie preferred writing poems; she always knew how to blend the
physical and the spiritual. CHALON, PORTRAIT OF NATAUE BARNEY. town of Gafsa,
in Barbary, very rich man who had daughter called Alibech. She was not in
Liane's honor, and she told the courtesan she considered it a mission That
evening Natalie took her to the theater to see Sarah Bernhardt with Hamlet-his
hunger for the sublime, his hatred of tyranny-which, for her, was the tyranny
of men over women. Over the next few days Liane received a steady flow of
flowers from Natalie, and telegrams with little poems in her honor. Slowly the
worshipful words and looks became more physical, with the occasional touch,
then a caress, even a kiss-and a Mss felt different from any in Liane's
experience. One morning, with Natalie in attendance, Liane prepared to take a
bath. As she slipped out Natalie to throw off her clothes andjoin her. Within a
few days, all Paris knew that Liane de Pougy had a new lover: Natalie Barney.
made no effort to disguise her new affair, publishing a novel, had an affair
with a woman before, and she described her involvement with were many one day,
having on the Christian faith and the one of them for his opinion her by saying
the ones who served put the greatest distance themselves and the case of people
who remoter parts of the . • She said no about it to anyone, next morning,
being a offourteen or alone, in secret, and A few days later, hunger, she
arrived in the of the wilderness, long life, she remembered the affair as by
far her most intense. her. Renee was obsessed with death; she also felt there
was something wrong with her, experiencing moments of intense self-loathing. In
1900, Renee met Natalie at the theater. Something about the American's kind
eyes melted Renee's normal reserve, and she began sending poems to Natalie, who
responded with poems of her own. They soon became friends. confessed that she
had had an intense friendship with another woman, but that it remained
platonic-the thought of physical involverepulsed her. Natalie told her about
the ancient Greek poet Sappho, who celebrated love between women as the only
love that is innocent and apartment, which she had transformed into a kind of
chapel. The room filled with candles and with white lilies, the flowers she
associated with Natalie. That night the two women became lovers. They soon
moved in together, but when Renee realized that Natalie could not be faithful
to her, her love turned into hatred. She broke off the relationship, moved out,
and vowed to never see her again. the next few months Natalie sent her letters
and poems, and do with her. One evening at the opera, though, Natalie sat down
beside for the past, and also a simple request: the two women should go on a
pilgrimage to the Greek island of Lesbos, Sappho's home. Only there could they
purify themselves and their relationship. Renee could not resist. Use Spiritual
Lures • 36 3 Renee wrote her, "My blond Siren, I don't want you to become
like those who dwell on earth. ... I want you tostayyourself,forthisis the way
you cast your spell over me." Their affair lasted until Renee's death, in
1909. Interpretation. Liane de Pougy and Renee Vivien both suffered a similar
oppression: they were self-absorbed, hyperaware of themselves. The source of
this habit in Liane was men's constant attention to her body. She could never
escape their looks, which plagued her with a feeling of heaviness. Renee,
meanwhile, thought too much about her own problems- her repression of her
lesbianism, her mortality. She felt consumed with self-hatred. Natalie Barney,
on the other hand, was buoyant, lighthearted, absorbed in the world around her.
Her seductions-and by the end of her life they numbered well into the
hundreds-all had a similar quality: she took the victim outside herself,
directing her attention toward beauty, poetry, the innocence of Sapphic love.
She invited her women to participate in a kind of cult in which they would
worship these sublimities. To heighten the cultlike feeling, she involved them
in little rituals: they would call each other by new names, send each other
poems in daily telegrams, wear costumes, women would start to direct some of
the worshipful feelings they were extoward Natalie, who seemed as lofty and
beautiful as the things she held up to be adored; and, pleasantly diverted into
this spiritualized, they wouldalsoloseanyheavinessthey had felt about their
bodies, their selves, their identities. Their repression of their sexuality
would melt away. By the time Natalie kissed or caressed them, it would feel
like something innocent, pure, as if they had returned to the Garden of Eden
before the fall. Religion is the great balm of existence because it takes us
outside ourselves, connects us to something larger. As we contemplate the
object of worship (God, nature), our burdens are lifted away. It is wonderful
to feel raised up from the earth, to experience that kind of lightness. No
matter how progressive the times, many of us feel uncomfortable with our
bodies, our animal drives. A seducer who focuses too much attention on the
physical will stir up self-consciousness, and a residue of disgust. So focus
attention on something else. Invite the other person to worship something
beautiful in the world. It could be nature, a work of art, even God (or
gods-paganism never goes out of fashion); people are dying to believe in
something. Add some rituals. If you can make yourself seem to resemble the
thing you are worshiping-you are natural, aesthetic, noble, and sublime-your
targets will transfer their worship to you. Religion and where, catching sight
of a hut in the distance, she stumbled toward it, and in the doorway she found
a holy man, who was astonished to see her in those parts and asked her what she
was doing there. She told him that she had been inspired by God, and that she
was trying, not only to serve Him, but also to find someone who could teach her
how she should go about it. • On observing how young and exceedingly pretty she
was, the good man was afraid to take her under his wing lest the devil should
catch him unawares. So he praised her for her good intentions, and having given
her a quantity of herb roots, wild apples, and dates to eat, and some water to
drink, he said to : • "My daughter, not- very far from here there is a
holy man who is much more capable than I of teaching you what you want to know.
Go along to him." And he sent her upon her way. • When she came to this
second man, she was told precisely the same thing, and so she went on until she
arrived at the cell of a young hermit, a very devout and fellow called Rustico,
to whom she put the same inquiry as she had addressed to the others. Being
anxious to prove to himself that he possessed a of iron, he did not, like the
others, send her or direct her elsewhere, but kept her corner of which, when
descended, he prepared a makeshift bed out of palm leaves, upon which he
invited her to lie down and rest. • Once he had taken this step, very little
time elapsed before temptation went to war against his willpower, and after the
first few assaults, finding himself outmaneuvered on all fronts, he laid down
his arms and surrendered. Casting aside pious thoughts, prayers, and
penitential exercises, he began to concentrate his youth and beauty of the
girl, and to devise suitable and meansfor her in such a fashion that she should
not think it lewd of him to make the sort of proposal he had in mind. By
certain questions to, he soon discovered that she had never been with the
opposite and was every hit as innocent as she seemed; and he therefore thought
of her, with the pretext of . He began by delivering a long speech in which he
showed her how powerful an enemy the devil was to the Lord God, and followed
this up by appreciated consisted in putting the devil back in Hell, to which
the had consigned The girl asked him how was done, and Rustico replied: •
"You will soon whatever you see me doing saying, he began to divest of the
few clothes himself completely naked. The girl followed his example, and he
sank to his knees as though he spirituality are full of sexual undertones that
can be brought to the surface once you have made your targets lose their
self-awareness. From spiritual ecstasy to sexual ecstasy is but one small step.
Come back to take me, quickly, and lead me far away. Purify me with a great
fire of divine love, none of the animal kind. You are all soul when you want to
be, when you feel it, take me far away from my body. -LIANE DE POUGY Keys to
Seduction R eligion is the most seductive system that mankind has created.
Death is our greatest fear, and religion offers us the illusion that we are
immortal, that something about us will live on. The idea that we are an
infinitesimal part of a vast and indifferent universe is terrifying; religion
humanizes this universe, makes us feel important and loved. We are not animals
governed by uncontrollable drives, animals that die for no apparent reason, but
creatures made in the image of a supreme being. We too can be sublime,
rational, and good. Anything that feeds a desire or a wished-for illusion is
seductive, and nothing can match religion in this arena. Pleasure is the bait
that you use to lure a person into your web. But no matter how clever a seducer
you are, in the back of your targets' mind they are aware of the endgame, the
physical conclusion toward which you are heading. You may think your target is
unrepressed and hungry for pleasure, but almost all of us are plagued by an
underlying unease with our animal nature. Unless you deal with this unease,
your seduction, even when successful in the short term, will be superficial and
temporary. Instead, like Natalie Barney, try to capture your target's soul, to
build the foundation of a deepand lasting seduction. Lure the victim deep into
your web with spirituality, making physical pleasure seem sublime and
transcendent. Spirituality will disguise your manipulations, suggesting that
your relationship is timeless, and creating a space for ecstasy in the victim's
mind. Remember that seduction is a mental process, and nothing is more mentally
intoxicating than religion, spirituality, and the occult. In Gustave Flaubert's
novel Madame Bo\ury, Rodolphe Boulanger visits the country doctor Bovary and
finds himself interested in the doctor's beautiful wife, Emma. Boulanger was
brutal and shrewd. He was something of a connoisseur: there had been many women
in his life." He senses that Emma is bored. A few weeks later he manages
to run into her at a county fair, where he gets her alone. He affects an air of
sadness and gloom; "Many's the time I've passed a cemetery in the
moonlight and asked myself if I wouldn't be better off lying there with the
rest. ..." He mentions his bad reputation; he deserves it, he says, but is
it his fault? "Do you really not know that there exist souls that are
ceaselessly in torment?" Sev- Use Spiritual Lures • 365 eral times he
takes Emma's hand, but she politely withdraws it. He talks of love, the
magnetic force that draws two people together. Perhaps it has roots in some
earlier existence, some previous incarnation of their souls. "Take us, for
example. Why should we have met? How did it happen? It can only be that
something in our particular inclinations made us come closer and closer across
the distance that separated us, the way two rivers flow together." He
takes her hand again and this time she lets him hold it. After the fair, he
avoids her for a few weeks, then suddenly shows up, claiming that he tried to
stay away but that fate, destiny, has pulled him back. He takes Emma riding.
When he finally makes his move, in the woods, she seems frightened and rejects
his advances. "You must have some mistaken idea," he protests.
"I have you in my heart like a Madonna on a pedestal. ... I beseech you:
be my friend, my sister, my angel!" Under the spell of his words, she lets
him hold her and lead her deeper into the woods, where she succumbs. Rodolphe's
strategy is threefold. First he talks of sadness, melancholy, discontent, talk
that makes him seem nobler than other people,as if life's common material
pursuits could not satisfy him. Next he talks of destiny, the magnetic
attraction of two souls. This makes his interest in Emma seem not so much a
momentary impulse as something timeless, linked to the movement of the stars.
Finally he talks of angels, the elevated and the sublime. By placing everything
on the spiritual plane, he distracts Emma from the physical, makes her feel
giddy, and packs a seduction that could have taken months into a matter of a
few encounters. The references Rodolphe uses might seem cliched by today's
standards, but the strategy itself will never grow old. Simply adapt it to the
occult fads of the day. Affect a spiritual air by displaying a discontent with
the banalities of life. It is not money or sex or success that moves you; your
drives are never so base. No, something much deeper motivates you. Whatever
this is, keep it vague, letting the target imagine your hidden depths. The
stars, astrology, fate, are always appealing; create the sense that destiny has
brought you and your target together. That will make your seduction feel more
natural. In a world where too much is controlled and manufactured, the sense
that fate, necessity, or some higher power is guiding your relationship is
doubly seductive. If you want to weave religious motifs into your seduction, it
is always bestto choose some distant, exotic religion with a slightly pagan
air. It is easy to move from pagan spirituality to pagan earthiness. Timing
counts: once you have stirred your targets' souls, move quickly to the
physical, making sexuality seem merely an extension of the spiritual vibrations
you are experiencing. In other words, employ the spiritual strategy as close to
thetime for your bold move as possible. The spiritual is not exclusively the
religious or the occult. It is anything that will add a sublime, timeless
quality to your seduction. In the modern world, culture and art have in some
ways taken the place of religion. There are two ways to use art in your
seduction: first, create it yourself, in the target's honor. Natalie Barney
wrote poems, and barraged her targets with were about to pray, getting her to
kneel directly opposite. • In this posture, the girl's beauty was displayed to
Rustico in all its glory, and his longings blazed more fiercely than ever,
bringing about the resurrection of the flesh. Alibech stared at this in
amazement and said: • "Rustico, what is that I see sticking out in front
of you, which I do not possess?" • "Oh, my daughter," said
Rustico, "this is the devil I was telling you about. Do you see what he's
doing? He's hurting me so much that I can hardly endure it. " • "Oh,
praise be to God," said the girl, "I can see I am better off than you
are, for I have no such devil to contend with." • "You're right
there;" said Rustico. "But you have something else instead, that I
haven't." • "Oh?" said Alibech. "And what's ?" •
"You have Hell," said Rustico. "And I believe that God has sent
you he re for the salvation of my soul, because if this devil continues to
plague the life out of me, and if you are prepared to take sufficient pity upon
me to let me put him back into Hell, you will be giving me marvelous relief, as
well as rendering incalculable service and pleasure to God, which is what you
say you came here for in the first place." • "Oh, Father,"
replied the girl in all innocence, "if I really do have Hell, let's do as
you suggest just as soon as you are ready." • "God bless you, my
daughter," said Rustico. "Let's go and put him back, and then perhaps
he'll leave me alone. " • At which point he conveyed the girl to one of
their beds, where he instructed her in the art of incarcerating that accursed
fiend. • Never having put a single devil into Hell before, the girl found the
first experience a little painful, and she said to : • "This devil must
certainly be a bad lot, Father, and a true enemy of God, for as well as
mankind, he even hurts Hell when he's driven back inside it. " •
"Daughter," said Rustico, it will not always be like that." And
in order to ensure that it wouldn't, before movingfrom the bed they put him
back half a dozen times, curbing his arrogance to such good effect that he was
positively glad to keep stillfor the rest of the day. • During the nextfew
days, however, the devil's pride frequently reared its head again, and the
girl, ever ready to obey the call to duty and bringhim under control, happened
to develop a taste for the sport, and began saying to Rustico: • "I can
certainly see what those worthy men in Gafsa meant when they said that serving
God was so . I don't honestly recall ever having done anything that gave me so
much pleasure and satisfaction as I get from putting the devil back in Hell. To
my way of thinking, anyone who devotes his energies to but the service of God
is a complete blockhead. And so, young ladies, if you stand in need of God's
grace, see them. Half of Picasso's appeal to many women was the hope that he
would immortalize them in his paintings-for Ars longa, vita brevis (Art is
long, life is short), as they used to say in Rome. Even if your love is a
passing fancy, by capturing it in a work of art you give it a seductive
illusion of eternity. The second way to use art is to make it ennoble the
affair, giving your seduction an elevated edge. Natalie Barney took her targets
to the theater, to the opera, to museums, to places full of history and
atmosphere. In such your souls can vibrate to the same spiritual wavelength. Of
course you should avoid works of art that are earthy or vulgar, calling
attention to your intentions. The play, movie, or book can be contemporary,
even a little raw, as long as it contains a noble message and is tied to
somejust cause. Even a political movement can be spiritually uplifting.
Remember to tailor your spiritual lures to the target. If the target is earthy
and cynical, paganism or art will be more productive than the occult or
religious piety. The Russian mystic Rasputin was revered for his saintliness
and his healing powers. Women in particular were fascinated with Rasputin and
would visit him in his St. Petersburg apartment for spiritual guidance. He
would talk to them of the simple goodness of the Russian peasantry, God's
forgiveness, and other lofty matters. But after a few minutes of this, he would
inject a comment or two that were of a much different nature- something about
the woman's beauty, her lips that were so inviting, the desires she could
inspire in a man. He would talk of different kinds of love-love of God, love
between friends, love between a man and a woman-but mix them all up as if they
were one. Then as he returned to discussing spiritual matters, he would
suddenly take the woman's hand, or whisper into her ear. All this would have
ait intoxicating effectwomenwouldfindthemselves dragged into a kind of
maelstrom, both spiritually uplifted and sexually excited. Hundreds of women
succumbed during these spiritual visits, for he would also tell them that they
could not repent until they had sinned, and who better to sin with than
Rasputin. Rasputin understood the intimate connection between the sexual and
the spiritual. Spirituality, the love of God, is a sublimated version of sexual
love. The language of the religious mystics of the Middle Ages is full oferotic
images; the contemplation of God and of the sublime can offer a kind of mental
orgasm. There is no more seductive brew than the combination of the spiritual
and the sexual, the high and the low. When you talk of spiritual matters, then,
let your looks and physical presence hint of sexuality at the same time. Make
the harmony of the universe and union with God seem to confuse with physical
harmony and the union between two people. If you can make the endgame of your
seduction appear as a spiritual experience, you will heighten the physical
pleasure and create a seduction with a deep and lasting effect. Use Spiritual
Lures • 367 Symbol: The Stars in the sky. Objects of worship for centuries, and
symbols of the sublime and divine. In contemplating them, we are momentarily
distractedfrom everything mundane and mortal. Wefeel lightness. Lift your
targets' minds up to the stars and they will not notice what is happening here
on earth. that you learn to put the devil back in Hell, for it is greatly to His
liking and pleasurable to the parties concerned, and a great deal of good can
arise and flow in the process. -BOCCACCIO, THE DECAMERON, Reversal L etting
your targets feel that your affection is neither temporary nor superficial will
often make them fall deeper under your spell. In some, though, it can arouse an
anxiety: the fear of commitment, of a claustrophobic relationship with no
exits. Never let your spiritual lures seem to be leading in that direction,
then. To focus attention on the distant future may implicitly constrict their
freedom; you should be seducing them, not offering to marry them. What you want
is to make them lose themselves in the moment, experiencing the timeless depth
of your feelings in the present tense. Religious ecstasy is about intensity,
not temporal extensity. Giovanni Casanova used many spiritual lures in his
seductions-the occult, anything that would inspire lofty sentiments. For the
time that he was involved with a woman, she would feel that he would do
anything for her, that he was not just using her only to abandon her. But she
also knew that when it became convenient to end the affair, hewouldcry, give
her a magnificent gift, then quietly leave. This was just what many young women
wanted-a temporary diversion from marriage or an oppressive family. Sometimes
pleasure is best when we know it is fleeting. 20 Mix Pleasure with Pain The
greatest mistake in seduction is being too nice. At first, perhaps, your
kindness is charming, but it soon grows monotonous; you are trying too hard to
please, and seem insecure. Instead of overwhelming your targets with niceness,
try inflicting some pain. Lure them in with focused attention, then change
direction, appearing suddenly uninterested. Make them feel guilty and insecure.
Even instigate a breakup, subjecting them to an emptiness and pain that will
give you room to maneuver-now a rapprochement, an apology, a return to your
earlier kindness, will turn them weak at the knees. The lower the lows you
create, the greater the highs. To heighten the erotic charge, create the
excitement offear. The Emotional Roller Coaster O ne hot summer afternoon in
1894, Don Mateo Diaz, a thirty-eight- year-old resident of Seville, decided to
visit a local tobacco factory Because of his connections Don Mateo was allowed
to tour the place, but his interest was not in the business side. Don Mateo
liked young girls, and hundreds of them worked in the factory. Just as he had
expected, that day manyofthem were in a state of near undress because of the
heat-it was quite a spectacle. He enjoyed the sights for a while, but the noise
and the temperature soon got to him. As he was heading for the door, though, a
worker of no more than sixteen called out to him: "Caballero, if you will
give me a penny I will sing you a little song." The girl's name was
Conchita Perez, and she looked young and innocent, in fact beautiful, with a
sparkle in her eye that suggested a taste for adventure. The perfect prey. He
listened to her song (which seemed vaguely suggestive), tossed her a coin that
was equal to a month's salary, tipped his hat, then left. It was never good to
come on too strong too early. As he walked along the street, he plotted how he
would lure her into an affair. Suddenly he felt a hand on his arm and he turned
to see her walking alongside him. It was too hot to work-would he be a
gentleman and escort her home? Of course. Do you have a lover? he asked her.
No, she said, "I am mozita" -pure, a virgin. Conchita lived with her
mother in a rundown part of town. Don Mateo exchanged pleasantries, slipped the
mother some money (he knew from experience how important it was to keep the
mother happy), then left. He considered waiting a few days, but he was
impatient, and returned the following morning. The mother was out. He andConchita
resumed their playful banter from the day before, and to his surprise she
suddenly sat in his lap, put her arms around him, and kissed him. His strategy
flying out the window, he took hold of her and returned the kiss. She
immediately jumped up, her eyes flashing with anger: you are trifling with me,
she said, using me for a quick thrill. Don Mateo denied having any such
intentions, and apologized for going too far. When he left, he felt confused:
she had started it all; why should he feel guilty? And yet he did. Young girls
can be so unpredictable; it is best to break them in slowly Over the next few
days Don Mateo was the perfect gentleman. He visited every day, showered mother
and daughter with gifts, made no advances-at least not at first. The damned
girl had become so familiar The more one pleases generally, the less one
pleases profoundly. -STENDHAL, LOVE, You should mix in the odd rebuff \ With
your cheerful fun. Shut him out of the house, let him wait there \ Cursing that
locked front door, let him plead \ And threaten all he's a mind to. Sweetness
cloys the palate, \ Bitter juice is a freshener. Often a small skiff \ Is sunk
by favoring winds: it's their husbands' access to them, \ At will, that
deprives so many wives of love. \ Let her put in a door, with a hard-faced
porter to tell him \ "Keep out," and he'll soon be touched with
desire \ Through frustration. Put down your blunt foils, fight with sharpened
weapons \ (I don't doubt that my own shafts \ Will be turned against me). When
a new-captured lover \ Is stumbling into the toils, then let him believe \ He
alone has rights to your bed-but later, make him 371 372 conscious \ Of rivals,
of shared delights. Neglect \ These devices-his ardor will wane. A racehorse
runs most strongly \ When the field's ahead, to be paced \ And passed. So the
dying embers of passion can be fanned to \ Fresh flame by some outrage-I can
only love, \ Myself, I confess it, when wronged. But don't let the cause of\
Pain be too obvious: let a lover suspect \ More than he knows. Invent a slave
who watches your every \ Movement, make clear with him that she would dress in
front of him, or greet him in her nightgown. These glimpses of her body drove
him crazy, and he would sometimes try to steal a kiss or caress, only to have
her push him away and scold him. Weeks went by; clearly he had shown that his
was not a passing fancy. of the endless courtship, he took Conchita's mother
aside one day and proposed that he set the girl up in a house of her own. He
would treat her like a queen; she would have everything she wanted. (So, of
course, would her mother.) Surely his proposal would satisfy the two women-but
the next day, a note came from Conchita, expressing not gratitude but
recrimination: he was trying to buy her love. "You shall never see me
again," she concluded. He hurried to the house only to discover that the
women had moved out that very morning, without leaving word where they were
going. Don Mateo felt terrible. Yes, he had acted like a boor. Next time he what
a jealous martinet \ That man of yours is - such things will excite him.
Pleasure \ Too safely enjoyed lacks zest. You want to be free \ As Thais? Act
scared. Though the door's quite safe, let him in by \ The window. Look nervous.
Have a smart \ Maid rush in, scream "We're caught!" while you bundle
the quaking \ Youth out of sight. But be sure \ To offset his fright with some
moments of carefree pleasure - \ Or he'll think a night with you isn't worth
the risk. - OVID. THE ART OF LOVE "Certainly," I said, "I have
often told you that pain holds a peculiar attraction for me, and that nothing
kindles my passion quite so much as tyranny cruelty and above all
unfaithfulness in a beautiful woman." -LEOPOLD VON SACHER- MASOCH, VENUS
IN FURS, wait months, or years if need be, before being so bold. Soon, however,
another thought assailedhim:he would never see Conchita again. Only then did he
realize how much he loved her. The winter passed, the worst of Mateo's life.
One spring day he was walking down the street when he heard someone calling his
name. He looked up: Conchita was standing in an open window, beaming with
excitement. She bent down toward him and he kissed her hand, beside himself
with joy. Why had she disappeared so suddenly? It was all going too quickly,
she said. She had been afraid-of his intentions, and of her own feelings. But
seeing him again, she was certain that she loved him. Yes, she was ready to be
his mistress. She would prove it, she would come to him. Being apart had
changed them both, he thought. A few nights later, as promised, she appeared at
his house. They kissed and began to undress. He wanted to savor every minute,
to take it slowly, but he felt like a caged bull finally set free. He followed
her into bed, his hands all over her. He started to take off her underwear but
it was laced up in some complicated way. Eventually he had to sit up and take a
look: she was wearing some elaborate canvas contraption, of a kind he had never
seen. No matter how hard he tugged and pulled, it would not come off. He felt
like hitting Conchita, he was so distraught, but instead he started to cry. She
explained: she wanted to do everything with him, yet to remain a mozita. This
was her protection. Exasperated, he sent her home. Over the next few weeks, Don
Mateo began to reassess his opinion of Conchita. He saw her flirting with other
men, and dancing a suggestive flamenco in a bar: she was not a mozita, he
decided, she was playing him for money. And yet he could not leave her. Another
man would take his place-an unbearable thought. She would invite him to spend
the night in jier bed, as long as he promised not to force himself on her; and
then, as if to torture him beyond reason, she would get into bed naked
(supposedly because of the heat). All this he put up with on the grounds that
no other man had such privileges. But one night, pushed to the limits of
frustration, he exploded with anger, and issued an ultimatum: either give me
what I Mix Pleasure with Pain • 373 want or you will never see me again.
Suddenly Conchita started to cry. He had never seen her cry, and it moved him.
She too was tired of all this, she said, her voice trembling; if it was not too
late, she was ready to accept the proposal she had once turned down. Set her up
in a house, and he would see what a devoted mistress she would be. Don Mateo
wasted no time. He bought her a villa, gave her plenty of money to decorate it.
After eight days the house was ready. She would receivehim there at midnight.
What joys awaited him. Don Mateo showed up at the appointed hour. The barred
door to the courtyard was closed. He rang the bell. She came to the other side
of the door. "Kiss my hands," she said through the bars. "Now
Mss the hem of my skirt, and the tip of my foot in its slipper." He did as
she requested. "That is good," she said. "Now you may go."
His shocked expression just made her laugh. She ridiculed him, then made a
confession: she was repulsed by him. Now that she had a villa in her name, she
was free of him at last. She called out, and a young man appeared from the
shadows of the courtyard. As Don Mateo watched, too stunned to move, they began
to make love on the floor, right before his eyes. The next morning Conchita
appeared at Don Mateo's house, supposedly to see if he had committed suicide.
To her surprise, he hadn't-in fact he slapped her so hard she fell to the
ground. "Conchita," he said, "you have made me suffer beyond all
human strength. You have invented moral tortures to try them on the only man
who loved you passionately. I now declare that I am going to possess you by
force." Conchita screamed she would never be his, but he hit her again and
again. Finally, moved by her tears, he stopped. Now she looked up at him
lovingly. Forget the past, she said, forget all that I have done. Now that he
hit her, now that she could see his pain, she felt certain he truly loved her.
She was still a mozita -the affair with the young man the night before had been
only for show, ending as soon as he had left-and she still belonged to him.
"You are not going to take me by force. I await you in my arms."
Finally she was sincere. To his supreme delight, he discovered that she was
indeed still a virgin. Interpretation. Don Mateo and Conchita Perez are
characters in the 1896 novella Woman and Puppet, by Pierre Louys. Based on a
true story-the "Miss Charpillon" episode in Casanova's Memoirs -the
novella has served as the basis for two films: Josef von Sternberg's Devil Is a
Woman, with Marlene Dietrich, and Luis Bunuel's That Obscure Object of Desire. In
Louys's story, Conchita takes a proud and aggressive older man and in the space
of a few months turns him into an abject slave. Her method is simple: she
stimulates as many emotions as possible, including heavy doses of pain. She
excites his lust, then makes him feel base for taking advantage of her. She
gets him to play the protector, then makes him feel guilty for trying to buy
her. Her sudden disappearance anguishes him-he has lost her-so that when she
reappears (never by accident) he feels intense joy; which, however, she
Oderint, dum metuant [Let them hate me so long as they fear me], as if only
fear and hate belong together, whereas fear and love have nothing to do with
each other, as if it were notfear that makes love interesting. With what kind
of love do we embrace nature? Is there not a secretive anxiety and horror in
it, because its beautiful harmony works its way out of lawlessness and wild
confusion, its security out of perfidy? But precisely anxiety captivates the
most. So also with love, if it is to he interesting. Behind it ought to brood
the deep, anxious night from which springs the flower of love. -S0REN
KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY, The lovely marble creature coughed and
rearranged the sable around her shoulders. • "Thank you for the lesson in
classics," I replied, "but I cannot deny that in your peaceful and
sunny world just as in our misty climate man and woman are natural enemies.
Love may unite them briefly to form one mind, one heart, one will, but all too
soon they are torn asunder. And you know better than I: either one of them must
the other to his will, or else he must let himself be trampled underfoot.
" • "Under the woman's foot, of course," said Lady Venus
impertinently. "And that you know better than I." • "Of course,
that is why I have no illusions." • "In other words you are now my
slavewithout illusions, and I shall 374 trample you mercilessly. " •
"Madam!" • "You do not know me yet. I admit that am cruel-since
the word gives you so much -but am I not entitled to be so? It is man desires, woman
who is desired; this is woman's advantage, but it is a decisive one. By making
man so vulnerable to passion, nature has placed him at woman's mercy, and who
has not the sense to treat him like a humble subject, a slave, a plaything, and
finally to betray him with a laugh - well, she is a woman of little
wisdom." • "My dear, your principles ..." I protested. •
"Are founded on the experience of a thousand years," she replied
mischievously, running her white fingers through the darkfur. "The more
submissive woman is, the more readily man recovers his self-possession and
becomes domineering; but the more cruel and faithless she is, the more she
ill-treats him, the more wantonly she toys with him and the harsher she is, the
more she quickens his desire and secures his love and admiration. It has always
been so, from the time of Helen and Delilah all the way to Catherine the Great
and Lola Montez. " -LEOPOLD VON SACHER- MASOCH, VENUS IN FURS. In essence,
the domain of eroticism is the domain of violence, of violation. . . . The
whole business of eroticism is to strike to the inmost core of the living
being, so that the heart stands still. . . . The quickly turns back into tears.
Jealousy and humiliation then precede the final moment when she gives him her
virginity. (Even after this, according to the story, she finds ways to continue
to torment him.) Each low she inspires-guilt, despair, jealousy,
emptiness-creates the space for a more intense high. He becomes an addict,
hooked on the alternation of charge and withdrawal. Your seduction should never
follow a simple course upward toward pleasure and harmony. The climax will come
too soon, and the pleasure will be weak. What makes us intensely appreciate
something is previous suffering. A brush with death makes us fall in love with
life; a longjourney makes a return home that much more pleasurable. Your task
is to create moments of sadness, despair, and anguish, to create the tension
that allows for a great release. Do not worry about making people angry; anger
is a sure sign that you have your hooks in them. Nor should you be afraid that
if you make yourself difficult people will flee-we only abandon those who bore
us. The ride on which you take your victims can be tortuous but never dull. At
all costs, keep your targets emotional and on edge. Create enough highs and
lows and you will wear away the last vestiges of their willpower. Harshness
andKindness I n 1972, Kissinger, then President Richard Nixon's assistant for
national security affairs, received a request for an interview from the famous
Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. Kissinger rarely gave interviews; he had no
control over the final product, and he was a man who needed to be in control.
But he had read Fallaci's interview with a North Vietnamese general, and it had
been instructive. She was extremely well informed on the Vietnam War; perhaps
he could gather some information of his own, pick her brain. He decided to ask
for a preinterview, a preliminary meeting. He would grill her on different
subjects; if she passed the test, he would grant her an interview proper. They
met, and he was impressed; she was extremely intelligent-and tough. It would be
an enjoyable challenge to outwit her and prove that he was tougher. He agreed
to a short interview a few days later. To Kissinger's annoyance, Fallaci began
the interview by asking him whether he was disappointed by the slow pace of the
peace negotiations with North Vietnam. He would not discuss the negotiations-he
had made that clear in the preinterview. Yet she continued the same line of
questioning. He grew a little angry "That's enough," he said. "I
don't want to talk any more about Vietnam." Although she didn't
immediately abandon the subject, her questions became gentler: what were his personal
feelings toward the leaders of South and North Vietnam? Still, he ducked:
"I'm not the kind of person to be swayed by emotion. Emotions serve no
purpose." She moved to grander philosophical issues-war, peace. She Mix
Pleasure with Pain • 375 praised him for his role in the rapprochement with
China. Without realizing it, Kissinger began to open up. He talked of the pain
he felt in dealing with Vietnam, the pleasures of wielding power. Then suddenly
the harsher questions returned-was he simply Nixon's lackey, as many suspected?
