Plotting the Ways of Working

X-Axis: The purpose of application is to enable key ideas to be used fr the benefit of society and also for the doctrine and its adherents to be respected. So the pressure for social acceptance is very high. The initial applier is often the charismatic founder who permits himself to generalize the ideas and makes powerful emotional arguments. Later popularizers and evangelizers also tend to be charismatic.

Y-Axis: Applications are developed to be persuasive and the work naturally scores very high on advocacy. Generalization of the doctrine for wider application must capture and clarify doctrinal essences. The effort selects ideas carefully and makes them accessible without watering down the doctrine to make it palatable. This demands a very high engagement with the doctrine.

X-Axis: Improving formulations extending the doctrine involves a search for esoteric truth. Updating and correcting errors in any doctrine involves mastery of the system to make sophisticated and often complex rational arguments that can be difficult to follow even for adherents. Being incomprehensible and positively alienating for outsiders is of no concern. So codification work has a very low pressure for wide acceptance.

Y-Axis: To revise formulations demands detailed scholarship with intense preoccupation and support for the orthodoxy while identifying errors or omissions. Doctrinal engagement is therefore paramount. Revisors must be highly committed to the doctrine and to their own output. They are expected to defend their work and respond to critiques from other adherents so that there work will be ultimately confirmed and authorized as valid. So there is very high committed advocacy.

X-Axis: Guardians clarify the orthodox doctrine and consider how to ensure it is preserved and transmitted. They regard the views of outsiders are irrelevant, and even views of the general membership may not have much influence. So, pressure for social acceptance is very low. Those involved use rational arguments to justify the measures that are taken.

Y-Axis: Guarding the orthodoxy is expected, almost as a duty, of every adherent. Because the need for continuity and orthodoxy is taken for granted, the requirement for committed advocacy is very low. Guardians are typically conservative, resistant to change and preoccupied with the stability and cohesion of the adherent body. So, engagement with the group is marked.

X-Axis: Mentoring is about willing participation in a rational dialogue with one or a few initiates to reveal and develop the fundamental realizations promised by the Teaching. So, wide acceptance is not a big issue. While the plot is in the left half of the X-axis, it is not at an extreme because any instructor feels some pressure to attract potential new adherents and is concerned that novices are properly converted.

Y-Axis: In this situation, the focus is on social engagement of the newcomer via participative exploration of the doctrine. The mentoring context is personal and outside the direct control of the school as a body. Mentors know that too intense advocacy can generate resistance and confusion in a newcomer. So, the plot is in the lower half of the Y-axis, but not as low as guardianship.

X-Axis: Dissemination is about making esoteric knowledge available through rational exposition and careful presentations. Attendance at events or reading prepared materials is a free choice of interested outsiders, which means that disseminators experience a low pressure for acceptance. However, the interaction with outsiders means that there is some pressure, certainly more than for revision or guardianship.

Y-Axis: Dissemination is all about communicating the doctrine to outsiders and winning converts, and so it requires significant committed advocacy and doctrinal engagement. This places it in the upper half of the TET, but not so extreme as revision or application because less is expected of the disseminators.

X-Axis: Forming and participating in a membership body is a political and emotional matter. Every member benefits if the body thrives and adherents share a general desire to gain social status via membership. That suggests a significant pressure for wider societal acceptance. So this work is plotted in the right half of the X-Axis, but not to such an extreme as application.

Y-Axis: Membership touches on an adherent’s sense of belonging, identity, exclusivity, and sometimes financial well-being—which all flows from genuine doctrinal engagement. Payment of dues support work for the membership body uses spare time, which suggests significant committed advocacy. So this work is in the upper half of the Y-axis, but not positioned as extreme as revisionor applicationbecause membership takes commitment for granted.

X-Axis: Fundamental realizations are emotional in nature and alter a person's identity. The felt significance and power of the doctrine makes and the person's wish to for recognition makes or significant pressure for social acceptance . So it is placed on the right half of the X-axis.

Y-Axis: Accounts of a realization focus on awareness rather than advocacy. Realization fosters social links with fellow adherents with a tendency to minimize doctrinal differences as these might generate disputes and sow discord. So it is relatively low on committed advocacy, which places it in the lower half of the Y-axis.

The elliptical pattern emerges because of the differing emotional conditions under which fundamentals and group engagement are expressed.

At the lower right more socially-influenced pole of the ellipse, accounts of the illumination are in accord with cultural assumptions. Here there is minimal advocacy, while social conformity generates maximum pressure for acceptance.

At the upper left more personally-influenced pole of the ellipse, emotive accounts following illumination are associated with a greater tendency for committed advocacy and a lesser concern for social acceptance .

In the middle of the ellipse, fundamentals are expressed as convictions using shared formulations, and that contributes to the cohesion of membership bodies.