In the exoteric world, where everybody is naturally born, lives and has their livelihood, homes, cars, families, friends, and everything else, great value is placed upon education. People are put into schools of education from an early age - sometimes 4 or 5, into pre-kindergarten - and stay associated with some school until 20-25, depending upon, apparently, the innate intelligence and drive of the student, and the aims and goals that were inculcated into him by his peers, parents and teachers.
From the very beginning, the primary tool of education is the "test" - tasks which are assigned, and then accomplished by the students, and then graded for performance. From at least the 2nd or 3rd grade onward, tests are used to determine progress. Many argue that this is a poor method for determining progress, but nevertheless, it remains the primary tool for educating students in almost all subject matters, even art, music, and sandbox.
People are tested, and graded, and tested, and graded, and it has become the norm in most civilized societies. Thus is the foundation of society, supposedly, assured. The greatest majority of any civilized society is schooled, tested and graded, and when the age of majority is reached - between 18-21 or so, the person is considered a "qualified member of (exoteric) society."
But what about the esoteric groups and communities and mini-societies that spring up here and there throughout history. Do you actually know anything about them? Do you understand the relationship teaching and learning has to testing and grading in esoteric communities?
(Do you even give a golly god damn?)
Much has been written, mostly from imagination and conjecture of course, about esoteric communities, and mostly by those who never contacted such, and what is distinctly missing from such writings is the methodology of teaching the ideas to students, and grading or judging their performance, or progress.
That is, for example, a person will not advance to the 10th grade without successfully completing the requirements of the 9th grade, and those requirements are specifically known, detailed on paper, and verifiable. If a student fails or doesn't complete 3 out of 10 requirements, then he doesn't advance. Period.
But, in the esoteric communities, not only are people not tested, graded, and evaluated in this way, there are no acceptable means for determining advancement or progress. That is, everybody who calls himself a "member" of an esoteric community (by whatever name), can also, by that claim indicate his level, grade, or number.
The difference is obvious. In exoteric societies, claims can be backed up and proven to be correct. Either a person graduated from high school, got his B.A. degree from U.W., and his MBA from Harvard, or he did not. In esoteric societies, no one can verify anything at all - whatever a person SAYS he is, is taken to be the "truth of the matter," and no claims to the contrary are tolerated. And if they are, the person can always claim, "My teacher verified my attainment."
A Fourth Way person can claim to be a Man#6, and everyone is supposed to accept it. A Buddhist can claim to be enlightened, having attained nirvana, and everyone is supposed to accept it. But if the same people claim to have a Harvard MBA, it must be backed up and proven, to be accepted.
Does anyone here see something, just slightly, amiss?
Life, in general, is more rigorous in it's process-of-educating humanity in the "ways of the external world," than esoteric communities are in the process-of-educating in the "ways of the internal world", and no one sees anything amiss in that.
Now, some might claim that all the above is totally off-the-mark, that the author was "obviously" not in a "real" esoteric school, but they don't know what they are talking about. In the first place, the only esoteric schools anybody knows about, are pseudo-schools at best, led by individuals who make certain unsupportable claims.
There are, of course, real schools or work groups, but they are not documented in history, not yesterday and not today. They are word-of-mouth associations, virtually nothing is written down "for posterity" and operate in ways about which no one writing about them has any knowledge whatsoever, except that which is concocted from imagination.
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