Up and down she went, alternately baiting and flattering him. His goal had been
to pump her for information while revealing nothing about himself; by the end,
though, she had given him nothing, while he had revealed a range of
embarrassing opinions-his view of women as playthings, for instance, and his
belief that he was popular with the public because people saw him as a kind of
lonesome cowboy, the hero who cleans things up by himself. When the interview
was published, Nixon, Kissinger's boss, was livid about it. In 1973, the Shah
of Iran, Mohammed Riza Pahlavi, granted Fallaci an interview. He knew how to
handle the press-be noncommittal, speak in generalities, seem firm, yet polite.
This approach had worked a thousand times before. Fallaci beganthe interview on
a personal level, asking how it felt to be a king, to be the target of
assassination attempts, and why the shah always seemed so sad. He talked of the
burdens of his position, the pain and loneliness he felt. It seemed a release
of sorts to talk about his professional problems. As he talked, Fallaci said
little, her silence goading him on. Then she suddenly changed the subject: he
was having difficulties with his second wife. Surely that must hurt him? This
was a sore spot, and Pahlavi got angry. He tried to change the subject, but she
kept returning to it. Why waste time talking about wives and women, he said. He
then went so far as to criticize women in general-their lack of creativity,
their cruelty. Fallaci kept at him; he had dictatorial tendencies and his
country lacked basic freedoms. Fallaci's own books were on his government's
blacklist. Hearing this, the shah seemed somewhat taken aback-perhaps he was
dealing with a subversive writer. But then she softened her tone again, asked
him about his many achievements. The pattern repeated: the moment he relaxed,
she blindsided him with a sharp question; when he grew bitter, she lightened
the mood. Like Kissinger, he found himself opening up despite himself and
mentioning things he would later regret, such as his intention to raise the
price of oil. Slowly he fell under her spell, even began to flirt with her.
"Even if you're on the blacklist of my authorities," he said at the
end of the interview, "I'll put you on the white list of my heart." Interpretation.
Most of Fallaci's interviews were with powerful leaders, men and women with an
overwhelming need to control the situation, to avoid revealing anything
embarrassing. This put her and her subjects in conflict, since getting them to
open up-grow emotional, give up control- was exactly what she wanted. The
classic seductive approach of charm and flattery would get her nowhere with
these people; they would see right through it. Instead, Fallaci preyed on their
emotions, alternating harshness and kindness. She would ask a cruel question
that touched on the deepest whole business of eroticism is to destroy the
self-contained character of the participators as they are in their normal
lives. We ought never toforget that in spite of the bliss love promises its
first effect is one of turmoil and distress. Passion fulfdled itself provokes
such violent agitation that the happiness involved, before being a happiness to
be enjoyed, is so great as to be more like its opposite, suffering. The
likelihood of suffering is all the greater since suffering alone reveals the
total significance of the beloved object. -GEORGES BATAILLE, EROTISM: DEATH AND
SENSUALITY. Always a little doubt to set at rest - that's what keeps one
craving in passionate love. Because the keenest misgivings are always there,
its pleasures never become tedious. • Saint- Simon, the only historian France
has ever possessed, says: "After many passing fancies the Duchesse de
Berry had fallen deeply in love with Riom, a junior member of the d Aydie family,
the son of one of Madame de Biron's sisters. He had neither looks nor brains;
he was fat, short, chubby-cheeked, pale, and had such a crop of pimples that he
seemed one large abscess; he had beautiful teeth, but not the least idea that
he was going to inspire a passion which quickly got out of control, a passion
which lasted a lifetime, notwithstanding a number of subsidiary flirtations and
affairs. He would excite but not requite the desire of the princess; he
delighted in making her jealous, or pretending to be jealous himself. He would
often drive her to tears. Gradually heforced her into the position of doing
nothing without his leave, even trifles of no importance. Sometimes, when she
was ready to go to the Opera, he insisted that she stay at home; and sometimes
he made her go there against her will. He obliged her to grant favours to
ladies she did not like or of whom she was jealous. She was not evenfree to
dress as she chose; he would amuse himself by making her change her coiffure or
her dress at the last minute; he did this so often and so publicly that she
became accustomed to take his orders in the evening for what she would do and
wear the following day; then the next day he would alter everything, and the
princess would cry all the more. In the end she took to sending him messages by
trusted footmen, for from the first he had taken up residence in Luxembourg;
messages which continued throughout her toilette, to know what ribbons she
would wear, what gown and other ornaments; almost invariably he made her wear
something she did not wish to. When she occasionally dared to do anything,
however small, without his leave, he treated her like a servant, and she was in
tears for several days. • . . . Before assembled company he would give her such
brusque replies that everyone lowered their eyes, and the Duchess would blush,
though her passion insecurities of the subject, who would get emotional and
defensive; deep down, though, something else would stir inside them-the desire
to prove to Fallaci that they did not deserve her implicit criticisms.
Unconsciously they wanted to please her, to make her like them. When she then
shifted tone, indirectly praising them, they felt they were winning her over
and were encouraged to open up. Without realizing it, they would give freer
rein to their emotions. hi social situations we all wear masks, and keep our
defenses up. It is embarrassing, after all, to reveal one's true feelings. As a
seducer you must find a way to lower these resistances. The Charmer's approach
of flattery and attention can be effective here, particularly with the
insecure, but it can take months of work, and can also backfire. To get a
quicker result, and to break down more inaccessible people, it is often better
to alternate harshness and kindness. By being harsh you create inner
tensions-your targets may be upset with you, but they are also asking
themselves questions. What have they done to earn your dislike? When you then
are kind, they feel relieved, but also concerned that at any moment they might
somehow displease you again. Make use of this pattern to keep them in suspense-
dreading your harshness and keen to keep you kind. Your kindness and harshness
should be subtle; indirect digs and compliments are best. Play the
psychoanalyst: make cutting comments concerning their unconscious motives (you
are only being truthful), then sit back and listen. Your silence will goad them
into embarrassing admissions. Leaven your judgments with occasional praise and
they will strive to please you, like dogs. Love is a costlyflower,but one must
have the desire to pluck it from the edge of a precipice. -STENDHAL Keys to
Seduction A lmost everyone is more or less polite. We learn early on not to
tell people what we really think of them; we smile at their jokes, act
interested in their stories and problems. It is the only way to live with them.
Eventually this becomes a habit; we are nice, even when it isn't really
necessary. We try to please other people, to not step on their toes, to avoid
disagreements and conflict. Niceness in seduction, however, though it may at
first draw someone to you (it is soothing and comforting), soon loses all
effect. Being too nice can literally push the target away from you. Erotic
feeling depends on the creation of tension. Without tension, without anxiety
and suspense, there can be no feeling of release, of true pleasure and joy It
is your task to create that tension in the target, to stimulate feelings of
anxiety, to lead them to and fro, so that the culmination of the seduction has
real weight and intensity. So rid yourself of your nasty habit of avoiding
conflict, which is in any Mix Pleasure with Pain • 377 case unnatural. You are
most often nice not out of your own inner goodness but out of fear of
displeasing, out of insecurity. Go beyond that fear and you suddenly have
options-the freedom to create pain, then magically dissolve it. Your seductive
powers will increase tenfold. People will be less upset by your hurtful actions
than you might imagine. In the world today, we often feel starved for
experience. We crave emotion, even if it is negative. The pain you cause your
targets, then, is bracing-it makes them feel more alive. They have something to
complain about, they get to play the victim. As a result, once you have turned
the pain into pleasure they will readily forgive you. Stir up their jealousy,
make them feel insecure, and the validation you later give their ego by
preferring them over their rivals is doubly delightful. Remember: you have more
to fear by boring your targets than by shaking them up. Wounding people binds
them to you more deeply than kindness. Create tension so you can release it. If
you need inspiration, find the part of the target that most irritates you and
use it as a springboard for some therapeutic conflict. The more real your
cruelty, the more effective it is. In 1818, the French writer Stendhal, then
living in Milan, met the Countess Metilda Viscontini. For him, it was love at
first sight. She was a proud, somewhat difficult woman, and she intimidated
Stendhal, who was terribly afraid of displeasing her with a stupid comment or
undignified act. Finally, unable to take it any longer, he one day took her
hand and confessed his love. Horrified, the countesstoldhim to leave and never
come back. for him was in no way curtailed." • For the princess, Riom was
a sovereign remedy against boredom. -STENDHAL, LOVE, Stendhal flooded
Viscontini with letters, begging her to forgive him. At last, she relented: she
would see him again, but under one condition-he could visit only once every two
weeks, for no more than an hour, and only in the presence of company. Stendhal
agreed; he had no choice. He now lived for those short fortnightly visits,
which became occasions of intense anxiety and fear, since he was never quite
sure whether she would change her mind and banish him forever. This went on for
over two years, during which the countess never showed him the slightest sign
of favor. Stendhal never found out why she had insisted on this
arrangement-perhaps she wanted to toy with him or keep him at a distance. All
he knew was that his love for her only grew stronger, became unbearably
intense, until finally he had to leave Milan. To get over this sad affair,
Stendhal wrote his famous book On Love, in which he described the effect of
fear on desire. First, if you fear the loved one, you can never get too close
or familiar with him or her. The beloved then retains an element of mystery,
which only intensifies your love. Second, there is something bracing about
fear. It makes you vibrate with sensation, heightens your awareness, is
intensely erotic. According to Stendhal, the closer the loved one brings you to
the edge of the precipice, to the feeling that they could abandon you, the
dizzier and more lost you will become. Falling in love means literally
falling-losing control, a mix of fear and excitement. Apply this wisdom in
reverse: never let your targets get too comfortable 378 The Art of Seduction
with you. They need to feel fear and anxiety. Show them some coldness, a flash
of anger they did not expect. Be irrational if necessary. There is always the
trump card: a breakup. Let them feel they have lost you forever, make them fear
that they have lost the power to charm you. Let these feelings sit with them
for a while, then pull them back from the precipice. The reconciliation will be
intense. In 33 B.C., Mark Antony heard a rumor that Cleopatra, his lover of
several years, had decided to seduce his rival, Octavius, and that she was
planning to poison Antony. Cleopatra had poisoned people before; in fact she
was an expert in the art. Antony grew paranoid, and finally one day confronted
her. Cleopatra did not protest her innocence. Yes, that was true, it was quite
within her power to poison Antony at any moment; there were no precautions he
could take. Only theloveshe felt for him could protect him. To demonstrate, she
took some flowers and dropped them into his wine. Antony hesitated, then raised
the cup to his lips; Cleopatra grabbed his arm and stopped him. She had a prisoner
brought in to drink the wine, and the prisoner promptly dropped dead. Falling
at Cleopatra's feet, Antony professed that he loved her now more than ever. He
did not speak out of cowardice; there was no man braver than he, and if
Cleopatra could have poisoned him, he for his part could have left her and gone
back to Rome. No, what pushed him over the edge was the feeling that she had
control over his emotions, over life and death. He was her slave. Her
demonstration of her power over him was not only effective but erotic. Like
Antony, many of us have masochistic yearnings without realizing it. It takes
someone to inflict some pain on us for these deeply repressed desires to come
to the surface. You must learn to recognize the types of hidden masochists out
there, for each one enjoys a particular kind of pain. For instance, there are
people who feel that they deserve nothing good in life, and who, unable to deal
with success, sabotage themselves constantly. Be nice to them, admit that you
admire them, and they are uncomfortable, since they feel that they cannot
possibly match up to the ideal figure you have clearlyimagined them to be. Such
self-saboteurs do better with a little punishment; scold them, make them aware
of their inadequacies. They feel they deserve such criticism and when it comes
it is with a sense of relief. It is also easy to make them feel guilty, a
feeling that deep down they enjoy. Other people experience the responsibilities
and duties of modern life as such a heavy burden, they long to give it all up.
These people are often looking for someone or something to worship-a cause, a
religion, a guru. Make them worship you. And then there are those who want to
play the martyr. Recognize them by the joy they take in complaining, in feeling
righteous and wronged; then give them a reason to complain. Remember;
appearances deceive. Often the strongest-looking people-the Kissingers and Don
Mateos-may secretly want to be punished. In any event, follow up pain with
pleasure and you will create a state of dependency that will last for a long
time. Mix Pleasure with Pain Symbol: The Precipice. At the edge of a cliff,
people often feel lightheaded, both fearful and dizzy. For a moment they can
imagine themselves falling headlong. At the same time, a part of them is
tempted. Lead your targets as close to the edge as possible, then pull them
back. No thrill without fear. Reversal P eople who have recently experienced a
lot of pain or a loss will flee if you try to inflict more on them. They have
enough in their lives already. Far better to surround these types with
pleasure-that will put them under your spell. The technique of inflicting pain
works best on those who have it easy, who have power and few problems. People
with comfortable lives may also feel a gnawing sense of guilt, as if they had
gotten away with something. They may not consciously know it, but secretly they
long for some punishment, a good mental thrashing, something that will bring
them back down to earth. Also, remember to not use the pleasure-through-pain
tactic too early on. Some of the greatest seducers in history-Byron, Jiang Qing
(Madame Mao), Picasso-had a sadistic streak, an ability to inflict mental
torture. If their victims had known in advance what they were getting
themselves into, they would have run for the hills. In truth, most of these
seducers lured their targets into their webs by appearing to be paragons of
sweetness and affection. Even Byron seemed like an angel when he first met a
woman, so that she tended to doubt his devilish reputation-a seductive doubt,
for it allowed her to think of herself as the only one who really understood
him. His cruelty would come out later on, but by then it would be too late. The
victim's emotions were engaged,andhisharshnesswouldonlyintensify her feelings.
In the beginning, then, wear the mask of a lamb, making pleasure and
attentiveness your bait. First get under their skin, then lead them on a wild
ride. 379 Phase Four Moving Infor the Kill confused and stirred them up-the
emotional seduction. Now the time has comefor hand-to-hand combat-the physical
seduction. At this point, your victims are weak and ripe with desire: by show-,
ing a little coldness or uninterest, you will spark panic-they will come after
you with impatience and erotic energy (21: Give them to fall-the pursuer is
pursued). To bring them to a boil, you need to put their minds to sleep and
heat up their senses. It is best to lure them into lust by sending certain
loaded signals that will get under their skin and spread sexual desire like a
poison (22: Use physical lures). The moment to strike and move infor the kill
is when your victim is brimming with desire, but not consciously expecting the
climax to come (23: Master the art of the bold move). Once the seduction is
over, there is the danger that disenchantment will set in and ruin all your
hard work (24: Beware the aftereffects). If you are after a relationship, then
you must constantly re-seduce the victim, creating tension and releasing it. If
your victim is to be sacrificed, then it must be done swiftly and cleanly,
leaving you free (physicallyandpsychologically)tomoveontothenext victim. Then
the game begins all over. 21 Give Them Space to Fall- The Pursuer Is Pursued If
your targets become too used to you as the aggressor, they will give less of
their own energy, and the tension will slacken. You need to wake them up, turn
the tables. Once they are under your spell, take a step back and they will
start to come after you. Begin with a touch of aloofness, an unexpected nonappearance,
a hint that you are growing bored. Stir the pot by seeming interested in
someone else. Make none of this explicit; let them only sense it and their
imagination will do the rest, creating the doubt you desire. Soon they will
want to possess you physically, and restraint will go out the window. The goal
is to have them fall into your arms of their own will. Create the illusion that
the seducer is being seduced. Seductive Gravity I n the early 1840s, the center
of attention in the French art world was a young woman named Apollonie
Sabatier. She was so much the natural beauty that sculptors and painters vied
to immortalize her in their works, and she was also charming, easy to talk to,
and seductively self-sufficient- men were drawn to her. Her Paris apartment
became a gathering spot for writers and artists, and soon Madame Sabatier-as
she came to be known, although she was not married-was hosting one of the most
important literary salons in France. Writers such as Gustave Flaubert, the
elder Alexandre Dumas, and Theophile Gautier were among her regular guests.
Near the end of 1852, when she was thirty, Madame Sabatier received an
anonymous letter. The writer confessed that he loved her deeply. Worried that
she would find his sentiments ridiculous, he would not reveal his name; yet he
had to let her know that he adored her. Sabatier was used to such
attentions-one man after another had fallen in love with her-but this letter
was different: in this man she seemed to have inspired a quasireligious ardor.
The letter, written in a disguised handwriting, contained a poem dedicated to
her; titled "To One Who Is Too Gay," it began by praising her beauty,
yet ended with the lines And so, one night. I'd like to sneak. When darkness
tolls the hour of pleasure,A craven thief, toward the treasure Which is your
person, plump and sleek. . . . And, most vertiginous delight! Into those lips,
so freshly striking And daily lovelier to my liking- Infuse the venom of my
spite. Mixed in with her admirer's adoration, clearly, was a strange kind of
lust, with a touch of cruelty to it. The poem both intrigued and disturbed
her-and she had no idea who had written it. A few weeks later another letter
arrived. As before, the writer enveloped Sabatier in cultlike worship, mixing
the physical and the spiritual. And as before, there was a poem, "All in
One," in which he wrote. Omissions, denials, deflections, deceptions,
diversions, and humility - all aimed at provoking this second state, the secret
of true seduction. Vulgar seduction might proceed by persistence, but true
seduction proceeds by absence. . . . It is like fencing: one needs a field for
the feint. Throughout this period, the seducer [Johannes], far from seeking to
close in on her, seeks to maintain his distance by various ploys: he does not
speak directly to her but only to her aunt, and then about trivial or stupid
subjects; he neutralizes everything by irony and feigned pedanticism; hefails
to respond to any feminine or erotic movement, and even finds her a sitcom
suitor to disenchant and deceive her, to the point where she herself takes the
initiative and breaks off her engagement, thus completing the seduction and
creating the ideal situation for her total abandon. BAUDRILLARD, SEDUCTION, The
rumor spread everywhere. It was even told to the queen [ Guinevere ], who was
seated at dinner. She nearly killed herself when she heard the perfidious rumor
of Lancelot's death. She thought it was true and was so greatly perturbed that
she was scarcelyabletospeak..She arose at once from the table, and was able to
give vent to her grief without being noticed or overheard. She was so crazed
with the thought of killing herself that she repeatedly grabbed at her throat.
Yet first she confessed in conscience, repented and asked God's pardon; she
accused herself of having sinned against the one she knew had always been hers,
and who would still be, were he alive. She counted all of the unkindnesses and
recalled each individual unkindness; she noted every one, and repeated often:
"Oh misery! What was I thinking, when my lover came before me and I did
not deign to welcome him, nor even care to listen! Was I not a fool to refuse
to speak or even look at him? A fool? No, so help me God, I was cruel and
deceitful! ... 7 believe that it was I alone who struck him that mortal blow.
When he came happily before me expecting me to receive him joyfully and I
shunned him and would never even look at him, was this not a mortal blow? At
that moment, when I refused to speak, I believe I severed both his heart and
his life. Those two blows killed him, I think, and not any hired killers. •
"Ah God! Will I be forgiven this murder, this sin? Never! All the rivers
No single beauty is the best. Since she is all one flower divine_ O mystic
metamorphosis! My senses into one sense flow- Her voice makesperfume when she
speaks. Her breath is music faint and low! Clearly the author was haunted by
Sabatier's presence, and thought of her constantly-but now she began to be
haunted by him, thinking of him night and day, and wondering who he was. His
subsequent letters only deepened the spell. It was flattering to hear that he
was enchanted by more than her beauty, yet also flattering to know that he was
not immune to her physical charms. One day an idea occurred to Madame Sabatier
as to who the writer might be: a young poet who had frequented her salon for
several years, Charles Baudelaire. He seemed shy, in fact had hardly spoken to
her, but she had read some of his poetry, and although the poems in the letters
were more polished, the style was similar. At her apartment Baudelaire would
always sit politely in a corner, but now that she thought of it, he would smile
at her strangely, nervously. It was the look of a young man in love. Now when
he visited she watched him carefully, and the more she watched, the surer she
was that he was the writer, but she never confirmed her intuition, because she
did not want to confront him-he might be shy, but he was a man, and at some
point he would have to come to her. And she felt certain that he would. Then,
suddenly the letters stopped coming-and Madame Sabatier could not
understandwhy, since the last one had been even more adoring than all of the
others before. Several years went by, in which she often thought of her
anonymous admirer's letters, but they were never renewed. In 1857, however,
Baudelaire published a book of poetry. The Flowers of Evil, and Madame Sabatier
recognized several of the verses-they were the ones he had written for her. Now
they were out in the open for everyone to see. A little while later the poet
sent her a gift: a specially bound copy of the book, and a letter, this time
signed with his name. Yes, he wrote, he was the anonymous writer-would she
forgive him for being so mysterious in the past? Furthermore, his feelings for
her were as strong as ever: "You didn't think for a moment that I could
have forgotten you? You to me are more than a cherished image conjured up in
dream, you're my superstition . . . my constant companion, my secret! Farewell,
dear Madame. I kiss your hands with profound devotion." This letter had a
stronger effect on Madame Sabatier than the others had. Perhaps it was his
childlike sincerity, and the fact that he had finally written to her directly;
perhaps it was that he loved her but asked nothing of her, unlike all the other
men she knew who at some point had always turned out to want something.
Whatever it was, she had an uncontrollable desire to see him. The next day she
invited him to her apartment, alone. Give Them Space to Fall-The Pursuer Is
Pursued • 387 Baudelaire appeared at the appointed hour. He sat nervously in
his seat, gazing at her with his large eyes, saying little, and what he did say
was formal and polite. He seemed aloof. After he left a kind of panic seized
Madame Sabatier, and the next day she wrote him a first letter of her own:
"Today I'm more calm, and I can feel more clearly the impression of our
Tuesday evening together. I can tell you, without the danger of your thinking
I'm exaggerating, that I'm the happiest woman on the face of the earth, that
I've never felt more truly that I love you, and that I've never seen you look
more beautiful, more adorable, my divine friend!" Madame Sabatier had
never before written such a letter; she had always been the one who was pursued.
Now she had lost her usual self-possession. And it only got worse: Baudelaire
did not answer right away. When she saw him next, he was colder than before.
She had the feeling there was someone else, that his old mistress, Jeanne
Duval, had suddenly reappeared in his life and was pulling him away from her.
One night she turned aggressive, embracing him, trying to kiss him, but he did
not respond, and quickly found an excuse to leave. Why was he suddenly
inaccessible?She began to flood him with letters, begging him to come to her.
Unable to sleep, she would wait all night for him to show up. She had never
experienced such desperation. Somehow she had to seduce him, possess him, have
him all to herself. She tried everything-letters, coquetry, all kinds of promises-
until he finally wrote that he was no longer in love with her and that was
that. and the seas will dry up first! Oh, misery! How it would have brought me
comfort and healing if I had held him in my arms once before he died. How? Yes,
quite naked next to him, in order to enjoy him fully. . When they came within
six or seven leagues of the castle where King Bademagu was staying, news that
was pleasing came to him about Lancelot-news that he was glad to hear; Lancelot
was alive and was returning, hale and hearty. He behaved most properly in going
to inform the queen. "Good sir," she told him, "I believe it,
since you have told me. But were he dead, I assure you that I could never again
be happy. Now Lancelot had his every wish: the queen willingly sought his
company and affection as he held her in his arms and Interpretation. Baudelaire
was an intellectual seducer. He wanted to overwhelm Madame Sabatier with words,
dominate her thoughts, make her fall in love with him. Physically, he knew, he
could not compete with hermany other admirers-he was shy, awkward, not
particularly handsome. So he resorted to his one strength, poetry. Haunting her
with anonymous letters gave him a perverse thrill. He had to know she would
realize, eventually, that he was her correspondent-no one else wrote like
him-but he wanted her to figure this out on her own. He stopped writing to her
because he had become interested in someone else, but he knew she would be
thinking of him, wondering, perhaps waiting for him. And when he published his
book, he decided to write to her again, this time directly, stirring up the old
venom he had injected in her. When they were alone, he could see she was
waiting for him to do something, to take hold of her, but he was not that kind
of seducer. Besides, it gave him pleasure to hold himself back, to sense his
power over a woman whom so many desired. By the time she turned physical and
aggressive, the seduction was over for him. He had made her fall in love; that
was enough. The devastating effect of Baudelaire's push-and-pull on Madame
Sabatier teaches us a great lesson in seduction. First, it is always best to
keep at some distance from your targets. You do not have to go as far as
remaining anonymous, but you do not want to be seen too often, or to be seen as
she held him in hers. Her love-play seemed so gentle and good to him, both her
kisses and caresses, that in truth the two of them felt a joy and wonder of
which has never been heard or known. But I shall let it remain a secret for
ever, since it should not be written of: the most delightful and choicest
pleasure is that which is hinted at, but never told. -CHRETIEN DETROYES,
ARTHURIAN ROMANCES. He was sometimes so
intellectual that I felt myself annihilated as a woman; at other times he was
so wild and passionate, so desiring, that I almost trembled 388 before him. At
times I was like a stranger to him; at times he surrendered completely. Then
when I threw my arms around him, everything changed, and I embraced a cloud.
-CORDELIA DESCRIBING JOHANNES, IN S0REN KIERKEGAARD, THE SEDUCER'S DIARY, It is
true that we could not love if there were not some memory in us-to the greatest
extent an unconscious memory-that we were once loved. But neither could we love
if this feeling of being loved had not at some time suffered doubt; if we had
always been sure of it. In other words, love would not be possible without
having been loved and then having missed the certainty of being loved. . . . •
The need to be loved is not elementary. This need is certainly acquiredby
experience in later childhood. It would be better to say: by many experiences
or by a repetition of similar ones. I believe that these experiences are of a
negative kind. The child becomes aware that he is not loved or that his
mother's love is not unconditional. The baby learns that his mother can be
dissatisfied with him, that she can withdraw her affection if he does not
behave as she wishes, that she can be angry or cross. I believe that this
experience arousesfeelings of anxiety in the infant. The possibility of losing
his mother'slove certainly strikes the child with a force which can no more be
intrusive. If you are always in their face, always the aggressor, they will
become used to being passive, and the tension in your seduction will flag. Use
letters to make them think about you all the time, to feed their imagination.
Cultivate mystery-stop them from figuring you out. Baudelaire's letters were
delightfully ambiguous, mixing the physical and the spiritual, teasing Sabatier
with theirmultiplicityofpossible interpretations. Then, at the point when they
are ripe with desire and interest, when perhaps they are expecting you to make
a move-as Madame Sabatier expected that day in her apartment-take a step back.
You are unexpectedly distant, friendly but no more than that-certainly not
sexual. Let this sink in for a day or two. Your withdrawal will trigger
anxiety; the only way to relieve this anxiety is to pursue and possess you.
Step back now and you make your targets fall into your arms like ripe fruit,
blind to the force of gravity that is drawing them to you. The more they
participate, the more their willpower is engaged, the deeper the erotic effect.
You have challenged them to use their own seductive powers on you, and when
they respond, the tables will turn and they will pursue you with desperate
energy. / retreat and thereby teach her to be victorious as she pursues me. 1
continually fall back, and in this backward movement 1 teach her to know
through me all the powers of erotic love, its turbulent thoughts, its passion,
what longing is, and hope, and impatient expectancy. -S0REN KIERKEGAARD Keys to
Seduction S ince humans are naturally obstinate and willful creatures, and
prone to suspicions of people's motives, it is only natural, in the course of
any seduction, that in some ways your target will resist you. Seductions,then,
are rarely easy or without setbacks. But once your victims overcome some of
their doubts, and begin to fall under your spell, they will reach a point where
they start to let go. They may sense that you are leading them along, but they
are enjoying it. No one likes things to be complicated and difficult, and your
target will expect the conclusion to come quickly. That is the point, however,
where you must train yourself to hold back. Deliver the pleasurable climax they
are so greedily awaiting, succumb to the natural tendency to bring the
seduction to a rapid end, and you will have missed an opportunity to ratchet up
the tension, to make the affair more heated. After all, you don't want a
passive little victim to toy with; you want the seduced to engage their will in
all its force, to become active participants in the seduction. You want them to
pursue you, hopelessly ensnaring themselves in your web in the process. The
only way to accomplish this is to take a step back and make them anxious. You
have strategically retreated before (see chapter 12), but this is dif- Give
Them Space to Fall-The Pursuer Is Pursued • 389 ferent. The target is falling
for you now, and your retreat will lead to panicky thoughts: you are losing
interest, it is somehow my fault, perhaps it is something I have done. Rather
than think you are rejecting them on your own, your targets will want to make
this interpretation, since if the cause of the problem is something they have
done, they have the power to win you back by changing their behavior. If you
are simply rejecting them, on the other hand, they have no control. People
always want to preserve hope. Now they will come to you, turn aggressive, thinking
that will do the trick. They will raise the erotic temperature. Understand: a
person's willpower is directly linked to their libido, their erotic desire.
When your victims are passively waiting for you, their erotic level is low.
When they turn pursuer, getting involved in the process, brimming with tension
and anxiety, the temperature is raised. So raise it as high as you can. When
you withdraw, make it subtle; you are instilling unease. Your coldness or
distance should dawn on your targets when they are alone, in the form of a
poisonous doubt creeping into their mind. Their paranoia will become
self-generating. Your subtle step back will make them want to possess you, so
they will willingly advance into your arms without being pushed. This is
different from the strategy in chapter 20, in which you are inflicting deep
wounds, creating a pattern of pain and pleasure. There the goal is to make your
victims weak and dependent, here it is to make them active and aggressive.
Which strategy you prefer to use (the two cannot be combined) depends on what
you want and the proclivities of your victim. In Spren Kierkegaard's The
Seducer's Diary, lohannes aims to seduce the young and beautiful Cordelia. He
begins by being rather intellectual with her, and slowly intriguing her. Then
he sends her letters that are romantic and seductive. Now her fascination
blossoms into love. Although in person he remains a little distant, she senses
in him great depths and is certain that he loves her. Then one day, while
they're talking, Cordelia has a strange sensation: something about him is
different. He seems more interested in ideas than in her. Over the next few
days, this doubt gets stronger-the letters are a little less romantic,
something is missing. Feeling anxious, she slowly turns aggressive, becomes the
pursuer instead of the pursued. The seduction is now much more exciting, at
least for Johannes. Johannes's step back is subtle; he merely gives Cordelia
the impression that his interest is a little less romantic than the day before.
He returns to being the intellectual. This stirs the worrisome thought that her
natural charms and beauty no longer have as much effect on him. She must try
harder, provoke him sexually, prove to herself that she has some power over
him. She is now brimming with erotic desire, brought to that point by
Johannes's subtle withdrawal of affection. Each gender has its own seductive
lures, which come naturally to them. When you seem interested in someone but do
not respond sexually, it is disturbing, and presents a challenge: they will
find a way to seduce you. To produce this effect, first reveal an interest in
your targets, through letters or subtle insinuation. But when you are in their
presence, assume a kind of coped with than an earthquake. . . . • The child who
experiences his mother's dissatisfaction and apparent withdrawal of affection
reacts to this menace at first with fear. He tries to regain what seems lost by
expressing hostility and aggressiveness. The change of its character comes
about only after failure; when the child realizes that the effort is a failure.
