Incredible Western Paintings by Mark Maggiori

I woke up today, only to find my “news” feeds all stuffed up with a most amazing psyops campaign. Wow! I’ll tell youse guys, it’s really impressive. They must have unleashed every free ‘bot they could get their hands on. Jeeze!

According to the “news”, Russia is deeply regretting invading the Ukraine and trying to fight the forces of “democracy”, with little old grandmothers fighting to protect their cabbage patches, and fields littered with the carcasses of destroyed Russian armor.

“The same pilot who shot down six Russian warplanes, he was nicknamed the ‘Ghost of Kiev”. “A column of scorched Russian equipment near Konotop”. “Snake Island recaptured”. Such messages have quickly gone viral on Russian-language telegram channels, which are a major source of information for the world media. 

The impression is that Russia has already lost the war and its last reserve are Kadyrov’s 10,000 guards, an army of absolute evil, who lined up outside the Chechen leader’s gloomy palace, preparing to be sent to Ukraine. Well, it also looks like Russia has lost the war, the war of fake news.

The first time Ukrainian telegram channels were caught in a lie was on the morning of February 24, just a few hours after the war broke out, when they started spreading photographs of the first Russian tanks knocked out by the Ukrainian military. 

It soon transpired, however, that the snapshots had been taken in Syria and were several years old, yet the unverified information about Russian losses had already been picked up by the media. 

The fact is that the Russians had unwittingly played into the hands of the Ukrainian PR people. 

The Russians advance in mobile, self-directed columns. Therefore, if a vehicle breaks down (the cruising range of a tank or infantry fighting vehicle is several times shorter than that of a civilian jeep), they simply abandon it, because they have to move fast. 

Before long, the photos of the abandoned tank or APC appear on Ukrainian messenger services and in social networks as a “destroyed tank of the invaders.” 

-Batko Milacic

Who are “they”?

“They” of course, is the United States DoD who is running this proxy war against Russia. Make no mistake about that. So the USA got what it wanted. The USA is fighting Russia, and it is doing so where they planned, and engaging it in such a way to become a long-drawn-out war.

It’s not going to be one. So don’t worry.

Now, you can go on the internet and read all about the brave Ukrainians, but Jeeze!, it’s all disinfo. I’m sure the well-armed, and well-dug-in neo-Nazi forces are fighting heroically. But they will be overwhelmed. The timetable is in motion, and the clock is ticking and things are going according to plan, so don’t worry about it.

Let others chat about that.

We’ve got better things to do.

I just got a comment from a Korean who is living in the High Desert of California. Yeah. I lived there, don’t you know. That’s where I got my MAJestic probe calibration and training. It’s awfully nice. Well, if you like pine tree forests on gravel, twisty and turny roads on the edge of cliffs with no guardrails, and fresh cool mountain air.

There’s a real Western “cowboy” vibe about the High Desert. And that has inspired me to present the work of one of the best “Western” themed artists that I have ever come across.Let’s take a look at some of his amazing work.

I hope you enjoy this post.

Mark Maggiori is a French painter who paints modern cowboys in the nostalgic American West. Maggiori’s approach is realistic and academically tuned.

Maggiori is a graduate from the prestigious Academie Jullian in Paris, France and currently resides in the United States.

More: Mark Maggiori, Instagram, Facebook

At the age of 15, Maggiori visited the United States and drove cross-country with his uncle, it was love at first sight. Ever since that trip, he dreamed of returning to live in the American West.

After graduating Academie Jullian in 2000, Disney Studios recruited Maggiori with a prestigious Art Director position in Los Angeles, CA. Maggiori declined the offer to stay in Paris where he could be free to excel in various types of art including photography, animation, and music video directing, all while heading the rock band Pleymo as their lead singer.

In 2001 Pleymo signed with Sony records and toured the globe for 10 solid years, and still the dream of the American West never left him.

With his desire to discover America, he returned to the USA with a film camera and lost himself in the rural South for months.

Through directing music videos, he had the opportunity to wander the country, including Los Angeles, where his life changed.

Petecia Lefawnhawk, was a talented and very creative artist living in Los Angeles.

Maggiori was lucky enough to work with her in one of his music videos; this encounter changed the course of his life forever. Lefawnhawk introduced Maggiori to the ghost towns of the west, including Chloride, Arizona where she grew up.

It was in this setting that Maggiori directed a feature film “Johnny Christ” in 2010.

