The Esoteric Writing Technique of "Centering" Examined
June 23, 2014
Apprentice Anon Amus
introduction
Once again, we Apprentices are enduring Master’s obsession about the supposed benefits of esoteric writing. I find esoteric writing subjective and of questionable value in the context of proper Occult studies. One technique of esoteric writing is “centering”, where the central word of a sentence is the correct esoteric understanding of the sentence, regardless of the exoteric meaning of the sentence. There are possible variations of this style: the center word of a paragraph, of a chapter and of a book.
Due to the subjective nature of “centering”, we do not know if the center is the middle chapter, the middle dialogue or another, as of yet, unrecognized center. We do not know if the author uses this technique and we do not know if we are to count words, letters or syllables. If familiarity breeds contempt, then this is also true of uncertainty.
Due to the subjective nature of “centering”, we do not know if the center is the middle chapter, the middle dialogue or another, as of yet, unrecognized center. We do not know if the author uses this technique and we do not know if we are to count words, letters or syllables. If familiarity breeds contempt, then this is also true of uncertainty.
analysis the first
The book we are utilizing for our research is “The Purpose Driven Church” (PDL) by Rick Warren (1995). There are five “Parts” with twenty chapters, not including the forward. In Leo Strauss’ commentary on Machiavelli's “The Prince”, he expressly states that the introductory statements are not part of the work. The center of the five parts of PDL is the third part. Fortunately, the third part contains an odd number of chapters, that is, three and the center is chapter 10, beginning on page 173.
The tenth chapter has four sections, not including the introduction: “Who already attends our church?”, “What kind of leaders do we have?”, ”What if our church doesn’t match our community?” and “Recognizing spiritual receptivity in your community”.
Since we do know if the author understands the second or third section as the middle, we will analyze both sections.
The second section (“What kind of leaders do we have?”) does not have sub sections and has twenty three paragraphs. The center is the eleventh paragraph (two sentences) and the twelfth paragraph (five sentences). The center of the seven sentences is the third sentence, that is, the first sentence of the twelfth paragraph.
The tenth chapter has four sections, not including the introduction: “Who already attends our church?”, “What kind of leaders do we have?”, ”What if our church doesn’t match our community?” and “Recognizing spiritual receptivity in your community”.
Since we do know if the author understands the second or third section as the middle, we will analyze both sections.
The second section (“What kind of leaders do we have?”) does not have sub sections and has twenty three paragraphs. The center is the eleventh paragraph (two sentences) and the twelfth paragraph (five sentences). The center of the seven sentences is the third sentence, that is, the first sentence of the twelfth paragraph.
“The apostle Paul obviously had the missionary gift.”
The sentence has eight words and the center consists of the fourth and fifth words: “obviously had”.
The third section, “What if our church doesn’t match our community?”, has three subsections: “Build on your strengths”, “Reinvent your congregation” and “Start new congregations”. “Reinvent your congregation” has three paragraphs and the center paragraph has six sentences. The fourth sentence has been segmented into four sections with six words each for ease of reference:
The third section, “What if our church doesn’t match our community?”, has three subsections: “Build on your strengths”, “Reinvent your congregation” and “Start new congregations”. “Reinvent your congregation” has three paragraphs and the center paragraph has six sentences. The fourth sentence has been segmented into four sections with six words each for ease of reference:
“If you lead this process, you
will probably be vilified as Satan incarnate by older members unless you’ve been there longer than everyone else. “ |
The sentence contains twenty four words. “You’ve” could be written as two word, “you have”, but was contracted, therefore, it is treated as one word. The center of the sentence are the twelfth and thirteenth words: “Satan incarnate”.
analysis the second
If we include the forward and consider it as one of the twenty chapters, then we will have twenty one parts and the center will be the eleventh chapter, ”Developing your strategy” (pg 185). Once again, we understand the subjective nature of this writing technique and its questionable result, when we consider that it is impossible to find the center of an even number of chapters, sections, paragraphs, sentences or words.
