he miraculous prophet. In the year 1425, Joan of Arc, a peasant girl from the French village of Domrémy, had her first vision: "I was in my thirteenth year when God sent a voice to guide me." The voice was that of Saint Michael and he came with a message from God: Joan had been cho-sen to rid France of the English invaders who now ruled most of the country, and of the resulting chaos and war. She was also to restore the French crown to the prince—the Dauphin, later Charles VII—who was its rightful heir. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret also spoke to Joan. Her visions were extraordinarily vivid: she saw Saint Michael, touched him, smelled him.

At first Joan told no one what she had seen; for all anyone knew, she was a quiet farm girl. But the visions became even more intense, and so in 1429 she left Domrémy, determined to realize the mission for which God had chosen her. Her goal was to meet Charles in the town of Chinon, where he had established his court in exile. The obstacles were enor-mous: Chinon was far, the journey was dangerous, and Charles, even if she reached him, was a lazy and cowardly young man who was unlikely to cru-sade against the English. Undaunted, she moved from village to village, ex-plaining her mission to soldiers and asking them to escort her to Chinon. Young girls with religious visions were a dime a dozen at the time, and there was nothing in Joan's appearance to inspire confidence; one soldier, however, Jean de Metz, was intrigued with her. What fascinated him was the detail of her visions: she would liberate the besieged town of Orléans, have the king crowned at the cathedral in Reims, lead the army to Paris; she knew how she would be wounded, and where; the words she attributed to Saint Michael were quite unlike the language of a farm girl; and she was so calmly confident, she glowed with conviction. De Metz fell under her spell. He swore allegiance and set out with her for Chinon. Soon others of-fered assistance, too, and word reached Charles of the strange young girl on her way to meet him.

On the 350-mile road to Chinon, accompanied only by a handful of soldiers, through a land infested with warring bands, Joan showed neither fear nor hesitation. The journey took several months. When she finally ar-rived, the Dauphin decided to meet the girl who had promised to restore him to his throne, despite the advice of his counselors; but he was bored, and wanted amusement, and decided to play a trick on her. She was to meet him in a hall packed with courtiers; to test her prophetic powers, he disguised himself as one of these men, and dressed another man as the prince. Yet when Joan arrived, to the amazement of the crowd, she walked straight up to Charles and curtseyed: "The King of Heaven sends me to you with the message that you shall be the lieutenant of the King of Heaven, who is the king of France." In the talk that followed, Joan seemed to echo Charles's most private thoughts, while once again recounting in extraordinary detail the feats she would accomplish. Days later, this indeci-sive, flighty man declared himself convinced and gave her his blessing to lead a French army against the English.

Miracles and saintliness aside, Joan of Arc had certain basic qualities that made her exceptional. Her visions were intense; she could describe them in such detail that they had to be real. Details have that effect: they lend a sense of reality to even the most preposterous statements. Furthermore, in a time of great disorder, she was supremely focused, as if her strength came from somewhere unworldly. She spoke with authority, and she predicted things people wanted: the English would be defeated, prosperity would re-turn. She also had a peasant's earthy common sense. She had surely heard descriptions of Charles on the road to Chinon; once at court, she could have sensed the trick he was playing on her, and could have confidently

picked out his pampered face in the crowd. The following year, her visions

abandoned her, and her confidence as well—she made many mistakes,

leading to her capture by the English. She was indeed human.

We may no longer believe in miracles, but anything that hints at

strange, unworldly, even supernatural powers will create charisma. The psy-

chology is the same: you have visions of the future, and of the wondrous

things you can accomplish. Describe these things in great detail, with an air

of authority, and suddenly you stand out. And if your prophecy—of pros-

perity, say—is just what people want to hear, they are likely to fall under

your spell and to see later events as a confirmation of your predictions. Ex-

hibit remarkable confidence and people will think your confidence comes

from real knowledge. You will create a self-fulfilling prophecy: people's be-

lief in you will translate into actions that help realize your visions. Any hint

of success will make them see miracles, uncanny powers, the glow of

charisma.

