forwards:
One must speak, first in one way, then in another, so as not to commit oneself and to make one's real way of thinking impenetrable to one's inferiors.<sup></sup>
Weishaupt also insists on the importance of exciting the candidate's curiosity and then drawing back again, after the manner of the Fatimite dais:
I have no fault to find with your [methods of] reception ["Spartacus" writes to "Cato"], except that they are too quick.... You should proceed gradually in a roundabout way by means of suspense and expectations, so as first to arouse indefinite, vague curiosity, and then when the candidate declares himself, present the object, which he will then seize with both hands.<sup></sup>
By this means his vanity will also be flattered, because one will arouse the pleasure of "knowing something which everyone does not know, and about which the greater part of the world is groping in darkness."
For the same reason the candidate must be impressed with the importance of secret societies and the part they have played in the