And now something very strange takes place, something which isforeign to our
conscious thinking but which is very near to the infantile way. Instead of
grasping the object directly and taking possession of it in an aggressive way,
the child identifies with the object as it was before. The child does the same
that the mother did to him in that happy time which has passed. The process is
very illuminating because it shapes the pattern of love in general. The little
boy thus demonstrates in his own behavior what hewants his mother to do to him,
how she should behave to him. He announces this wish by displaying his
tenderness and affection toward his mother who gave these before to him. It is
an attempt to overcome the despair and sense of loss in taking over the role of
the mother. The boy tries to demonstrate what he wishes by doing it himself:
look, I would like you to act thus toward me, to be thus tender and loving to
me. Of course this attitude is not the result of consideration or reasoned
planning but an emotional process by identification, a natural exchange of
roles with the unconscious aim 390 of seducing the mother into fulfdling his
wish. He demonstrates by his own actions how he wants to be loved. It is a
primitive presentation through reversal, an example of how to do the thing
which he wishes done by her. In this presentation lives the memory of the
attentions, tendernesses, and endearments once received from the mother or loving
persons. OF LOVE AND LUST sexless neutrality. Be friendly, even warm, but no
more. You are pushing them into arming themselves with the seductive charms
that are natural to their sex-exactly what you want. In the latter stages of
the seduction, let your targets feel that you are becoming interested in
another person-this is another form of taking a step back. When Napoleon
Bonaparte first met the young widow Josephine de Beauhamaisin1795, he was
excited by her exotic beauty and the looks she gave him. He began to attend her
weekly soirees and, to his delight, she would ignore the other men and remain
at his side, listening to him so attentively. He found himself falling in love
with Josephine, and had every reason to believe she felt the same. Then, at one
soiree, she was friendly and attentive, as usual-except that she was equally
friendly to another man there, a former aristocrat, like Josephine, the kind of
man that Napoleon could never compete with when it came to manners and wit.
Doubts and jealousies began to stir within. As a military man, he knew the
value of going on the offensive, and after a few weeks of a swift and
aggressive campaign he had her all to himself, eventually marrying her. Of
course Josephine, a clever seductress, had set it all up. She did not say she
was interested in another man, but his mere presence at her house, a look here
and there, subtle gestures, made it seem that way. There is no more powerful
way to hint that you are losing your desire. Make your interest in another too
obvious, though, and it could backfire. This is not the situation in which you
want to seem cruel; doubt and anxiety are the effects you are after. Make your
possible interest in another barely perceptible to the naked eye. Once someone
has fallen for you, any physicalabsence will create unease. You are literally
creating space. The Russian seductress Lou Andreas- Salome had an intense
presence; when a man was with her, he felt her eyes boring into him, and often
became entranced with her coquettish ways and spirit. But then, almost
invariably, something would come up-she would have to leave town for a while,
or would be too busy to see him. It was during her absences that men fell
hopelessly in love with her, and vowed to be more aggressive next time they were
with her. Your absences at this latter point of the seduction should seem at
least somewhat justified. You are insinuating not a blatant brush-off but a
slight doubt: perhaps you could have found some reason to stay, perhaps you are
losing interest, perhaps there is someone else. In your absence, their
appreciation of you will grow. They will forget your faults, forgive your sins.
The moment you return, they will chase after you as you desire. It will be as
if you had come back from the dead. According to the psychologist Theodor Reik,
we learn to love only through rejection. As infants, we are showered with love
by our mother- we know nothing else. But when we get a little older, we begin
to sense that her love is not unconditional. If we do not behave, if we do not
please her, she can withdraw it. The idea that she will withdraw her affection
fills us with anxiety, and, at first, with anger-we will show her, we will
throw Give Them Space to Fall-The Pursuer Is Pursued a tantrum. But that never works, and we
slowly realize that the only way to keep her from rejecting us again is to
imitate her-to be as loving, kind, and affectionate as she is. This will bond
her to us in the deepest way. The pattern is ingrained in us for the rest of
our lives: by experiencing a rejection or a coldness, we learn to court and
pursue, to love. Re-create this primal pattern in your seduction. First, shower
your targets with affection. They will not be sure where this is coming from,
but it is a delightful feeling, and they will never want to lose it. When it
does go away, in your strategic step back, they will have moments of anxiety
and anger, perhaps throwing a tantrum, and then the same childlike reaction:
the only way to win you back, to have you for sure, will be to reverse the
pattern, to imitate you, to be the affectionate, giving one. It is the terror
of rejection that turns the tables. This pattern will often repeat itself
naturally in an affair or relationship. One person goes cold, the other
pursues, then goes cold in turn, making the first person the pursuer, and on
and on. As a seducer, do not leave this to chance. Make it happen. You are
teaching the other person to become a seducer, just as the motherinherown way
taught the child to return her love by turning her back. For your own sake
learn to relish this reversal of roles. Do not merely play at being the
pursued, but enjoy it, give in to it. The pleasure of being pursued by your
victim can often surpass the thrill of the hunt. Symbol: The Pomegranate.
Carefully cultivated and tended, the pomegranate begins to ripen. Do not gather
it too early or force it off the stem-it will be hard and bitter. Let the fruit
grow heavy and full of juice, then stand back - it will fall on its own. That
is when its pulp is most delicious. 392 • The Art of Seduction Reversal T here
are moments when creating space and absence will blow up in your face. An
absence at a critical moment in the seduction can make the target lose interest
in you. It also leaves too much to chance-while you are away, they could find
another person, who will distract their thoughts from you. Cleopatra easily
seduced Mark Antony, but after their first encounters, he returned to Rome.
Cleopatra was mysterious and alluring, but if she let too much time pass, he would
forget her charms. So she let go of her usual coquetry and came after him when
he was on one of his military campaigns. She knew that once he saw her, he
would fall under her spell again and pursue her. Use absence only when you are
sure of the target's affection, and never let it go on too long. It is most
effective later in the seduction. Also, never create too much space-don't write
too rarely, don't act too cold, don't show too much interest in someone else.
That is the strategy of mixing pleasure with pain, detailed in chapter 20, and
will create a dependent victim, or will even make him or her give up
completely. Some people, too, are inveterately passive: they are waiting for
you to make the bold move, and if you don't, they will think you are weak. The
pleasure to be had from such a victim is less than the pleasure you will get
from someone more active. But if you are involved with such a type, do what you
need to if you are to have your way, then end the affair and move on. 22 Use
Physical Lures Targets with active minds are dangerous: if they see through
your manipulations, they may suddenly develop doubts. Put their minds gently to
rest, and waken their dormant senses, by combining a nondefensive attitude with
a charged sexual presence. While your cool, nonchalant air is calming their
minds and lowering their inhibitions, your glances, voice, and bearing-oozing
sex and desire-are getting under their skin, agitating their senses and raising
their temperature. Never force the physical; instead infect your targets with
heat, lure them into lust. Lead them into the moment-an intensified present in
which morality, judgment, and concern for the future all melt away and the body
succumbs to pleasure. Raising the Temperature I n 1889, the top New York theatrical
manager Ernest Jurgens visited France on one of his many scouting trips.
Jurgens was known for his honesty, a rare commodity in the shady entertainment
world, and for his ability to find unusual acts. He had to spend the night in
Marseilles, and while wandering along the quay of the old harbor, he heard
excited catcalls issuing from a working-class cabaret, and decided to go in. A
twenty-one- year-old Spanish dancer named Caroline Otero was performing, and
the minute Jurgens laid eyes on her he was a changed man. Her appearance was
startling-five foot ten, fiery dark eyes, black waist-length hair, her body
corseted into a perfect hourglass figure. But it was the way she danced that
made his heart pound-her whole body alive, writhing like an animal in heat, as
she performed a fandango. Her dancing was hardly professional, but she enjoyed
herself so much and was so unrestrained that none of that mattered. Jurgens
also could not help but notice the men in the cabaret watching her, their
mouths agape. After the show, Jurgens went backstage to introduce himself.
Otero's eyes came alive as he spoke of his job and of New York. He felt a heat,
a twitching, in his body as she looked him up and down. Her voice was deep and
raspy, the tongue constantly in play as she rolled her Rs. Closing the door,
Otero ignored the knocks and pleas of the admirers dying to speak to her. She
said that her way of dancing was natural-her mother was a gypsy. Soon she asked
Jurgens to be her escort that evening, and as he helped her with her coat, she
leaned back toward him slightly, as if she had lost her balance. As they walked
around the city, her arm in his, she would occasionally whisper in his ear.
Jurgens felt his usual reserve melt away. He held her tighter. He was a family
man, had never considered cheating on his wife, but without thinking, he
brought Otero back to his hotel room. She began to take off some of her
clothes-coat, gloves, hat-a perfectly normal thing to do, but the way she did
it made him lose all restraint. The normally timid Jurgens went on the attack.
The next morning Jurgens signed Otero to a lucrative contract-a great risk,
considering that she was an amateur at best. He brought her to Paris and
assigned a top theatrical coach to her. Hurrying back to New York, he fed the
newspapers with reports of this mysterious Spanish beauty poised to conquer the
city. Soon rival papers were claiming she was an Andalusian countess, an
escaped harem girl, the widow of a sheik, on and on. He The year was 1907 and
La Belle \Otero], by then, had been an international figure for over a dozen
years. The story was told by M. Maurice Chevalier. • "I was a young star
about to make my first appearance at the Folies. Otero had been the headliner
there for several weeks and although I knew who she was I had never seen her
before on stage or off • "I was scurrying along, head bent, thinking of
something or other, when I looked up. There was La Belle, in the company of
another woman, walking in my direction. Otero was then nearly forty and I was
not yet out of my teens but - ah!-she was so beautiful! • "She was tall,
darkhaired, with a magnificent body, like the bodies of the women of those
days, not like the lightweight ones of today." • Chevalier smiled. •
"Of course I like modern women, too, but there was something of a fatal
charm about Otero. We three stood there for a moment or two, not saying a word,
I staring at La Belle, not so young as she once was and maybe not so beautiful,
but 395 396 still quite a woman. • "She looked right at me, then turned to
the lady she was with-some friend, I guess-and spoke to her in English, which
she thought I didn't understand. However, I did. • " 'Who's the very
handsome young man?' Otero asked. • "The other one answered, 'He's Chevalier.'
• " 'He has such beautiful eyes' ha Belle said, looking straight at me,
right up and down. • "Then she almost floored me with herfrankness. •
" 7 wonder if he'd like to go to bed with me. I think I'll ask him!' Only
she didn't say it so delicately. She was much cruder and more to the point. •
"It was at this moment I had to make up my mind rather quickly. La Belle
moved toward me. Instead of introducing myself and succumbing to the
consequences, I pretended I didn't understand what she'd said, uttered some
pleasantry in French and moved away to my dressing room. • "I could see La
Belle smile in an odd fashion as I passed her;like a sleek tigress watching its
dinner go away. For a fleeting second I thought she might turn around and
follow me. " • What would Chevalier have done had she pursued him? His
lower lip dropped into that halfpout which is the Frenchman's exclusive
possession. Then he grinned. • "I'd have slowed down and let her catch
up." -ARTHUR H. LEWIS, LA BELLE OTERO made frequent trips to Paris to be
with her, forgetting about his family, lavishing money and gifts on her.
Otero's New York debut, in October of 1890, was an astounding success.
"Otero dances with abandon," read an article in The New York Times.
"Her lithe and supple body looks like that of a serpent writhing in quick,
graceful curves." In a few short weeks she became the toast of New York
society, performing at private parties late into the night. The tycoon William
Vanderbilt courted her with expensive jewels and evenings on his yacht. Other millionaires
vied for her attention. Meanwhile Jurgens was dipping into the company till to
pay for presents for her-he would do anything to keep her, a task in which he
was facing heavy competition. A few months later, after his embezzling became
public, he was a ruined man. He eventually committed suicide. Otero went back
to France, to Paris, and over the next few years rose to become the most
infamous courtesan of the Belle Epoque. Word spread quickly: a night with La
Belle Otero (as she was now known) was more effective than all the aphrodisiacs
in the world. She had a temper, and was demanding, but that was to be expected.
Prince Albert of Monaco, a man who had been plagued by doubts of his virility,
felt like an insatiable tiger after a night with Otero. She became his
mistress. Other royalty followed- Prince Albert of Wales (later King Edward
VII), the Shah of Persia, Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia. Less wealthy men
emptied their bank accounts, and Jurgens was only the first of many whom Otero
drove to suicide. During World War I, a twenty-nine-year-old American soldier
named Frederick, stationed in France, won $37,000 in a four-day crap game. On
his next leave he went to Nice and checked himself into the finest hotel. On
his first night in the hotel restaurant, he recognized Otero sitting alone at a
table. He had seen her perform in Paris ten years before, and had become
obsessed with her. She was now close to fifty, but was more alluring than ever.
He greased some palms and was able to sit at her table. He could hardly talk:
the way her eyes bored into him, a simple readjustment in her chair, her body
brushing up against him as she got up, the way she managed to walk in front of
him and display herself. Later, strolling along a boulevard, they passed a jewelry
store. He went inside, and moments later found himself plopping down $31,000
for a diamond necklace. For three nights La Belle Otero was his. Never in his
life had he felt so masculine and impetuous. Years later, he still believed it
was well worth the price he had paid. Interpretation. Although La Belle Otero
was beautiful, hundreds of women were more so, or were more charming and
talented. But Otero was constantly on fire. Men could read it in her eyes, the
way her body moved, a dozen other signs. The heat that radiated out from her
came from her own inner desires: she was insatiably sexual. But she was also a
practiced and calculating courtesan, and knew how to put her sexuality to
effect. UsePhysicalLures • 397 Onstage she made every man in the audience come
alive, abandoning herself in dance. In person she was cooler, or slightly so. A
man likes to feel that a woman is enflamed not because she has an insatiable
appetite but because of him; so Otero personalized her sexuality, using
glances, a brushing of skin, a more languorous tone of voice, a saucy comment,
to suggest that the man was heating her up. In her memoirs she revealed that
Prince Albert was a most inept lover. Yet he believed, along with many other
men, that with her he was Hercules himself. Her sexuality actually originated
from her, but she created the illusion that the man was the aggressor. The key
to luring the target into the final act of your seduction is not to make it
obvious, not to announce that you are ready (to pounce or be pounced upon).
Everything should be geared, not to the conscious mind, but to the senses. You
want your target to read cues not from your words or actions but from your
body. You must make your body glow with desire- for the target. Your desire
should be read in your eyes, in a trembling in your voice, in your reaction
when your bodies draw near. You cannot train your body to act this way, but by
choosing a victim (see chapter 1) who has this effect on you, it will all flow
naturally. Duringthe seduction, you will have had to hold yourself back, to
intrigue and frustrate the victim. You will have frustrated yourself in the
process, and will already be champing at the bit. Once you sense that the
target has fallen for you and cannot turn back, let those frustrated desires
course through your blood and warm you up. You do not need to touch your
targets, or become physical. As La Belle Otero understood, sexual desire is
contagious. They will catch your heat and glow in return. Let them make the
first move. It will cover your tracks. The second and third moves are yours.
Spell SEX with capital letters when you talk about Otero. She exuded it.
-MAURICE CHEVALIER Lowering Inhibitions O ne day in 1931, in a village in New
Guinea, a young girl named Tu- perselai heard some happy news: her father,
Allaman, who had left some months before to work on a tobacco plantation, had
returned for a visit. Tuperselai ran to greet him. Accompanying her father was
a white man, ait unusual sight in these parts. He was a twenty-two-year-old
Australian from Tasmania, and he was the owner of the plantation. His name was
Errol Flynn. Flynn smiled warmly at Tuperselai, seeming particularly interested
in her bare breasts. (As was the custom in New Guinea then, she wore only a
grass skirt.) He said in pidgin English how beautiful she was, and kept
repeating her name, which he pronounced remarkably well. He did not say You're
anxiously expecting me to escort you \ To parties: here too solicit my advice.
\ Arrive late, when the lamps are lit; make a graceful entrance - \ Delay
enhances charm, delay's a great bawd. \ Plain you may be, but at night you'll
look fine to the tipsy: \ Soft lights and shadows will mask yourfaults. \ Take
your food with dainty fingers: good table manners matter: \ Don't besmear your
whole face with a greasy paw. \ Don't cat first at home, and nibble - but
equally, don't indulge your \ Appetite to the full, leave something in hand. \
If Paris saw Helen stuffing herself to the eyeballs \ He'd detest her, he'd
feel her abduction had been \ A stupid mistake. . . . \ Each woman should know
herself, pick methods \ To suit her body: onefashion . won't do for all. \ Let
the girl with a pretty face lie supine, let the lady \ Who boasts a good back
be viewed \ From behind. Milanion bore Atalanta's legs on \ His shoulders: nice
legs should always be used this way \ The petite should ride a horse
(Andromache, Hector's Theban \ Bride, was too tall for these games: no jockey
she); \ If you 're built like afashion model, with a willowy figure, \ Then
kneel on the bed, your neck \ A little arched; the girl who has perfect legs
and bosom \ Should lie sideways on, and make her lover stand. \ Don't blush to
unbind your hair like some ecstatic maenad \ And tumble long tresses about \
Your uncurved throat. - OVID, THE ARTOFLOVE "How do you attract a
man," the Paris correspondent of the Stockholm Aftonbladet asked La Belle
on July 3, 1910. • "Make yourself as feminine as possible; dress so that
the most interesting portions of your anatomy are emphasized; and subtly allow
the gentleman to know you are willing to yield at the proper time. . . •
"The way to hold a man" Otero revealed a little later to a staff
writerfrom the Johannesburg Morning Journal, "is to keep acting as though
every time you meet him you are overcome with fresh enthusiasm and, with barely
restrained eagerness, you await his impetuosity." -ARTHUR H. LEWIS, LA
BELLE OTERO "I missed the mental stimulation when I was younger," he
answered. "But from the time I began to have women, shall we say, on the
assembly-line basis, I discovered that the only thing you need, want, or should
have is the absolutely physical. Simply the physical. No mind at all. A woman's
mind will get in the way." • "Really?" • "For me . . . I am
speaking of myself. I don't speak for male humankind. I am speaking for what
I've discovered or what I need: the body, the face, the physical motion, the
voice, the femaleness, the female presence . . . totally that, nothing else.
That's the best. There's no possessiveness in that." • I watched him
closely. • "I'm serious," he said. "That's my view and feeling.
Just the elementary much else, mind you-he did not speak her language-so she
said goodbye and walked away with her father. But later that day she
discovered, to her dismay, that Mr. Flynn had taken a liking to her and had
purchased her from her father for two pigs, some English coins, and some
seashell money. The family was poor and the father liked the price. Tuperselai
had a boyfriend in the village whom she did not want to leave, but she did not
dare disobey her father, and she left with Mr. Flynn for the tobacco
plantation. On the other hand, she had no intention of being friendly with this
man, from whom she expected the worst kind of treatment. In the first few days,
Tuperselai missed her village terribly, and felt nervous and out of sorts. But
Mr. Flynn was polite, and talked in a soothing voice. She began to relax, and
since he kept his distance, she decided it was safe to approach him. His white
skin was tasty to the mosquitoes, so she began to wash him every night with
scented bush herbs to keep them away. Soon she had a thought: Mr. Flynn was
lonely, and wanted a companion. That was why he had bought her. At night he
usually read; instead, she began to entertain him by singing and dancing.
Sometimes he tried to communicate in words and gestures, struggling inpidgin.
She had no idea what he was trying to say, but he made her laugh. And one day
she did understand something: the word "swim." He was inviting her to
go swimming with him in the Laloki River. She was happy to go along, but the
river was full of crocodiles, so she brought along her spear just in case. At
the sight of the river, Mr. Flynn seemed to come alive-he tore off his clothes
and dove in. She followed and swam after him. He put his arms around her and
kissed her. They drifted downstream, and she clung to him. She had forgotten
about the crocodiles; she had also forgotten about her father, her boyfriend,
her village, and everything else there was to forget. Around a bend of the
river, he picked her up and carried her to a secluded grove near the river's
edge. It all happened rather suddenly, which was fine with Tuperselai. From
then on this was a daily ritual-the river, the grove-until the time came when
the tobacco plantation was no longer doing so well, and Mr. Flynn left New
Guinea. One day some ten years later, a young girl named Blanca Rosa Welter
went to a party at the Ritz Hotel in Mexico City. As she wandered through the
bar, looking for her friends, a tall older man blocked her path and said in a
charming accent, "You must be Blanca Rosa." He did not have to
introduce himself-he was the famous Hollywoodactor Errol Flynn. His face was
plastered on posters everywhere, and he was friends of the party's hosts, the
Davises, and had heard them praise the beauty of Blanca Rosa, who was turning
eighteen the following day. He led her to a table in the corner. His manner was
graceful and confident, and listening to him talk, she forgot about her friends.
He spoke of her beauty, repeated her name, said he could make her a star.
Before she knew what was happening, he had invited her to join him in Acapulco,
where he was vacationing. The Davises, their mutual friends, could come along
as chaperones. That would be wonderful, she said, but her mother would never
agree. Don't worry Use Physical Lures • 399 about that, Flynn replied; and the
following day he showed up at their house with a beautiful gift for Blanca, a
ring with her birthstone. Melting under his charming smile, Blanca's mother
agreed to his plan. Later that day, Blanca found herself on a plane to
Acapulco. It was all like a dream. The Davises, under orders from Blanca's
mother, tried not to let her out of their sight, so Flynn put her on a raft and
they drifted out into the ocean, far from the shore. His flattering words
filled her ears, and she let him hold her hand and Mss her cheek. That night
they danced together, and when the evening was over he escorted hertoherroom
and serenaded her with a song as they finally parted. It was the end of a
perfect day. In the middle of the night, she woke up to hear him calling her
name, from her hotel-room balcony. How had he gotten there? His room was a
floor above; he must have somehow jumped or swung down, a dangerous maneuver.
She approached, not at all afraid, but curious. He pulled her gently into his
arms and kissed her. Her body convulsed; overwhelmed with new sensations,
totally at sea, she began to cry-out of happiness, she said. Flynn comforted
her with a kiss and returned to his room above, in the same inexplicable way he
had arrived. Now Blanca was hopelessly in love with him and would do anything
he asked of her. A few weeks later, in fact, she followed him to Hollywood,
where she went on to become a successful actress, known as Linda Christian. In
1942, an eighteen-year-old girl named Nora Eddington had a temporary job
selling cigarettes at the Los Angeles County courthouse. The place was a
madhouse at the time, teeming with tabloid journalists: two young girls had
charged Errol Flynn with rape. Nora of course noticed Flynn, a tall, dashing
man who occasionally bought cigarettes from her, but her thoughts were with her
boyfriend, a young Marine. A few weeks later Flynn was acquitted, the trial ended,
and the place settleddown. A man she had met during the trial called her up one
day; he was Flynn's right-hand man, and on Flynn's behalf, he wanted to invite
her up to the actor's house on Mulholland Drive. Nora had no interest in Flynn,
and in fact she was a little afraid of him, but a girlfriend who was dying to
meet him talked her into going and bringing her along. What did she have to
lose? Nora agreed to go. On the day, Flynn's friend showed up and drove them to
a splendid house on top of a hill. When they arrived, Flynn was standing
shirtless by his swimming pool. He came to greet her and her girlfriend, moving
so gracefully-like a lithe cat-and his manner so relaxed, she felt her jitters
melt away. He gave them a tour of the house, which was full of artifacts of his
various sea voyages. He talked so delightfully of his love of adventure that
she wished she had had adventures of her own. He was the perfect gentleman, and
even let her talk about her boyfriend without the slightest sign ofjealousy. Nora
had a visit from her boyfriend the next day. Somehow he didn't seem so
interesting anymore; they had a fight and broke up on the spot. That night,
Flynn took her out on the town, to the famous Mocambo nightclub. He was
drinking andjoking, and she fell into the spirit, and hap- physical female.
Nothing more than that. When you get hold of that-hang on to it, for a short
while." -EARL CONRAD, ERROL FLYNN: A MEMOIR A sweet disorder in the dress
\ Kindles in clothes a wantonness: \ A lawn about the shoulders thrown \ Into a
fine distraction: \ An erring lace, which here and there \ Enthralls the
crimson stomacher: \ A cuff neglectful, and thereby \ Ribbands to flow
confusedly: \ A winning wave (deserving note) \ In the tempestuous petticoat: \
A careless shoestring, in whose tie \ I see a wild civility: \ Do more bewitch
me, than when art \ Is too precise in every part. - ROBERT
HERRICK,"DELIGHT IN DISORDER," EROTIC POEMS Satni, the son of Pharaoh
Usimares, saw a very beautiful woman on the plain-stones of the temple. He
called his page, and said, "Go and tell her that I, Pharaoh's son, shall
give her ten pieces of gold to spend an hour with me." "I am a Pure
One, I am not a low person," answers the Lady Thubuit. "If you wish
to have your pleasure with me, you will come to my house at Bubastis.
Everything will be ready there." Satni went to Bubastis by boat. "By
my life," said Thubuit, "come upstairs with me." On the upper
floor, sanded with dust of lapis lazuli and turquoise, Satni saw several beds
covered with royal linen and many gold 400 bowls on a table. "Please take
your meal," said Thubuit."That is not what I have come to do,"
answered Satni, while the slaves put aromatic wood on the fire and scattered
scent about. "Do that for which we have come here," Satni repeated.
"First you will make out a deedfor my maintenance," Thubuit replied,
"and you will establish a dowry for me of all the things and goods which
belong to you, in writing." Satni acquiesced, saying, "Bring me the
scribe of the school." • When he had done what she asked, Thubuit rose and
dressed herself in a robe of fine linen, through which Satni could see all her
limbs. His passion increased, but she said, "If it is true that you desire
to have your pleasure of me, you will make your children subscribe to my deed,
that they may not seek a quarrel with my children." Satni sent for his
children. "If it is true that you desire to have your pleasure of me, you
will cause your children to be killed, that they may not seek a quarrel with my
children." Satni consented again: "Let any crime be done to them
which your heart desires." "Go into that room," said Thubuit;
and while the little corpses were thrown out to the stray dogs and cats, Satni
at last lay on a bed of ivory and ebony, that his love might be rewarded, and
Thubuit lay down at his side. "Then," the texts modestly say,
"magic and the god Amen did much." • The charms of the Divine Women
must have been irresistible, if even "the wisest men" were pily let
him touch her hand. Then suddenly she panicked. "I'm a Catholic and a
virgin," she blurted out, "and some day I'm going to walk down the
church aisle wearing a veil-and if you think you're going to sleep with me,
you're mistaken." Totally calm and unruffled, Flynn said she had nothing
to fear. He simply liked being with her. She relaxed, and politely asked him to
put his hand back. Over the next few weeks she saw him almost every day. She
became his secretary. Soon she was spending weekend nights as his house guest.
He took her on skiing and boating trips. He remained the perfect gentleman, but
when he looked at her or touched her hand, she felt overwhelmed by an
exhilarating sensation, a tingling on her skin that she compared to stepping
into a cold-needle shower on a red-hot day. Soon she was going to church less
often, drifting away from the life she had known. Although outwardly nothing
had changed between them, inwardly all semblance of resistance to him had
melted away. One night, after a party, she succumbed. She and Flynn eventually
engaged in a stormy marriage that lasted seven years. Interpretation. The women
who became involved with Errol Flynn (and by the end of his life they numbered
in the thousands) had every reason in the world to feel suspicious of him: he
was real life's closest thing to a Don Juan. (In fact he had played the
legendary seducer in a film.) He was constantly surrounded by women, who knew
that no involvement with him could last. And then there were the rumors of his
temper, and his love of danger and adventure. No woman had greater reason to
resist him than Nora Eddington: when she met him he stood accused of rape; she
was involved with another man; she was a God-fearing Catholic. Yet she fell
under his spell, just like all the rest. Some seducers-D. H. Lawrence for -operate
mostly on the mind, creating fascination, stirring up the need to possess them.
Flynn operated on the body. His cool, nonchalant manner infected women,
lowering their resistance. This happened almost the minute they met him, like a
drug: he was at ease around women, graceful and confident. They fell into this
spirit, drifting along on a current he created, leaving the world and its
heaviness behind-it was only you and him. Then-perhaps that same day, perhaps a
few weeks later-there would come a touch of his hand, a certain look, that
would make them feel a tingling, a vibration, a dangerously physical
excitement. They would betray that moment in their eyes, a blush, a nervous
laugh, and he would swoop in for the kill. No one moved faster than Errol Flynn.
The greatest obstacle to the physical part of the seduction is the target's
education, the degree to which he or she has been civilized and socialized.
Such education conspires to constrain the body, dull the senses, fill the mind
with doubts and worries. Flynn had the ability to return a woman to a more
natural state, in which desire, pleasure, and sex had nothing negative attached
to them. He lured women into adventure not with arguments but Use Physical
Lures • 401 with an open, unrestrained attitude that infected their minds.
Understand: it all starts from you. When the time comes to make the seduction
physical, train yourself to let go of your own inhibitions, your doubts, your
lingering feelings of guilt and anxiety. Your confidence and ease will have
more power to intoxicate the victim than all the alcohol you could apply.
Exhibit a lightness of spirit-nothing bothers you, nothing daunts you, you take
nothing personally. You are inviting your targets to shed the burdens of
civilization, to follow your lead and drift. Do not talk of work, duty,
marriage, the past or future. Plenty of other people will do that. Instead,
offer the rare thrill of losing oneself in the moment, where the senses come
dive and the mind is left behind. When he kissed me, it evoked a response I had
never known or imagined before, a giddying of all my senses. It was instinctive
joy, against which no warning, reasoning monitor within me availed. It was new
and irresistible and finally overpowering. Seduction-the word implies being led-and
so gently, so tenderly. -LINDA CHRISTIAN Keys to Seduction N ow more than ever,
our minds are in a state of constant distraction, barraged with endless
information, pulled in every direction. Many of us recognize the problem:
articles are written, studies are completed, but they simply become more
information to digest. It is almost impossible to turn off an overactive mind;
the attempt simply triggers more thoughts- an inescapable hall of mirrors.
Perhaps we turn to alcohol, to drugs, to physical activity-anything to help us
slow the mind, be more present in the moment. Our discontent presents the
crafty seducer with infinite opportunity. The waters around you are teeming
with people seeking some kind of release from mental overstimulation. The lure
of unencumbered physical pleasure will make them take your bait, but as you
prowl the waters, understand: the only way to relax a distracted mind is to
make it focus on one thing. A hypnotist asks the patient to focus on a watch
swinging back and forth. Once the patient focuses, the mind relaxes, the senses
awaken, the body becomes prone to all kinds of novel sensations and
suggestions. As a seducer, youare a hypnotist, and what you are making the
target focus on is you. Throughout the seductive process you have been filling
the target's mind. Letters, mementos, shared experiences keep you constantly
present, even when you are not there. Now, as you shift to the physical part of
the seduction, you must see your targets more often. Your attention must become
more intense. Errol Flynn was a master at this game. When he ready to do
anything in their desire to abandon themselves, even for a few moments, to
their trained embraces. -G. R.TABOUIS, THE PRIVATE UFE OF TUTANKHAMEN, What is
the moment, and how do you define it? Because I must say in all good honesty
that I do not understand you. • THE DUKE: A certain disposition of the senses,
as unexpected as it is involuntary, which a woman can conceal, but which,
should it be perceived or sensed by someone who might profit from it, puts her
in the greatest danger of being a little more willing than she thought she ever
should or could be. -CREBILLON FILS, LE HASARD AU COIN DU FEU, QUOTED IN MICHEL
FEHER, ED., THE LIBERTINE READER When, on an autumn evening, with closed eyes,
\ I breathe the warm dark fragrance of your breast, \ Before me blissful shores
unfold, caressed \ By dazzlingfires from blue unchanging skies. \ And there,
upon that calm and drowsing isle, \ Grow luscious fruits amid fantastic trees:
\ There, men are lithe: the women of those seas \ Amaze one with their gaze
that knows no guile. \ Your perfume wafts me thither like a wind: \ I see a
harbor thronged with masts and sails \ Still weary from the tumult of the
gales; \ And 402 THE FLOWERS OF EVIL,
with the sailors' song that honied in on a victim, he dropped everything
else. The woman was made drifts to me \ Are mmgied t0 f ee i everything came
second to her-his career, his friends, every- odors of the tamarind, \ .,, .