The authentic animal. One day in 1905, the St. Petersburg salon of

Countess Ignatiev was unusually full. Politicians, society ladies, and courtiers

had all arrived early to await the remarkable guest of honor: Grigori Efi-

movich Rasputin, a forty-year-old Siberian monk who had made a name

for himself throughout Russia as a healer, perhaps a saint. When Rasputin

arrived, few could disguise their disappointment: his face was ugly, his hair

was stringy, he was gangly and awkward. They wondered why they had

come. But then Rasputin approached them one by one, wrapping his big

hands around their fingers and gazing deep into their eyes. At first his gaze

was unsettling: as he looked them up and down, he seemed to be probing

and judging them. Yet suddenly his expression would change, and kindness,

joy, and understanding would radiate from his face. Several of the ladies he

actually hugged, in a most effusive manner. This startling contrast had pro-

found effects.

The mood in the salon soon changed from disappointment to excite-

ment. Rasputin's voice was so calm and deep; his language was coarse, yet

the ideas it expressed were delightfully simple, and had the ring of great

spiritual truth. Then, just as the guests were beginning to relax with this

dirty-looking peasant, his mood suddenly changed to anger: "I know you,

I can read your souls. You are all too pampered.... These fine clothes and

arts of yours are useless and pernicious. Men must learn to humble them-

selves! You must be simpler, far, far simpler. Only then will God come

nearer to you." The monk's face grew animated, his pupils expanded, he

looked completely different. How impressive that angry look was, recalling

Jesus throwing the moneylenders from the temple. Now Rasputin calmed

down, returned to being gracious, but the guests already saw him as some-

one strange and remarkable. Next, in a performance he would soon repeat in salons throughout the city, he led the guests in a folk song, and as they sang, he began to dance, a strange uninhibited dance of his own design, and as he danced, he circled the most attractive women there, and with his eyes invited them to join him. The dance turned vaguely sexual; as his partners fell under his spell, he whispered suggestive comments in their ears. Yet none of them seemed to be offended.

Over the next few months, women from every level of St. Petersburg society visited Rasputin in his apartment. He would talk to them of spiri-tual matters, but then without warning he would turn sexual, murmuring the crassest come-ons. He would justify himself through spiritual dogma: how can you repent if you have not sinned? Salvation only comes to those who go astray. One of the few who rejected his advances was asked by a friend, "How can one refuse anything to a saint?" "Does a saint need sinful love?" she replied. Her friend said, "He makes everything that comes near him holy. I have already belonged to him, and I am proud and happy to have done so." "But you are married! What does your husband say?" "He considers it a very great honor. If Rasputin desires a woman we all think it a blessing and a distinction, our husbands as well as ourselves."

Rasputin's spell soon extended over Czar Nicholas and more particu-larly over his wife, the Czarina Alexandra, after he apparently healed their son from a life-threatening injury. Within a few years, he had become the most powerful man in Russia, with total sway over the royal couple.

People are more complicated than the masks they wear in society. The man who seems so noble and gentle is probably disguising a dark side, which will often come out in strange ways; if his nobility and refinement are in fact a put-on, sooner or later the truth will out, and his hypocrisy will dis-appoint and alienate. On the other hand, we are drawn to people who seem more comfortably human, who do not bother to disguise their con-tradictions. This was the source of Rasputin's charisma. A man so authenti-cally himself, so devoid of self-consciousness or hypocrisy, was immensely appealing. His wickedness and saintliness were so extreme that it made him seem larger than life. The result was a charismatic aura that was immediate and preverbal; it radiated from his eyes, and from the touch of his hands.

Most of us are a mix of the devil and the saint, the noble and the igno-ble, and we spend our lives trying to repress the dark side. Few of us can give free rein to both sides, as Rasputin did, but we can create charisma to a smaller degree by ridding ourselves of self-consciousness, and of the dis-comfort most of us feel about our complicated natures. You cannot help being the way you are, so be genuine. That is what attracts us to animals: beautiful and cruel, they have no self-doubt. That quality is doubly fasci-nating in humans. Outwardly people may condemn your dark side, but it is not virtue alone that creates charisma; anything extraordinary will do. Do not apologize or go halfway. The more unbridled you seem, the more mag-netic the effect.

The demonic performer. Throughout his childhood Elvis Presley was

thought a strange boy who kept pretty much to himself. In high school in

Memphis, Tennessee, he attracted attention with his pompadoured hair and

sideburns, his pink and black clothing, but people who tried to talk to him

found nothing there—he was either terribly bland or hopelessly shy. At the

high school prom, he was the only boy who didn't dance. He seemed lost

in a private world, in love with the guitar he took everywhere. At the Ellis

Auditorium, at the end of an evening of gospel music or wrestling, the

concessions manager would often find Elvis onstage, miming a perfor-

mance and taking bows before an imaginary audience. Asked to leave, he

would quietly walk away. He was a very polite young man.

In 1953, just out of high school, Elvis recorded his first song, in a local

studio. The record was a test, a chance for him to hear his own voice. A year later the owner of the studio, Sam Phillips, called him in to record two blues songs with a couple of professional musicians. They worked for hours, but nothing seemed to click; Elvis was nervous and inhibited. Then, near the end of the evening, giddy with exhaustion, he suddenly let loose and started to jump around like a child, in a moment of complete self-abandon. The other musicians joined in, the song getting wilder and wilder. Phillips's eyes lit up—he had something here.

A month later Elvis gave his first public performance, outdoors in a Memphis park. He was as nervous as he had been at the recording session, and could only stutter when he had to speak; but once he broke into song, the words came out. The crowd responded excitedly, rising to peaks at certain moments. Elvis couldn't figure out why. "I went over to the man-ager after the song," he later said, "and I asked him what was making the crowd go nuts. He told me, 'I'm not really sure, but I think that every time you wiggle your left leg, they start to scream. Whatever it is, just don't stop.'

A single Elvis recorded in 1954 became a hit. Soon he was in demand. Going onstage filled him with anxiety and emotion, so much so that he became a different person, as if possessed. "I've talked to some singers and they get a little nervous, but they say their nerves kind of settle down after they get into it. Mine never do. It's sort of this energy... something maybe like sex." Over the next few months he discovered more gestures and sounds—twitching dance movements, a more tremulous voice—that made the crowds go crazy, particularly teenage girls. Within a year he had become the hottest musician in America. His concerts were exercises in mass hysteria.

Elvis Presley had a dark side, a secret life. (Some have attributed it to the death, at birth, of his twin brother.) This dark side he deeply repressed as a young man; it included all kinds of fantasies which he could only give in to when he was alone, although his unconventional clothing may also have been a symptom of it. When he performed, though, he was able to let these demons loose. They came out as a dangerous sexual power. Twitch-

ing, androgynous, uninhibited, he was a man enacting strange fantasies be-fore the public. The audience sensed this and was excited by it. It wasn't a flamboyant style and appearance that gave Elvis charisma, but rather the electrifying expression of his inner turmoil.

A crowd or group of any sort has a unique energy. Just below the sur-face is desire, a constant sexual excitement that has to be repressed because it is socially unacceptable. If you have the ability to rouse those desires, the crowd will see you as having charisma. The key is learning to access your own unconscious, as Elvis did when he let go. You are full of an excite-ment that seems to come from some mysterious inner source. Your unin-hibitedness will invite other people to open up, sparking a chain reaction: their excitement in turn will animate you still more. The fantasies you bring to the surface do not have to be sexual—any social taboo, anything repressed and yearning for an outlet, will suffice. Make this felt in your recordings, your artwork, your books. Social pressure keeps people so re-pressed that they will be attracted to your charisma before they have even met you in person.

The Savior. In March of 1917, the Russian parliament forced the coun-try's ruler, Czar Nicholas, to abdicate and established a provisional govern-ment. Russia was in rums. Its participation in World War I had been a disaster; famine was spreading widely, the vast countryside was riven by looting and lynch law, and soldiers were deserting from the army en masse. Politically the country was bitterly divided; the main factions were the right, the social democrats, and the left-wing revolutionaries, and each of these groups was itself afflicted by dissension.

Into this chaos came the forty-seven-year-old Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. A Marxist revolutionary, the leader of the Bolshevik Communist party, he had suffered a twelve-year exile in Europe until, recognizing the chaos overcoming Russia as the chance he had long been waiting for, he had hur-ried back home. Now he called for the country to end its participation in the war and for an immediate socialist revolution. In the first weeks after his arrival, nothing could have seemed more ridiculous. As a man, Lenin looked unimpressive; he was short and plain-featured. He had also spent years away in Europe, isolated from his people and immersed in reading and intellectual argument. Most important, his party was small, representing only a splinter group within the loosely organized left coalition. Few took him seriously as a national leader.

Undaunted, Lenin went to work. Wherever he went, he repeated the same simple message: end the war, establish the rule of the proletariat, abolish private property, redistribute wealth. Exhausted with the nation's endless political infighting and the complexity of its problems, people be-gan to listen. Lenin was so determined, so confident. He never lost his cool. In the midst of a raucous debate, he would simply and logically de-bunk each one of his adversaries' points. Workers and soldiers were impressed by his firmness. Once, in the midst of a brewing riot, Lenin amazed his chauffeur by jumping onto the running board of his car and directing the way through the crowd, at considerable personal risk. Told that his ideas had nothing to do with reality, he would answer, "So much the worse for reality!"

Allied to Lenin's messianic confidence in his cause was his ability to or-ganize. Exiled in Europe, his party had been scattered and diminished; in keeping them together he had developed immense practical skills. In front of a large crowd, he was a also powerful orator. His speech at the First All-Russian Soviet Congress made a sensation; either revolution or a bourgeois government, he cried, but nothing in between—enough of this compro-mise in which the left was sharing. At a time when other politicians were scrambling desperately to adapt to the national crisis, and seemed weak in the process, Lenin was rock stable. His prestige soared, as did the member-ship of the Bolshevik party

Most astounding of all was Lenin's effect on workers, soldiers, and peas-ants. He would address these common people wherever he found them—in the street, standing on a chair, his thumbs in his lapel, his speech an odd mix of ideology, peasant aphorisms, and revolutionary slogans. They would listen, enraptured. When Lenin died, in 1924—seven years after single-handedly opening the way to the October Revolution of 1917, which had swept him and the Bolsheviks into power—these same ordinary Russians went into mourning. They worshiped at his tomb, where his body was preserved on view; they told stories about him, developing a body of Lenin folklore; thousands of newborn girls were christened "Ninel," Lenin spelled backwards. This cult of Lenin assumed religious proportions.

There all kinds of misconceptions about charisma, which, paradoxically, only add to its mystique. Charisma has little to do with an exciting physical appearance or a colorful personality, qualities that elicit short—term interest. Particularly in times of trouble, people are not looking for entertainment— they want security, a better quality of life, social cohesion. Believe it or not, a plain-looking man or woman with a clear vision, a quality of single-mindedness, and practical skills can be devastatingly charismatic, provided it is matched with some success. Never underestimate the power of success in enhancing one's aura. But in a world teeming with compromisers and fudgers whose indecisiveness only creates more disorder, one clear-minded soul will be a magnet of attention—will have charisma.

One on one, or in a Zurich cafe before the revolution, Lenin had little or no charisma. (His confidence was attractive, but many found his strident manner irritating.) He won charisma when he was seen as the man who could save the country. Charisma is not a mysterious quality that inhabits you outside your control; it is an illusion in the eyes of those who see you as having what they lack. Particularly in times of trouble, you can enhance that illusion through calmness, resolution, and clear-minded practicality. It also helps to have a seductively simple message. Call it the Savior Syn-

The Charismatic • 109

drome: once people imagine you can save them from chaos, they will fall in love with you, like a person who melts in the arms of his or her rescuer. And mass love equals charisma. How else to explain the love ordinary Rus-sians felt for a man as emotionless and unexciting as Vladimir Lenin.

The guru. According to the beliefs of the Theosophical Society, every two thousand years or so the spirit of the World Teacher, Lord Maitreya, inhab-its the body of a human. First there was Sri Krishna, born two thousand years before Christ; then there was Jesus himself; and at the start of the twentieth century another incarnation was due. One day in 1909, the theosophist Charles Leadbeater saw a boy on an Indian beach and had an epiphany: this fourteen-year-old lad, Jiddu Krishnamurti, would be the World Teacher's next vehicle. Leadbeater was struck by the simplicity of the boy, who seemed to lack the slightest trace of selfishness. The members of the Theosophical Society agreed with his assessment and adopted this scraggly underfed youth, whose teachers had repeatedly beaten him for stu-pidity. They fed and clothed him and began his spiritual instruction. The scruffy urchin turned into a devilishly handsome young man.

In 1911, the theosophists formed the Order of the Star in the East, a group intended to prepare the way for the coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti was made head of the order. He was taken to England, where his education continued, and everywhere he went he was pampered and revered. His air of simplicity and contentment could not help but impress.

Soon Krishnamurti began to have visions. In 1922 he declared, "I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated." Over the next few years he had psychic experiences that the theosophists interpreted as visits from the World Teacher. But Krishnamurti had actually had a different kind of revelation: the truth of the universe came from within. No god, no guru, no dogma could ever make one realize it. He himself was no god or messiah, but just another man. The reverence that he was treated with disgusted him. In 1929, much to his followers' shock, he disbanded the Order of the Star and resigned from the Theosophical Society.

And so Krishnamurti became a philosopher, determined to spread the truth he had discovered: you must be simple, removing the screen of lan-guage and past experience. Through these means anyone could attain con-tentment of the kind that radiated from Krishnamurti. The theosophists abandoned him but his following grew larger than ever. In California, where he spent much of his time, the interest in him verged on cultic ado-ration. The poet Robinson Jeffers said that whenever Krishnamurti entered a room you could feel a brightness filling the space. The writer Aldous Huxley met him in Los Angeles and fell under his spell. Hearing him speak, he wrote: "It was like listening to the discourse of the Buddha— such power, such intrinsic authority." The man radiated enlightenment. The actor John Barrymore asked him to play the role of Buddha in a film. (Krishnamurti politely declined.) When he visited India, hands would reach out from the crowd to try to touch him through the open car win-dow. People prostrated themselves before him.

Repulsed by all this adoration, Krishnamurti grew more and more de-tached. He even talked about himself in the third person. In fact, the ability to disengage from one's past and view the world anew was part of his phi-losophy, yet once again the effect was the opposite of what he expected: the affection and reverence people felt for him only grew. His followers fought jealously for signs of his favor. Women in particular fell deeply in love with him, although he was a lifelong celibate.

Krishnamurti had no desire to be a guru or a Charismatic, but he inadver-

tently discovered a law of human psychology that disturbed him. People do

not want to hear that your power comes from years of effort or discipline.

They prefer to think that it comes from your personality, your character,

something you were born with. They also hope that proximity to the guru

or Charismatic will make some of that power rub off on them. They did

not want to have to read Krishnamurti's books, or to spend years practicing

his lessons—they simply wanted to be near him, soak up his aura, hear him

speak, feel the light that entered the room with him. Krishnamurti advo-

cated simplicity as a way of opening up to the truth, but his own simplicity

just allowed people to see what they wanted in him, attributing powers to

him that he not only denied but ridiculed.

This is the guru effect, and it is surprisingly simple to create. The aura

you are after is not the fiery one of most Charismatics, but one of incan-

descence, enlightenment. An enlightened person has understood some-

thing that makes him or her content, and this contentment radiates outward.

That is the appearance you want: you do not need anything or anyone, you

are fulfilled. People are naturally drawn to those who emit happiness;

maybe they can catch it from you. The less obvious you are, the better: let

people conclude that you are happy, rather than hearing it from you. Let

them see it in your unhurried manner, your gentle smile, your ease and

comfort. Keep your words vague, letting people imagine what they will.

Remember: being aloof and distant only stimulates the effect. People

will fight for the slightest sign of your interest. A guru is content and

detached—a deadly Charismatic combination.

The drama saint. It began on the radio. Throughout the late 1930s and

early 1940s, Argentine women would hear the plaintive, musical voice of

Eva Duarte in one of the lavishly produced soap operas that were so popular at the time. She never made you laugh, but how often she could make you cry—with the complaints of a betrayed lover, or the last words of Marie Antoinette. The very thought of her voice made you shiver with emotion. And she was pretty, with her flowing blond hair and her serious face, which was often on the covers of the gossip magazines.In 1943, those magazines published a most exciting story: Eva had begun an affair with one of the most dashing men in the new military government, Colonel Juan Perón. Now Argentines heard her doing propa-ganda spots for the government, lauding the "New Argentina" that glis-tened in the future. And finally, this fairy tale story reached its perfect conclusion: in 1945 Juan and Eva married, and the following year, the handsome colonel, after many trials and tribulations (including a spell in prison, from which he was freed by the efforts of his devoted wife) was elected president. He was a champion of thedescamisados—the"shirtless ones," the workers and the poor, just as his wife was. Only twenty-six at the time, she had grown up in poverty herself.

Now that this star was the first lady of the republic, she seemed to change. She lost weight, most definitely; her outfits became less flamboy-ant, even downright austere; and that beautiful flowing hair was now pulled back, rather severely. It was a shame—the young star had grown up. But as Argentines saw more of the new Evita, as she was now known, her new look affected them more strongly. It was the look of a saintly, serious woman, one who was indeed what her husband called the "Bridge of Love" between himself and his people. She was now on the radio all the time, and listening to her was as emotional as ever, but she also spoke mag-nificently in public. Her voice was lower and her delivery slower; she stabbed the air with her fingers, reached out as if to touch the audience. And her words pierced you to the core: "I left my dreams by the wayside in order to watch over the dreams of others.... I now place my soul at the side of the soul of my people. I offer them all my energies so that my body may be a bridge erected toward the happiness of all. Pass over it... toward the supreme destiny of the new fatherland."

It was no longer only through magazines and the radio that Evita made herself felt. Almost everyone was personally touched by her in some way. Everyone seemed to know someone who had met her, or who had visited her in her office, where a line of supplicants wound its way through the hallways to her door. Behind her desk she sat, so calm and full of love. Film crews recorded her acts of charity: to a woman who had lost everything, Evita would give a house; to one with a sick child, free care in the finest hospital. She worked so hard, no wonder rumor had it that she was ill. And everyone heard of her visits to the shanty towns and to hospitals for the poor, where, against the wishes of her staff, she would kiss people with all kinds of maladies (lepers, syphilitic men, etc.) on the cheek. Once an assis-tant appalled by this habit tried to dab Evita's lips with alcohol, to sterilize them. This saint of a woman grabbed the bottle and smashed it against the wall.

Yes, Evita was a saint, a living madonna. Her appearance alone could heal the sick. And when she died of cancer, in 1952, no outsider to Ar-gentina could possibly understand the sense of grief and loss she left be-hind. For some, the country never recovered.

As for me, I have the gift of electrifying men.

— N A P O L E ON BONAPARTE, IN PIETER GEYL, NAPOLEON: FOR

AND AGAINST

I do not pretend to be a divine man, but I do believe in divine guidance, divine power, and divine prophecy. I am not educated, nor am I an expert in any particular field—but I am sincere and my sincerity is my credentials.

— M A L C O L M X, QUOTED IN EUGENE VICTORWOLFENSTEIN,

THE VICTIMS OF DEMOCRACY:

MALCOLM X AND THIS BLACK

REVOLUTION

* * *

112 • The Art of Seduction

Most of us live in a semi-somnambulistic state: we do our daily tasks and the days fly by. The two exceptions to this are childhood and those mo-ments when we are in love. In both cases, our emotions are more engaged, more open and active. And we equate feeling emotional with feeling more alive. A public figure who can affect people's emotions, who can make them feel communal sadness, joy, or hope, has a similar effect. An appeal to the emotions is far more powerful than an appeal to reason.

Eva Perón knew this power early on, as a radio actress. Her tremulous voice could make audiences weep; because of this, people saw in her great charisma. She never forgot the experience. Her every public act was framed in dramatic and religious motifs. Drama is condensed emotion, and the Catholic religion is a force that reaches into your childhood, hits you where you cannot help yourself. Evita's uplifted arms, her staged acts of charity, her sacrifices for the common folk—all this went straight to the heart. It was not her goodness alone that was charismatic, although the appear-ance of goodness is alluring enough. It was her ability to dramatize her goodness.

You must learn to exploit the two great purveyors of emotion: drama and religion. Drama cuts out the useless and banal in life, focusing on mo-ments of pity and terror; religion deals with matters of life and death. Make your charitable actions dramatic, give your loving words religious import, bathe everything in rituals and myths going back to childhood. Caught up in the emotions you stir, people will see over your head the halo of charisma.

The deliverer. In Harlem in the early 1950s, few African-Americans knew much about the Nation of Islam, or ever stepped into its temple. The Na-tion preached that white people were descended from the devil and that someday Allah would liberate the black race. This doctrine had little mean-ing for Harlemites, who went to church for spiritual solace and turned in practical matters to their local politicians. But in 1954, a new minister for the Nation of Islam arrived in Harlem.

The minister's name was Malcolm X, and he was well-read and elo-quent, yet his gestures and words were angry. Word spread: whites had lynched Malcolm's father. He had grown up in a juvenile facility, then had survived as a small-time hustler before being arrested for burglary and spending six years in prison. His short life (he was only twenty—nine at the time) had been one long run-in with the law, yet look at him now—so confident and educated. No one had helped him; he had done it all on his own. Harlemites began to see Malcolm X everywhere, handing out fliers, addressing the young. He would stand outside their churches, and as the congregation dispersed, he would point to the preacher and say, "He repre-sents the white man's god; I represent the black man's god." The curious began to come to hear him preach at a Nation of Islam temple. He would ask them to look at the actual conditions of their lives: "When you get

The Charismatic • 113

through looking at where you live, then... take a walk across Central Park," he would tell them. "Look at the white man's apartments. Look at his Wall Street!" His words were powerful, particularly coming from a minister.

In 1957, a young Muslim in Harlem witnessed the beating of a drunken black man by several policemen. When the Muslim protested, the police pummeled him senseless and carted him off to jail. An angry crowd gathered outside the police station, ready to riot. Told that only Malcolm X could forestall violence, the police commissioner brought him in and told him to break up the mob. Malcolm refused. Speaking more temperately, the commissioner begged him to reconsider. Malcolm calmly set conditions for his cooperation: medical care for the beaten Muslim, and proper punishment for the police officers. The commissioner reluctantly agreed. Outside the station, Malcolm explained the agreement and the crowd dispersed. In Harlem and around the country, he was an overnight hero— finally a man who took action. Membership in his temple soared.

Malcolm began to speak all over the United States. He never read from a text; looking out at the audience, he made eye contact, pointed his finger. His anger was obvious, not so much in his tone—he was always controlled and articulate—as in his fierce energy, the veins popping out on his neck. Many earlier black leaders had used cautious words, and had asked their fol-lowers to deal patiently and politely with their social lot, no matter how unfair. What a relief Malcolm was. He ridiculed the racists, he ridiculed the liberals, he ridiculed the president; no white person escaped his scorn. If whites were violent, Malcolm said, the language of violence should be spoken back to them, for it was the only language they understood. "Hos-tility is good!" he cried out. "It's been bottled up too long." In response to the growing popularity of the nonviolent leader Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm said, "Anybody can sit. An old woman can sit. A coward can sit.... It takes a man to stand."

Malcolm X had a bracing effect on many who felt the same anger he did but were frightened to express it. At his funeral—he was assassinated in 1965, at one of his speeches—the actor Ossie Davis delivered the eulogy before a large and emotional crowd: "Malcolm," he said, "was our own black shining prince."

Malcolm X was a Charismatic of Moses' kind: he was a deliverer. The power of this sort of Charismatic comes from his or her expression of dark emotions that have built up over years of oppression. In doing so, the deliv-erer provides an opportunity for the release of bottled-up emotions by other people—of the hostility masked by forced politeness and smiles. De-liverers have to be one of the suffering crowd, only more so: their pain must be exemplary. Malcolm's personal history was an integral part of his charisma. His lesson—that blacks should help themselves, not wait for whites to lift them up—meant a great deal more because of his own years in prison, and because he had followed his own doctrine by educating him-

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self, lifting himself up from the bottom. The deliverer must be a living ex-ample of personal redemption.

The essence of charisma is an overpowering emotion that communi-cates itself in your gestures, In your tone of voice, in subtle signs that are the more powerful for being unspoken. You feel something more deeply than others, and no emotion is more powerful and more capable of creating a charismatic reaction than hatred, particularly if it comes from deep-rooted feelings of oppression. Express what others are afraid to express and they will see great power in you. Say what they want to say but cannot. Never be afraid of going too far. If you represent a release from oppression, you have the leeway to go still farther. Moses spoke of violence, of destroy-ing every last one of his enemies. Language like this brings the oppressed together and makes them feel more alive. This is not, however, something that is uncontrollable on your part. Malcolm X felt rage from early on, but only in prison did he teach himself the art of oratory, and how to channel his emotions. Nothing is more charismatic than the sense that someone is struggling with great emotion rather than simply giving in to it.

The Olympian actor. On January 24, 1960 an insurrection broke out in Algeria, then still a French colony. Led by right-wing French soldiers, its purpose was to forestall the proposal of President Charles de Gaulle to grant Algeria the right of self-determination. If necessary, the insurrection-ists would take over Algeria in the name of France.

For several tense days, the seventy-year-old de Gaulle maintained a strange silence. Then on January 29, at eight in the evening, he appeared on French national television. Before he had uttered a word, the audience was astonished, for he wore his old uniform from World War II, a uniform that everyone recognized and that created a strong emotional response. De Gaulle had been the hero of the resistance, the savior of the country at its darkest moment. But that uniform had not been seen for quite some time. Then de Gaulle spoke, reminding his public, in his cool and confident manner, of all they had accomplished together in liberating France from the Germans. Slowly he moved from these charged patriotic issues to the rebellion in Algeria, and the affront it presented to the spirit of the libera-tion. He finished his address by repeating his famous words of June 18, 1940: "Once again I call all Frenchmen, wherever they are, whatever they

are, to reunite with France. Vive la République! Vive la France!"

The speech had two purposes. It showed that de Gaulle was deter-mined not to give an inch to the rebels, and it reached for the heart of all patriotic Frenchmen, particularly in the army. The insurrection quickly died, and no one doubted the connection between its failure and de Gaulle's performance on television.

The following year, the French voted overwhelmingly in favor of Al-gerian self-determination. On April 11, 1961, de Gaulle gave a press con-ference in which he made it clear that France would soon grant the

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country full independence. Eleven days later, French generals in Algeria is-sued a communique stating that they had taken over the country and de-claring a state of siege. This was the most dangerous moment of all: faced with Algeria's imminent independence, these right-wing generals would go all the way. A civil war could break out, toppling de Gaulle's government.

The following night, de Gaulle appeared once again on television, once again wearing his old uniform. He mocked the generals, comparing them to a South American junta. He talked calmly and sternly. Then, suddenly, at the very end of the address, his voice rose and even trembled as he called out to the audience: "Françaises, Français, aidez-moi!" ("Frenchwomen, Frenchmen, help me!") It was the most stirring moment of all his televi-sion appearances. French soldiers in Algeria, listening on transistor radios, were overwhelmed. The next day they held a mass demonstration in favor of de Gaulle. Two days later the generals surrendered. On July 1, 1962, de Gaulle proclaimed Algeria's independence.

In 1940, after the German invasion of France, de Gaulle escaped to En-gland to recruit an army that would eventually return to France for the lib-eration. At the beginning, he was alone, and his mission seemed hopeless. But he had the support of Winston Churchill, and with Churchill's blessing he gave a series of radio talks that the BBC broadcast to France. His strange, hypnotic voice, with its dramatic tremolos, would enter French liv-ing rooms in the evenings. Few of his listeners even knew what he looked like, but his tone was so confident, so stirring, that he recruited a silent army of believers. In person, de Gaulle was a strange, brooding man whose confident manner could just as easily irritate as win over. But over the radio that voice had intense charisma. De Gaulle was the first great master of modern media, for he easily transferred his dramatic skills to television, where his iciness, his calmness, his total self-possession, made audiences feel both comforted and inspired.

The world has grown more fractured. A nation no longer conies to-gether on the streets or in the squares; it is brought together in living rooms, where people watching television all over the country can simulta-neously be alone and with others. Charisma must now be communicable over the airwaves or it has no power. But it is in some ways easier to project on television, both because television makes a direct one-on-one appeal (the Charismatic seems to address you) and because charisma is fairly easy to fake for the few moments you spend in front of the camera. As de Gaulle understood, when appearing on television it is best to radiate calmness and control, to use dramatic effects sparingly. De Gaulle's overall iciness made doubly effective the brief moments in which he raised his voice, or let loose a biting joke. By remaining calm and underplaying it, he hypnotized his audience. (Your face can express much more if your voice is less stri-dent.) He conveyed emotion visually—the uniform, the setting—and through the use of certain charged words: the liberation, Joan of Arc. The less he strained for effect, the more sincere he appeared.

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All this must be carefully orchestrated. Punctuate your calmness with surprises; rise to a climax; keep things short and terse. The only thing that cannot be faked is self-confidence, the key component to charisma since the days of Moses. Should the camera lights betray your insecurity, all the tricks in the world will not put your charisma back together again.

Symbol: The Lamp. Invisible to the eye, a current flowing

through a wire in a glass vessel generates a heat that

turns into candescence. All we see is the glow.

In the prevailing darkness, the Lamp

lights the way.