Promulgating the Doctrine: PH'5Q5t

Viewing the Typology

The benefits of a doctrine only result if the fundamental realizations are communicated positively, i.e. proclaimed and promulgated, in a form that suits their nature.

So viewing the levels as types reveals characteristic ways and means to promulgate the doctrine. Capability is not so much of an issue here, but being an adherent is essential.

The 7 ways that such adherents can promulgate the doctrine are as follows:

  • t1: Assert fundamentals
  • t2: Provide mentoring
  • t3: Organise dissemination
  • t4: Support membership
  • t5: Ensure guardianship
  • t6: Debate revisions
  • t7: Publicize applications

Assert Fundamentals (QH5-t1)

This is the basic requirement for any doctrine. Adherents declare the benefit of the doctrine to themselves and to others wherever and whenever deemed appropriate. If enough people do not personally realize the truth of particular principles and assert them without embarrassment, then the ideas will never spread and the School will not get off the ground. Because it is a personal realization, there is no discomfort even if the ideas are controversial or violate norms. Every adherent is expected to be able to give examples, to discriminate ideas carefully and to clarify popular misunderstandings.

Those who affirm their realization are referred to as adherents or followers.

Provide Mentoring (QH5-t2)

Any doctrine is intrinsically esoteric. Most people will be uninterested, but at least some will be intrigued and seek to know more. Those who are interested, commonly wish to explore it further to solidify their understanding. Reading has severe limitations as Socrates emphasized: you can only read what you already know. Removing barriers to the new conceptions and grasping them properly requires a degree of guidance from a teacher. It is open to any adherent to provide useful personal guidance to another by engaging in dialogue and discussing the relevance of the doctrine in particular situations.

The mentoring adherent is usually regarded as an adept, instructor, counsellor, supervisor, or guide and those receiving guidance may be called mentees, students or initiates; or sometimes, borrowing from religion, disciples or acolytes.

Organise Dissemination (QH5-t3)

When there is a wish to communicate the Teaching to many, inter-personal interaction seems insufficient for promulgation. Only systems of sustained dissemination can extend influence and propagate the potential value of the Teaching. Dissemination is commonly handled through producing or distributing pamphlets, or by providing public lectures or organising a series of workshops staffed by instructors. Sometimes it is appropriate to run demonstration-projects open to the public.

All such activity requires organisation and demands a variety of roles. So adherents commonly form themselves into informal groups—cells, fellowships, committees—to pursue projects or missions that spread the word and make converts.

Example: ClosedReligious Missionaries

No doctrines are more fervently disseminated than religious ones.

Jesus instructed his apostles to make disciples in all nations. In the early middle ages, missions were sent into Europe and England. Later missions were sent to the Americas and Asia. These missions were not crusades, but peaceful efforts to communicate the Christian message and win converts.

Starting with Ashoka in the 3rdC, Buddhist missionaries spread through India and adjacent countries. Some took it westward as far as Greece, and others spread it eastward and southward to Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Some took it northward to Bhutan, Tibet, Korea and Japan.

Support Membership (QH5-t4)

Any doctrine acquires a higher public profile and potentially becomes more authoritative when the informal school is institutionalized as a registered association. It is necessary to find enough adherents willing to become members able to sustain a social body. This typically involves as a minimum, the payment of membership dues, but time must also be allocated— a great deal of time.

More support is called for from some, because any institute needs an executive to ensure funds are managed and all social and legal obligations are met. In addition, members must be willing to provide unpaid services of various sorts like manning committees and working groups so that the school can thrive and relate to other social entities. Support is also shown by active participation in member-only events, like meetings and conferences.

Ensure Guardianship (QH5-t5)

Every adherent aspires to be seen as a guardian of the orthodoxy—which is why they repeatedly hark back to the founder and quote from his writings.

To enable adequate control of the orthodoxy and its transmission, some adherents must become its recognized guardians. So there are appointed Leadersand widely admired Masters who are required, for example, to assert that an adherent's understanding is indeed orthodox, or that an applicant for admission is indeed suitable.