... . . . . ., ", ., thing. Then he would take her on a little trip,
preferably with water and melody, around. Slowly the rest of the world would
fade into the background, and -charles baudelaire, Flynn would take center
stage. The more your targets think of you, the less ¦exotic perfume," they
are distracted by thoughts of work and duty. When the mind focuses tiic flowers
or evil. one jj. and w hen the mind relaxes, all the little paranoid thoughts
that we are prone to-do you really like me, am I intelligent or beautiful
enough, what does the future hold-vanish from the surface. Remember: it all
starts with you. Be undistracted, present in the moment, and the target will
follow suit. The intense gaze of the hypnotist creates a similar reaction in
the patient. Once the target's overactive mind starts to slow down, their
senses will come to life, and your physical lures will have double their power.
Now a heated glance will give them flush. You will have a tendency to employ
physical lures that work primarily on the eyes, the sense we most rely on in
our culture. Physical appearances are critical, but you are after a general
agitation of the senses. La Belle Otero made sure men noticed her breasts, her
figure, her perfume, her walk; no part was allowed to predominate. The senses
are interconnected-an appeal to smell will trigger touch, an appeal to touch
will trigger vision: casual or "accidental" contact-better a brushing
of the skin than something more forceful right now-will create a jolt and
activate the eyes. Subtly modulate the voice, make it slower and deeper. Living
senses will crowd out rational thought. In the eighteenth-century libertine
novel The Wayward Head and Heart, by Crebillon fils, Madame de Lursay is trying
to seduce a younger man, Meilcour. Her weapons are several. One night at a
party she is hosting, she wears a revealing gown; her hair is slightly tousled;
she throws him heated glances; her voice trembles a bit. When they are alone,
she innocently gets him to sit close to her, and talks more slowly; at one
point she starts to cry. Meilcour has many reasons to resist her; he has fallen
in love with a girl his own age, and he has heard rumors about Madame de Lursay
that should make him distrust her. But the clothes, the looks, the perfume, the
voice, the closeness of her body, the tears-it all begins to overwhelm him.
"An indescribable agitation stirred my senses." Meilcour succumbs.
The French libertines of the eighteenth century called this "the
moment." The seducer leads the victim to a point where he or she reveals
involuntary signs of physical excitation that can be read in various symptoms.
Once those signs are detected, the seducer must work quickly, applying pressure
on the target to get lost in the moment-the past, the future, all moral scmples
vanishing in air. Once your victims lose themselves in the moment, it is all
over-their mind, their conscience, no longer holds them back. The body gives in
to pleasure. Madame de Lursay lures Meilcour into the moment by creating a
generalized disorder of the senses, rendering him incapable of thinking
straight. In leading your victims into the moment, remember a few things.
First, Use Physical Lures • 403 a disordered look (Madame de Lursay's tousled
hair, her ruffled dress) has more effect on the senses than a neat appearance.
It suggests the bedroom. Second, be alert to the signs of physical excitation.
Blushing, trembling of the voice, tears, unusually forceful laughter, relaxing
movements of the body (any kind of involuntary mirroring, their gestures
imitating yours), a revealing slip of the tongue-these are signs that the
victim is slipping into the moment and pressure is to be applied. In 1934, a
Chinese football player named Li met a young actress named Lan Ping in
Shanghai. He began to see her often at his matches, cheering him on. They would
meet at public affairs, and he would notice her glancing at him with her
"strange, yearning eyes," then looking away. One evening he found her
seated next to him at a reception. Her leg brushed up against his. They chatted,
and she asked him to see a movie with her at a nearby cinema. Once they were
there, her head found its way onto his shoulder; she whispered into his ear,
something about the film. Later they strolled the streets, and she put her arm
around his waist. She brought him to a restaurant where they drank some wine.
Li took her to his hotel room, and there he found himself overwhelmed by
caresses and sweet words. She gave him no room to retreat, no time to cool
down. Three years later Lan Ping-soon to be renamed Jiang Qing-played a similar
game on Mao Zedong. She was to become Mao's wife-the infamous Madame Mao,
leader of the Gang of Four. Seduction, like warfare, is often a game of
distance and closeness. At first you track your enemy from a distance. Your
main weapons are your eyes, and a mysterious manner. Byron had his famous
underlook, Madame Mao her yearning eyes. The key is to make the look short and
to the point, then look away, like a rapier glancing the flesh. Make your eyes
reveal desire, and keep the rest of the face still. (A smile will spoil the
effect.) Once the victim is heated up, you quickly bridge the distance, turning
to hand- to-hand combat in which you give the enemy no room to withdraw, no
time to think or to consider the position in which you have placed him or her.
To take the element of fear out of this, use flattery, make the target feel
more masculine or feminine, praise their charms. It is their fault that you
have become so physical and aggressive. There is no greater physical lure than
to make the target feel alluring. Remember; the girdle of Aphrodite, which gave
her untold seductive powers, included that of sweet flattery. Shared physical
activity is always an excellent lure. The Russian mystic Rasputin would begin
his seductions with a spiritual lure-the promise of a shared religious
experience. But then his eyes would bore into his target at a party, and
inevitably he would lead her in a dance, which would become more and more
suggestive as he movedcloser to her. Hundreds of women succumbed to this
technique. For Flynn it was swimming or sailing. In such physical activity, the
mind turns off and the body operates according to its own laws. The target's
body will follow your lead, will mirror your moves, as far as you want it to
go. In the moment, all moral considerations fade away, and the body re- turns
to a state of innocence. You can partly create that feeling through a
devil-may-care attitude. You do not worry about the world, or what people think
of you; you do not judge your target in any way. Part of Flynn's appeal was his
total acceptance of a woman. He was not interested in a particular body type, a
woman's race, her level of education, her political beliefs. He was in love
with her feminine presence. He was luring her into an adventure, free of
society's strictures and moral judgments. With him she could act out a
fantasy-which, for many, was the chance to be aggressive or transgressive, to
experience danger. So empty yourself of your tendency to moralize andjudge. You
have lured your targets into a momentary world of pleasure-soft and
accommodating, all rules and taboos thrown out the window. Symbol: The Raft.
Floating out to sea, drifting with the current. Soon the shoreline disappears
from sight, and the two of you are alone. The water invites you to forget all
cares and worries, to submerge yourself. Without anchor or direction, cut off
from the past, you give in to the drifting sensation and slowly lose all
restraint. Reversal S ome people panic when they sense they are falling into the
moment. Often, using spiritual lures will help disguise the increasingly
physical nature of the seduction. That is how the lesbian seductress Natalie
Barney operated. In her heyday, at the turn of the twentieth century, lesbian
sex was immensely transgressive, and women new to it often felt a sense of
shame or dirtiness. Barney led them into the physical, but so enveloped it in
poetry and mysticism that they relaxed and felt purified by the experience.
Today, few people feel repulsed by their sexual nature, but many are
uncomfortable with their bodies. A purely physical approach will frighten and
disturb them. Instead, make it seem a spiritual, mystical union, and they will
take less notice of your physical manipulations. 23 Master the Art of the Bold
Move A moment has arrived: your victim clearly desires you, but is not ready to
admit it openly, let alone act on it. This is the time to throw aside chivalry,
kindness, and coquetry and to overwhelm with a bold move. Don't give the victim
time to consider the consequences; create conflict, stir up tension, so that
the bold move comes as a great release. Showing hesitation or awkwardness means
you are thinking of yourself, as opposed to being overwhelmed by the victim's
charms. Never hold back or meet the target halfway, under the belief that you
are being correct and considerate: you must be seductive now, not political.
One person must go on the offensive, and it is you. The Perfect Climax T hrough
a campaign of deception-the misleading appearance of a transformation into
goodness-the rake Valmont laid siege to the virtuous young Presidente de
Tourvel until the day came when, disturbed by his confession of love for her,
she insisted he leave the chateau where both of them were staying as guests. He
complied. From Paris, however, he flooded her with letters, describing his love
for her in the most intense terms; she begged him to stop, and once again he
complied. Then, several weeks later, he paid a surprise visit to the chateau.
In his company Tourvel was flushed and jumpy, and kept her eyes averted-all
signs of his effect on her. Again she asked him to leave. What have you to
fear? he replied, I have always done what you have asked, I have never forced
myself on you. He kept his distance and she slowly relaxed. She no longer left
the room when he entered, and she could look at him directly. When he offered
to accompany her on a walk, she did not refuse. They were friends, shesaid. She
even put her arm in his as they strolled, a friendly gesture. One rainy day they
could not take their usual walk. He met her in the hallway as she was entering
her room; for the first time, she invited him in. She seemed relaxed, and
Valmont sat near her on a sofa. He talked of his love for her. She gave the
faintest protest. He took her hand; she left it there and leaned against his
arm. Her voice trembled. She looked at him, and he felt his heart flutter-it
was a tender, loving look. She started to speak-"Well! yes, I . .
."-then suddenly collapsed into his arms, crying. It was a moment of
weakness, yet Valmont held himself back. Her crying became convulsive; she
begged him to help her, to leave the room before something terrible happened.
He did so. The following morning he awoke to some surprising news: in the
middle of the night, claiming she was feeling ill, Tourvel had suddenly left
the chateau and returned home. Valmont did not follow her to Paris. Instead he
began staying up late, and using no powder to hide the peaked looks that soon
ensued. He went to the chapel every day, and dragged himself despondently
around the chateau. He knew that his hostess would be writing to the
Presidente, who would hear of his sad state. Next he wrote to a church father
in Paris, and asked him to pass along a message to Tourvel: he was ready to change
his life for good. He wanted one last meeting, to say goodbye and to return the
letters she had written him over thelastfew months. The father arranged a It
afforded, moreover, another advantage: that of observing at my leisure her
charming face, more beautiful than ever, as it proffered the powerful
enticement of tears. My blood was on fire, and I was so little in control of
myself that I was tempted to make the most of the occasion. • How weak we must
be, how strong the dominion of circumstance, if even I, without a thought for
my plans, could risk losing all the charm of a prolonged struggle, all the
fascination of a laboriously administered defeat, by concluding a premature
victory; if distracted by the most puerile of desires, I could be willing that the
conqueror of Madame de Tourvel should take nothing for the fruit of his labors
but the tasteless distinction of having added one more name to the roll. Ah,
let her surrender, but let her fight! Let her be too weak to prevail but strong
enough to resist; let her savor the knowledge of her weakness at her leisure,
but let her be unwilling to admit defeat. Leave the humble poacher to kill the
stag where he has surprised it in its hiding place; the true hunter will bring
it to bay. -VICOMTE DEVALMONT, IN CHODERLOS DE LACLOS, DANGEROUS LIAISONS. THE
LIBERTINE READER Don't you know that however willing, however eager we are to
give ourselves, we must nevertheless have an excuse? And is there any more
convenient than an appearance of yielding to force? As for me, I shall admit
that one thing that most flatters me is a lively and well-executed attack, when
everything happens in quick but orderly succession; which never puts us in the
painfully embarrassing position of having to cover up some blunder of which, on
the contrary, we ought to be taking advantage; which keeps up an appearance of
taking by storm even that which we are quite prepared to surrender; and
adroitly flatters our two favorite passions-the pride of defense and the
pleasure of defeat. -MARQUISE DE MERTEUIL IN CHODERLOS DE LACLOS, DANGEROUS
LIAISONS. What sensible man will not intersperse his coaxing \ With kisses?
Even if she doesn't kiss back, \ Still force on regardless! She may struggle,
cry "Naughty!" \ Yet she wants to be overcome. Just meeting, and so,
one late afternoon in Paris, Valmont found himself once again alone with
Tourvel, in a room in her house. The Presidente was clearly on edge; she could
not look him in the eye. They exchanged pleasantries, but then Valmont turned
harsh; she had treated him cruelly, had apparently been determined to make him
unhappy. Well, this was the end, they were separating for good, since that was
how she wanted it. Tourvel argued back: she was a married woman, she had no
choice. Valmont softened his tone and apologized: he was unused to having such
strong feelings, he said, and could not control himself. Still, he would never
trouble her again. Then he laid on a table the letters he had come to return.
Tourvel came closer: the sight of her letters, and the memory of all the
turmoil they represented, affected her powerfully. She had thought his decision
to renounce his libertine way of life was voluntary, she said-with a touch of
bitterness in her voice, as if she resented being abandoned. No, it was not voluntary,
he replied, it was because she had spurned him. Then he suddenly stepped closer
and took her in his arms. She did not resist. "Adorable woman!" he
cried. "You have no idea of the love you inspire. You will never know how
I have worshipped you, how much dearer my feelings have been to me than life!
... May [your days] be blessed with all of the happiness of which you have
deprived me!" Then he let her go and turned to leave. Tourvel suddenly
snapped. "You shall listen to me. I insist," she said, and grabbed
his arm. He turned around and they embraced. This time he waited no longer,
picking her up, carrying her to anottoman, overwhelming her with kisses and
sweet words of the happiness he now felt. Before this sudden flood of caresses,
all her resistance gave way. "From this moment on I am yours," she
said, "and you will hear neither refusals nor regrets from my lips."
Tourvel was true to her word, and Valmont's suspicions were to prove correct:
the pleasures he won from her were far greater than with any other woman he had
seduced. Interpretation. Valmont-a character in Choderlos de Laclos's
eighteenth- century novel Dangerous Liaisons -can sense several things about
the Presidente at first glance. She is timid and nervous. Her husband almost
certainly treats her with respect-probably too much of it. Beneath her interest
in God, religion, and virtue is a passionate woman, vulnerable to the lure of a
romance and to the flattering attention of an ardent suitor. No one, not even
her husband, has given her this feeling, because they have all been so daunted
by her prudish exterior. Valmont begins his seduction, then, by being indirect.
He knows Tourvel is secretly fascinated with his bad reputation. By acting as
if he is contemplating a change in his life, he can make her want to reform
him-a desire that is unconsciously a desire to love him. Once she has opened up
ever so slightly to his influence, he strikes at her vanity: she has never felt
Master the Art of the Bold Move • 409 desired as a woman, and on some level
cannot help but enjoy his love for her. Of course she struggles and resists,
but that is only a sign that her emotions are engaged. (Indifference is the
single most effective deterrent to seduction.) By taking his time, by making no
bold moves even when he has the opportunity for them, he instills in her a
false sense of security and proves himself by being patient. On what he
pretends is his last visit to her, however, he can sense she is ready-weak,
confused, more afraid of losing the addictive feeling of being desired than of
suffering the consequences of adultery. He deliberately makes her emotional,
dramatically displays her letters, creates some tension by playing a game of
push-and-pull, and when she takes his arm, he knows it is the time to strike.
Now he moves quickly, allowing her no time for doubts or second thoughts. But
his move seems to arise out of love, not lust. After so much resistance and
tension, what a pleasure to finally surrender. The climax now comes as a great
release. Never underestimate the role of vanity in love and seduction. If you
seem impatient, champing at the bit for sex, you signal that it is all about
libido, and that it has little to do with the target's own charms. That is why
you must defer the climax. A lengthier courtship will feed the target's vanity,
and will make the effect of your bold move all the more powerful and enduring.
Wait too long, though-showing desire, but then proving too timid to make your
move-and you will stir up a different kind of insecurity: "You found me
desirable, but you are not acting on your desires; maybe you're not so
interested." Doubts like these affront your target's vanity (if you're not
interested, maybe I'm not so interesting), and are fatal in the latter stages
of seduction; awkwardness and misunderstandings will spring up everywhere. Once
you read in your targets' gestures that they are ready and open-a look in the
eye, mirroring behavior, a strange nervousness in your presence-you must go on
the offensive, make them feel that their charms have unhinged you and pushed
you into the bold move. They will then have the ultimate pleasure: physical
surrender and a psychological boost to their vanity. take care \ Not to bruise
her tender lips with such hard-snatched kisses, \ Don't give her a chance to
protest \ You're too rough. Those who grab their kisses, but not whatfollows, \
Deserve to lose all they've gained. How short were you \ Of the ultimate goal
after all your kissing? That was \ Gaucheness, not modesty, I'm afraid. OVIDIO
(si veda), THE ART OF LOVE. I have tested all manner of pleasures, and known
every variety of joy; and I have found that neither intimacy with princes, nor
wealth acquired, nor finding after lacking, nor returning after long absence,
nor security after fear and repose in a safe refuge-none of these things so
powerfully affects the soul as union with the beloved, especially if it come
after long denial and continual banishment. For then the flame ofpassion waxes
exceeding hot, and the furnace of yearning blazes up, and the fire of eager
hope rages ever more fiercely. The more timidity a lover shows with us the more
it concerns our pride to goad him on; the more respect he has for our
resistance, the more respect we demand of him. We would willingly say to you men:
"Ah, in pity's name do not suppose us to be so very virtuous; you are
forcing us to have too much of it." -NINON DE L'ENCLOS Keys to Seduction T
hink of seduction as a world you enter, a world that is separate and distinct
from the real world. The rules are different here; what works in daily life can
have the opposite effect in seduction. The real world fea- - THE RING OF THE
DOVE: A TREATISE ON THE ART AND PRACTICE OF LOVE. I knew once two great lords,
brothers, both of them highly bred and highly accomplished gentlemen which did
love two ladies, but the one of these wasof much higher quality and more
account than the other in all respects. Now being entered both into the chamber
of 410 this great lady, who for the time being was keeping her bed, each did
withdraw apart for to entertain his mistress. The one did converse with the
high-born dame with every possible respect and humble salutation and kissing of
hands, with words of honor and stately compliment, without making ever an
attempt to come near and try to force the place. The other brother, without any
ceremony of words or fine phrases, did take his fair one to a recessed window,
and incontinently making free with her (for he was very strong), he did soon
show her 'twas not his way to love a I'espagnole, with eyes and tricks of face
and words, but in the genuine fashion and proper mode every true lover should
desire. Presently having finished his task, he doth quit the chamber; but as he
goes, saith to his brother, loud enough for his lady to hear the words:
"Do you as I have done, brother mine; else you do naught at all. Be you as
brave and hardy as you will elsewhere, yet if you show not your hardihood here
and now, you are disgraced;for here is no place of ceremony and respect, but
one where you do see your lady before you, which doth but wait your
attack." So with this he did leave his brother, which yetfor that while
did refrain him and put it off to another time. Butfor this the lady did by no
means esteem him more highly, whether it was she did put it down to an
overchilliness in love, or a lack of courage, or a defect of bodily vigor.
-SEIGNEUR DE BRANT6ME, LIVES OF FAIR et GALLANT LADIES tures a democratizing,
leveling impulse, in which everything has to seem at least something like equal.
An overt imbalance of power, an overt desire for power, will stir envy and
resentment; we learn to be kind and polite, at least on the surface. Even those
who have power generally try to act humble and modest-they do not want to
offend. In seduction, on the other hand, you can throw all of that out, revel
in your dark side, inflict a little pain-in some ways be more yourself. Your
naturalness in this respect will prove seductive in itself. The problem is that
after years of living in the real world, we lose the ability to be ourselves.
We become timid, humble, overpolite. Your task is to regain some of your
childhood qualities, to root out all this false humility. And the most
important quality to recapture is boldness. No one is born timid; timidity is a
protection we develop. If we never stick our necks out, if we never try, we
will never have to suffer the consequences of failure or success. If we are
kind and unobtrusive, no one will be offended-in fact we will seem saintly and
likable. In truth, timid people are often self-absorbed, obsessed with the way
people see them, and not at all saintly. And humility may have its social uses,
but it is deadly in seduction. You need to be able to play the humble saint at
times; it is a mask you wear. But in seduction, take it off. Boldness is
bracing, erotic, and absolutely necessary to bring the seduction to its
conclusion. Done right, it tells your targets that they have made you lose your
normal restraint, and gives them license to do so as well. People are yearning
to have a chance to play out the repressed sides of their personality. At the
final stage of a seduction, boldness eliminates any awkwardness or doubts. In a
dance, two people cannot lead. One takes over, sweeping the other along.
Seduction is not egalitarian; it is not a harmonic convergence. Holding back at
the end out of fear of offending, or thinking it correct to share the power, is
a recipe for disaster. This is an arena not for politics but for pleasure. It
can be by the man or woman, but a bold move is required. If you are so
concerned about the other person, console yourself with the thought that the
pleasure of the one who surrenders is often greater than that of the aggressor.
As a young man, the actor Errol Flynn was uncontrollably bold. This often got
him into trouble; he became too aggressive around desirable women. Then, while
traveling through the Far East, he became interested in the Asian practice of
tantric sex, in which the male must train himself not to ejaculate, preserving
his potency and heightening both partners' pleasure in the process. Flynn later
applied this principle to his seductions as well, teaching himself to restrain
his natural boldness and delay the end of the seduction as long as possible.
So, while boldness can work wonders, uncontrollable boldness is not seductive
but frightening; you need to be able to turn it on and off at will, know when
to use it. As in Tantrism, you can create more pleasure by delaying the
inevitable. In the 1720s, the Due de Richelieu developed an infatuation with a
certain duchess. The woman was exceptionally beautiful, and was desired by one
and all, but she was far too virtuous to take a lover, although she Master the
Art of the Bold Move • 411 could be quite coquettish. Richelieu bided his time.
He befriended her, charming her with the wit that had made him the favorite of
the ladies. One night a group of such women, including the duchess, decided to
play a practical joke on him, in which he was to be forced naked out of his
room at the palace of Versailles. The joke worked to perfection, the ladies all
got to see him in his native glory, andhada good chuckle watching him run away.
There were many places Richelieu could have hidden; the place he chose was the
duchess's bedroom. Minutes later he watched her enter and undress, and once the
candles were extinguished, he crept into bed with her. She protested, tried to
scream. He covered her mouth with kisses, and she eventually and happily
relented. Richelieu had decided to make his bold move then for several reasons.
First, the duchess had come to like him, and even to harbor a secret desire for
him. She would never act upon it or admit it, but he was certain it existed.
Second, she had seen him naked, and could not help but be impressed. Third, she
would feel a touch of pity for his predicament, and for the joke played on him.
Richelieu, a consummate seducer, would find no more perfect moment. The bold
move should come as a pleasant surprise, but not too much of a surprise. Learn
to read the signs that the target is falling for you. His or her manner toward
you will have changed-it will be more pliant, with more words and gestures
mirroring yours-yet there will still be a touch of nervousness and uncertainty.
Inwardly they have given in to you, but they do not expect a bold move. This is
the time to strike. If you wait too long, to the point where they consciously
desire and expect you to make a move, it loses the piquancy of coming as a
surprise. You want a degree of tension and ambivalence, so that the move
represents a great release. Their surrender will relieve tension like a
long-awaited summer storm. Don't plan your bold move in advance; it cannot seem
calculated. Wait for the opportune moment, as Richelieu did. Be attentive to
favorable circumstances. This will give you room to improvise and go with the
moment, which will heighten the impression you want to create of being suddenly
overwhelmed by desire. If you ever sense that the victim is expecting the bold
move, take a step back, lull them into a false sense of security, then strike.
Sometime in the fifteenth century, the writer Bandello relates, a young
Venetian widow had a sudden lust for a handsome nobleman. She had her father
invite him to their palace to discuss business, but during the meeting the
father had to leave, and she offered to give the young man a tour of the place.
His curiosity was piqued by her bedroom, which she described as the most
splendid room in the palace, but which she also passed by without letting him
enter. He begged to be shown the room, and she granted his wish. He was
spellbound: the velvets, the rare objets, the suggestive paintings, the
delicate white candles. A beguiling scent filled the room. The widow put out
all of the candles but one, then led the man to the bed, which had been heated
with a warming pan. He quickly succumbed to her caresses. Follow the widow's
example: your bold move should have a theatrical quality to it. That will make
it memorable, and make your aggressiveness seem pleasant. A man should proceed
to enjoy any woman when she gives him an opportunity and makes her own love
manifest to him by the following signs: she calls out to a man without first
being addressed by him; she shows herself to him in secret places; she speaks
to him tremblingly and inarticulately; her face blooms with delight and her
fingers or toes perspire; and sometimes she remains with both hands placed on
his body as if she had been surprised by something, or as if overcome
withfatigue. • After a woman has manifested her love to him by outward signs,
and by the motions of her body, the man should make every possible attempt to
conquer her. There should be no indecision or hesitancy: if an opening is found
the man should make the most • of it. The woman, indeed, becomes disgusted with
the man if he is timid about his chances and throws them away. Boldness is the
rule, for everything is to be gained, and nothing lost. - THE ART OF LOVE The
Art of Seduction part of the drama. The theatricality can come from the setting-an
exotic or sensual location. It can also come from your actions. The widow
piqued her victim's curiosity by creating the suspense about her bedroom. An
element of fear-someone might find you, say-will heighten the tension.
Remember: you are creating a moment that must stand out from the sameness of
daily life. Keeping your targets emotional will both weaken them and heighten
the drama of the moment. And the best way to keep them at an emotional pitch is
by infecting them with emotions of your own. When Valmont wanted the Presidents
to become calm, angry, or tender, he showed that emotion first, and she
mirrored it. People are very susceptible to the moods of those around them;
this is particularly acute at the latter stages of a seduction, when resistance
is low and the target has fallen under your spell. At the point of the bold
move, learn to infect your target with whatever emotional mood you require, as
opposed to suggesting the mood with words. You want access to the target's
unconscious, which is best obtained by infecting them with emotions, bypassing
their conscious ability to resist. It may seem expected for the male to make
the bold move, but history is full of successfully bold females. There are two
main forms of feminine boldness. In the first, more traditional form, the
coquettish woman stirs male desire, is completely in control, then at the last
minute, after bringing her victim to a boil, steps back and lets him make the
bold move. She sets it up, then signals with her eyes, her gestures, that she
is ready for him. Courtesans have used this method throughout history; it is
how Cleopatra worked on Antony, how Josephine seduced Napoleon, how La Belle
Otero amassed a fortune during the Belle Epoque. It lets the man maintain his
masculine illusions, although the woman is really the aggressor. The second
form of feminine boldness does not bother with such illusions: the woman simply
takes charge, initiates the first kiss, pounces on her victim. This is how
Marguerite de Valois, Lou Andreas-Salome, and Madame Mao operated, and many men
find it not emasculating at all but very exciting. It all depends on the
insecurities and proclivities of the victim. This kind of feminine boldness has
its allure because it is more rare than the first kind, but then all boldness
is somewhat rare. A bold move will always stand out compared to the usual
treatment afforded by the tepid husband, the timid lover, the hesitant suitor.
That is how you want it. If everyone were bold, boldness would quickly lose its
allure. Master the Art of the Bold Move • 413 Symbol: The Summer Storm. The hot
days follow one another, with no end in sight. The earth is parched and dry.
Then there comes a stillness in the air, thick and oppressive-the calm before
the storm. Suddenly gusts of wind arrive, and flashes of lightning, exciting
and frightening. Allowing no time to react or runfor shelter, the rain comes,
and brings with it a sense of release. At last. Reversal I f two people come
together by mutual consent, that is not a seduction. There is no reversal. 24
Beware the Aftereffects Danger follows in the aftermath of a successful
seduction. After emotions have reached a pitch, they often swing in the
opposite direction-toward lassitude, distrust, disappointment. Beware of the
long, drawn-out goodbye; insecure, the victim will cling and claw, and both
sides will suffer. If you are to part, make the sacrifice swift and sudden. If
necessary, deliberately break the spell you have created. If you are to stay in
a relationship, beware a flagging of energy, a creeping familiarity that will
spoil the fantasy. If the game is to go on, a second seduction is required.
Never let the other person take you for granted-use absence, create pain and
conflict, to keep the seduced on tenterhooks. Disenchantment S eduction is a
kind of spell, an enchantment. When you seduce, you are not quite your normal
self; your presence is heightened, you are playing more than one role, you
arestrategicallyconcealing your tics and insecurities. You have deliberately
created mystery and suspense to make the victim experience a real-life drama.
Under your spell, the seduced gets to feel transported away from the world of
work and responsibility. You will keep this going for as long as you want or
can, heightening the tension, stirring the emotions, until the time finally
comes to complete the seduction. After that, disenchantment almost inevitably
sets in. The release of tension is followed by a letdown-of excitement, of
energy-that can even materialize as a kind of disgust directed at you by your
victim, even though what is happening is really a natural emotional course. It
is as if a drug were wearing off, allowing the target to see you as you are-and
being disappointed by the flaws that are inevitably there. On your side, you
too have probably tended to idealize your targets somewhat, and once your
desire is satisfied, you may see them as weak. (After all, they have given in
to you.) You too may feel disappointed. Even in the best of circumstances, you
are dealing now with the reality rather than the fantasy, and the flames will
slowly die down-unless you start up a second seduction. You may think that if
the victim is to be sacrificed, none of this matters. But sometimes your effort
to break off the relationship will inadvertently revivethespellfor the other
person, causing him or her to cling to you tenaciously. No, in either
direction-sacrifice, or the integration of the two of you into a couple-you
must take disenchantment into account. There is an art to the post-seduction as
well. Master the following tactics to avoid undesired aftereffects. Fight
against inertia. The sense that you are trying less hard is often enough to
disenchant your victims. Reflecting back on what you did during the seduction,
they will see you as manipulative: you wanted something then, and so you worked
at it, but now you are taking them for granted. After the first seduction is
over, then, show that it isn't really over-that you want to keep proving
yourself, focusing your attention on them, luring them. That is often enough to
keep them enchanted. Fight the tendency to let things settle into comfort and
routine. Stir the pot, even if that means a In a word, woe to the woman of too
monotonous a temperament; her monotony satiates and disgusts. She is always the
same statue, with her a man is always right. She is so good, so gentle, that
she takes away from people the privilege of quarreling with her, and this is
often such a great pleasure! Put in her place a vivacious woman, capricious,
decided, to a certain limit, however, and things assume a different aspect. The
lover will find in the same personthepleasureofvariety. Temper is the salt, the
quality which prevents it front becoming stale. Restlessness, jealousy,
quarrels, making friends again, spitefulness, all are the food of love.
Enchanting variety? Too constant a peace is productive of a deadly ennui.
Uniformity kills love, for as soon as the spirit of method mingles in an affair
of the heart, the passion disappears, languor supervenes, weariness begins to
wear, and disgust ends the chapter. LIFE, LETTERS AND EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHY OF
NINON DE L'ENCLOS Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale \ Her infinite
variety: other women cloy \ The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry \
Where most she satisfies. SHAKESPEARE, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Cry hurrah, and
hurrah again, for a splendid triumph - \ The quarry I sought has fallen into my
toils. . . . \ Why hurry, young man? Your ship's still in mid-passage, \ And
the harbor I seek is far away \ Through my verses, it's true, you may have
acquired a mistress, \ But that's not enough. If my art \ Caught her, my art
must keep her. To guard a conquest's \As tricky as making it. There was luck in
the chase, \ But this task will call for skill. If ever I needed supportfrom \
Venus and Son, and Erato-the Muse \ Erotic by name - it's now, for my
too-ambitious project\Torelatesometechniquesthatmight restrain \ That fickle
young globetrotter, Love. . . . \ To be loved you must show yourself lovable -
\ Something good looks alone \ Can never achieve. You may be handsome as
Homer's Nireus, \ Or young Hylas, snatched by those bad \ Naiads; but all the
same, to avoid a surprise desertion \And keep your girl, it's best you have
gifts of mind \ In addition to physical charms. Beauty's fragile, the passing \
Years diminish its substance, eat it away. \ Violets and bell-mouthed lilies do
not bloomfor ever, \ Hard thorns are all that's left of the blown rose. \ So
with you, my handsome youth: return to inflicting pain and pulling back. Never
rely on your physical charms; even beauty loses its appeal with repeated
exposure. Only strategy and effort will fight off inertia. Maintain mystery.
Familiarity is the death of seduction. If the target knows everything about
you, the relationship gains a level of comfort but loses the elements of
fantasy and anxiety. Without anxiety and a touch of fear, the erotic tension is
dissolved. Remember: reality is not seductive. Keep some dark corners in your
character, flout expectations, use absences to fragment the clinging,
possessive pull that allows familiarity to creep in. Maintain some mystery or
be taken for granted. You will have only yourself to blame for what follows.
Maintain lightness. Seduction is a game, not a matter of life and death. There
will be a tendency in the "post" phase to take things more seriously
and personally, and to whine about behavior that does not please you. Fight
this as much as possible, for it will create exactly the effect you do not
want. You cannot control the other person by nagging and complaining; it will
make them defensive, exacerbating the problem. You will have more control if
you maintain the proper spirit. Your playfulness, the little ruses you employ
to please and delight them, your indulgence of their faults, will make your
victims compliant and easy to handle. Never try to change your victims;
instead, induce them to follow your lead. Avoid the slow burnout. Often, one
person becomes disenchanted but lacks the courage to make the break. Instead,
he or she withdraws inside. As an absence, this psychological step back may
inadvertently reignite the other person's desire, and a frustrating cycle
begins of pursuit and retreat.Everythingunravels, slowly. Once you feel
disenchanted and know it is over, end it quickly, without apology. That would
only insult the other person. A quick separation is often easier to get over-it
is as if you had a problem being faithful, as opposed to your feeling that the
seduced was no longer being desirable. Once you are truly disenchanted, there
is no going back, so don't hang on out of false pity. It is more compassionate
to make a clean break. If that seems inappropriate or too ugly, then
deliberately disenchant the victim with anti-seductive behavior. Examples of
Sacrifice and Integration The handsome Chevalier de Belleroche began an affair
with an older woman, the Marquise de Merteuil. He saw a lot of her, but soon
she began to pick quarrels with him. Entranced by her unpredictable Beware the
Aftereffects • 419 moods, he worked hard to please her, showering her with
attention and tenderness. Eventually the quarreling stopped, and as the days
went by, de Belleroche felt confident that Merteuil loved him-until one day,
when he came to visit, and found that she was not at home. Her footman greeted
him at the door, and said he would take the chevalier to a secret house of
Merteuil's outside Paris. There the marquise was waiting for him, in a renewed
mood of coquettishness: she acted as if this were theirfirsttryst.Thechevalier
had never seen her so ardent. He left at daybreak more in love than ever, but a
few days later they quarreled again. The marquise seemed cold after that, and
he saw her flirt with another man at a party. He felt horribly jealous, but as
before, his solution was to become more attentive and loving. This, he thought,
was the way to appease a difficult woman. Now Merteuil had to spend a few weeks
at her country home to handle some business there. She invited de Belleroche to
join her for an extended stay, and he happily agreed, remembering the new life
an earlier stay there had brought to their affair. Once again she surprised
him: her affection and desire to please him were rejuvenated. This time,
though, he did not have to leave the next morning. Days went by, and she
refused to entertain any guests. The world would not intrude on them. And this
time there was no coldness or quarreling, only good cheer and love. Yet now de
Belleroche began to grow a little tired of the marquise. He thought of Paris
and the balls he was missing; a week later he cut short his stay on some
business pretext and hurried back to the city. Somehow the marquise did not
seem so charming anymore. Interpretation. The Marquise de Merteuil, a character
in Choderlos de La- clos's novel Dangerous Liaisons, is a practiced seductress
who never lets her affairs drag on too long. De Belleroche is young and
handsome but that is all. As her interest in him wanes, she decides to bring
him to the secret house to try to inject some novelty into the affair. This
works for a while, but it isn't enough. The chevalier must be gotten rid of.
She tries coldness, anger (hoping to start a fight), even a show of interest in
another man. All this only intensifies his attachment. She can'tjust leave
him-he might become vengeful, or try even harder to win her back. The solution:
she deliberately breaks the spell by overwhelming him with attention.
Abandoning the pattern of alternating warmth with coldness, she acts hopelessly
in love. Alone with her day after day, with no space to fantasize, he no longer
sees her as enchanting and breaks off the affair. This was her goal all along.
If a break with the victim is too messy or difficult (or you lack the nerve),
then do the next best thing: deliberately break the spell that ties him or her
to you. Aloofness or anger will only stir the other person s insecurity,
producing a clinging horror. Instead, try suffocating them with love and
attention: be clinging and possessive yourself, moon over the lover's every
action and character trait, create the sense that this monotonous affection
will soon wrinkles will furrow \ Your body; soon, too soon, your hair turn
gray. \ Then build an enduring mind, add that to your beauty: \ It alone will
last till the flames \ Consume you. Keep your wits sharp, explore the liberal
\Arts, win mastery over Greek \ As well as Latin. Ulysses was eloquent, not
handsome - \ Yet he filled sea-goddesses' hearts \ With aching passion. Nothing
works on a mood like tactful tolerance: harshness \ Provokes hatred, makes
nasty rows. \ We detest the hawk and the wolf, those natural hunters, \ Always
preying on timid flocks; \ But the gentle swallow goes safe from man's snares,
we fashion \ Little turreted houses for doves. \ Keep clear of all quarrels,
sharp- tongued recriminations - \ Love's sensitive, needs to be fed \ With
gentle words. Leave nagging to wives and husbands, \ Let them, if they want,
think it a natural law, \A permanent state of feud. Wives thrive on wrangling,
\ That's their dowry. A mistress should always hear \ What she wants to be
told. . . . \ Use tender blandishments, language that caresses \ The ear, make
her glad you came. - OVID, THE ART OF LOVE In Paris the band played a concert
at the Palais Chaleux. They played the first half, and then there was an hour
interval - intermission, we call it - during which there was a fabulous biffet
on a great long table laden with delicious foods and cognac, champagne, wine
and that rarity in Paris . . .Scotch. The people, aristocrats and servants,
some on their hands and knees, were busily searching for something on the
floor. A duchess, who was one of the hostesses, had lost one of her larger
diamonds. The duchess finally got bored seeing people looking all over the
floor for the ring. She looked around haughtily, then took Duke by the arm,
saying, "It doesn't mean anything. I can always get diamonds, but how
often can I get a man like Duke Ellington?" • She disappeared with Duke.
The band started the second half by themselves, and eventually Duke smilingly
reappeared to finish the concert. - DON GEORGE, SWEET MAN: THE REAL DUKE
ELLINGTON I do know, however, that men become bigger-hearted and better lovers
once they get the suspicion that their mistresses care less about them. When a
man believes himself to be the one and only lover in a woman's life, he'll whistle
and go his way. • / ought to know; I have followed this profession for the last
twenty years. If you want me to, I will tell you what happened to me a few
years ago. • At that time I had a steady lover, a certain Demophantos, a usurer
living near Poikile. He had never given me more than five drachmas and he
pretended to be my man. But his love was only superficial, Chrysis. He never
sighed, he never shed tears for me and he never spentthenight waiting at go on
forever. No more mystery, no more coquetry, no more retreats--just endless
love. Few can endure such a threat. A few weeks of it and they will be gone. 2.
King Charles II of England was a devoted libertine. He kept a stable of lovers:
there was always a favorite mistress from the aristocracy, and countless other
less important women. He craved variety. One evening in 1668, the king spent an
evening at the theater, where he conceived a sudden desire for a young actress
called Nell Gwyn. She was pretty and innocent looking (only eighteen at the time),
with a girlish glow in her cheeks, but the lines she recited onstage were so
impudent and saucy. Deeply excited, the king decided he had to have her. After
the performance he took her out for a night of drinking and merriment, then led
her to his royal bed. Nell was the daughter of a fishmonger, and had begun by
selling oranges in the theater. She rose to the status of actress by sleeping
with writers and other theater men. She had no shame about this. (When a
footman of hers got into a fight with someone who said he worked for a whore,
she broke it up by saying, "I am a whore. Find something better to fight
about.") Nell's humor and sass amused the king greatly, but she was
lowborn, and an actress, and he could hardly make her a favorite. After several
nights with "pretty, witty Nell," he returned to his principal
mistress, Louise Keroualle, a well-born Frenchwoman. Keroualle was a clever
seductress. She played hard to get, and made it clear she would not give the
king her virginity until he had promised her a title. It was the kind of chase
Charles enjoyed, and he made her the Duchess of Portsmouth. But soon her greed
and difficultness began to wear on his nerves. To divert himself, he turned
back to Nell. Whenever he visited her, he was royally entertained with food,
drink, and her great good humor. The king was bored or melancholy? She took him
drinking or gambling, or out to the country, where she taught him to fish. She
always had a pleasant surprise up her sleeve. What he loved most of all was her
wit, the way she mocked the pretentious Keroualle. The duchess had the habit of
going into mourning whenever a nobleman of another country died, as if he were
a relation. Nell, too, would show up at the palace on these occasions dressed
in black, and would sorrowfully say that she was mourning for the "Cham of
Tartary" or the "Boog of Oronooko"-grand relatives of her own.
To her face, she called the duchess "Squintabella" and the
"Weeping Willow," because of her simpering manners and melancholic
airs. Soon the king was spending more time with Nell than with the duchess. By
the time Keroualle fell out of favor, Nell had in essence become the king's
favorite, which she remained until his death, in 1685. Interpretation. Nell
Gwyn was ambitious. She wanted power and fame, but in the seventeenth century
the only way a woman could get those Beware the Aftereffects • 421 things was
through a man-and who better than the king? But to get involved with Charles
was a dangerous game. A man like him, easily bored and in need of variety,
would use her for a fling, then find someone else. Nell's strategy for the
problem was simple: she let the king have his other girls, and never
complained. Every time he saw her, though, she made sure he was entertained and
diverted. She filled his senses with pleasure, acting as if his position had
nothing to do with her love for him. Variety in women could wear on the nerves,
tiring a busy king. They all made so many demands. If one woman could provide
the same variety (and Nell, as an actress, knew how to play different roles),
she had a big advantage. Nell never asked for money, so Charles plied her with
wealth. She never asked to be the favorite-how could she? She was a
commoner-but he elevated her to the position. Many of your targets will be like
kings and queens, particularly those who are easily bored. Once the seduction
is over they will notonlyhavetrouble idealizing you, they may also turn to
another man or woman whose unfamiliarity seems exciting and poetic. Needing
other people to divert them, they often satisfy this need through variety. Do
not play into the hands of these bored royals by complaining, becoming
self-pitying, or demanding privileges. That would only further their natural
disenchantment once the seduction is over. Instead, make them see that you are
not the person they thought you were. Make it a delightful game to play new
roles, to surprise them, to be an endless source of entertainment. It is almost
impossible to resist a person who provides pleasure with no strings attached.
When they are with you, keep the spirit light and playful. Play up the parts of
your character they find delightful, but never let them feel they know you too
well. In the end you will control the dynamic, and a haughty king or queen will
become your abject slave. my door. One day he came to see me, knocked at my
door, but I did not open it. You see, 1 had the painter, Callides, in my room;
Collides had given me ten drachmas. Demophantos swore and beat his fists on the
door and left cursing me. Several days passed without my sendingfor him;
Callides was still in my house. Thereupon Demophantos, who was already quite
excited, went wild. He broke open my door,wept, pulled me about, threatened to
kill me, tore my tunic, and did everything, in fact, that a jealous man would
do, and finally presented me with six thousand drachmas. In consideration of
this sum, I was his for a period of eight months. His wife used to say that I
had bewitched him with some powder. That bewitching powder, to be sure, was jealousy.
That is why, Chrysis, I advise you to act likewise with Corgi as. -LUCIAN,
DIALOGUES OF THE COURTESANS.When the greatjazz composer Duke Ellington came to
town, he and his band were always a big attraction, but especially so for the
ladies of the area. They came to hear his music, of course, but once there they
were mesmerized by "the Duke" himself. Onstage, Ellington was relaxed
and elegant, and seemed to be having such a good time. His face was very
handsome, and his bedroom eyes were infamous. (He slept very little, and his
eyes had permanent pouches under them.) After the performance, some woman would
inevitably invite him to her table, another would sneak into his dressing room,
yet another would approach him on his way out. Duke made a point of being
accessible, and when he kissed a woman's hand, his eyes and hers would meet for
a moment. Sometimes she would signal an interest in him, and his glance in
return would say he was more than ready. Sometimes his eyes were the first to
speak; few women could resist that look, even the most happily married. With
the night's music still ringing in her ears, the woman would show up at
Ellington's hotel room. He would be dressed in a stylish suit-he "A wife
is someone on whom one gazes all one's life; yet it is just as well if she be
not beautiful"-so spake Jinta of the Gion. IH is may be the flippant
saying of a go-between, but it is not to be dismissed too lightly. Besides, it
is with beautiful women as with beautiful views: if one is forever looking at
them, one soon tires of their charm. This I can judge from my own experience.
One year I went to Matsushima, and, though at first I was moved by the beauty
of the place and clapped my hands with 422 admiration, saying to myself,
"Oh, if only I could bring some poet here to show him this great
wonder!" - yet, after I had been gazing at the scene from morning until
night, the myriad islands began to smell unpleasantly of seaweed, the waves
that beat on Matsuyama Point became obstreperous; before I knew it I had let
all the cherry blossoms at Shiogama scatter; in the morning I overslept and
missed the dawn snow on Mount Kinka; nor was I much impressed by the evening
moon at Nagane or Oshima; and in the end I picked up a few white and
blackpebbles on the cove and became engrossed in a game of Six Musashi with
some children. -IHARA SAIKAKU, THE UFE OF AN AMOROUS WOMAN. Men despise women who love too much and
unwisely. -LUCIAN, DIALOGUES OF THE COURTESANS.
I shall endeavor briefly to outline to you how a love when gained can be
deepened. They say it can be increased in particular by making it an infrequent
and difficult business for lovers to set eyes on each other, for the greater
the difficulty of offering and receiving shared consolations, the greater
become the desirefor, and feeling of love. Love also grows if one of the lovers
shows anger to the other, for a lover is at once sorely afraid that a partner's
loved good clothes-and the room would be full of flowers; there would be a
piano in the corner. He would play some music. His playing, and his elegant,
nonchalant manner, would come across to the woman as pure theater, a pleasant
continuation of the performance she had just witnessed. And when it was over,
and Ellington had to leave town, he would give her a thoughtful gift. He would
make it seem that the only thing taking him away from her was his touring. A
few weeks later, the woman might hear a new Ellington song on the radio, with
lyrics suggesting that she had inspired it. If ever he passed through the area again,
she would find a way to be there, and Ellington would often renew the affair,
if only for a night. Sometime in the 1940s, two young women from Alabama came
to Chicago to attend a debutante ball. Ellington and his band were the
entertainment. He was the women's favorite musician, and after the show, they
asked him for an autograph. He was so charming and engaging that one of the
girls found herself asking what hotel he was staying at. He told them, with a
big grin. The girls switched hotels, and later that day they called up
Ellington and invited him to their room for a drink. He accepted. They wore
beautiful negligees that they had just bought. When Ellington arrived, he acted
completely naturally, as if the warm greeting they gave him were completely
usual. The three of them ended up in the bedroom, when one of the young women
had an idea: her mother adored Ellington. She had to call her now and put
Ellington on the phone. Not at all put out by the suggestion, Ellington played
along. For several minutes he talked to the mother on the telephone, lavishing
her with compliments on the charming daughter she had raised, and telling her
not to worry-he was taking good care of the girl. The daughter got back on the
phone and said, "We're fine because we're withMr.Ellington and he's such a
perfect gentleman." As soon as she hung up, the three of them resumed the
naughtiness they had started. To the two girls, it later seemed an innocent but
unforgettable night of pleasure. Sometimes several of these far-flung mistresses
would show up at the same concert. Ellington would go up and kiss each of them
four times (a habit of his designed for just this dilemma). And each of the
ladies would assume she was the one with whom the kisses really mattered.
Interpretation. Duke Ellington had two passions: music and women. The two were
interrelated. His endless affairs were a constant inspiration for his music; he
also treated them as if they were theater, a work of art in themselves. When it
came time to separate, he always managed it with a theatrical touch. A clever
remark and a gift would make it seem that for him the affair was hardly over.
Song lyrics referring to their night together would keep up the aesthetic
atmosphere long after he had left town. No wonder women kept coming back for
more. This was not a sexual affair, a tawdry one-nighter, but a heightened
moment in the woman's life. And his carefree attitude made it impossible to
feel guilty; thoughts of one's mother or Beware the Aftereffects • 423 husband
would not spoil the illusion. Ellington was never defensive or apologetic
abouthis appetite for women; it was his nature and never the fault of the woman
that he was unfaithful. And if he could not help his desires, how could she
hold him responsible? It was impossible to hold a grudge against such a man or
complain about his behavior. Ellington was an Aesthetic Rake, a type whose
obsession with women can only be satisfied by endless variety. A normal man's
tomcatting will eventually land him in hot water, but the Aesthetic Rake rarely
stirs up ugly emotions. After he seduces a woman, there is neither an
integration nor a sacrifice. He keeps them hanging and hoping. The spell is not
broken thenext day, because the Aesthetic Rake makes the separation a pleasant,
even elegant experience. The spell Ellington cast on a woman never went away.
The lesson is simple; keep the moments after the seduction and the separation
in the same key as before, heightened, aesthetic, and pleasant. If you do not
act guilty for your feckless behavior, it is hard for the other person to feel
angry or resentful. Seduction is a lighthearted game, in which you invest all
of your energy in the moment. The separation should be lighthearted and stylish
as well: it is work, travel, some dreaded responsibility that calls you away.
Create a memorable experience and then move on, and your victim will most
likely remember the delightful seduction, nottheseparation. You will have made
no enemies, and will have a lifelong harem of lovers to whom you can always
return when you feel so inclined. 4 . In 1899, twenty-year-old Baroness Frieda
von Richthofen married an Englishman named Ernest Weekley, a professor at the
University of Nottingham, and soon settled into the role of the professor's
wife. Weekley treated her well, but she grew bored with their quiet life and
his tepid love- making. On trips home to Germany she had a few love affairs,
but this wasn't what she wanted either, and so she returned to being faithful
and caring for their three children. One day, a former student of Weekley's,
David Herbert Lawrence, paid a visit to the couple's house. A struggling
writer, Lawrence wanted the professor's professional advice. He was not home
yet so Frieda entertained him. She had never met such an intense young man. He
talked of his impoverished youth, his inability to understand women. And he
listened attentively to her own complaints. He even scolded her for the bad tea
she had made him-somehow, even though she was a baroness, this excited her.
Lawrence returned for later visits, but now to see Frieda, not Weekley. One day
he confessed to her that he had fallen deeply in love with her. She admitted to
similar feelings, and proposed they find a trystingspot.InsteadLawrence had a
proposal of his own: Leave your husband tomorrow-leave him for me. What about
the children? Frieda asked. If the children aremore important than our love,
Lawrence replied, then stay with them. But if you don't run away with me within
a few days, you will never see mewrath when roused may harden indefinitely.
Love again experiences increase when genuine jealousy preoccupies one of the
lovers, for jealousy is called the nurturer of love. In fact even if the lover
is oppressed not by genuine jealousy but by base suspicion, love always increases
because of it, and becomes more powerful by its own strength. -CAPELLANUS ON
LOVE You've seen the fire that smolders \ Down to nothing, grows a crown of
pale ash \ Over its hidden embers (yet a sprinkling of sulphur \ Will suffice
to rekindle the flame)? \ So with the heart. It grows torpidfrom lack of worry,
\ Needs a sharp stimulus to elicit love. \ Get her anxious about you, reheat
her tepid passions, \ Tell her your guilty secrets, watch her blanch. \ Thrice
fortunate that man, lucky past calculation, \ Who can make some poor injured
girl \ Torture herself over him, lose voice, go pale, pass out when \ The
unwelcome news reaches her. Ah, may I \ Be the one whose hair she tears out in
her fury, the one whose \ Soft cheeks she rips with her nails, \ Whom she sees,
eyes glaring, through a rain of tears; without whom, \ Try as she will, she
cannot live! \ How long (you may ask) should you leave her lamenting her wrong?
A little \ While only, lest rage gather strength \ Through procrastination. By
then you should have her sobbing \ All over your chest, your arms tight around
her neck. \ You want peace? Give her kisses, make love to the girl while she's
crying - \ That's the only way to melt her angry mood. - OVIDIO, THE ART OF
LOVE. again. To Frieda the choice was
horrific. She did not care at all about her husband, but the children were what
she lived for. Even so, a few days later, she succumbed to Lawrence's proposal.
How could she resist a man who was willing to ask for so much, to take such a
gamble? If she refused she would always wonder, for such a man only passes once
through your life. The couple left England and headed for Germany. Frieda would
mention sometimes how much she missed her children, but Lawrence had no
patience with her: You are free to go back to them at any moment, he would say,
but if you stay, don't look back. He took her on an arduous mountaineering trip
in the Alps. A baroness, she had never experienced such hardship, but Lawrence
was firm: if two people are in love, why should comfort matter? In 1914, Frieda
and Lawrence were married, but over the following years the same pattern
repeated. He would scold her for her laziness, the nostalgia for her children,
her abysmal housekeeping. He would take her on trips around the world, on very
little money, never letting her settle down, although it was her fondest wish.
They fought and fought. Once in New Mexico, in front of friends, he yelled at
her, "Take that dirty cigarette out of your mouth! And stop sticking out
that fat belly of yours!" "You'd better stop that talk or I'll tell
about your things," she yelled back. (She had learned to give him a taste
of his own medicine.) They both went outside. Their friends watched, worried it
might turn violent. They disappeared from sight only to reappear moments later,
arm in arm, laughing and mooning over one another. That was the most
disconcerting thing about the Lawrences: married for years, they often behaved
like infatuated newlyweds. Interpretation. When Lawrence first met Frieda, he
could sense right away what herweaknesswas: she felt trapped, in a stultifying
relationship and a pampered life. Her husband, like so many husbands, was kind,
but never paid enough attention to her. She craved drama and adventure, but was
too lazy to get it on her own. Drama and adventure were just what Lawrence
would provide. Instead of feeling trapped, she had the freedom to leave him at
any moment. Instead of ignoring her, he criticized her constantly- at least he
was paying attention, never taking her for granted. Instead of comfort and
boredom, he gave her adventure and romance. The fights he picked with
ritualistic frequency also ensured nonstop drama and the space for a powerful
reconciliation. He inspired a touch of fear in her, which kept her off balance,
never quite sure of him. As a result, the relationship never grew stale. It
kept renewing itself. If it is integration you are after, seduction must never
stop. Otherwise boredom will creep in. And the best way to keep the process
going is often to inject intermittent drama. This can be painful-opening old
wounds, stirring up jealousy, withdrawing a little. (Do not confuse this
behavior with nagging or carping criticism-this pain is strategic, designed to
break up rigid patterns.) On the other hand it can also be pleasant: think
about Beware the Aftereffects • 425 proving yourself all over again, paying
attention to nice little details, creating new temptations. In fact you should
mix the two aspects, for too much pain or pleasure will not prove seductive.
You are not repeating the first seduction, for the target has already
surrendered. You are simply supplying little jolts, little wake-up calls that
show two things: you have not stopped trying, and they cannot take you for
granted. The little jolt will stir up the old poison, stoke the embers, bring
you temporarily back to the beginning, when your involvement had a most
pleasant freshness and tension. Remember: comfort and security are the death of
seduction. A shared journey with a little bit of hardship will do more to
create a deep bond than will expensive gifts and luxuries. The young are right
to not care about comfort in matters of love, and when you return to that
sentiment, a youthful spark will reignite. 5. In 1652, the famous French
courtesan Ninon de l'Enclos met and fell in love with the Marquis de
Villarceaux. Ninon was a libertine; philosophy and pleasure were more important
to her than love. But the marquis inspired new sensations: he was so bold, so
impetuous, that for once in her life she let herself lose a little control. The
marquis was possessive, a trait she normally abhorred. But in him it seemed
natural, almost charming: he simply could not help himself. And so Ninon
accepted his conditions: there were to be no other men in her life. For her
part she told him that she would accept no money or gifts from him. This was to
be about love, nothing else. She rented a house opposite his in Paris, and they
saw each other daily. One afternoon the marquis suddenly burst in and accused
her of having another lover. His suspicions were unfounded, his accusations
absurd, and she told him so. This did not satisfy him, and he stormed out. The
next day Ninon received news that he had fallen quite ill. She was deeply
concerned. As a desperate recourse, a sign of her love and submission, she
decided to cut off her beautiful long hair, for which she was famous, and send
it to him. The gesture worked, the marquis recovered, and they resumed their
affair still more passionately. Friends and former lovers complained of her
sudden transformation into the devoted woman, but she did not care- she was
happy. Now Ninon suggested that they go away together. The marquis, a married
man, could not take her to his chateau, but a friend offered his own in the
country as a refuge for the lovers. Weeks became months, and their little stay
turned into a prolonged honeymoon. Slowly, though, Ninon had the feeling that
something was wrong: the marquis was acting more like a husband. Although he
was as passionate as before, he seemed so confident, as if he had certain
rights and privileges that no other man could expect. The possessiveness that
once had charmed her began to seem oppressive. Nor did he stimulate her mind.
She could get other men, and equally handsome ones, to satisfy her physically
without all that jealousy. The Art of Seduction Once this realization set in,
Ninon wasted no time. She told the marquis that she was returning to Paris, and
that it was over for good. He begged and pleaded his case with much emotion-how
could she be so heartless? Although moved, Ninon was firm. Explanations would
only make it worse. She returned to Paris and resumed the life of a courtesan.
Her abrupt departure apparently shook up the marquis, but apparently not too
badly, for a few months later word reached her that he had fallen in love with
another woman. Interpretation. A woman often spends months pondering the subtle
changes in her lover's behavior. She might complain or grow angry; she might
even blame herself. Under the weight of her complaints, the man may change for
a while, but an ugly dynamic and endless misunderstandings will ensue. What is
the point of all of this? Once you are disenchanted it is really too late.
Ninon could have tried to figure out what had disenchanted her-the good looks
that now bored her, the lack ofmental stimulation, the feeling of being taken
for granted. But why waste time figuring it out? The spell was broken, so she
moved on. She did not bother to explain, to worry about de Villarceaux's
feelings, to make it all soft and easy for him. She simply left. The person who
seems so considerate of the other, who tries to mend things or make excuses, is
reallyjust timid. Being kind in such matters can be rather cruel. The marquis
was able to blame everything on his mistress's heartless, fickle nature. His
vanity and pride intact, he could easily move on to another affair and put her
behind him. Not only does the long, lingering death of a relationship cause
your partner needless pain, it will have long-term consequences for you as
well, making you more skittish in the future, and weighing you down with guilt.
Never feel guilty, even if you were both the seducer and the one who now feels
disenchanted. It is not your fault. Nothing can last forever. You have created
pleasure for your victims, stirring them out of their rut. If you make a clean
quick break, in the long run they will appreciate it. The more you apologize,
the more you insult their pride, stirring up negative feelings that will
reverberate for years. Spare them the disingenuous explanations that only
complicate matters. The victim should be sacrificed, not tortured. 6. After
fifteen years under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, the French were exhausted.
Too many wars, too much drama. When Napoleon was defeated in 1814, and was
imprisoned on the island of Elba, the French were more than ready for peace and
quiet. The Bourbons-the royal family deposed by the revolution of 1789-returned
to power. The king was Louis XVIII; he was fat, boring, and pompous, but at
least there would be peace. Then, news reached France of Napoleon's dramatic
escape from Elba, with seven small ships and a thousand men. He Beware the
Aftereffects • 427 could head for America, start all over, but instead he was
just crazy enough to land at Cannes. What was he thinking? A thousand men
against all the armies of France? He set off toward Grenoble with his ragtag
army. One at least had to admire his courage, his insatiable love of glory and
of France. Then, too, the French peasantry were spellbound at the sight of
their former emperor. This man, after all, had redistributed a great deal of
land to them, which the new king was trying to take back. They swooned at the
sight of his famous eagle standards, revivals of symbols from the revolution. They
left their fields and joined his march. Outside Grenoble, the first of the
troops that the king sent to stop Napoleon caught up with him. Napoleon
dismounted and walked on foot toward them. "Soldiers of the Fifth Army
Corps!" he cried out. "Don't you know me? If there is one among you
who wishes to kill his emperor, let him come forward and do so. Here I
am!" He threw open his gray cloak, inviting them to take aim. There was a
moment of silence, and then, from all sides, cries rang out of "Vive
l'Empereur!" In one stroke, Napoleon's army had doubled in size. The march
continued. More soldiers, remembering the glory he had given them, changed
sides. The city of Lyons fell without a battle. Generals with larger armies
were dispatched to stop him, but the sight of Napoleon at the head of his
troops was an overwhelmingly emotional experience for them, and they switched
allegiance. King Louis fled France, abdicating in the process. On March 20,
Napoleon reentered Paris and returned to the palace he had left only thirteen
months before-all without having had to fire a single shot. The peasantry and
the soldiers had embraced Napoleon, but Parisians were less enthusiastic,
particularly those who had served in his government. They feared the storms he
would bring. Napoleon ruled the country for one hundred days, until the allies
and his enemies from within defeated him. This time he was shipped off to the
remote island of St. Helena, where he was to die. Interpretation. Napoleon
always thought of France, and his army, as a target to be wooed and seduced. As
General de Segur wrote of Napoleon: "In moments of sublime power, he no
longer commands like a man, but seduces like a woman." In the case of his
escape from Elba, he planned a bold, surprising gesture that would titillate a
bored nation. He began his return to France among the people who would be most
receptive to him: the peasantry who had revered him. He revived the symbols-the
revolutionary colors, the eagle standards-that would stir up the old sentiments.
He placed himself at the head of his army, daring his former soldiers to fire
on him. The march on Paris that brought him back to power was pure theater,
calculated for emotional effect every step of the way. What a contrast this
former amour presented to the dolt of a king who now ruled them. Napoleon's
second seduction of France was not a classical seduction, following the usual
steps, but a re-seduction. It was built on old emotions The Art of Seduction
and revived an old love. Once you have seduced a person (or a nation) there is
almost always a lull, a slight letdown, which sometimes leads to a separation;
it is surprisingly easy, though, to re-seduce the same target. The old feelings
never go away, they lie dormant, and in a flash you can take your target by
surprise. It is a rarepleasuretobe able to relive the past, and one's youth-to
feel the old emotions. Like Napoleon, add a dramatic flair to your
re-seduction: revive the old images, the symbols, the expressions that will
stir memory. Like the French, your targets will tend to forget the ugliness of
the separation and will remember only the good things. You should make this
second seduction bold and quick, giving your targets no time to reflect or
wonder. Like Napoleon, play on the contrast to their current lover, making his
or her behavior seem timid and stodgy by comparison. Not everyone will be
receptive to a re-seduction, and some moments will be inappropriate. When
Napoleon came back from Elba, the Parisians were too sophisticated for him, and
could see right through him. Unlike the peasants of the South, they already
knew him well; and his reentry came too soon, they were too worn out by him. If
you want to re-seduce someone, choose one who does not know you so well, whose
memories of you are cleaner, who is less suspicious by nature, and who is
dissatisfied with present circumstances. Also, you might want to let some time
pass. Time will restore your luster and make your faults fade away. Never see a
separation or sacrifice as final. With a little drama and planning, a victim
can be retaken in no time. Symbol: Embers, the remains of the fire on
themorning after. Left to themselves, the embers will slowly die out. Do not
leave the fire to chance and to the elements. To put it out, douse it, suffocate
it, give it nothing to feed on. To bring it back to life, fan it, stoke it,
until it blazes anew. Only your constant attention and vigilance will keep it
burning. Beware the Aftereffects Reversal T o keep a person enchanted, you will
have to re-seduce them constantly. But you can allow a little familiarity to
creep in. The target wants to feel that he or she is getting to know you. Too
much mystery will create doubt. It will also be tiring for you, who will have
to sustain it. The point is not to remain completely unfamiliar but rather, on
occasion, to jolt victims out of their complacency, surprising them as you
surprised them in the past. Do this right and they will have the delightful
feeling that they are constantly getting to know more about you-but never too
much. A Seductive Environment/Seductive Time In seduction, your victims must
slowly come to feel an inner change. Under your influence, they lower their
defenses, feeling free to act differently, to be a different person. Certain
places, environments, and experiences will greatly aid you in your quest to
change and transform the seduced. Spaces with a theatrical, heightened quality
- opulence, glittering surfaces, a playful spirit-create a buoyant, childlike
feeling that make it hard for the victim to think straight. The creation of an
altered sense of time has a similar effect - memorable, dizzying moments that
stand out, a mood of festival and play. You must make your victims feel that
being with you gives them a different experience from being in the real world.
