Free Admission
Robert Cialdini, the American psychologist, described how the Hare Krishnas raised money in airports. Someone would come up and press a flower into your hand. A gift. Awkward to refuse. Then they’d ask for a donation. A person who’d taken the gift felt in debt and paid, even if he was annoyed. Many threw the flower straight into the bin. The Krishnas fished the flowers out of the bins and gave them to the next people.
The flower cost nothing. People weren’t paying for it; they were paying to get out of the awkwardness. You’ll be told nobody forced anybody. On paper, that’s true. But if it’s awkward to leave without paying, it’s no longer a gift. It’s a toll gate with a smile.
The flower is small change. Now look at how the same mechanism works when the stake is a life.
The Printer in the Stone House
Early in the last century a printer, Antonio Comito, came to New York. Giuseppe Morello’s people put him up in a remote house and sat him down to print counterfeit money. Zu Vincenzo, Uncle Vincent, kept an eye on him. Later, by then working with the Secret Service, Comito wrote down their conversations. Mike Dash quotes them. I don’t know a better description of recruitment.
First Uncle Vincent told Comito about himself. How in Sicily he’d killed two men for two hundred and fifty lire. Then he let drop that in this country it was very easy to live without working. So what did they live on? Comito, he said, hadn’t been among them long enough to know certain things.
There is a society. No name, no headquarters; few people know its leaders. It’s bigger than the Freemasons, and it protects its own. How much does it cost to join? Nothing: no money is needed, Dash has him say, but initiation has its price. What price? A brave deed. Punishing someone who has harmed the society.
Comito was fired up: he had to join this society, and soon. Then he understood that the “test” meant murder, and he took fright. But he was already living in their house and printing their money. He couldn’t simply walk away.
How It’s Put Together
Take the conversation apart and you’ll see the mechanism. First a closed door: there’s a world you’re not let into yet. Nothing inflames like a lock. Then a promise: live without working, be protected. Then the word “nothing.” The most dangerous word in that conversation. The price is named once the man already wants in. And it’s a price you can’t come back from.
The lock Uncle Vincent described plainly: once in, Comito would not be able to afford to do anything other than stay with them for the rest of his life.
Why a terrible price binds tighter than an easy one was tested by Elliot Aronson and Judson Mills in 1959. Female students were admitted to a group that discussed the psychology of sex. Some went through an embarrassing test to get in, others an easy one or none at all. Then they all listened to a recording of a deliberately dull discussion. Those who had found it hard to get in praised the group more. Admitting you suffered for nothing is harder than learning to love boredom.
Blood and a Password
Gambetta gives the words that, according to Calderone, were spoken to a newcomer after pricking his finger: you enter Cosa Nostra with blood, and you leave it only with blood. A rite that looks senseless, he writes, throws off ordinary rational expectations. A man doesn’t understand what is happening, and that fills him with awe.
Dickie cites a report by the Palermo police chief from 1875. In it there’s a cut, blood on the image of a saint, the image burned. And a secret dialogue by which members recognised each other. It began with a complaint about toothache. A terrible oath and a shared code, Dickie explains, were needed for trust between men who otherwise would not have trusted each other.
In Saviano it’s the same, without any poetry. Neapolitan teenagers were driven out of town, put in bulletproof vests and shot at, so they wouldn’t be afraid of guns. One boy showed him his bruised chest: “After a hit like that, you get up.” Someone who’s taken a bullet with you won’t go over to anyone else.
The One Who Walked Away
Dash also retells the opposite case. Joe Provenzano, an enemy of the Matranga brothers in New Orleans, told reporters about an initiation of theirs. A room, men in black hooded cloaks, an oath sworn on a skull with a knife sticking out of it. The candidate said he wanted to rob but didn’t want to kill anyone. And so, Dash writes, he left.
Whether to believe Provenzano is a question: he’s an interested witness. But the detail is precise. The man walked out the minute the price was named out loud. Comito never got that minute. His price was named when he was already inside.
A Club with Good Coffee
Once a smooth gentleman from a “businessmen’s club” came to see the Don. A private club, not everyone gets in, membership free. All you have to do is help the other members now and then, and they’ll help you. The Don poured him a coffee and asked: “And if one day I don’t want to help?” The gentleman smiled and said that never happens.
The Don showed him out politely. To me he said: “When getting in is free and nobody mentions getting out, it isn’t a club. It’s a trap with good coffee.”
The Bottom Line
Free admission can be honest. A trial, a consultation, the first month free. The honest kind differs in one thing: you’re told the price and the way out at the start, not when it’s too late to leave.
If they’re inviting you, ask two questions on the very first day. What will this cost later? And how do people leave? If the answer to the first is “nothing” and the answer to the second is a smile, leave now, while it’s still easy.