Soon after they visited the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City…and it was that day that Maggiori decided he would stop everything and dedicate his life to documenting the American West.

Today, Maggiori lives in Los Angeles, CA with his wife Petecia and paints the American West full time.

“I love to paint and dream about the good old times, Cowboys always represented, for me, a time when America was still a promise land…a huge dream for whoever wanted it, before corporations and plastic…I am trying to paint pieces that will tell a story itself and bring to the viewer certain nostalgia, a moment to remember what it felt to be riding a horse on a wide-open range. I am so fascinated by the era 1860 to 1910 in Europe and in America. Those were some golden ages.” 

– Mark Maggiori

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This next painting has got to be the best of the best…

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Lost mines

He’s a pretty awesome artist, eh?

As a boy, I grew up reading “Treasure Magazine” that talked about gold and silver and precious stones, all in great abundance in the California deserts. I would daydream about being a cowboy of the Old West, or even better, finding the discoveries that lie hidden in plain sight.

Things, like old belt buckes, and rusty old swords and pistols were of chief interest in those days. I also used to daydream about finding some of those “lost mines” and venturing inside to gather a handful of precious gold nuggets, and then becoming wealthy as only a ten-year-old boy could conceive.

Of course, when I actually lived in the desert, it was a different story. But still, the romance of the west is undeniable. Here’s some pictures of abandoned mines of the California deserts.

Keep out!

Of course, most of the mines areound Ridgecrest were just a hole in the ground that went deep, deep, deep down, and if you accidently fell into one of these holes you ain’t never getting out.

But if you start venturing up into the high mountains, you start seeing some green grasses and plants. And you can sometimes stumble upon scenes like this…

Or perhaps something like this…

Of course, Treasure Magazine no longer exists as a paper magazine. Instead, it went online with a host of other organizations.

The Lost Treasure Magazine Obituary

It’s a well-known fact that print is in decline. However, despite this, a number of niche magazines have been able to hold on. Sadly, Lost Treasure magazine met its untimely end in December 2018, ending its over 50-year run covering treasure hunters past and present.

Lost Treasure first launched way back in 1966 and from there it came out monthly from its Grove, Oklahoman headquarters, far from the epicenter of publishing. One of its common features were reviews of metal detectors that modern-day prospectors might use in their quest for gold.

Where Lost Treasure really went above and beyond, however, was in talking about the treasure hunters of old, not as events frozen in time, but in terms of their relevance for gold prospectors in the present day.

The lost treasures of America were a particular focus, as the name might imply, with a particular interest in gold lost during the War Between the States. But there were also gripping tales of old-time stagecoach robberies and the golden age of bank robbery. Lost mines were another focus of the magazine, as well as sunken pirate treasure still sitting around waiting to be taken.

Photos were used, but the magazine also had a distinctive style of drawings that kept readers coming back for more. These were old-timey looking illustrations of everything from six-shooters to scorpions, evoking the symbolism of the Old West. Most were in a charcoal-and-pencil format, which further evoked a bygone age, though watercolors did sometimes appear in the pages of Lost Treasure.

Sadly, it isn’t just the print version of Lost Treasure that disappeared when it ceased publication. The website and Facebook page likewise went the way of the Old West.

The magazine suffered from the generalized decline in publishing, however, its content did not lend itself to continued survival as a niche magazine. Information about metal detectors is not only readily available to the general public on the Internet, it is also much more reliable than the “reviews” in Lost Treasure, which were oftentimes glorified advertisements. What’s more, the historical events cataloged in the magazine are likewise easily available to anyone with an Internet connection. As with the reviews of metal detectors, the information is also far more accurate.

The treasure stories were what sold the magazine — the notion that you could go out today with nothing but a metal detector and be the man who discovered the next mother lode of gold ore to become a millionaire.

It was an aspirational magazine before there was such a word for such a thing. One didn’t need to strike gold or even hunt for it to appreciate Lost Treasure magazine. One could get a little piece of that life every time one opened up a copy of Lost Treasure. That was where the magazine’s enduring appeal came from rather than practical advice.

Practical advice is now readily available for those seeking to hunt treasure. What’s more, large capital investments are no longer necessary to get your start at hunting for treasure. Such materials can now be rented, allowing you to dip your toes in the pond to find out if a prospector’s life is for you or not.

Speaking of treasure…

Read the Reader’s Digest article that inspired Rick Lagina to hunt for treasure on The Curse of Oak Island

The Curse of Oak Island star Rick Lagina was just 11 years old when he picked up an edition of Reader’s Digest and first his eyes on an article that would change his life forever.

The January 1965 edition of the publication — which was at the time the best-selling magazine in the United States — included an article reprinted from The Rotarian magazine and written by David MacDonald.

It’s title? “Oak Island’s Mysterious ‘Money Pit’.”

The subheading, enough to entice any 11 year old worth their salt (and any mystery-loving adult for that matter), added: “There is something down there — but for 170 years no one has been able to solve the riddle of how to get at it.”

He didn’t know it yet, but for the young Rick — who like his younger brother Marty loved adventure stories like The Hardy Boys books — that article sealed his future.

The Reader’s Digest story was in fact the same one that sparked an interest in the Oak Island mystery in fellow treasure-hunter and The Curse of Oak Island star Dan Blankenship, who moved to the island the same year it was published.

The article delved into how the famous Money Pit was first discovered by 16-year-old Daniel McInnes all the way back in 1795, when he stumbled across an “odd depression” at one end of the island. McInnes and two of his friends, Tony Vaughan and Jack Smith, then found mystery oak platforms every 10 feet down as they dug deeper and deeper into the ground.

The article went on to chronicle the massive and repeated efforts by various teams over the decades to try and find out just what is down there. Booby traps, deaths, $1,500,000 (at the time) already spent on trying to uncover the island’s secrets — this story had it all.

The article also included a diagram showing what had been found at various depths in the Money Pit, and included a picture of a prominent oak tree that used to sit at the top — which has since gone.

The article ended with a 1955 quote from petroleum engineer George Greene, who had spent time drilling on the island for a syndicate of Texas oilmen.

It said: “Someone went to a lot of trouble to bury something here. And unless he was the greatest practical joker of all time, it must have been well worth the effort.”

And so with that sentence did the little Rick Lagina set off into a future that would one day see him and his more skeptical brother Marty find themselves at the center of the biggest treasure hunt the world has ever seen.

The Reader’s Digest article had a slightly different layout in the US and Canadian versions of the magazine — with it starting on page 136 of the American edition and more prominently, on page 22, of the Canadian one.

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Inspiration

And if you all are so inclined for some inspiration, perhaps these links might send you in the right direction. Happy treasure hunting!

Western Treasures – An online magazine.

FMDAC – The Federation of Metal Detector & Archaeological Clubs, Inc. (FMDAC) was organized in 1984 as a legislative and educational organization and incorporated as a non-profit, non-commercial, non-partisan organization dedicated to preserving the sport/hobby of recreational metal detecting/prospecting.

SMARTER HOBBY – Getting started with a metal detector. Everything you need to know.

THE RING FINDERS – Lost rings, lost watch, lost brooch, lost pendant, lost jewelry?

TOP10METALDETECTORS – Ranked by price, vote for your favorite.

USMETALDETECTOR – Shop for metal detectors, accessories on Amazon, etc.

DISCOVER DETECTING – Discover Detecting is a site aimed at both metal detecting beginners and longtime enthusiasts.

RELIC HUNTER APPAREL

RARE GOLD NUGGETS – Where/how to find gold, natural gold for sale, gold mining equipment, gold panning/prospecting tips.

STOUT STANDARDS – Musings from an old “beeper”.

HOBBY HELP – A beginners guide to metal detecting.

KELLY NOELLER – Metal detecting treasure hunter.  Learn how to metal detect, we have the equipment and knowledge for all your treasure hunting needs.  Read my blog.

UNDERCOIL.COM – A beginners guide to metal detecting.

DETECTING RESEARCH SITE – Detecting Research is your online portal to help you expand your knowledge of places to detect.

Do you want more?

I have more articles like this in my Art Index here…

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Articles & Links

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  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
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Law 19 – Know who you’re dealing with – do not offend the wrong person (48 Laws of Power)

This is the complete text of law 19 from the book by Robert Greene titled “The 48 Laws of Power”. It is a book that lists (for good or bad) numerous ways that people interact with each other in the pursuit of the obtainment of power. While you might not want to use any of the techniques that he has listed, you must certainly can agree that you must be aware of how others might use them against you. As knowledge is, in itself, power.

LAW 19

KNOW WHO YOU’RE DEALING WITH—DO NOT OFFEND THE WRONG PERSON

JUDGMENT

There are many different kinds of people in the world, and you can never assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way. Deceive or outmaneuver some people and they will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. They are wolves in lambs’ clothing. Choose your victims and opponents carefully, then—never of fend or deceive the wrong person.

OPPONENTS, SUCKERS, AND VICTIMS: Preliminary Typology

In your rise to power you will come across many breeds of opponent, sucker, and victim. The highest form of the art of power is the ability to distinguish the wolves from the lambs, the foxes from the hares, the hawks from the vultures. If you make this distinction well, you will succeed without needing to coerce anyone too much. But if you deal blindly with whomever crosses your path, you will have a life of constant sorrow, if you even live that long.

When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet.

-FROM A CH’AN BUDDHIST CLASSIC, QUOTED IN THUNDER IN THE SKY, TRANSLATED BY THOMAS CLEARY, 1993

Being able to recognize types of people, and to act accordingly, is critical.

The following are the five most dangerous and difficult types of mark in the jungle, as identified by artists—con and otherwise—of the past.

[1] The Arrogant and Proud Man.

If you end up in Prison, you will meet many people. One of the most dangerous are the members of the gay community. For they will be brutal on the slightest whim. Do not get involved with these people, and do not become involved within any kind of relationship triangles either.

-Metallicman.

Although he may initially disguise it, this man’s touchy pride makes him very dangerous.

Any perceived slight will lead to a vengeance of overwhelming violence.

You may say to yourself, “But I only said such-and-such at a party, where everyone was drunk….”

It does not matter.

There is no sanity behind his overreaction, so do not waste time trying to figure him out.

If at any point in your dealings with a person you sense an oversensitive and overactive pride, flee. Whatever you are hoping for from him isn’t worth it.

The Revence Of [Lope De] Aguirre

[Lope de] Aguirre’s character is amply illustrated in an anecdote from the chronicle of Garcilaso de la Vega.

Who related that in 1548 Aguirre was a member of a platoon of soldiers escorting Indian slaves from the mines at Potosi [Bolivia] to a royal treasury depot.

The Indians were illegally burdened with great quantities of silver, and a local official arrested Aguirre, sentencing him to receive two hundred lashes in lieu of a fine for oppressing the Indians.

“The soldier Aguirre, having received a notification of the sentence, besought the alcalde that, instead of flogging him, he would put him to death, for that he was a gentleman by birth…. All this had no effect on the alcalde, who ordered the executioner to bring a beast, and execute the sentence. The executioner came to the prison, and put Aguirre on the beast…. The beast was driven on, and he received the lashes….”

When freed, Aguirre announced his intention of killing the official who had sentenced him, the alcalde Esquivel.

Esquivel’s term of office expired and he fled to Lima.

Three hundred twenty leagues away, but within fifteen days Aguirre had tracked him there.

The frightened judge journeyed to Quito, a trip of four hundred leagues, and in twenty days Aguirre arrived.

“When Esquivel heard of his presence, ” according to Garcilaso, “he made another journey of five hundred leagues to Cuzco; but in a few days Aguirre also arrived, having traveled on foot and without shoes, saying that a whipped man has no business to ride a horse, or to go where he would be seen by others. In this way, Aguirre followed his judge for three years, and four months.”

Wearying of the pursuit, Esquivel remained at Cuzco, a city so sternly governed that he felt he would be safe from Aguirre. He took a house near the cathedral and never ventured outdoors without a sword and a dagger.

“However, on a certain Monday, at noon, Aguirre entered his house, and having walked all over it, and having traversed a corridor, a saloon, a chamber, and an inner chamber where the judge kept his books, he at last found him asleep over one of his books, and stabbed him to death. The murderer then went out, but when he came to the door of the house, he found that he had forgotten his hat, and had the temerity to return and fetch it, and then walked down the street.”

-THE GOLDEN DREAM: SEEKERS OF EL DORADO, WALKER CHAPMAN, 1967

[2] The Hopelessly Insecure Man.

This man is related to the proud and arrogant type, but is less violent and harder to spot.

His ego is fragile, his sense of self insecure, and if he feels himself deceived or attacked, the hurt will simmer.

He will attack you in bites that will take forever to get big enough for you to notice.

If you find you have deceived or harmed such a man, disappear for a long time. Do not stay around him or he will nibble you to death.

[3] Mr. Suspicion.

Another variant on the breeds above, this is a future Joe Stalin.

He sees what he wants to see—usually the worst—in other people, and imagines that everyone is after him.

Mr. Suspicion is in fact the least dangerous of the three: Genuinely unbalanced, he is easy to deceive, just as Stalin himself was constantly deceived.

Play on his suspicious nature to get him to turn against other people. But if you do become the target of his suspicions, watch out.

[4] The Serpent with a Long Memory.

If hurt or deceived, this man will show no anger on the surface; he will calculate and wait.

Then, when he is in a position to turn the tables, he will exact a revenge marked by a cold-blooded shrewdness.

Recognize this man by his calculation and cunning in the different areas of his life.

He is usually cold and unaffectionate.

Be doubly careful of this snake, and if you have somehow injured him, either crush him completely or get him out of your sight.

[5] The Plain, Unassuming, and Often Unintelligent Man.

Ah, your ears prick up when you find such a tempting victim.

But this man is a lot harder to deceive than you imagine.

Falling for a ruse often takes intelligence and imagination—a sense of the possible rewards.

The blunt man will not take the bait because he does not recognize it.

He is that unaware.

The danger with this man is NOT that he will harm you or seek revenge, but merely that he will waste your time, energy, resources, and even your sanity in trying to deceive him.

Have a test ready for a mark—a joke, a story. If his reaction is utterly literal, this is the type you are dealing with.

Continue at your own risk.

TRANSGRESSIONS OF THE LAW

Transgression I

In the early part of the thirteenth century, Muhammad, the shah of Khwarezm, managed after many wars to forge a huge empire, extending west to present-day Turkey and south to Afghanistan. The empire’s center was the great Asian capital of Samarkand. The shah had a powerful, well-trained army, and could mobilize 200,000 warriors within days.

In 1219 Muhammad received an embassy from a new tribal leader to the east, Genghis Khan.

The embassy included all sorts of gifts to the great Muhammad, representing the finest goods from Khan’s small but growing Mongol empire. Genghis Khan wanted to reopen the Silk Route to Europe, and offered to share it with Muhammad, while promising peace between the two empires.

Muhammad did not know this upstart from the east, who, it seemed to him, was extremely arrogant to try to talk as an equal to one so clearly his superior.

He ignored Khan’s offer.

Khan tried again: This time he sent a caravan of a hundred camels filled with the rarest articles he had plundered from China. Before the caravan reached Muhammad, however, Inalchik, the governor of a region bordering on Samarkand, seized it for himself, and executed its leaders.

Genghis Khan was sure that this was a mistake—that Inalchik had acted without Muhammad’s approval.

He sent yet another mission to Muhammad, reiterating his offer and asking that the governor be punished. This time Muhammad himself had one of the ambassadors beheaded, and sent the other two back with shaved heads—a horrifying insult in the Mongol code of honor.

Khan sent a message to the shah: “You have chosen war. What will happen will happen, and what it is to be we know not; only God knows.”

Mobilizing his forces, in 1220 he attacked Inalchik’s province, where he seized the capital, captured the governor, and ordered him executed by having molten silver poured into his eyes and ears.

Over the next year, Khan led a series of guerrilla-like campaigns against the shah’s much larger army.

His method was totally novel for the time—his soldiers could move very fast on horseback, and had mastered the art of firing with bow and arrow while mounted.

The speed and flexibility of his forces allowed him to deceive Muhammad as to his intentions and the directions of his movements. Eventually he managed first to surround Samarkand, then to seize it.

Muhammad fled, and a year later died, his vast empire broken and destroyed. Genghis Khan was sole master of Samarkand, the Silk Route, and most of northern Asia.

Interpretation

Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are.

Some men are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor and their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme given their slowness to anger.

If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their offer ridiculous.

Never reject them with an insult until you know them better; you may be dealing with a Genghis Khan.

THE CROW AND THE SHEEP

A troublesome Crow seated herself on the back of a Sheep. 

The Sheep, much against his will, carried her backward and forward for a long time, and at last said, “If you had treated a dog in this way, you would have had your deserts from his sharp teeth.”

To this the Crow replied, “I despise the weak, and yield to the strong. I know whom I may bully, and whom I must flatter; and thus I hope to prolong my life to a good old age.

-FABLES, AESOP, SIXTH CENTURY B.C.

Transgression II

In the late 1910s some of the best swindlers in America formed a con-artist ring based in Denver, Colorado. In the winter months they would spread across the southern states, plying their trade. In 1920 Joe Furey, a leader of the ring, was working his way through Texas, making hundreds of thousands of dollars with classic con games.

Joe Furey
Joe Furey.

In Fort Worth, he met a sucker named J. Frank Norfleet, a cattleman who owned a large ranch.

Norfleet fell for the con.

Convinced of the riches to come, he emptied his bank account of $45,000 and handed it over to Furey and his confederates. A few days later they gave him his “millions,” which turned out to be a few good dollars wrapped around a packet of newspaper clippings.

Furey and his men had worked such cons a hundred times before, and the sucker was usually so embarrassed by his gullibility that he quietly learned his lesson and accepted the loss.

But Norfleet was not like other suckers.

He went to the police, who told him there was little they could do.

“Then I’ll go after those people myself,” Norfleet told the detectives. “I’ll get them, too, if it takes the rest of my life.”

His wife took over the ranch as Norfleet scoured the country, looking for others who had been fleeced in the same game. One such sucker came forward, and the two men identified one of the con artists in San Francisco, and managed to get him locked up.

The man committed suicide rather than face a long term in prison.

Norfleet kept going.

He tracked down another of the con artists in Montana, roped him like a calf, and dragged him through the muddy streets to the town jail.

He traveled not only across the country but to England, Canada, and Mexico in search of Joe Furey, and also of Furey’s right-hand man, W. B. Spencer.

Finding Spencer in Montreal, Norfleet chased him through the streets.

Spencer escaped but the rancher stayed on his trail and caught up with him in Salt Lake City. Preferring the mercy of the law to Norfleet’s wrath, Spencer turned himself in.

Norfleet found Furey in Jacksonville, Florida, and personally hauled him off to face justice in Texas.

But he wouldn’t stop there: He continued on to Denver, determined to break up the entire ring.

Spending not only large sums of money but another year of his life in the pursuit, he managed to put all of the con ring’s leaders behind bars. Even some he didn’t catch had grown so terrified of him that they too turned themselves in.

After five years of hunting, Norfleet had single-handedly destroyed the country’s largest confederation of con artists. The effort bankrupted him and ruined his marriage, but he died a satisfied man.

Interpretation

Most men accept the humiliation of being conned with a sense of resignation. They learn their lesson, recognizing that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and that they have usually been brought down by their own greed for easy money.

Some, however, refuse to take their medicine.

Instead of reflecting on their own gullibility and avarice, they see themselves as totally innocent victims.

Men like this may seem to be crusaders for justice and honesty, but they are actually immoderately insecure. Being fooled, being conned, has activated their self-doubt, and they are desperate to repair the damage.

Were the mortgage on Norfleet’s ranch, the collapse of his marriage, and the years of borrowing money and living in cheap hotels worth his revenge over his embarrassment at being fleeced?

To the Norfleets of the world, overcoming their embarrassment is worth any price.

All people have insecurities, and often the best way to deceive a sucker is to play upon his insecurities. But in the realm of power, everything is a question of degree, and the person who is decidedly more insecure than the average mortal presents great dangers.

Be warned: If you practice deception or trickery of any sort, study your mark well. Some people’s insecurity and ego fragility cannot tolerate the slightest offense. To see if you are dealing with such a type, test them first—make, say, a mild joke at their expense. A confident person will laugh; an overly insecure one will react as if personally insulted. If you suspect you are dealing with this type, find another victim.

Transgression III

In the fifth century B.C., Ch‘ung-erh, the prince of Ch’in (in present-day China), had been forced into exile.

He lived modestly—even, sometimes, in poverty—waiting for the time when he could return home and resume his princely life. Once he was passing through the state of Cheng, where the ruler, not knowing who he was, treated him rudely.

The ruler’s minister, Shu Chan, saw this and said, “This man is a worthy prince. May Your Highness treat him with great courtesy and thereby place him under an obligation!”

But the ruler, able to see only the prince’s lowly station, ignored this advice and insulted the prince again.

Shu Chan again warned his master, saying, “If Your Highness cannot treat Ch’ung-erh with courtesy, you should put him to death, to avoid calamity in the future.”

The ruler only scoffed.

Years later, the prince was finally able to return home, his circumstances greatly changed. He did not forget who had been kind to him, and who had been insolent, during his years of poverty.

Least of all did he forget his treatment at the hands of the ruler of Cheng.

At his first opportunity he assembled a vast army and marched on Cheng, taking eight cities, destroying the kingdom, and sending the ruler into an exile of his own.

Interpretation

You can never be sure who you are dealing with. A man who is of little importance and means today can be a person of power tomorrow. We forget a lot in our lives, but we rarely forget an insult.

