B514 <=> B516 [BTG XXX Art, p. 515]

“The first is that, owing as always to the same conditions of ordinary being-existence abnormally established there, and also to the existing ‘illusorily inflated’ maleficent idea of their famous art, these representatives of art gradually become crowned, as I have already said, with an imaginary halo in the preconceived picturings and notions of other three-brained beings there, and thereby automatically acquire an undeserved authority, in consequence of which all the rest of your favorites always and in everything assume that any opinion they express is authoritative and beyond dispute.

“And the second fact is that these contemporary types who have recently arisen there, acquire, as they are formed, a corresponding inner presence that permits them to become, quite unconsciously on their part, just as easily somebody’s slave, as, thanks merely to chance exterior conditions, they can become his worst enemy.

“That is just why I advise you to be very, very careful not to make enemies among them, so as not to make a lot of trouble for yourself in the actualizing of your affairs.

“Well then, dear Hassein, the very ‘Tzimus’ of my advice to you is that if you should indeed have to exist among the beings of that planet Earth and have dealings with these representatives of contemporary art, then you must first of all know that you must never tell the truth to their face.

“Let Fate spare you this!

“Any kind of truth makes them extremely indignant, and their animosity towards others almost always begins from such indignation.

“To such terrestrial types you must always say to their face only such things as may ‘tickle’ those consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer unfailingly crystallized in them and which I have already enumerated, namely, ‘envy,’ ‘pride,’ ‘self-love,’ ‘vanity,’ ‘lying,’ and so on.