Festival Time and Place C enturies ago, life in most cultures was filled with
work and routine. But at certain moments in the year, this life was interrupted
by festival. During these festivals-saturnalias of ancient Rome, the maypole festivals
of Europe, the great potlatches of the Chinook Indians-work in the fields or
marketplace stopped. The entire tribe or town gathered in a sacred space set
apart for the festival. Temporarily relieved of duty and responsibility, people
were granted license to run amok; they would wear masks or costumes, which gave
them other identities, sometimes those of powerful figures reenacting the great
myths of their culture. The festival was a tremendous release from the burdens
of daily life. It altered people's sense of time, bringing moments in which
they stepped outside of themselves. Time seemed to stand still. Something like
this experience can still be found in the world's great surviving carnivals.
The festival represented a break in a person's daily life, aradicallydifferent
experience from routine. On a more intimate level, that is how you must
envision your seductions. As the process advances, your targets experience a
radical difference from daily life-a freedom from work or responsibility.
Plunged into pleasure and play, they can act differently, can become someone
else, as if they were wearing a mask. The time you spend with them is devoted
to them and nothing else. Instead of the usual rotation of work and rest, you
are giving them grand, dramatic moments that stand out. You bring them to
places unlike the places they see in daily life- heightened, theatrical places.
Physical environment strongly affects people's moods; a place dedicated to
pleasure and play insinuates thoughts of pleasure and play. When your victims
return to their duties and to the real world, they feel the contrast strongly
and they will start to crave that other place into which you have drawn them.
What you are essentially creating is festival time and place, moments when the
real world stops and fantasy takes over. Our culture no longer supplies such
experiences, and people yearn for them. That is why almost everyone is waiting
to be seduced and why they will fall into your arms if you play this right. The
following are key components to reproducing festival time and place; Create
theatrical effects. Theater creates a sense of a separate, magical world. The
actors' makeup, the fake but alluring sets, the slightly unreal costumes-these
heightened visuals, along with the story of the play, create illusion. To
produce this effect in real life, you must fashion your clothes, makeup, and
attitude to have a playful, artificial, edge-a feeling that you have dressed
for the pleasure of your audience. This is the goddesslike effect of a Marlene
Dietrich, or the fascinating effect of a dandy like Beau Brum- mel. Your
encounters with your targets should also have a sense of drama, achieved
through the settings you choose and through your actions. The target should not
know what will happen next. Create suspense through twists and turns that lead
to the happy ending; you are performing. Whenever your targets meet you, they
are returned to this vague feeling of being in a play. You both have the thrill
of wearing masks, of playing a different role from the one your life has
allotted you. Use the visual language ofpleasure. Certain kinds of visual
stimuli signal that you are not in the real world. You want to avoid images
that have depth, which might provoke thought, or guilt; instead, you should work
in environments that are all surface, full of glittering objects, mirrors,
pools of water, a constant play of light. The sensory overload of these spaces
creates an intoxicating, buoyant feeling. The more artificial, the better. Show
your targets a playful world, full of the sights and sounds that excite the
baby or child within them. Luxury-the sense that money has been spent or even
wasted-adds to the feeling that the real world of duty and morality has been
banished. Call it the brothel effect. Keep it crowded or close. People crowding
together raise the psychological temperature to hothouse levels. Festivals and
carnivals depend on the contagious feeling a crowd creates. Bring your target
to such environments sometimes, to lower their normal defensiveness. Similarly,
any kind of situation that brings people together in a small space for a long
period of time is extremely conducive to seduction. For years, Sigmund Freud
had a small, tight-knit stable of disciples who attended his private lectures
and who engaged in an astonishing number of love affairs. Either lead the
seduced into a crowded, festivallike environment or go trolling for targets in
a closed world. Manufacture mystical effects. Spiritual or mystical effects
distract people's minds from reality, making them feel elevated and euphoric.
From here it is but a small step to physical pleasure. Use whatever props are
at hand- astrology books, angelic imagery, mystical-sounding music from some
far- off culture. The great eighteenth-century Austrian charlatan Franz Mesmer
filled his salons with harp music, the perfume of exotic incense, and a female
voice singing in a distant room. On the walls he put stained glass and mirrors.
His dupes would feel relaxed, uplifted, and as they sat in the room where he
used magnets for their healing powers, they would feel a kind of spiritual
tingling pass from body to body. Anything vaguely mystical helps block out the
real world, and it is easy to move from the spiritual to the sexual. Distort
their sense of time-speed and youth. Festival time has a kind of speed and
frenzy that make people feel more alive. Seduction should make the heart beat
faster, so that the seduced loses track of time passing. Take them to places of
constant activity and movement. Embark with them on some kind of journey
together, distracting their minds with new sights. Youth may fade and
disappear, but seduction brings the feeling of being young, no matter the age
of those involved. And youth is mostly energy. The pace of the seduction must
pick up at a certain moment, creating a whirling effect in the mind. It is no
wonder that Casanova did much of his seducing at balls, or that the waltz was
the preferred tool of many a nineteenth-century rake. Create moments. Everyday
life is a drudgery in which the same actions endlessly repeat. The festival, on
the other hand, we remember as a moment when everything was transformed-when a
little bit of eternity and myth entered our lives. Your seduction must have
such peaks, moments when something dramatic happens and time is experienced
differently. You must give your targets such moments, whether by staging the
seduction in a place-a carnival, a theater-where they naturally occur or by
creating them yourself, with dramatic actions that stir up strong emotions.
Those moments should be pure leisure and pleasure-no thoughts of work or
morality can intrude. Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV, had
to re-seduce her easily bored lover every few months; intensely creative, she
devised parties, balls, games, a little theater at Versailles. The seduced
revels in affairs like this, sensing the effort you have expended to divert and
enchant them. Scenes from Seductive Time and Place. A man whose father was a
prosperous wine dealer in Osaka, Japan, found himself daydreaming more and
more. He worked night and day for his father, and the burden of family life and
all of its duties was oppressive. Like every young man, he had heard of the
pleasure districts of the city-the quarters where the normally strict laws of
the shogunate could be violated. It was here that you would find the ukiyo, the
"floating world" oftransientpleasures, a place where actors and
courte-sans ruled. This was what the young man was daydreaming about. Biding
his time, he managed to find an evening when he could slip out unnoticed. He
headed straight for the pleasure quarters. This was a cluster of
buildings-restaurants, exclusive clubs, teahouses-that stood out from the rest
of the city by their magnificence and color. The moment the young man stepped
into it, he knew he was in a different world. Actors wandered the streets in
elaborately dyed kimonos. They had such manners and attitudes, as if they were
still on stage. The streets bustled with energy; the pace was fast. Bright
lanterns stood out against the night, as did the colorful posters for the
nearby kabuki theater. The women had a completely different air about them.
They stared at him brazenly, acting with the freedom of a man. He caught sight
of an onmgata, one of the men who played female roles in the theater-a man more
beautiful than most women he had seen and whom the passersby treated like
royalty. The young man saw other young men like himself entering a teahouse, so
he followed them in. Here the highest class of courtesans, the great tayus,
plied their trade. A few minutes after the young man sat down, he heard a noise
and bustle, and down the stairs came a few of the tayus, followed by musicians
and jesters.The women's eyebrows were shaved, replaced by a thick black painted
line. Their hair was swept up in a perfect fold, and he had never seen such
beautiful kimonos. The tayus seemed to float across the floor, using different
kinds of steps (suggestive, creeping, cautious, etc.), depending on whom they
were approaching and what they wanted to communicate to him. They ignored the
young man; he had no idea how to invite them over, but he noticed that some of
the older men had a way of bantering with them that was a language all its own.
The wine began to flow, music was played, and finally some lower-level
courtesans came in. By then the young man's tongue was loosened. These
courtesans were much friendlier and the young man began to lose all track of
time. Later he managed to stagger home, and only the next morning did he realize
how much money he had spent. If father ever found out . . . Yet a few weeks
later he was back. Like hundreds of such sons in Japan whose stories filled the
literature of the period, he was on the path toward squandering his father's
wealth on the "floating world." Seduction is another world into which
you initiate your victims. Like the ukiyo, it depends on a strict separation
from the day-to-day world. When your victims are in your presence, the outside
world-with its morality, its codes,itsresponsibilitiesis banished. Anything is
allowed, particularly anything normally repressed. The conversation is lighter
and more suggestive. Clothes and places have a touch of theatricality. The
license exists to act differently, to be someone else, without any heaviness or
judging. It is a kind of concentrated psychological "floating world"
that you create for the others, and it becomes addictive. When they leave you
and return to their routines, they are doubly aware of what they are missing.
The moment they crave the atmosphere you have created, the seduction is
complete. As in the floating world, money is to be wasted. Generosity and
luxury go hand in hand with a seductive environment. 2. It began in the early
1960s: people would come to Andy Warhol's New York studio, soak up the
atmosphere, and stay awhile. Then in 1963, the artist moved into a new
Manhattan space and a member of his entourage covered some of the walls and
pillars in tin foil and spray-painted a brick wall and other things silver. A
red quilted couch in the center, some five- foot-high plastic candy bars, a
turntable that glittered with tiny mirrors, and helium-filled silver pillows
that floated in the air completed the set. Now the L-shaped space became known
as The Factory, and a scene began to develop. More and more people started
showing up-why not just leave the door open, Andy reasoned, and come what may.
During the day, while Andy would work on his paintings and films, people would
gather-actors, hustlers, drug dealers, other artists. And the elevator would
keep groaning all night as the beautiful people began to make the place their
home. Here might be Montgomery Clift, nursing a drink by himself; over there, a
beautiful young socialite chatting with a drag queen and a museum curator. They
kept pouring in, all of them young and glamorously dressed. It was like one of
those children's shows on TV, Andy once said to a friend, where guests keep
dropping in on the endless party and there's always some new bit of
entertainment. And that was indeed what it seemed like-with nothing serious
happening, just lots of talk and flirting and flashbulbs popping and endless
posing, as if everyone were in a film. The museum curator would begin to giggle
like a teenager and the socialite would flounce about like a hooker. By
midnight everyone would be packed together. You could hardly move. The band
would arrive, the light show would begin, and it would all careen in a new
direction, wilder and wilder. Somehow the crowd would disperse at some point,
then in the afternoon it would all start up again as the entourage trickled
back. Hardly anyone went to The Factory just once. It is oppressivealways to
have to act the same way, playing the same boring role that work or duty
imposes on you. People yearn for a place or a moment when they can wear a mask,
act differently, be someone else. That is why we glorify actors; they have the
freedom and playfulness in relation to their own ego that we would love to
have. Any environment that offers a chance to play a different role, to be an
actor, is immensely seductive. It can be an environment that you create, like
The Factory. Or a place where you take your target. In such environments you
simply cannot be defensive; the playful atmosphere, the sense that anything is
allowed (except seriousness), dispels any kind of reactiveness. Being in such a
place becomes a drug. To re-create the effect, remember Warhol's metaphor of
the children's TV show. Keep everything light and playful, full of
distractions, noise, color, and a bit of chaos. No weight, responsibilities, or
judgments. A place to lose yourself in. 3. In 1746, a seventeen-year-old girl
named Cristina had come to the city of Venice, Italy, with her uncle, a priest,
in search of a husband. Cristina was from a small village but had a substantial
dowry to offer. The Venetian men who were willing to marry her, however, did
not please her. So after two weeks of futile searching, she and her uncle
prepared to return to their village. Theywere seated in their gondola, about to
leave the city, when Cristina saw an elegantly dressed young man walking toward
them. "There's a handsome fellow!" she said to her uncle. "I
wish he was in the boat with us." The gentleman could not have heard this,
yet he approached, handed the gondolier some money, and sat down beside
Cristina, much to her delight. He introduced himself as Jacques Casanova. When
the priest complimented him on his friendly manners, Casanova replied,
"Perhaps I should not have been so friendly, my reverend father, if I had
not been attracted by the beauty of your niece." Cristina told him why
they had come to Venice and why they were leaving. Casanova laughed and chided
her-a man cannot decide to marry a girl after seeing her for a few days. He
must know more about her character; it would take at least six months. He
himself was looking for a wife, and he explained to her why he had been as
disappointed by the girls he had met as she had been disappointed by the men.
Casanova seemed to have no destination; he simply accompanied them, entertaining
Cristina the whole way with witty conversation. When the gondola arrived at the
edge of Venice, Casanova hired a carriage to the nearby city of Treviso and
invited them to join him. From there they could catch a chaise to their
village. The uncleaccepted, and on the way to their carriage, Casanova offered
his arm to Cristina. What would his mistress say if she saw them, she asked.
"I have no mistress," he answered, "and I shall never have one
again, for I shall never find such a pretty girl as you-no, not in
Venice." His words went to her head, filling it with all kinds of strange
thoughts, and she began to talk and act in a manner that was new to her,
becoming almost brazen. What a pity she could not stay in Venice for the six
months he needed to get to know a girl, she told Casanova. Without hesitation
he offered to pay her expenses in Venice for that period while he courted her.
On the carriage ride she turned this offer over in her mind, and once in
Treviso she got her uncle alone and begged him to return to the village by
himself, then come back for her in a few days. She was in love with Casanova;
she wanted to know him better; he was a perfect gentleman, who could be
trusted. The uncle agreed to do as she wished. The following day Casanova never
left her side. There was not the slightest hint of disagreement in his nature.
They spent the day wandering around the city, shopping and talking. He took her
to a play in the evening and to the casino after that, supplying her with a
domino and a mask. He gave her money to gamble and she won. By the time the
uncle returned to Treviso, she had all but forgotten about her marriage
plans-all she could think of was the six months she would spend with Casanova.
But she returned to her village with her uncle and waited for Casanova to visit
her. He showed up a few weeks later, bringing with him a handsome young man
named Charles. Alone with Cristina, Casanova explained the situation: Charles
was the most eligible bachelor in Venice, a man who would make a much better
husband than he would. Cristina admitted to Casanova that she too had had her
doubts. He was too exciting, had made her think of other things besides
marriage, things she was ashamed of. Perhaps it was for the better. She thanked
him for taking such pains to find her a husband. Over the next few days Charles
courted her, and they were married several weeks later. The fantasy and allure
of Casanova, however, remained in her mind forever. Casanova could not marry-it
was against everything in his nature. But it was also against his nature to
force himself on a young girl. Better to leave her with the perfect fantasy
image than to ruin her life. Besides, he enjoyed the courting and flirting more
than anything else. Casanova supplied a young woman with the ultimate fantasy.
While he was in her orbit he devoted every moment to her. He never mentioned
work, allowing no boring, mundane details to interrupt the fantasy. And he
added great theater. He wore the most spectacular outfits, full of sparkling jewels.
He led her to the most wonderful entertainments-carnivals, masked balls, the
casinos, journeys with no destination. He was the great master at creating
seductive time and environment. Casanova is the model to aspire to. While in
your presence your targets must sense a change. Time has a different
rhythm-they barely notice its passing. They have the feeling that everything is
stopping for them, just as all normal activity comes to a halt at a festival.
The idle pleasures you provide them are contagious-one leads to another and to
another, until it is too late to turn back. The less you seem to be selling
something-including yourself-the better. By being too obvious in your pitch,
you will raise suspicion; you will also bore your audience, an unforgivable
sin. Instead, make your approach soft, seductive, and insidious. Soft: be
indirect. Create news and eventsfor the media to pick up, spreading your name
in a way that seems spontaneous, not hard or calculated. Seductive: keep it
entertaining. Your name and image are bathed in positive associations; you are
selling pleasure and promise. Insidious: aim at the unconscious, using images
that linger in the mind, placing your message in the visuals. Frame what you
are selling as part of a new trend, and it will become one. It is almost
impossible to resist the soft seduction. The Soft Sell S eduction is the
ultimate form of power. Those who give in to it do so willingly and happily.
There is rarely any resentment on their part; they forgive you any kind of manipulation
because you have brought them pleasure, a rare commodity in the world. With
such power at your fingertips, though, why stop at the conquest of a man or
woman? A crowd, an electorate, a nation can be brought under your sway simply
by applying on a mass level the tactics that work so well on an individual. The
only difference is the goal-not sex but influence, a vote, people's
attention-and the degree of tension. When you are after sex, you deliberately
create anxiety, a touch of pain, twists, and turns. Seduction on the mass level
is more diffuse and soft. Creating a constant titillation, you fascinate the
masses with what you are offering. They pay attention to you because it is
pleasant to do so. Let us say your goal is to sell yourself-as a personality, a
trendsetter, a candidate for office. There are two ways to go: the hard sell
(the direct approach) and the soft sell (the indirect approach). In the hard
sell you state your case strongly and directly, explaining why your talents,
your ideas, your political message are superior to anyone else's. You tout
yourachievements, quote statistics, bring in expert opinions, even go so far as
to induce a bit of fear if the audience ignores your message. The approach is a
tad aggressive and might have unwanted consequences: some people will be
offended, resisting your message, even if what you say is true. Others will
feel you are manipulating them-who can trust experts and statistics, and why
are you trying so hard? You will also grate on people's nerves, becoming
unpleasant to listen to. In a world in which you cannot succeed without selling
to large numbers, the direct approach won't take you far. The soft sell, on the
other hand, has the potential to draw in millions because it is entertaining,
gentle on the ears, and can be repeated without irritating people. The
technique was invented by the great charlatans of seventeenth-century Europe.
To peddle their elixirs and alchemic concoctions, they would first put on a
show-clowns, music, vaudeville- type routines-that had nothing to do with what
they were selling. A crowd would form, and as the audience laughed and relaxed,
the charlatan would come onstage and briefly and dramatically discuss the
miraculous effects of the elixir. By honing this technique, the charlatans
discovered that instead of selling a few dozen bottles of the dubious medicine,
they were suddenly selling scores or even hundreds. In thecenturiessince,
publicists, advertisers, political strategists, and others have taken this
method to new heights, but the rudiments of the soft sell remain the same.
First bring pleasure by creating a positive atmosphere around your name or
message. Induce a warm, relaxed feeling. Never seem to be selling
something-that will look manipulative and suspicious. Instead, let
entertainment value and good feelings take center stage, sneaking the sale
through the side door. And in that sale, you do not seem to be selling yourself
or a particular idea or candidate; you are selling a life-style, a good mood, a
sense of adventure, a feeling of hipness, or a neatly packaged rebellion. Here
are some of the key components of the soft sell. Appear as news, never as
publicity. First impressions are critical. If your audience first sees you in
the context of an advertisement or publicity item, you instantly join the mass
of other advertisements screaming for attention-and everyone knows that
advertisements are artful manipulations, a kind of deception. So, for your
first appearance in the public eye, manufacture an event, some kind of attention-getting
situation that the media will "inadvertently" pick up as if it were
news. People pay more attention to what is broadcast as news-it seems more
real. You suddenly stand out from everything else, if only for a moment-but
that moment has more credibility than hours of advertising time. The key is to
orchestrate the details thoroughly, creating a story with dramatic impact and
movement, tension and resolution. The media will cover it for days. Conceal
your real purpose-to sell yourself-at any cost. Stir basic emotions. Never
promote your message through a rational, direct argument. That will take effort
on your audience's part and will not gain its attention. Aim for the heart, not
the head. Design your words and images to stir basic emotions-lust, patriotism,
family values. It is easier to gain and hold people's attention once you have
made them think of their family, their children, their future. They feel
stirred, uplifted. Now you have their attention and the space to insinuate your
true message. Days later the audience will remember your name, and remembering
your name is half the game. Similarly, find ways to surround yourself with
emotional magnets-war heroes, children, saints, small animals, whatever it
takes. Make your appearance bring these emotionally positive associations to
mind, giving you extra presence. Never let these associations be defined or
created for you, and never leave them to chance. Make the medium the message.
Pay more attention to the form of your message than to the content. Images are
more seductive than words, and visuals-soothing colors, appropriate backdrop,
the suggestion of speed or movement-should actually be your real message. The
audience may focus superficially on the content or moral you are preaching, but
they are really absorbing the visuals, which get under their skin and stay
there longer than any words or preachy pronouncements. Your visuals should have
a hypnotic effect. They should make people feel happy or sad, depending on what
you want to accomplish. And the more they are distracted by visual cues, the
harder it will be for them to think straight or see through your manipulations.
Speak the target's language-be chummy. At all costs, avoid appearing superior
to your audience. Any hint of smugness, the use of complicated words or ideas,
quoting too many statistics-all that is fatal. Instead, make yourself seem
equal to your targets and on intimate terms with them. You understand them, you
share their spirit, their language. If people are cynical about the
manipulations of advertisers and politicians, exploit their cynicism for your
own purposes. Portray yourself as one of the folk, warts and all. Show that you
share your audience's skepticism by revealing the tricks of the trade. Make
your publicity as down-home and minimal as possible, so that your competitors
look sophisticated and snobby in comparison. Your selective honesty and
strategic weakness will get people to trust you. You are the audience's friend,
an intimate. Enter their spirit and they will relax and listen to you. Start a
chain reaction-everyone is doing it. People who seem to be desired by others
are immediately more seductive to their targets. Apply this to the soft
seduction. You need to act as if you have already excited crowds of people;
your behavior will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Seem to be in the
vanguard of a trend or life-style and the public will lap you up for fear of
being left behind. Spread your image, with a logo, slogans, posters, so that it
appears everywhere. Announce your message as a trend andit will become one. The
goal is to create a kind of viral effect in which more and more people become
infected with the desire to have whatever you are offering. This is the easiest
and most seductive way to sell. Tell people who they are. It is always unwise
to engage an individual or the public in any kind of argument. They will resist
you. Instead of trying to change people's ideas, try to change their identity,
their perception of reality, and you will have far more control of them in the
long run. Tell them who they are, create an image, an identity that they will
want to assume. Make them dissatisfied with their current status. Making them
unhappy with themselves gives you room to suggest a new life-style, a new
identity. Only by listening to you can they find out who they are. At the same
time, you want to change their perception of the world outside them by
controlling what they look at. Use as many media as possible to create a kind
of total environment for their perceptions. Your image should be seen not as an
advertisement but as part of the atmosphere. Some Soft Seductions 1. Andrew
Jackson was a true American hero. In 1814, in the Battle of New Orleans, he led
a ragtag band of American soldiers against a superior English army and won. He
also conquered Indians in Florida. Jackson's army loved him for his
rough-hewnways: he fed on acorns when there was nothing else to eat, he slept
on a hard bed, he drank hard cider, just hke his men. Then, after he lost or
was cheated out of the presidential election (in fact he won the popular vote,
but so narrowly that the election was thrown into the House of Representatives,
which chose John Quincy Adams, after much deal making), he retired to his farm
in Tennessee, where he hved the simple hfe, tilling the soil, reading the
Bible, staying far from the corruptions of Washington. Where Adams had gone to
Harvard, played billiards, drunk soda water, and rehshed European finery,
Jackson, hke many Americans of the time, had been raised in a log cabin. He was
an uneducated man, a man of the earth. This, at any rate, was what Americans
read in their newspapers in the months after the controversial 1824 election.
Spurred on by these articles, people in taverns and halls across the country
began talking of how the war hero Andrew Jackson had been wronged, how an
insidious aristocratic elite was conspiring to take over the country. So when
Jackson declared that he would run again against Adams in the presidential
election of 1828-but this time as the leader of a new organization, the
Democratic Party-the public was thrilled. Jackson was the first major political
figure to have a nickname. Old Hickory, andsoon Hickory clubs were sprouting up
in America's towns and cities. Their meetings resembled spiritual revivals. The
hot-button issues of the day were discussed (tariffs, the abolition of
slavery), and club members felt certain that Jackson was on their side. It was
hard to know for sure-he was a little vague on the issues-but this election was
about something larger than issues: it was about restoring democracy and
restoring basic American values to the White House. Soon the Hickory clubs were
sponsoring events hke town barbecues, the planting of hickory trees, dances
around a hickory pole. They organized lavish public feasts, always including
large quantities of liquor. In the cities there were parades, and these were
stirring events. They often took place at night so that urbanites would witness
a procession of Jackson supporters holding torches. Others would carry colorful
banners with portraits of Jackson or caricatures of Adams and slogans
ridiculing his decadent ways. And everywhere there was hickory-hickory sticks,
hickory brooms, hickory canes, hickory leaves in people's hats. Men on horseback
would ride through the crowd, spurring people into "huzzahs!" for
Jackson. Others would lead the crowd in songs about Old Hickory. The Democrats,
for the first time in an election, conducted opinion polls, finding out what
the common man thought about the candidates. These polls were published in the
papers, and the overwhelming conclusion was that Jackson was ahead. Yes, a new
movement was sweeping the country. It all came to a head when Jackson made a
personal appearance in New Orleans as part of a celebration commemorating the
battle he had fought so bravely there fourteen years earlier. This was
unprecedented: no presidential candidate had ever campaigned in person before,
and in fact such an appearance would have been considered improper. But Jackson
was a new kind of politician, a true man of the people. Besides, he insisted
that his purpose for the visit was patriotism, not politics. The spectacle was
unforgettable-Jackson entering New Orleans on a steamboat as the fog lifted,
cannon fire ringing out from all sides, grand speeches, endless feasts, a kind
of mass delirium taking over the city. One man said it was "like a dream.
The world has never witnessed so glorious, so wonderful a celebration-never
have gratitude and patriotism so happily united." This time the will of
the people prevailed. Jackson was elected president. And it was not one region
that brought him victory: New Englanders, Southerners, Westerners, merchants,
farmers, and workers were all infected with the Jackson fever. Interpretation.
After the debacle of1824,Jackson and his supporters were determined to do
things differently in 1828. America was becoming more diverse, developing
populations of immigrants. Westerners, urban laborers, and so on. To win a
mandate Jackson would have to overcome new regional and class differences. One
of the first and most important steps his supporters took was to found
newspapers all around the country. While he himself seemed to have retired from
public life, these papers promulgated an image of him as the wronged war hero,
the victimized man of the people. In truth, Jackson was wealthy, as were all of
his major backers. He owned one of the largest plantations in Tennessee, and he
owned many slaves. He drank more fine liquor than hard cider and slept on a
soft bed with European linens. And while he might have been uneducated, he was
extremely shrewd, with a shrewdness built on years of army combat. The image of
the man of the earth disguised all this, and, once it was established, it could
be contrasted with the aristocratic image of Adams. In this way Jackson's
strategists covered up his political inexperience and made the election turn on
questions of character and values. Instead of political issues they raised
trivial matters like drinking habits and church attendance. To keep up the
enthusiasm they staged spectacles that seemed to be spontaneous celebrations
but in fact were carefully choreographed. The support for Jackson seemed to be
a movement, as evidenced (and advanced) by the opinion polls. The event in New
Orleans-hardly nonpolitical, and Louisiana was a swing state-bathed Jackson in
an aura of patriotic, quasireligious grandeur. Society has fractured into
smaller and smaller units. Communities are less cohesive; even individuals feel
more inner conflict. To win an election or to sell anything in large numbers,
you have to paper over these differences somehow-you have to unify the masses.
The only way to accomplish this is to create an inclusive image, one that
attracts and excites people on a basic, almost unconscious level. You are not
talking about the truth, or about reality; you are forging a myth. Myths create
identification. Build a myth about yourself and the common people will identify
with your character, your plight, your aspirations, just as you identify with
theirs. This image should include your flaws, highlight the fact that you are
not the best orator, the most educated man, the smoothest politician. Seeming
human and down to earth disguises the manufactured quality of your image. To
sell this image you need to have the proper vagueness. It is not that you avoid
talk of issues and details-that will make you seem insubstantial-but that all
your talk of issues is framed within the softer context of character, values,
and vision. You want to lower taxes, say, because it will help families-and you
are a family person. You must not only be inspiring but also entertaining-that
is a popular, friendly touch. This strategy will infuriate your opponents, who
will try to unmask you, reveal the truth behind the myth; but that will only
make them seem smug, overserious, defensive, and snobbish. That now becomes
part of their image, and it will help sink them. 2. On Easter Sunday, New York
churchgoers began to pour onto Fifth Avenue after the morning service for the
annual Easter parade. The streets were blocked off, and as had been the custom
for years, people were wearing their finest outfits, women in particular
showing off the latest in spring fashions. But this year the promenaders on
Fifth Avenue noticed something else. Two young women were coming down the steps
of Saint Thomas's Church. At the bottom they reached into their purses, took
out cigarettes-Lucky Strikes-and lit up. Then they walked down the avenue with
their escorts, laughing and puffing away. A buzz went through the crowd. Women
had only recently begun smoking cigarettes, and it was considered improper for
a lady to be seen smoking in the street. Only a certain kind of woman would do
that. These two, however, were elegant and fashionable. People watched them
intently, and were further astounded several minutes later when they reached
the next church along the avenue. Here two more young ladies-equally elegant
and well bred-left the church, approached the two holding cigarettes, and, as
if suddenly inspired to join them, pulled out Lucky Strikes of their own and
asked for a light. Now the four women were marching together down the avenue.
They were steadily joined by more, and soon ten young women were holding
cigarettes in public, as if nothing were more natural. Photographers appeared
and took pictures of this novel sight. Usually at the Easter parade, people
would have been whispering about a new hat style or the new spring color. This
year everyone was talking about the daring young women and their cigarettes.
The next day, photographs and articles appeared in the papers about them. A
United Press dispatch read, "Just as Miss Federica Freylinghusen,
conspicuous in a tailored outfit of dark grey, pushed her way thru thejam in
front of St. Patrick's, Miss Bertha Hunt and six colleagues struck another blow
in behalf of the liberty of women. Down Fifth Avenue they strolled, puffing at
cigarettes. Miss Hunt issued the following communique from the smoke-clouded
battlefield: 'I hope that we have started something and that these torches of
freedom, with no particular brand favored, will smash the discriminatory taboo
on cigarettes for women and that our sex will go on breaking down all
discriminations.' " The story was picked up by newspapers around the
country, and soon women in other cities began to light up in the streets. The
controversy raged for weeks, some papers decrying this new habit, others coming
to the women's defense. A few months later, though, public smoking by women had
become a socially acceptable practice. Few people bothered to protest it
anymore. Interpretation. In January 1929, several New York debutantes received
the same telegram from a Miss Bertha Hunt: "In the interests of equality
of the sexes ... I and other young women will light another torch of freedom by
smoking cigarettes while strolling on Fifth Avenue Easter Sunday." The
debutantes who ended up participating met beforehand in the office where Hunt
worked as a secretary. They planned what churches to appear at, how to link up
with each other, all the details. Hunt handed out packs of Lucky Strikes.
Everything worked to perfection on the appointed day. Little did the debutantes
know, though, that the whole affair had been masterminded by a man-Miss Hunt's
boss, Edward Bemays, a public relations adviser to the American Tobacco
Company, makers of Lucky Strike. American Tobacco had been luring women into
smoking with all kinds of clever ads, but the consumption was limited by the
fact that smoking in the street was considered unladylike. The head of American
Tobacco had asked Bemays for his help and Mr. Bemays had obliged him by
applying a technique that was to become his trademark: gain public attention by
creating an event that the media would cover as news. Orchestrate every detail
but make them seem spontaneous. As more people heard of this "event,"
it would spark imitative behavior-in this case more women smoking in the
streets. Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud and perhaps the greatest public
relations genius of the twentieth century, understood a fundamental law of any
kind of sell. The moment the targets know you are after something-a vote, a
sale-they become resistant. But disguise your sales pitch as a news event and
not only will you bypass their resistance, you can also create a social trend
that does the selling for you. To make this work, the event you set up must
stand out from all the other events that are covered by the media, yet it
cannot stand out too far or it will seem contrived. In the case of the Easter
parade, Bemays (through Bertha Hunt) chose women who would seem elegant and
proper evenwith their cigarettes in their hands. Yet in breaking a social
taboo, and doing so as a group, such women would create an image so dramatic
and startling that the media would be unable to pass it up. An event that is
picked up by the news has the imprimatur of reality. It is important to give
this manufactured event positive associations, as Bemays did in creating a
feeling of rebellion, of women banding together. Associations that are
patriotic, say, or subtly sexual, or spiritual-anything pleasant and
seductive-take on a life of their own. Who can resist? People essentially
persuade themselves to join the crowd without even realizing that a sale has
taken place. The feeling of active participation is vital to seduction. No one
wants to feel left out of a growing movement. 3. In the presidential campaign
of 1984, President Ronald Reagan, running for reelection, told the public,
"It's morning again in America." His presidency, he claimed, had
restored American pride. The recent, successful Olympics in Los Angeles were
symbolic of the country's return to strength and confidence. Who could possibly
want to turn the clock back to 1980, which Reagan's predecessor, Jimmy Carter,
had termed a time of malaise? Reagan's Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale,
thought Americans had had enough of the Reagan soft touch. They were ready for
honesty, and that would be Mondale's appeal. Before a nationwide television
audience, Mondale declared, "Let's tell the truth. Mr. Reagan will raise
taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did." He repeated this
straightforward approach on numerous occasions. By October his poll numbers had
plunged to all-time lows. The CBS News reporter Lesley Stahl had been covering
the campaign, and as Election Day neared, she had an uneasy feeling. It wasn't
so much that Reagan had focused on emotions and moods rather than hard issues.
It was more that the media was giving him a free ride; he and his election
team, she felt, were playing the press like a fiddle. They always managed to
get him photographed in the perfect setting, looking strong and presidential.
They fed the press snappy headlines along with dramatic footage of Reagan in
action. They were putting on a great show. Stahl decided to assemble a news
piece that would show the public how Reagan used television to cover up the
negative effects of his policies. The piece began with a montage of images that
his team had orchestrated over the years: Reagan relaxing on his ranch in
jeans; standing tall at the Normandy invasion tribute in Lrance; throwing a
football with his Secret Service bodyguards; sitting in an inner-city
classroom. Over these images Stahl asked, "How does Reagan use television?
Brilliantly. He's been criticized as the rich man's president, but the TV
pictures say it isn't so. At seventy-three, Mr. Reagan could have an age
problem. But the TV pictures say it isn't so. Americans want to feel proud of
their country again, and of their president. And the TV pictures say you can.
The orchestration of television coverage absorbs the White House. Their goal?
To emphasize the president's greatest asset, which, his aides say, is his
personality. They provide pictures of him looking like a leader. Confident,
with his Marlboro man walk." Over images of Reagan shaking hands with
handicapped athletes in wheelchairs and cutting the ribbon at a new facility
for seniors, Stahl continued, "They also aim to erase the negatives. Mr.
Reagan tried to counter the memory of an unpopular issue with a carefully
chosen backdrop that actually contradicts the president's policy. Look at the
handicapped Olympics, or the opening ceremony of an old-age home. No hint that
he tried to cut the budgets for the disabled and for federally subsidized
housing for the elderly." On and on went the piece, showing the gap
between the feelgood images that played on the screen and the reality of
Reagan's actions. "President Reagan," Stahl concluded, "is
accused of running a campaign in which he highlights the images and hides from
the issues. But there's no evidence that the charges will hurt him because when
people see the president on television, he makes them feel good, about America,
about themselves, and about him." Stahl depended on the good will of the
Reagan people in covering the White House, but her piece was strongly negative,
so she braced herself for trouble. Yet a senior White House official telephoned
her that evening: "Great piece," he said. "What?" asked a
stunned Stahl. "Greatpiece," he repeated. "Did you listen to
what I said?" she asked. "Lesley, when you're showing four and a half
minutes of great pictures of Ronald Reagan, no one listens to what you say.
Don't you know that the pictures are overriding your message because they
conflict with your message? The public sees those pictures and they block your
message. They didn't even hear what you said. So, in our minds, it was a
four-and-a-half-minute free ad for the Ronald Reagan campaign for
reelection." Interpretation. Most of the men who worked on communications
for Reagan had a background in marketing. They knew the importance of telling a
story crisply, sharply, and with good visuals. Each morning they went over what
the headline of the day should be, and how they could shape this into a short
visual piece, getting the president into a video opportunity. They paid
detailed attention to the backdrop behind the president in the Oval Office, to
the way the camera framed him when he was with other world leaders, and to
having him filmed in motion, with his confident walk. The visuals carried the
message better than any words could do. As one Reagan official said, "What
are you going to believe, the facts or your eyes?" Free yourself from the
need to communicate in the normal direct manner and you will present yourself
with greater opportunities for the soft sell. Make the words you say
unobtrusive, vague, alluring. And pay much greater attention to your style, the
visuals, the story they tell. Convey a sense of movement and progress by
showing yourself in motion. Express confidence not through facts and figures
but through colors and positive imagery, appealing to the infant in everyone.
Let the media cover you unguided and you are at their mercy. So turn the dynamic
around-the press needs drama and visuals? Provide them. It is fine to discuss
issues or "truth" as long as you package it entertainingly. Remember:
images linger in the mind long after words are forgotten. Do not preach to the
public-that never works. Learn to express your message through visuals that
insinuate positive emotions and happy feelings. The movie press agent Harry
Reichenbach was asked to do advance publicity for a picture called The Virgin
ofStamboul. It was the usual romantic potboiler in an exotic locale, and
normally a publicist would mount a campaign with alluring posters and advertisements.
But Harry never operated the usual way. He had begun his career as a carnival
barker, and there the only way to get the public into your tent was to stand
out from the other barkers. So Harry dug up eight scruffy Turks whom he found
living in Manhattan, dressed them up in costumes (flowing sea-green trousers,
gold-crescented turbans) provided by the movie studio, rehearsed them in every
line and gesture, and checked them into an expensive hotel. Word quickly spread
to the newspapers (with a little help from Harry) that a delegation of Turks
had arrived in New York on a secret diplomatic mission. Reporters converged on
the hotel. Since his appearance in New York was clearly no longer a secret, the
head of the mission, "Sheikh Ali Ben Mohammed," invited them up to
his suite. The newspapermen were impressed by the Turks' colorful outfits,
salaams, and rituals. The sheikh then explained why he had come to New York. A
beautiful young woman named Sari, known as the Virgin of Stamboul, had been
betrothed to the sheikh's brother. An American soldier passing through had
fallen in love with herandhad managed to steal her from her home and take her
to America. Her mother had died from grief. The sheikh had found out she was in
New York, and had come to bring her back. Mesmerized by the sheikh's colorful
language and by the romantic tale he told, the reporters filled the papers with
stories of the Virgin of Stamboul for the next several days. The sheikh was
filmed in Central Park and feted by the cream of New York society. Linally
"Sari" was found, and the press reported the reunion between the
sheikh and the hysterical girl (an actress with an exotic look). Soon after.
The Virgin of Stamboul opened in New York. Its story was much like the
"real" events reported in the papers. Was this a coincidence? A
quickly made film version of the true story? No Appendix B: Soft Seduction: How
to Sell Anything to the Masses one seemed to know, but the public was too
curious to care, and The Virgin ofStamboulbroke box office records.A year later
Harry was asked to publicize a film called The Forbidden Woman. It was one of
the worst movies he had ever seen. Theater owners had no interest in showing
it. Harry went to work. For eighteen days straight he ran an ad in all of the
major New York newspapers: WATCH THE SKY ON THE NIGHT OF FEBRUARY 21ST! IF H IS
GREEN-GO THE CAPITOL IF IT ISRED-GO THE RIVOLI IF IT IS PINK-GO TO THE STRAND
IF IT IS BLUE- GO TO THE RIALTO FOR ON FEBRUARY 21ST THE SKY WILL TELL YOU
WHERE THE BEST SHOW IN TOWN CAN BE SEEN! (The Capitol, the Rivoli, the Strand,
and the Rialto were the four big first-run movie houses on Broadway.) Almost
everyone saw the ad and wondered what this fabulous show was. The owner of the
Capitol asked Harry if he knew anything about it, and Harry let him in on the
secret: it was all a publicity stunt for an unbooked picture. The owner asked
to see a screening of The Forbidden Woman; through most of the film, Harry
yakked about the publicity campaign, distracting the man from the dullness
onscreen. The theater owner decided to show the film for a week, and so, on the
evening of February 21, as a heavy snowstorm blanketed the city and all eyes turned
to the sky, giant rays of light poured out from the tallest buildings-a
brilliant show of green. An enormous crowd flocked to the Capitol theater.
Those who did not get in kept coming back. Somehow, with a packed house and an
excited crowd, the film did not seem quite so bad. The following year Harry was
asked to publicize a gangster picture called Outside the Law. On high-ways
across the country he set up billboards that read, in giant letters, if you
dance on Sunday, you are outside the LAW. On other billboards the word
"dance" was replaced by "play golf' or "play pool" and
so on. On a top corner of the billboards was a shield bearing the initials
"PD." The public assumed this meant "police department" (actually,
it stood for Priscilla Dean, the star of the movie) and that the police, backed
by religious organizations, were prepared to enforce decades-old blue laws
prohibiting "sinful" activities on a Sunday. Suddenly a controversy
was sparked. Theater owners, golfing associations, and dance organizations led
a countercampaign against the blue laws; they put up their own billboards,
exclaiming that if you did those things on Sunday, you were not "OUTSIDE
THE LAW" and issuing a call for Americans to have some fun in their lives.
For weeks the words "Outside the Law" were everywhere seen and
everywhere on people's lips. In the midst of this the film opened-on a
Sunday-in four New York theaters simultaneously, something that had never
happened before. And it ran for months throughout the country, also on Sundays.
It was one of the big hits of the year. Interpretation. Harry Reichenbach,
perhaps the greatest press agent in movie history, never forgot the lessons he
had learned as a barker. The carnival is full of bright lights, color, noise,
and the ebb and flow of the crowd. Such environments have profound effects on
people. A clearheaded person could probably tell that the magic shows are fake,
the fierce animals trained, the dangerous stunts relatively safe. But people
want to be entertained; it is one of their greatest needs. Surrounded by color
and excitement, they suspend their disbelief for a while and imagine that the
magic and danger are real. They are fascinated by what seems to be both fake
and real at the same time. Harry's publicity stunts merely re-created the
carnival on a larger scale. He pulled people in with the lure of colorful
costumes, a great story, irresistible spectacle. He held their attention with
mystery, controversy, whatever it took. Catching a kind of fever, as they would
at the carnival, they flocked without thinking to the films he publicized. The
lines between fiction and reality, news and entertainment are even more blurred
today than in Harry Reichenbach's time. What opportunities that presents for
soft seduction! The media is desperate for events with entertainment value,
inherent drama. Feed that need. The public has a weakness for what seems both
realistic and slightly fantastical-for real events with a cinematic edge. Play
to that weakness. Stage events the way Bemays did, events the media can pick up
as news. But here you are not starting a social trend, you areaftersomething
more short term: to win people's attention, to create a momentary stir, to lure
them into your tent. Make your events and publicity stunts plausible and
somewhat realistic, but make their colors a little brighter than usual, the
characters larger than life, the drama higher. Provide an edge of sex and
danger. You are creating a confluence of real life and fiction-the essence of
any seduction. It is not enough, however, to win people's attention: you need
to hold it long enough to hook them. This can always be done by sparking
controversy, the way Harry liked to stir up debates about morals. While the
media argues about the effect you are having on people's values, it is
broadcasting your name everywhere and inadvertently bestowing upon you the edge
that will make you so attractive to the public. Selected Bibliography
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1931. Index Abrantes, Duchess d', 14 absences, see calculated absences Adams,
Cindy, 221-23 Adams, John Quincy, 446-48 advertisements, xx, 444 Aesthetic
Rakes, 423 Aga Khan III, 313 aggressive attention, 257 Aging Babies, 156-57
Agnelli, Gianni, 273 Alberoni, Francesco, 205 Albert, Prince of Monaco Alcibiades
Alexander I, Czar of Russia, 216-17 AlyKhan, Prince American Tobacco Company,
448-50 Amoves, The (Ovid), 253-54, 331, 351-52 Andreas Capellanus, 134-35, 324,
422-23 Andreas-Salome, Lou, 45-47, 50, 52, 76, 154, 197-99, 227, 357, 390, 412
anger Anger, Kenneth, 50 Anne of Austria, 355 Anti-Seducers, xxiv, 3-4, 49, 65,
131-45, 155 aggressive attention of, 257 arguing by, 260 brutes, 134, 137-38
bumblers, 135, 138-40 complaining by, 135, 293, 378, 418, 421 crab as symbol
of, 144 defensiveness in, 57 as deliberate disenchantment, 415, 418-20
disengagement from, 145 doormats, 134 examples of, 136-44 excessive pride in,
142 greed in, 142-43 impatience in, 134, 137-38 inattentiveness of, 136-37, 145
insecurity of, 131, 133, 138, 142 judgmentalism in, 133, 134 moralizers, 134,
143-44 neediness in, 59, 74, 75, 134, 293 perfectionistic dissatisfaction in,
140-41 reactors, 135 self-absorption in, 75, 131, 133, 137, 138, 140
self-awareness lacked by, 131 self-consciousness of, 135, 138-40 suffocators,
134 tightwads, 134-35 types of, 133-36 ulterior motives in, 142-43 ungenerosity
of, 133, 134-35 uses of, 145 vulgarians, 135-36 windbags, 135, 145 Antony and
Cleopatra (Shakespeare), 267-68, 418 anxiety and discontent, inducement of,
203-10, 236, 255, 376-77, 378, 418 Cupid's arrow as symbol of, 210 deceptive
appearances and, 207 exotic stranger as, 208-9 lost ideals in, 203, 209-10
missing qualities in, 207, 208-9 personal criticism in, 205-7, 208, 209, 210,
423, 424 by politicians, 209-10 reversal of, 210 strategic withdrawal in,
388-89, 390, 391 Aphrodite (Venus), 8, 9-11, 14, 43, 122-23, 206-7, 256-57,
259, 269, 283, 403 Apollo, 55-58 Ardent Rakes, 19-21 arguing, 257, 260, 445
Aristophanes, 47, 207 armed prophets, 118 Arthur, King, 329 Art of Love, The
(Ovid), xx, xxii, xxiv, 81-82, 135-36, 179, 221, 255, 279-80, 323, 371-72, 397,
408-9, 418-19, 423-44 As You Like It (Shakespeare), 50 Index Athene, 9-11
attention, aggressive, 257 attention, focused, 33, 273, 417 of Charmers, 79,
81-82, 86, 87 in mirroring, 226 physical lures and, 401-2 Auguste, Prince of
Prussia, 187-88 authentic animals, charismatic, 104-5 Bacall, Lauren, 14 Baker,
Josephine, 50, 61-63, 66 calculated surprise by, 248 French mirrored by, 225
banal conversation, 183 Bank, The, 58 Barbey dAurevilly, Jules-Amedee, 49
Barney, Natalie, xxiv, xxv, 154, 317, 323 spiritual lures of, 361-63, 364,
365-66, 404 Barrymore, John, 109 Bataille, Georges, 374-75 Bathsheba, xix, 237,
Charles Pierre, 14, 46, 170, 314-15, 354, 401-2 strategic withdrawal by, 385-88
Baudrillard, Jean, xxiii, 9, 126-27, 288,385, 156 Belleroche, Maud de, 243-44
Bjerre, Poul, 47 Angel, The (Mann), 340-43 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 214-17, 233-37,
362-67 bold moves, 405-13 bracing effect of, 410, 412 humility vs., 409-10
indirect approach preceding, 407-9 infecting with emotions in, 412 opportune
moment for, 410-1 1 as pleasant surprise, 411 reversal of, 413 signs of
readiness for, 408, 409, 411,412 summer storm as symbol of, 413 theatricality of,
411-12 vanity and, 408-9, Lucien, 187, Napoleon, see Napoleon, Emperor of
France Bonaparte, Pauline, 14, 200, 297-99, 304-5, 326-27 Book of Laughter and
Forgetting, The (Kundera), 66 Bourdon, David, 33-34, Bernard, 173-74, -300, 304
Brantome, Seigneur de, 139-41, 268-69, 290-92, 409-10 breakups, 369, 378 see
also disenchantment Brent, Harrison, 297-99 Brummel, George "Beau,"
48-49, 52, 192, 434, anti-seductive, 134, 137-38 Buckingham, George Villiers,
Duke, 66, 235, 346-48, 355 bumblers, anti-seductive, 135, 138-40 Bunuel, Luis,
373 Butler, Samuel, 81 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 26, 70, 153, 304 disarming
weaknesses of, 290, 291 "honest" confessions of, 284 taboos
transgressed by, 351-54,,357 Caesar, Julius, xix, 7-8, 12, 13, 208,,317
calculated absences, 288, 390, 392,,418 in pain mixed with pleasure, 372,
calculated effects, 188, 190, 289 -46 in re-seduction, 420-21 reversal of, 249,
Emperor of Rome, 136 Camus, Albert, 83, Jules de, 326-27 Capote, Truman, 71,
Angela, 281 Carter, Jimmy, 202 Casanova, Giovanni Giacomo, xx, xxii, xxiv,
31-33, 36, 128, 373 142-43 mirroring by, 224 mixed signals and, 194 environment
and time created by, 435, 438-39 spiritual lures used by, 367 temptation of,
236-37, Baldassare, 133-34, 197-99,272 Castro, Fidel, 102 Catherine de Medicis,
Queen of France, 15 Catherine II "the Great," Empress of Russia,
90-92, 93 provided by, 201 Potemkin and, 274, 300-303 Saltykov and, 37-38,
225-26 Chalon, Jean, 361-62, Jessie, 205-6, 208, Charlie, 58-59 charisma, xx,
xxi, 95, 97-98, 329, 3, 95-118, 317 adventurousness of, 101-2 as armed
prophets, 118 to, 116-18 dangers to, 116-18, 112-14 drama saints, 110-12
fatigue and, 117-18 of, 101 gurus, 109-10 lamp as symbol of, 11 6 magnetism of,
98, 102 miraculous prophets, 102-4 mysteriousness of, 95, 99 Olympian actors,
114-16 piercing gaze of, 95, 100-101, 102, 104 prophetic gifts in, 99, 104
purposefulness of, 98-99 saintliness of, 99 saviors, 107-9 seductive language
of, 99-100, 108, 111, 114, 115-16 self-awareness of, 100 successors of, 118 on
television, 114, 115-16 theatricality of, 100 types of, 102-16 uninhibitedness
of, 100, 107 vulnerability of, 101 Charles I, King of England, 355 II, King of
England, 201, 420-21 Charmers, 3, 79-93, 153, 210, 376 antagonism harmonized
by, 82 art of, 81-83 dangers to, 93 deceptive appearances and, 85 of term, 81
ease and comfort created by, 79, 82, 86-87 examples of, 83-92 86, 87 indulgent
attitude of, 79, 85, 418 mirror as symbol of, 92 by, 82 provided by, 82, 85
politicians as, 81, 82, 83-85, 87, -92, 93 by, 83 sexuality and, 81, 87
subtlety of, 81 timing of, 90-91, 92, 93 attitude of, 81 as useful to others,
83, 87 Chateaubriand, Francois Rene, Vi- comte de, 188, 226, 284, 337 ego ideal
regression of, 343-46 Chekhov, Michael, 10 Chevalier, Maurice, 395-96, 397
Chiang Kai-shek, 88-90 Childe Harold (Byron), 351,352 China chivalry, 36-37,
38, 329-30 Choisy, Abbe de, 47-48 Chretien de Troyes, 329-30, 386-87 Christian,
Linda, 398-99, 401 Churchill, Pamela, see Harriman, Pamela Churchill, Winston,
86, 115, 329 Clarissa (Richardson), 225, 315-16Claudin, Gustave, 60 ClaudiusI,
Emperor of Rome, 136-37 Cleopatra, xix, xx, xxi, xxiv, 7-9, 13, 16, 184, 304,
378, 392, 412 -seduction as defense against, clothing of, 7, 8, 274 descriptions
of, 8 insecurity fostered by, 208 isolation created by, 317 mixed signals sent
by, 192 mood changes of, 7-8, 9 poeticizing of, 283 sensual appeals of, 159
theatricality of, 7, 8, 9 chosen by, 12, 172 voice of, 1,9, 14 Clift,
Montgomery, 51, 125, 437 clinging behavior, 415, 417, 419-20 Clinton, Bill, 26,
27, 93 clothing, xx, 34, 434, 436 attention to details of, 265, 268, 269, 270,
272, 273, 274 of Dandies, 43, 44, 48-49, 50, 51 of Sirens, 7, 8, 13, 14-15, 274
Cohn, Norman, 103 Cold Coquette, The (Byron), 70 Colette, 48 complaining, 135,
293, 378, 418, 421 confessions, "honest," 284, 285, 287-88, 289 con
men, 66 Conquerors, 153-54 Conrad, Earl, 398-99 Constant, Benjamin, 188, 344
contrasts, 201-2, 270-71, 274, 427, 428, 447 Cooper, Gary, 125 Coquettes, 3,
67-68, 156, 172, 237, 291,412 Cold, 71-73, 77, 78 confusion engendered by, 75
dangers to, 78 excitement engendered by, 75 hatred engendered by, 78 Hot and
Cold, 67, 69-71, 76, 78, 192-93 jealousy incited by, 76-77 keys to, 74-77
narcissism of, 67, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77 politicians as, 77 selective withdrawal
by, 67, 70-71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 390 self-sufficiency of, 67, 71, 73,
74-75, 76, 77 shadow as symbol of, 77 spacecreated by, 73 timing of, 78
Coriolanus (Shakespeare), 107 courtesans, 11-12, 33, 38, 60-61, 75, 86, 192,
194, 291, 299-300, 361-64, 396, 412, 436 courtly love, 36-37, 325-26, 333
Crebillon, 33 Crebillon fils, 138-40, 401 criticism, personal, 205-7, 208, 209,
210, 423, 424 cmelty, 192, 349, 353, 356-57, 377, 379, 385, 390, 426 of Dandies,
43, 44, 45, 46, 47 of Rakes, 26 in transgressing taboos, 349, 352, 353, 356-57
Crushed Stars, 152-53 Cures for Love (Ovid), 9,172 Dandies, 3, 41-52, 75-76,
83, 153, 192, 434 aesthetic qualities in, 48-50, 51 ambiguity of, 41, 44, 45,
47, 51 bisexual appeal of, 50-51 confusion engendered by, 47 cruelty in, 43,
44, 45, 46, 47 dangerousness of, 43, 44 dangers to, 52 excitement engendered
by, 47 Feminine, 43-45 impudence of, 49, 51, 52 keys to, 48-51 Masculine, 45-48
mental transvestitism of, 50 nonconformity of, 46, 47, 48-49, 51 orchid as
symbol of, 51 physical image of, 41, 43, 44, 45, 48-49, 50-51 politicians as,
51 social seduction by, 48-50 visual style of, 48-49 Dandy, The (Baudelaire),
46 Dangerous Liaisons (Laclos), xxiv, 25, 127, 169-71, 287-89, 407-9, 418-20
dangerousness, 354 of Dandies, 43, 44 of Rakes, 17, 24, 25, 26, 27 of Sirens,
5, 11, 12-13 D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 21-24, 192, 291 death risked by, 327-29
flattery by, 218, 259 march on Fiume led by, 23, 273, 328 public spectacles
given by, 275 Darvas, Lili, 123 d'Aunet, Leonie, 339 David, King, xix, 237
Davis, Ossie, 113 Dean, James, 123, 125, 127, 128 death, risking of, 327-29
Decameron, The (Boccaccio), 214-17, 233-37, 362-67 defensiveness, 57, 83, 207,
21 1,215, 219, 224, 246, 247, 260, 418, 434 de Gaulle, Charles, 99, 100, 101-2,
109, 114-16, 117,329 seductive oratory of, 114, 115, 253-54 "Delight in
Disorder" (Herrick), 399 deliverers, charismatic, 112-14 demonic
performers, charismatic, 106-7 Demonic Rakes, 21-24 Denon, Vivant, 213-15 destiny,
sense of, 177, 359, 365 details, attention to, 38, 265-76, 425 banquet as
symbol of, 276 of clothing, 265, 268, 269, 270, 272, 273, 274 gifts in, 265,
268, 269, 274-75, 279 mesmerizing effect of, 265, 267-69 reversal of, 276
sensuous effect of, 265, 269-72 slower pace in, 272, 273-74 of spectacles, 265,
267-69, 275 Devil Is a Woman, The, 373 Dewa, 37 Diderot, Denis, xxiv-xxv
Dietrich, Marlene, 50, 121-23, 127, 128, 129, 130, 192, 342, 373, 434 DiMaggio,
Joe, 11, 13 Dio Cassius, 7 Dionysus, 8 Diotima, 206-7, 208 Disappointed
Dreamers, 150-51 disenchantment, 415-29 clean quick breaks in, 415, 418, 425-26
clinging behavior and, 415, 417, 419-20 deliberate, 415, 418-20 disillusionment
in, 40embers as symbol of, 428 familiarity in, 415, 418, 421 inertia in, 417-18
pleasant separations in, 421-23 seea/sore-seduction Disraeli, Benjamin, 49, 57,
81, 82-85, 93, 143-44, 210, 236 attention to details by, 274-75 humor in
persuasion by, 260 mirroring by, 225 poeticizing by, 284 victim played by, 292
dissatisfaction, perfectionistic, 140-41 Don Juan, legend of, xx, 19-20, 23,
24-25, 155, 170, 207-8, 209, 260, 400 Don Juan (Byron), 290 doormats,
anti-seductive, 134 doubts, 215, 282-83, 321, 323, 324, 383, 389, 390, 393,
409, 410, 429 Drama Queens, 155 drama saints, charismatic, 1 10-12 Dream of The
Red Chamber, The (Tsao Hsueh Chin), 224, 270-72 Drouet, Juliette, 339-40
Dryden, John, 233 Dulcey Sabrosa (Picon), 231-34 dullness, deliberate, 183
Dumas, Alexander, 385 Duncan, Isadora, 22, 259 Duse, Eleanor, 22, 259 Eastern Love,
137, 171 Easy Street, 58 Eddington, Nora, 399-400 Edward VII, King of England,
396 ego ideal regression, 337-38, 343-46 Einstein, Albert, 99 Eisenhower,
Dwight D" 124, 174, 317 Eisenstein, Sergei, 59 Either/Or (Kierkegaard),
24, 256 Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, 90, 91 Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 75,
84, 209, 346 Ellington, Duke, xxiv, 182-83, 291, 419-20, 421-23 empathy, 81,
157 environment, seductive, 431-39 Casanova's creation of, 435, 438-39 crowded
conditions in, 434, 437 Japan's ukiyo ("floating world") as, 435-37'
mystical effects in, 434-35 theatricality of, 431, 434-35, 436, 439 visual
stimuli in, 434 Warhol's Factory as, 437-38 envy, 16, 28 Epton, Nina, 326, 354,
355 Eros. 206-7, 208 erotic fatigue, 117-18 Escher, M. C" 128 Essex,
Robert Devereux, Earl of, 209 Euripides, xx Europa, 180-81 Exodus, Book of, 98
Exotic Fetishists, 154-55 "Exotic Perfume" (Baudelaire), 401-2 Eyes
of Youth, 43 Fallaci, Oriana, 374-76 falling in love, xix, xxi, xxii, 9, 36,
39, 44, 45, 46, 50, 76, 97, 134, 149, 164, 205, 246, 377 familiarity, 429 in
disenchantment, 415, 418, 421 poeticizing oneself vs., 277, 281, 282, 284 fear,
412, 418, 424 in pain mixed with pleasure, 369, 377-78, 379 Feminine Dandies,
43-45 Ferenczi, Sandor, 126 festivals, 433, 434, 435 Fetishistic Stars, 121-23