This chapter has seven sections:
This chapter has seven sections:
Know what your are fishing for
Go where the fish are biting Learn to think like a fish Catch fish on their own terms Use more than one hook It costs to reach your community Fishing is serious business |
The fourth section (“Catch fish on their terms”, pg 195) contains five subsections:
Understand and adapting to their culture
Letting your target determine your approach Beginning with the felt needs of the unchurched Understanding and responding to the hang-ups of the unchurched Change methods whenever necessary |
The third subsection (“Beginning with the felt needs of the unchurched”. pg 197) has three paragraphs and the second paragraph has nine sentences (pg 198). The fifth sentence is subdivided into four sections of six words for ease of reference:
“When a leper came to Jesus,
Jesus didn’t launch into a long discourse on the cleansing laws of Leviticus.” |
This sentence has a total of nineteen words and the tenth word is “into”.
analysis the third
The text of the book has 398 pages, if we exclude the 25 pages of the introduction, 373 pages. The center of the 373 pages is page 187 (186+1+186). One page 187, there is one of several gray boxes with text that are found throughout the book. The text is:
“There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to fishing. You must know what you are fishing for!”
Since we considered “haven’t” as one word, so we will also consider “One-size-fits all” as one word. These sentences contain fifteen words and the center is “you”.
“There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to fishing.
You must know what you are fishing for!”
You must know what you are fishing for!”
discussion
Based on the result of the first analysis, we conclude that the esoteric or hidden meaning of “The Purpose Driven Church” is “Satan incarnate”. We will not attempt to justify the absurdity of the obvious contradiction between a book designed for growing a church’s membership and “Satan incarnate”.
The result of the second analysis, “into”, has no meaning, either esoteric or otherwise: it is a random word. We would have felt a sense of justification in our efforts if the seventh sentence ( “When he encountered the sick, the demon-possessed, or the disturber…”) were exchanged with the fourth sentence, then we could state the “demon-possessed” was the center of the the three (the sick, the demon-possessed, the disturbed) and make a tenuous connection between “Satan incarnate” and “demon-possessed”. Unless we resort to “cherry picking” for the results we would like, rather than the results the text clearly gives us, we can not determine which of the “centers” is the actual middle.
We were fortunate that our third analysis contained a gray box to arrest our attention, if not it would have been necessary to count the words on the page to find the center.
The result of the second analysis, “into”, has no meaning, either esoteric or otherwise: it is a random word. We would have felt a sense of justification in our efforts if the seventh sentence ( “When he encountered the sick, the demon-possessed, or the disturber…”) were exchanged with the fourth sentence, then we could state the “demon-possessed” was the center of the the three (the sick, the demon-possessed, the disturbed) and make a tenuous connection between “Satan incarnate” and “demon-possessed”. Unless we resort to “cherry picking” for the results we would like, rather than the results the text clearly gives us, we can not determine which of the “centers” is the actual middle.
We were fortunate that our third analysis contained a gray box to arrest our attention, if not it would have been necessary to count the words on the page to find the center.
conclusion
The subjective nature of “centering” leads to the possibility, nay, almost certainty of abuse by the researcher. We are reminded of a certain Great Occultist of a previous century whose method of using various numerical values for letters (Hebrew, Greek or Arabic) in order to get the desired results for the total value of English words, namely, 93, 418, 666, and 2,368.
The results of our three methods are:
The results of our three methods are:
Analysis the First (section two)
Analysis the First (section three) Analysis the Second Analysis the Third |
"obviously had"
"Satan incarnate" "into" "you" |
appendix
Esoteric writing is used when a work contains “terrible truths” that the majority of people would find objectionable. Esoteric writing also conceals the author's intent. Leo Strauss mentions specific techniques of esoteric writing in “Persecution and the Art of Writing”.
Appeal to authority (AA)
Ambiguity of expression (AE) Allegory (AL) Contradiction (CD) Contrast (CT) Error of facts (EF) Principles frequently stated, but silently contradicted by upholding incompatible views (FS) Inexact repetitions (IR) Other infelicities of style (IS) Parallel (PL) Pseudonyms (PS) Rhetoric (RT) Strange expressions (SE) Frequent use of technical language (TL) |
Master created the abbreviations for ease of notation during reading.