How was the ruler of Cheng to know that Prince Ch’ung-erh was an ambitious, calculating, cunning type, a serpent with a long memory? There was really no way for him to know, you may say—but since there was no way, it would have been better not to tempt the fates by finding out. There is nothing to be gained by insulting a person unnecessarily. Swallow the impulse to offend, even if the other person seems weak. The satisfaction is meager compared to the danger that someday he or she will be in a position to hurt you.

Transgression IV

The year of 1920 had been a particularly bad one for American art dealers. Big buyers—the robber-baron generation of the previous century—were getting to an age where they were dying off like flies, and no new millionaires had emerged to take their place. Things were so bad that a number of the major dealers decided to pool their resources, an unheard-of event, since art dealers usually get along like cats and dogs.

Joseph Duveen, art dealer to the richest tycoons of America, was suffering more than the others that year, so he decided to go along with this alliance. The group now consisted of the five biggest dealers in the country. Looking around for a new client, they decided that their last best hope was Henry Ford, then the wealthiest man in America.

Ford had yet to venture into the art market, and he was such a big target that it made sense for them to work together.

The dealers decided to assemble a list, “The 100 Greatest Paintings in the World” (all of which they happened to have in stock), and to offer the lot of them to Ford. With one purchase he could make himself the world’s greatest collector.

The consortium worked for weeks to produce a magnificent object: a three-volume set of books containing beautiful reproductions of the paintings, as well as scholarly texts accompanying each picture. Next they made a personal visit to Ford at his home in Dearborn, Michigan.

There they were surprised by the simplicity of his house: Mr. Ford was obviously an extremely unaffected man.

Ford received them in his study.

Looking through the book, he expressed astonishment and delight. The excited dealers began imagining the millions of dollars that would shortly flow into their coffers. Finally, however, Ford looked up from the book and said, “Gentlemen, beautiful books like these, with beautiful colored pictures like these, must cost an awful lot!”

“But Mr. Ford!” exclaimed Duveen, “we don’t expect you to buy these books. We got them up especially for you, to show you the pictures. These books are a present to you.”

Ford seemed puzzled.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “it is extremely nice of you, but I really don’t see how I can accept a beautiful, expensive present like this from strangers.”

Duveen explained to Ford that the reproductions in the books showed paintings they had hoped to sell to him. Ford finally understood. “But gentlemen,” he exclaimed, “what would I want with the original pictures when the ones right here in these books are so beautiful?”

Interpretation

Joseph Duveen prided himself on studying his victims and clients in advance, figuring out their weaknesses and the peculiarities of their tastes before he ever met them.

He was driven by desperation to drop this tactic just once, in his assault on Henry Ford. It took him months to recover from his misjudgment, both mentally and monetarily.

Ford was the unassuming plain-man type who just isn’t worth the bother.

He was the incarnation of those literal-minded folk who do not possess enough imagination to be deceived. From then on, Duveen saved his energies for the Mellons and Morgans of the world—men crafty enough for him to entrap in his snares.

KEYS TO POWER

The ability to measure people and to know who you’re dealing with is the most important skill of all in gathering and conserving power.

Without it you are blind: Not only will you offend the wrong people, you will choose the wrong types to work on, and will think you are flattering people when you are actually insulting them.

Before embarking on any move, take the measure of your mark or potential opponent. Otherwise you will waste time and make mistakes.

Study people’s weaknesses, the chinks in their armor, their areas of both pride and insecurity. Know their ins and outs before you even decide whether or not to deal with them.

Two final words of caution: First, in judging and measuring your opponent, never rely on your instincts. You will make the greatest mistakes of all if you rely on such inexact indicators. Nothing can substitute for gathering concrete knowledge. Study and spy on your opponent for however long it takes; this will pay off in the long run.

Second, never trust appearances. Anyone with a serpent’s heart can use a show of kindness to cloak it; a person who is blustery on the outside is often really a coward. Learn to see through appearances and their contradictions. Never trust the version that people give of themselves—it is utterly unreliable.

Image: The Hunter.

He does not lay the same trap for a wolf as for a fox. He does not set bait where no one will take it. He knows his prey thoroughly, its habits and hideaways, and hunts accordingly.

Authority: Be convinced, that there are no persons so insignificant and inconsiderable, but may, some time or other, have it in their power to be of use to you; which they certainly will not, if you have once shown them contempt. Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it for ever. (Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773)

REVERSAL

What possible good can come from ignorance about other people? Learn to tell the lions from the lambs or pay the price. Obey this law to its fullest extent; it has no reversal—do not bother looking for one.

Principles of Law 19

In your quest for power, you can’t treat everyone the same way. According to Law 19 of the 48 Laws of Power, there are many different types of people, and you need to be able to recognize which type you’re dealing with and respond appropriately. 

Here are the five most dangerous types, most of whom you should avoid dealing with because it’s either a waste of time or it will come back and bite you. With these types especially, you should know who you’re dealing with.

  • Oversensitive and egotistical: Overreacts, often violently and disproportionately, to any perceived slight.
  • Insecure and fragile: Lets hurt feelings simmer, then attacks with small cuts that eventually add up.
  • Pathologically suspicious: Imagines everyone is after him. Like Stalin, genuinely unhinged but easy to fool. You can get him to turn against others, but take care that he doesn’t target you.
  • Cold and calculating: Doesn’t show anger when offended, but calculates the right moment for revenge and waits for it. He’s a snake — crush him rather than injuring him.
  • Slow-witted or literal: Lacks the intelligence and imagination (to envision potential rewards) to fall for a scheme. You’ll waste time trying to fool him. Test him by telling a joke to see if he gets it, or reacts literally. If the latter, move on to someone else.

To wield power it’s essential to be able to read people and know who you’re dealing with. If you don’t understand your targets — choosing the wrong person or doing the wrong thing — you’ll waste time at best. At worst, you bring trouble on yourself, for instance, by insulting people when you think you’re flattering them, or by triggering their insecurity. This is essential to understand when following Law 19 of the 48 Laws of Power.

Before dealing with someone, do your research. Never trust your instincts, or trust appearances. People can easily hide their true nature. Do not offend the wrong person.

Putting Law 19 to Work

Here are just a few of the many examples of how not to apply Law 19 of the 48 Laws of Power. These people underestimated or failed to understand their opponents. They did not follow Law 19: Know Who You’re Dealing With—Do Not Offend the Wrong Person.

  • Oversensitive and egotistical: A powerful shah who had a huge empire dissed Genghis Khan by ignoring his offers of an alliance, and was destroyed. His mistake was assuming that Genghis Khan was weaker than he, and he rejected his overtures with insults. Khan turned out to be both sensitive to insults and extremely powerful.
  • Oversensitive and egotistical: In 1910 there was a con artist ring operating out of Denver, led by Joe Furey. Furey suckered a Texas rancher into giving up a fortune. But unlike most suckers in Furey’s experience, he didn’t just slink away quietly in embarrassment. He set out to take down Furey and the entire con artist ring, a feat that took him five years and great expense. Furey didn’t understand that he was dealing with an insecure man who wouldn’t tolerate offense.
  • Literal: Because he was a simple man who took things literally, Henry Ford stymied a consortium of art dealers who tried to sell him a collection of 1,000 paintings. To whet his appetite for the works, the dealers created a beautiful book of the paintings, which they presented to Ford as a gift. His response was to question why he should buy the paintings, when he had a book that depicted them so beautifully. Because the dealers hadn’t done their homework, they wasted their time and money dealing with an immovable target.

Conclusion

I would advise that you remain kind and neutral to everyone that you meet. I strongly suggest that you put the ideas of “winning” or “conquering” over others under advisement, instead, I urge you to try to work with people in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Unfortunately, this is not always possible. There will come times when you are dealing with people that have their own agendas, their own ways of doing things, and their own objectives.

Such is the case when Donald Trump instigated the “Trade War” against China in 2016 which pretty much lasted throughout his entire term. And while China assumed that Trump wanted a Win-Win situation, the truth was that he desired a Lose-Lose situation and did everything in his power to make sure that China would lose more than America would.

It didn’t work out that way.

Why?

Because the intel that Donald Trump and Pompeo was getting on China was not only incorrect, but it was dangerously inaccurate, outdated, and colored with a bias that did not factually exist. And no matter what Donald Trump threw at China, they simply stepped to the side and continued their life unimpeded.

Currently, the conservative neocons are advising for a “hot war” scenario. As it is the only remaining course of action. To which I must respond with the statement from Law 19…

The highest form of the art of power is the ability to distinguish the wolves from the lambs, the foxes from the hares, the hawks from the vultures. If you make this distinction well, you will succeed without needing to coerce anyone too much. But if you deal blindly with whomever crosses your path, you will have a life of constant sorrow...

... if you even live that long.

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