The Founder is Unique
Emergence of a Doctrine
There are unusual individuals who do not just get on with life and accept things as they are. Instead, they why things are as they are, why problems remain unsolved and why there has to be so much seemingly unnecessary confusion, disorder and suffering.
For a reflective curious mind, the question of "why does it have to be like this?" soon morphs into a further question: “what is really going on here?”. The reality-oriented inquirer looks and thinks, looks and ponders, reads what others think, finds no satisfactory answer, asks more questions, reads around the topic, tries to help while getting on with everyday work or makes it part of that work, and continues to ponder and wonder.
Then, one day after years of intermittent thought and endless study, out of the blue and possibly when working on something else, it strikes him like a bolt of lightning: “Yes! I’ve got it.”
The originator (later founder) perceives the reality in a holistic imaginative way () and experiences not just relief, but illumination. Slowly and surely additional insights emerge and there is much more than a story, there is the beginning of a .
Something more or less like that has happened repeatedly over the millennia.
Codification is Esoteric
The founder realizes that it is not enough simply to describe something about human existence in a clear and complete way, and nor will a few principles suffice. There is a necessity to develop a system and codify it using terms and propositions that directly relate to the reality under observation: which means using as well.
By writing the theory, which will become the future doctrine, with directly referring to reality instead of based on socially-shared definitions, the founder generates an esoteric form of knowledge. Esoteric means "knowledge for the few". It also means that "the many" will regard the knowledge as abstruse, impenetrable, arcane, even mystical.
The difficulty arises because most people, including scientists, use language in other ways. To follow the founder, it is necessary to let the founder's view of reality replace an existing messy and disordered view. "It may be a mess, but it's mine", thinks the normal person, "and I've been doing perfectly well without all that complexity. Who else thinks that way, anyway? No, it is not for me." The scientist takes a different tack: "Where are the experiments? what is the mathematical basis? How can this be falsified? Where is the peer to review?"
The Founder lacks a School
At this point there is no school and there may never be a school.
The founder-to-be may be thinking/working at all the levels relevant to a : but possibly without being concerned yet for the formation of any such group.
The process of discovery or invention leading to the doctrine involves being creative and so it is governed by the «creativity in endeavours» frameworks.
If the founder does have a concern to spread their doctrine, then a school will need to be established—and that process will be investigated in a later section.
- Now that there is a founder with a doctrine, consider work within a school.
Originally posted: 15-Apr-2024.