Such people have generally gentle manners, a tender heart, and are, when well practised in other things, of the greatest use in undertakings, for their first glance attracts; but their spirit n'a pas la profondeur des physiognomies sombres. They are, however, also less disposed to riots and disturbances than the darker physiognomies. That is why one must know how to use one's people. Above all, the high, soulful eye pleases me and the free, open brow.[565]

With these novices the adept of Illuminism is to proceed slowly, talking backwards and 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.[566]

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.[567]

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."[568]

For the same reason the candidate must be impressed with the importance of secret societies and the part they have played in the destinies of the world:

One illustrates this by the Order of the Jesuits, of the Freemasons, by the secret associations of the ancients, one asserts that all events in the world occur from a hundred secret springs and causes, to which secret associations above all belong; one arouses the pleasure of quiet, hidden power and of insight into hidden secrets.[569]

At this point one is to begin to "show glimpses and to let fall here and there remarks that may be interpreted in two ways," so as to bring the candidate to the point of saying: "If I had the chance to enter such an association, I would go into it at once." "These discourses," says Weishaupt, "are to be often repeated."[570]

In the discourse of reception to the "Illuminatus Dirigens," the appeal to love of power plays the most important part: