Fakers and frauds can be very clever and industrious (as well as the opposite)

Not by Vermeer

I recently attended a lecture on frauds in the world of fine art, especially painting - the more notorious examples of those who pass-off their own work as that of famous, prestigious, expensive painters from the past. 

My take-home message was that the world of fine arts is rife with fakes, the "experts" are easily fooled (and indeed an integral part of the scam), and some of the fakers are not just skilled but very clever in marketing their forgery by indirect and non-obvious means. 

I also read more about a notorious and very successful Welsh literary faker called "Iolo Morganwg" (Edward Williams) - who was so skilled, industrious and clever that his frauds have become inextricably bound-up with Welsh literary history (and the history of revived neo-druidry). 

My own reading has led me to consider an influential twentieth century mystic called Wellesley Tudor Pole; and the eventual conclusion that he was essentially (but, of course, not wholly - successful examples never are) a fraud and liar - also clever, capable, industrious, and charismatic. 

It is not exactly Big News that the world of esotericism and mysticism has many fakers and frauds, but perhaps it is more surprising that some of the most feted instances of art are (at least I believe) fakes. These are fields in which the basic set-up makes it easier to be fraudulent. But nowadays the same applies everywhere of which I have insider knowledge, such as science (and especially medical research - as became blazingly obvious in 2020!)  

One difficulty in acknowledging this, is that people underestimate the industriousness and strategic thinking of frauds; another is that they underestimate the degree to which truth can be distorted or inverted by "seeding" broadly correct information with a few key falsehoods; another is to underestimate the importance of theory as compared with "facts". 

But a further difficulty relates to motivation. What motivates the faker or fraud. 

"Normal" people are not only too lazy to be seriously fraudulent, but they lack sufficiently strong motivation. Some frauds seem clearly to be after money, or sex, or status - which are pretty normal motivations.  

However, not all fakers and frauds are impelled by normal motivations, or else their "normal" motives are so extreme as to become abnormal. Normal people are too normal for them to realize the strangeness of motivations in the kind of people who do become successful frauds. 

I include myself here! The motivations of some people can be so strange as to be utterly obscure, and this fact strongly protects Frauds and Fakes (F&Fs) from detection.

This can be such a strong block on understanding, that even solid and certain examples of fraud tend to be neglected, ignored, or forgotten - because thy just don't "make sense" to people, and can't be integrated into their ideologies and schemes of understanding.  

All of this is extremely important in terms of someone seeking "the meaning of life"; and addressing ultimate questions. Because it is quite likely that the "experts" and "wise men" that we encounter in our searchings will - no matter in what domain we are searching - include some (perhaps many) frauds and fakes. 

And yet the evidence suggests that these F&Fs are not detectable by any feasibly attainable level of expertise and specialized knowledge - and with the time and energy we have available.  

So what can we do, in practice?

In my experience, the best guide - and maybe the only guide - is when we have a genuine intuitive conviction that some kind of fakery and fraud is afoot...

(Shomething Shurley Wrong - Shomwhere!)

When the "alarm bells" go-off (often subconsciously, at first; or subtly) at the time we encounter a person or work - a sense that somebody is "...up to something", and not "what they seem" - or, more exactly, not what they are trying to make us believe. 

Yet a great deal of modern culture is (for obvious reasons!) dedicated to inducing us to ignore, systematically, such intuitive promptings - and to induce other, alternative, external, cultural, "fake intuitions" - especially that somebody or some-thing that is actually-good (true, beautiful, virtuous) is instead untrustworthy. 

"They" want us to reject as F&F exactly that which we most need and would most benefit us. 

Therefore, even in terms of what seem to be our own intuitions of validity, we need to apply our best-possible and deepest intuitive awareness; and to become aware of the difference between a real intuition, and something that has been artificially - perhaps subtly and deviously - implanted; including implanted in exactly the strategic and indirect fashion that fakes and frauds pass-off their work. 

(Sometimes - I find - all that needs to happen, is that we seriously consider that some-thing, some person, some-event may be an F or F; then immediately to realize that Of Course! Obviously it is.)

This may sound superficial, but isn't - at least not if your metaphysical assumption is that we really do have a real - eternal and potentially divine - self; that can form a genuine bottom-line for our knowledge.