Attribution of the guardian status may be informal and based on wisdom, charisma or historical association with the founder. Seniority and devotion to the cause also count. Alternatively, the membership association may use a selection committee or conclave. Because any genuine adherent has the capacity to act as a guardian, other adherents must show respect and support guardians even if they may disagree with some views and choices.

Debate Revisions (QH5-t6)

Scholars develop extensions and improvements to the doctrine with a view to modifying the orthodoxy usefully without violating essential doctrinal formulations. While only the most capable scholars can propose meaningful revisions, all adherents are expected to be aware of these developments. In a vibrant school, they will study the new propositions, participate in debates and facilitate appreciation and establishment of the contribution. This makes for a vital school and ultimately re-orients it.

As existing publishing outlets are commonly unsympathetic to making the Teaching available, membership bodies usually create specialist journals or even a publishing house. This creates roles for members and non-member adherents as writers, editors and reviewers.

Publicize Applications (QH5-t7)

The doctrine typically commences with a rather narrow and specific focus. However, the ultimate aim of any school is for the original fundamentals to become incorporated within wider culture as a truth of life. For this to occur, the doctrine's essential principles must be applied more generally and in a persuasive way to important situations, people or events. Benefits can potentially lead to acceptance of the doctrine by opinion-formers and other social leaders of the general public.

Relatively few adherents are active generalizers and popularizers because it requires sophisticated thinking and a readiness to be criticized by outsiders as well as the more orthodox adherents. However, any adherent can promote such applications, and sometimes use them or foster their use.

Comparison of the Ways

Q5 Ways to Promulgate Required Activity Roles
t7 Publicize applications Develop the usefulness of ideas for personal/social issues and apply them. Evangeliser, populariser.
t6 Debate
revisions		 Evaluate doctrinal extensions and scholarly improvements to formulations. Reader, writer, editor, reviewer, lecturer.
t5 Ensure
guardianship		 Enable and respect formal guardians and doctrinal masters to uphold orthodoxy. Formal leader, doctrinal master, school doyen.
t4 Support membership Join, vote, pay dues, serve, and attend events of the association. Paid-up member, office-holder, committee worker.
t3 Organise dissemination Assist with initiatives to disseminate the doctrine and attract adherents. Participant in projects, cells, fellowships, missions.
t2 Provide
mentoring		 Explain the doctrine in a various situations via willing dialogues. Mentor, teacher, guide, instructor.
t1 Assert fundamentals Proclaim the fundamental ideas with examples wherever appropriate. Adherent, follower.

Connection with Social Movements

Social movements (PH6G53) exist to develop and establish new values of fundamental importance to society. Movements are identified by their value system-L6 in the same way that enterprises are identified by their principal objects-L4. All members of the movement, its advocates, organisers and especially the grass roots, experience a conscious commitment to movement values and beliefs. It is the task of intellectuals within the movement to develop and systematize those beliefs and themes in the light of the times.

Doctrines are value systems-L6. Value systems depend on co-existence: they need to be socially tolerated and be given a right to exist in society even though they conflict intellectually with alternatives. Undesirable value systems get proscribed and its members punished or treated as deviants.

So while a philosophy school is not itself a movement, it may contain values that spawn or mesh with a social movement. Its members may then be more or less active within the movement. Work required within a movement is described in Ch.12 of Working with Values, downloadable here.

If the connection is very close, as with the psychoanalytic movement and psychoanalytic societies, then organisers and advocates within a movement might well include those who get involved in dissemination-L3, and executive roles in the membership body-L4. Those involved in application-L7 of the Teaching, might become movement intellectuals. In contrast, those dedicated to scholarly revision-L6 may be too caught up in esoteric doctrinal theory to have time and energy for the movement.

Having clarified the types of work, the next step is to plot them on a TET (Typology Essentials Table)  to reveal additional properties.

Originally posted: 7-Sep-2022. Last updated: 6-Apr-2024