Fiume, march on, 23, 273, 328 flattery, 22, 85, 218, 233, 259, 289, 376, 403
Flaubert, Gustave, 364-65, 385 Floating Genders, 160 "floating world"
(ukiyo), 435-37 Flowers of Evil, The (Baudelaire), 314-15, 386, 401-2 Flynn, Errol,
xxiv, 26, 130, 192, 201, 291,355 physical lures of, 397-402, 403, 404 Tantrism
practiced by, 410 FourHorsemenoftheApocalypse, The, 43 Fraser, Flora, 300-301
French Revolution, 70, 116-17, 174, 187, 328 Freud, Sigmund Andreas-Salome and,
76, 198, 199 on bisexuality, 50 onchildhood as golden age, 55 disciples of,
76-77, 198, 199, 434 on narcissism, 73, 74 on sexual taboos, 352-53 on spoiled
children, 61 on suggestion, 215 on transference, 335-36 on the uncanny, 126, 301-2,
304 Friedrich, Konrad, 297-99 Frohlich, Rosa (fict.), 340-43 Fu Chai, King,
xix, 15, 311-13 Fujiwara no Korechika, 48, 65, 271 Fiilop-Miller, Rene, 104-5
Gallese, Duke and Duchess of, 22 Game of Hearts, The: Harriette Wilson's
Memoirs (Wilson), 48-49 Gandhi, Mohandas K" 193, 358 isolation created by,
317 Garbo, Greta, 127 Garden of Eden, 24, 237 Gautier, Theophile, 49, 385
Genesis, Book of, 232-33 Genji, Prince (fict.), 63-65, 172, 269-71 George, Don,
419-20 Gerard, Franjois-Pascal, 187, 188 Gilbert and Sullivan, 189 Gilda, 314
Gillot, Henrik, 45 Gilot, I rancoise, 25 Girard, Rene, 199, 200 Gladstone,
William, 85, 93, 143-44 Gleichen-Russwurm, Alexander von, xxi Goethe, Johann
Wolfgang, 300-301, 354 golden age, childhood as, 53, 55, 59 Gottfried von
Strassburg, 12, 190-92, 354-55 Grammont, Count de, 137-38, 183, 324-25 Grant,
Gary, 125, 128, 129 Graves, Robert, 9-11, 55-58, 231. 287-88 Greco, Juliette,
313 greed, 199 anti-seductive, 142-43 Greek Myths. The (Graves), 9-11, 55-58,
231, 287-88 Greenfield, Liah, 102 guilt, sense of, 176, 369, 378, 379, 422-23,
426 in transgression of taboos, 349, 355,357 Guinevere, Queen, 329-30, 386-87
gurus, charismatic, 109-10 Gwyn, Nell, 201, 420-21 Hamilton, Lady Emma,
300-301, 304 Hamilton, Sir William, 300-301, 304 hard sell, 443 Harriman,
Averell, 85-87, 273, 318 Harriman, Pamela Churchill, 85-87, 273, 274, 318
Hauptmann, Gerhart, 46 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 74 Hayworth, Rita, 313-15 heat,
projected, 393, 395-97 heated glances, 396, 397, 402, 403 Helen of Troy, xix,
xx, 11, 13 Hellmann, John, 124, 209 Hera, 9-11, 256-58, 287-88 Hermaphroditus,
43-45 Hermes (Mercury), 9-10, 43, 55-58 Herrick, Robert, 399 Hibbert,
Eloise Talcott, 172-73, 311-12 Hindu Art of Love, The (Windsor, ed.), Homer,
7-8, 11, 12-13, 256-58 "honest" confessions, 284, 285, 287-88, 289
honest courtesans, 38 Hot and Cold Coquettes, 67, 69-71, 76, 78 Hsi Shi, Hugo,
Victor, 338-40 Huxley, Aldous, 109 hypnosis, 261-62, 401, 402 Ibarruri, Dolores
Gomez (La Pasion- aria), 99-100 Ibn Hazm, 126, 183-84, 409 Ideal Lovers, 3,
29-40 Beauty, 33-35 in courtly love, 36-37 dangers to, 40 effort required of,
33 keys to, 36-39 Madonna/whore as, 38 missing qualities provided by, 32-33,
34-35, 36, 39 noble qualities evoked by, 35-36, 39 patient attentiveness of, 38
politicians as, 38-39, 40 portrait painter as symbol of, 39 reputation of, 33,
37-38 Romantic, 31-33 self-sacrifice of, 36-38 subtle indications observed by,
33, 36 ideals, lost, 39, 203, 208-10, 226, 317 Idol Worshipers, 158 Idylle
Saphique (Pougy), 362 Ihara Saikaku, 268, 421-22 Iliad, The (Homer), 256-58 illusions,
creation of, 82, 295-307, 364 appearance of normality in, 304 changing the past
in, 306 dreams realized through, 303-4 of gender, reversal of, 307 role playing
in, 305 Shangri-La as symbol of, 307 uncanny effects in, 304 wish fulfillment
in, 300-303 impatience, anti-seductive, 134, 137-38 improvisation, 164, 248,
411 in proving oneself, 324-25 imps, 56-57, 59-61, 66 inattentiveness, 136-37,
145 indifference, 409 indirect approach, 177-84, 408-9 bland appearance in, 183
bold moves after, 407-9 deliberate dullness in, 183 disguising one's feelings
in, 183 friendship in, 177, 179-81, 182 illusion of control in, 181-82 neutral
distance in, 182-83 reversal of, 184 sexual tension and, 182 spider's web as
symbol of, 184 third parties in, 177, 183 see also soft sell infantile
regression, 336-37, 338-40 innocents, 54, 58-59, 66 "In Praise of
Makeup" (Baudelaire), 14 insecurities, of Anti-Seducers, 131, 133, 138,
142 of countries, 225 flattery aimed at, 259 insinuation, art of, 127, 211-18,
389, 390 dropping hints in, 211, 216 gesturesand looks in, 211, 217-18
imagination and, 216 passing comments in, 211, 215, 216 pleasure provided by,
218 in politics, 216-17 retraction with apology in, 211, 215,217 reversal of,
218 seed as symbol of, 218 slight physical contact in, 215 slips of the tongue
in, 217 vagueness in, 216 "Invitation to the Voyage" (Baudelaire),
314-15 irrationality, 55, 378 isolation, creation of, 309-18 deceptive
appearances and, 315 exotic effect in, 311-13, 317 from family and friends, 316,
317, 318 hint of danger in, 317 on islands, 317 "only you" effect in,
313-15 from past attachments, 316-17 Pied Piper as symbol of, 318 by
politicians, 317 by religious sects, 317 reversal of, 318 Jackson, Andrew,
446-48 Jagger, Mick, 50 James I, King of England, 66, 235, 355 reverse parental
regression and, 346-48 Japan, 25, 37, 48, 50 child-rearing practices in, 335-36
ukiyo ("floating world") of, 435-37 see also Tale of Genji, The
(Murasaki) jealousy, 70, 76-77, 248, 390, 421, 423, 424, 425-26 in pain mixed
with pleasure, 372, 373, 374, 377 triangles and, 197-98 Jeffers, Robinson, 109
Joan of Arc, 102-4 Johnson, Lyndon B., 289 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, 301-2
Josephine, Empress of France, xxiv, 13, 69-71, 74, 154, 217, 412 languorousness
of, 12, 14, 69 selective disclosure by, 15, 237 selective withdrawal by, 70,
78, 390 tears as tactic of, 69, 70, 291-92 Journal of Our Life in the Highlands
(Queen Victoria), 84 judgmentalism, 152, 404 in Anti-Seducers, 133, 134 Julius
Caesar(Shakespeare), 258-60 Jullian, Philippe, 22 Jung, Carl, 76 Jungian
archetypes, 36-37 Jurgens, Ernest, 395-96 Kaus, Gina, 303 Keaton, Buster, 58
Kennedy, adventurousness of, 101, 102 disarming weaknesses of, 290-91
insinuation used by, 217 isolation as technique of, 317 lost ideals and, 39,
208-10, 317 missing qualities offered by, 174 mixed signals sent by, 193
poeticizing of, 283 Key, Wilson Bryan, 289 Kierkegaard, Spren, King, Martin
Luther, Jr., 113 Kissinger, Henry A., 93, 183, 374-75, 378 knights, 36-37,
329-30, 331-32 Kolowrat, Count Sascha, 122 Kou Chien, King, 15, 311-13 Kriegel,
Maurice, 253 Krishnamurti,Jiddu, 75-76, 109-10, 358 Kuang Hsu, Emperor, 267-69
Kundera, Milan, 66 La Bruyere, Jean de, 49 Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de, xix-xx,
xxiv, 25, 169-71,287-89, 407-9, 418-20 Ladd, Alan, 123 Lake, Veronica, 128
Lamb, Lady Caroline, Lamotte-Valois, Comtesse de, 305-6 Lancelot, Sir, 329-30,
386-87 Lang, Lritz, 122 language, seductive, xx, 153, 251-63, 273 affirmation
in, 261, 262 ambiguity and vagueness in, 254, 258, 262, 263, 448 arguing vs.,
260 boldness in, 262 changes of perspective in, 261 of Charismatics, 99-100,
108, 111, 114,115-16 clouds as symbol of, 262 diabolic vs. symbolic, 262
emotion vs. reason in, 260-61 flattery in, 22, 85, 218, 233, 259, 376, 403
flowery language vs., 263 normal language vs., 258-59 oratory, producing an
effect with, 254, 259 promises in, 259, 260 of Rakes, 17, 19, 20, 22-24, 25
repetition in, 261-62 reversal of, 263 self-absorption vs., 258 silence vs.,
263 in soft sell, 445 strong emotions roused by, 261 seealso writing Lauzun,
Antonin Peguilin, Duke de, xx, 75, 179-81, 201, 282 Lawner, Lynne, 13, 299-300
Lawrence, Leadbeater, Charles, 109 Le Gallienne, Richard, 191 Lemaitre, Jules,
49 Lenin, V. I., 98, 99, 101, 107-9, 183, 201-2 Leonardo da Vinci, 188 Lesbos,
island of, 317, 362-63 Lewis, Arthur H., 395-96, 398 Lincoln, Abraham, 99
Lonely Leaders, 159 lost ideals, Louis XIV, King of Prance, 19, 35, 47, 49,
179-81, 282 Louis XV, King of Prance, 16, 33-35, 36, 127, 216, 247, 249, 274,
435 Louis XVIII, King of Prance, 426-27 Louys, Pierre, 371-74 Love Happy, 10
lovers' quarrels, 76 Low, Ivy, 206, 208 Lucian, 420-21, 422 Lursay, Madame de
(fict.), 138-40 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 118 Madame Bovary (Plaubert),364-65
Madonna/whore, 38 makeup, xix, 8, 9, 10, 13, 434 Making a Living, 58, 59
Malcolm X, 111, 112-14 Malet, Elizabeth, 26 Malraux, Andre, 121 Mandel, Oscar,
23, 208, 232 Mandrell, James, 200, 207 Mann, Heinnch, 340-43 Mansfield,
Katherine, 206 Mao, Madame (Jiang Qing), 78, 173, 201.249, 379,403,412 Mao Zedong,
77, 78, 88-89, 99, 118, 173.201.249, 403 Margaret of Navarre, Queen, xxi,
326-31 Marguerite de Valois, 14-15, 412 Marianne (Marivaux), 75, 292 Marie
Antoinette, Queen of Prance, 305-6 Marivaux, Pierre, 69, 75, 292 Mark Antony,
xix, 8, 12, 13, 145, 159, 172,208,258-61,274, 283, 378, 392, 412 Marx, Groucho,
10 Mary, Queen of Scots, 346 Masculine Dandies, 45-48 masochism, 47, 71, 155,
237, 332, 357, 378 mass seduction, see Charismatics; politicians; soft sell
Maurois, Andre, 83 Maxwell, Elsa, 313, 314 Mayer, J. P, 125
MemoirsfromBeyondthe Grave (Chateaubriand), Menken, Adah Isaacs, 100 mental
superiority, sense of, 155-56 Merteuil, Marquise de (fict.), 418-20 Mesmer,
Pranz, 434-35 Messalina, 136-37 Metamorphoses (Ovid), 43-45,71 -74, 121-23,
180-81, 182-83 Metternich, Prince Klemens von, 188, 343 Michels, Roberto, 77
Middle Ages, 103, 328 courtly love in, religious mystics of, 366 troubadours
of, xx, 36-37, 291, 325,331 Middleton-Murry,John,206, 208 Midgette, Allen, 72
Midsummer Night's Dream, A (Shakespeare), 297 Milbanke, Annabella, 353 Miller,
Arthur, 12, 13 Ming Huang, Emperor, 76, 174, 270, 272-73 miraculous prophets,
charismatic, 102-4 mirroring, 45, 219-27, 279, 403, 411,412 by Charmers, 82
focused attention in, 226 of gender roles, 224-25 hunter's mirror as symbol of,
226 imitation in, 221-22, 223 indulgence in, 219, 223 of lost ideals, 226
narcissism and, 224 by outsiders, 225 reversal of, 227 of spiritual values, 225
in writing, 257 missing qualities, 149, 207, 208-9 and choice of victim, 171,
173-74 Ideal Lovers and, 32-33, 34-35, 36, 39 mixed signals, 185-94, 223
artificial vs. natural, 189-91 cold vs. hot, 192-93; see also Coquettes depth
suggested by, 185, 192 in first impressions, 191, 192-93 gender roles and, 192
gcod vs. bad, 187-89 imagination engaged by, 191 inner vs. outward qualities
in, 192-93 paradox in, 190-91 in politics, 193 reputation and, 193 reversal of,
194 theater curtain as symbol of, 194 Mohammed Riza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, 313,
375 Moliere, 22, 207-8, 258 Molina, Tirso de, 19-20, 232 moment, the, 423, 435
abandonment to, 21, 25 leading into, 393, 400, 402-4 Mona Lisa (da Vinci), 188
Mondale, Walter, 450 Monneyron, Prederic, 181-82 Monroe, MonsieurBeaucaire, 44
Montez, Lola, 173, 199-200, 357 Montpensier, Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans,
Duchess de, 179-81, 201,282 mood changes, moralizers, anti-seductive, 134,
143-44 Morin, Edgar, 121, 124-25 Morosini, Countess, 328 Moscovici, Serge, 83,
199, 221-22 Moses, 98, 113, 114 Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare), 183
Murasaki Shikibu, xxiv, 25, 61, 63-65, 140-41, 269-71, 287 Musil, Robert, 227
Musset, Alfred de, 40, 281 Mussolini, Benito, 102, 275 Mut, Professor (fict.),
340-43 Mythic Stars, 123-26 Napoleon I, Emperor of France, xx, 14, 99, 187,
200, 261, 298, 326 calculated surprise by, 243 as Charismatic, 101, 102, 111
Coquette played by, 77 French re-seduced by, 426-28 insinuation used by, 216-17
Josephine and, 13, 69-71, 74, 78, 154, 217, 291-92, 390, 412 missing qualities
offered by, 1 74 Talleyrand and, 38-39 temptations created by, 235-36 Napoleon
III (Louis-Napoleon), Emperor of France, 339-40 narcissism, 41, 45, 50, 82,
157, 219 of Coquettes, mirroring and, 224 Narcissus, 71-74 natural phenomena,
55 Naturals, 3, 53-66 dangers to, 66 disarming weakness of, 53, 56, 59 examples
of, 58-65 fantasy world created by, 63 imps, 56-57, 59-61, 66 independence
in,61 innocents, 54, 58-59, 66 lamb as symbol of, 65 naivete of, 58-59 as
potentially irritating, 66 psychological traits of, 55-57 receptiveness of, 57
spoiled children as, 61 sympathy elicited by, 53, 56, 59, 66 undefensive
lovers, 57, 63-65 wonder children, 57, 61-63 youth and, 66 neediness, 59, 74,
75, 87, 134, 293 Nelson, Viscount Horatio, 304 Nero, Emperor of Rome, 50 New
Prudes, 151-52 New York Times, 189, 396 Nicholas, Grand Duke, 396 Nicholas II,
Czar of Russia, 105, 107, 201 Nietzsche, Friedrich, xxii, xxiii, 36
Andreas-Salome and, 45-46, 47, 52, 197-98, 199, 227 Ninon de l'Enclos, Niou,
Prince (fict.), 25 Nisan, 37 Nixon, Richard M., "No Tomorrow"
(Denon), 213-15 Novices, 153 Octavia, 8 Octavius, 8, 16, 145, 378 Odyssey, The
(Homer), 7-8, 11, 12-13 oedipal regression, 333, 337, 340-43 Olympian actors,
charismatic, 114-16 Onassis, Aristotle, 313 On Love (Stendhal), 58, 170,
280-82, 284, 375-77 opinion, influencing, xx-xxi oratory, seductive, xx, 22-23,
24, 114, 115, 235-36, 253-54, 258-60, 261, 275 Orleans, Duchess d', 21 Orleans,
Duke d', 19-20 Orlov, Gregory, 90 Orsay, Count d', 49 Ortega y Gasset, Jose,
xxii, 282-83 Otero, Caroline "La Belle," 194, 398, 402, 412 heat
projected by, 395-97 Overstreet, H. A., 60 OVIDIO (si veda) Pahlavi, Mohammed
Riza, Shah of Iran, 313, 375 pain,mixing pleasure with, 155, 159, 237, 369-79,
389, 391,410, 415, 418, 424-25 anxiety induced by, 376-77, 378 bracing effect
of, 377 breakups in, 369, 378 calculated absences in, 372, 373-74 emotional highs
and lows in, 371-74 fear in, 369, 377-78, 379 guilt in, 369 harshness and
kindness in, 374-76 jealousy in, 372, 373, 374, 377 masochistic yearnings for,
47, 71, 155, 237, 332, 357, 378 precipice as symbol of, 379 reversal of, 379
timing of, 379 Pampered Royals, 151, 421 Paris, xix, 13 Judgment of, 9-11
Pasionaria, La (Dolores Gomez Ibar- ruri), 99-100 Patience (Gilbert and
Sullivan), 189 Pawnbroker, The, 58 Pearl, Cora, 59-61, 66, 291 Pearson,
Hesketh, 189-90 Peron, Evita, 110-12 poeticizing of, 279-81, 283-84 Peron,
Juan, 111, 279-81 persuasion, xx-xxi, 215-16, 317 argument vs. humor in, 260
emotion vs. reason in, 260-61, 444 Peter I "the Great," Czar of
Russia, 99 Peter III, Czar of Russia, 37, 90, 201, 225, 300 Petronius, 50, 201
Philip III, King of Spain, 234-35 physical lures, devil-may-care attitude and,
404 disordered look in, 402-3 flattery and, 403 focused attention and, 401-2
heated glances in, 396, 397, 402, 403 as leading into the moment, 393, 400,
402-4 lowering inhibitions by, 393, 397-401 mental activity lulled by, 393,
400-401, 402, 403 physical excitation aroused by, 399, 400, 402, 403 projected
heat in, 393, 395-97 raft as symbol of, 404 reversal of, 404 sensual appeal of,
402 shared physical activity in, 398, 400, 403 slight physical contacts in,
395, 396, 397, 400, 403 Picasso, Pablo, 25, 26, 45, 100, 379 art as lure of,
366 poeticizing of, 283 Picon, Jacinto Octavio, 231-34 Pillow Book of Sei
Shonagon, The, 31-32,50,65,263 Plato, 74-76, 191, 206-7, 208 Plutarch, 8,
46-47, 261 poeticizing oneself, 277-84 bit of doubt in, 282-83 calculated
absences in, 277, 283-84 familiarity vs., 277, 281, 282, 284 halo as symbol of,
284 idealizing one's targets in, 284 objects in, 283 reversal of, 284
self-image and, 281-82 shared experiences in, 283 politicians, anxiety and discontent
induced by, 209-10 as Charmers, 81, 82, 83-85, 87, 88-92, 93 as Coquettes, 77
as Dandies, 51 disarming weaknesses of, 292 as Ideal Lovers, 38-39, 40
insinuation used by, 216-17 isolation created by, 317 mixed signals sent by,
193 re-seduction by, 426-28 soft sell by, 446-48, 450-52 triangles created by,
201-2 victims chosen by, 174 war heroes as, 329, 446-48 see also Charismatics;
oratory, seductive Pompadour, Jeanne Poisson, Madame de, 16,33-35,36, 127,249,
274, 435 pop art, 71-72, 73 Portsmouth, Louise Keroualle, Duchess of, 420
post-seduction, see disenchantment; re-seduction Potemkin, Prince Gregory, 274,
300-303 Pougy,Liane de, 361-62, 363, 364 Presley, Elvis, 28, 44, 50, 105-6, 107
pride, excessive, 142 Private Life of the Marshal Duke of Richelieu, The, 20-21
Professors, 155-56 prostitutes, 40, 354, 356 Proust, Marcel, 70, 283 proving
oneself, 25, 321-32, 417, 425 apparent suicide in, 324-25 doubts allayed by,
321, 323, 324 improvisation in, 324-25 passing tests in, 326-31 persistence in,
324-25 rescue in, 329-30 resistance and, 321, 323, 324 reversal of, 332 risking
death in, 327-29 self-sacrifice in, 326-27, 425 tournament as symbol of, 332
unhesitating action in, 329-30 by war heroes, 327-29 prudery, 151-52 Ptolemy
XIV, Pharaoh, 7 Pygmalion, 121-23 Pygmalion complex, 173 Quicksand (Tanazaki),
356 rakehells, 25 Rakes, 3, 17-28, 49, 130, 152, 247, 315-16 as abandoned to
moment, 21, 25 Aesthetic, 423 Ardent, 19-21 convention defied by, 26, 27
cruelty of, 26 dangerousness of, 17, 24, 25, 26, 27 dangers to, 28 Demonic,
21-24 derivation of term, 25 erotic vs. political, 24 extremism of, 26 as
female fantasy figure, 17, 20-21, 23, 24-25, 26 fire as symbol of, 27 keys to,
24-27 masculine envy engendered by, 28 mirroring by, 225-26 obstacles overcome
by, 21, 25, 225-26 pleasure offered by, 24, 25, 27 reformation of, 26, 225,
353, 354 Reformed, as victims, 1 50 reputation of, 20-21, 26-27, 28, 200-201
seductive language of, 17, 19, 20, 22-24, 25 voices of, 22-23 Rank, Otto, 76
Rasputin, Grigori Efimovich, 100-102,104-5 physical lures of, 403 spiritual
lures of, 366, 403 reactors, anti-seductive, 135 Reagan, Ronald, 202 soft sell
of, 450-52 Recamier, Madame, Ree, Paul, 45-46, 197-98, 199 Reformed Rakes or
Sirens, 150 regression, erotic, 333-48 bed as symbol of, 348 ego ideal, 337-38,
343-46 infantile, 336-37, 338-40 oedipal, 333, 337, 340-43 rebellion in, 348
reversal of, 348 reverse parental, 333, 338, 346-48 therapist role in, 336,
345-46 transference in, 335-36 unconditional love in, 336-37, 340 Reichenbach, Harry,
452-54 Reik, Theodor, 209-10, 336-37, 388-90 reliability, 243 Remarque, Erich
Maria, 121 Remembrance ofThingsPast(Proust), 283 Renaissance, 12, 38, 356
reputation, 46, 193, 223, 314, 379 in creation of triangles, 195, 200-201 of
Ideal Lovers, 33, 37-38 mixed signals and, 193 of Rakes, 20-21, 26-27, 28,
200-201 Rescuers, 157 re-seduction, 415-29, 435 calculated surprises in, 420-21
embers as symbol of, 428 fight against inertia in, 417-18 intermittent drama
in, 423-25 maintaining lightness in, 418, 421, 423 maintaining mystery in, 418
political, 426-28 reversal of, 429 timing of, 428 resistance, and proving
oneself, 321, 323, 324 to temptations, 236 reverse parental regression, 333,
338, 346-48 Richardson, Samuel, 225, 315-16 Richelieu, Duke de, 19-21, 25, 27,
170, 200, 247, 356, 410 Richthofen, Baroness Frieda von, 206, 423-25 Rilke,
Rainer Maria, 46-47, 227 Ring of the Dove, The: A Treatise on the Art and
Practice of Arab Love (Ibn Hazm), 126, 183-84, 409 Robespierre, Maximilien de,
116-17, 118 Rochester, Earl of, 26 Rohan, Cardinal de, 305-6 Romantic Ideal,
Romanticism, Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 86, 98-99, 100, 102, 118 seductive
oratory of, 260 Rothschild, Baron Elie de, 273 Roues, 157-58 Sabatier,
Apollonie, 385-88 Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von, 372, 373-74 Sackville-West, Vita,
102 sadness, air of, Saint-Amand, Imbert de, Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin,
Saint-Germain, Count, Salome, Lou von, see Andreas- Salome, Lou Saltykov,
Sergei, Sand, George, Sappho, Satan, androgyny of, Satyricon (Petronio),saviors,
charismatic SAVONAROLA (si veda) Schopenhauer Sedgwick seducers, xix-xxv
amorality of, xxiii-xxiv, 21, 47 appearance of, consistency of, xxii falling in
love with, xix, xxi, xxii male, xx other-directedness of, xxii-xxiii as
providers of pleasure, xxiii resistance to, xxiii, xxiv seductive language of,
xx sexual element utilized by, xxii strategic planning of, xx, xxii, xxiii
subtle methods of, xxi surrender to will of, xxi, xxii, xxiv theatricality of,
xx, xxiii warrior's outlook of, Seducer's Diary, The (Kierkegaard), seduction,
derivation of term, xxi Seduction (Baudrillard), Sei Shonagon, selective
disclosure, self-absorption, 87, 163, 173, 363, 410 of Anti-Seducers, seductive
language vs., 258 self-awareness, 100, 131 self-consciousness, self-distance,
self-esteem, self-image, 281-82 self-loathing, self-sabotage, 378
self-sacrifice, self-sufficiency, Seneca, 50 Sennett, Mack, 58 Sensualists, 159
Sex Sirens, 9-11 Shahrazad, 245-47 Shakespeare, William, Shaw, George Bernard,
126 Sheik, The, Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 353 Shi Pei Pu, Shoulder Anns, 58
Shu-Chiung, 270 Sibony, Daniel, Sieburg, Friedrich, 337 Silenus, Simone, 23
Sirens, adornment of, appearance of, 8, 9-10, 13, 23 dangerousness of, 5, 1 1,
12-13 dangers to, 1 6 differentiation of, 12 keys to, as male fantasy
figure, men enslaved by, mood changes
of, movement and demeanor of, in Odyssey, pleasure offered by, 11 Reformed, as
victims, 150 Sex, 9-11 Spectacular, 7-9 theatricality of, 7, 8, 9 of, 7, 9, 10,
13-14 water as symbol of, 15 Slater, Leonard, 313 Socrates, 74-76, 191-92,
206-7, 208 soft sell, components of, 444-46 examples of, 446-54 hard sell vs.,
443 origin of, 443 Solanas, Valerie, 78 Sons and Lovers (Lawrence), Spanish
Civil War, 99-100 spectacles, Spectacular Sirens, 7-9 spirituality, 158 aura
of, mirroring of, spiritual lures, 359-67, 403, 404 air of discontent in, 359,
364-65 artistic, cultic rituals as, 362-63 ennoblement by, 365, 366 in
environment, 434-35 lightness induced by, 363 occult fads in, 359, 365 pagan,
362-63, 365 religion in, 359, 363-64 reversal of, 367 sense of destiny in, 177,
359, 365 sexual undertones of, 359, 363-64, 366 stars in the sky as symbol of,
367 timeless relationship suggested by, 364, 365-66, 367 timing and, 365
worshipful feelings engendered by, 361-64 spoiled children, spontaneity, sense
of, 241 Stael, Madame de, 187-88, 343, 344 Stahl, Lesley, 450-51 Stalin,
Joseph, 88-89, 108 Starkie, Walter, 22-23 Stars, cinematic creation of, dangers
to, 130 distinctive style of, dreamlike quality of, ethereality of, 119, 126-27
face of,Fetishistic, 121-23 glimpsed private life of, 128 identification with,
128-29 idol as symbol of, 129 inner distance of, 123, 125, 129 keys to, 126-29
Mythic, 123-26 as objects, 122, 127-28 obsessive attention to, publicity and,
130 self-distance of, 122, 130 television and, 123-24, 125 Stendhal, Stewart,
Jimmy, "Story of the Butterfly, The," suffocators, anti-seductive,
134 Sukarno, Kusnasosro, 102, 221-23 Sukarno: AnAutobiography asToldto Cindy
Adams { Adams), 222 Sun-tzu, 315 SuShou, 291 suspense, creation of, see
calculated surprises suspicion, sympathy, Symposium, The (Plato), taboos,
transgression of, 349-58 cruelty in, forest as symbol of, 358 going to extremes
in, 349, 355, 358 incest in, 352-53 lost self recaptured by, 35 1-54 prohibited
desires in, 352-53, 354-55 reduced outlets for, 354 reversal of, 358 secret
sins in, 351, 352 sense of guilt in, 349, 355, 357 shared complicity in, social
limits in, 349, 353-55, 357, 358 value systems in, 349, 356 Tabouis, G. R.,
399-401 Tale ofGenji, The (Murasaki),Tales from the Thousand and One Nights,
Talleyrand-Perigord, Prince Charles de, 38-39 Tanazaki, Junichiro, 356
Tantalus, 231 Tantrism, 410 Tarde, Gustave, 83 Tausk, Victor, tayus, 436 tears,
television, temptations, creation of, apple in Garden of Eden as symbol of, 237
barriers established in, 233-34, 236 challenges in, 236-37 deceptive
appearances and, 234 forbidden fruit in, 231-34, 237, 244 future gains in,
235-36 opportunity in, 237 reversal of, 238 selective disclosure in, weakness
as target in, 229, 234-37 That Obscure Object of Desire, theatricality, of bold
movers, 411-12 of Charismatics, 100 of environment, of Sirens, 7, 8, 9
spectacles in, Theosophical Society, 109 third parties, in indirect approach,
see also jealousy; triangles, creation of Thus Spake Zarathustra (Nietzsche),
46 Tiberius, Emperor of Rome, 317 tightwads, anti-seductive, time, altered
sense of, 431-39 Casanova's creation of, 435, 438-39 timidity, 410, 426 timing:
of Charmers, 90-91, 92, 93 of Coquettes, 78 dramatic moments in, 435 of pain
mixed with pleasure, 379 of re-seduction, 428 speed and youth in, 435 spiritual
lures and, 365 Tito, Josef, 77 Todellas, Don Juan de (fict.), Tragedy
ofKingRichardlll, The (Shakespeare), 314, 316 transference, 335-36 triangles,
creation of, 195-202 aura of desirability from, contrasts in, jealousy
engendered by, 197-98 by politicians, 201-2 reputation in, reversal of, 202
rivalry stimulated by, 200 trophy as symbol of, vanity and, Tristan and Isolde,
troubadours, Trouncer, Margaret, Truman, Harry S., Tsao Hsueh Chin, 270-72 Tsu
Hsi, Empress Dowager, 267-69 Tullia d'Aragona, Tuperselai, 397-98 ukiyo
("floating world"), 435-37 ulterior motives, unattainability,
apparent, 192, 201, 321 "Uncanny, The" (Freud), 301-2 unconditional
love, undefensive lovers, Valentino, Rudolph, patient attentiveness of,
Valmont, Vicomte de (fict.), 25, 169-71, 287-89, 290, 407-9, 412 Valois,
Mademoiselle de, 19-20 Vanderbilt, William, 396 vanity, victims, Aging Babies,
Beauties, 156 Conquerors, 153-54 Crushed Stars, Disappointed Dreamers, Drama
Queens, 155 Exotic Fetishists, 154-55 Floating Genders, 160 Idol Worshipers,
158 Lonely Leaders, 159 New Prudes, 151-52 Novices, 153 Pampered Royals, 151
Professors, 155-56 Reformed Rakes or Sirens, 150 Rescuers, 157 Roues, 157-58
Sensualists, 159 victims, choice of, big game as symbol of, 174 deceptive
appearances and, 173 evaluating responses in, 171-72 exciting tension in, imagination
and, 172 leisure time in, 173 manly men as, missing qualities and, 171, 173-74
new types as, one's own type as, 149 personal reactions in, in politics, 174
repressed types as, reversal of, 175 unhappiness and, vulnerability in, 170-71
victim strategy, Victoria, Queen of England, Vietnam War, 374-75 Villarceaux,
Marquis de, 425-26 Virgin ofStamboul, The, Viscontini, Countess Metilda, 377
Vivien, Renee, voices, 22-23, 34, 115, 259, 261, 268, 297, 351,395 of Sirens,
Voltaire, 34 von Sternberg, vulgarians, anti-seductive, 135-36 Wadler, Joyce,
297 Wagner, Richard, 100 war heroes, Warhola, calculated surprise by, 248
Factory as environment of, 437-38 triangles created by, 200 Washington, George,
99 Wayne, John, 51, 125 Wayward Head and Head, The (Crebil- lon fils), weaknesses,
disarming, 285-93 blemish as symbol of, gender differences in, 291 genuine, 290
"honest" confessions of, 284, 285, 287-88, 289 of Naturals, 53, 56,
59 occasional glimpses of, 290, 291 pathetic vs., in playing the victim, of
politicians, 292 reversal of, 293 shyness as, 285, 290, 291 suspicion reduced
by, sympathy evoked by, 285, 292, 293 tears as, of troubadours, 291 Weber, Max,
97-98, 106 Webster, Lady Frances, 352, 357 Wedekind, Franz, 46 Weekley, Ernest,
423-24 Welles, Orson, Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 188, 343-44
Welter, Blanca Rosa, see Christian, Linda Whitmer, Peter, 107 Wilde, Oscar, Williams,
Tennessee, 72 Wilson, Harriette, 48-49 windbags, anti-seductive, 135,
145 withdrawal, strategic, 383-90, 418, 424 aggressive pursuit
motivated by, 387, 389, 390 anxiety induced by, doubts created by, infantile
experiences re-created by, 388-91 interest in another person as, 383, 387, 390,
392,419; see also triangles, creation of letter-writing in, pomegranate as
symbol of, 391 reversal of, 392 role reversal engendered by, 391 selective, by
Coquettes, sexless neutrality in, 389-90 subtlety in, 389 see also calculated
absences WomanandPuppet{ Louys), 371-74 wonder children, Woolf, Virginia, 34
World War I, World War II, writing, guidelines for, 257-58 mirroring in, 257 in
strategic withdrawal, 385-86, 387, 388, 389 Yang Kuei-Fei, Zeus (Jupiter), Zhou
Enlai, 88-90, 93 In every corner of the world, on every subject under the sun.
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Bottiroli. Keywords: seduzione, amore, desiderio, desiderio e seduzione; amore:
desiderio e seduzione, ars amandi, ovidio, Grice, Multiplicity of being,
aequi-vocality thesis, Pegasus, Bellerofonte, l’implicatura di Bellerofonte,
possibilita, le categorie di Kant, puo essere, essere, piovera o no – Quine,
ontologia – Grice, Pears, Metaphysics.Aristotle, what is actual is not also
possible – the square of modalities – the nature of metaphysics. Refs.: Luigi
Speranza, “Grice e Bottiroli” – The Swimming-Pool Library.
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