Figure 1. Reciprocation Rule: Gift first.
As a child sitting in the corner of the bar reading the Beano and drinking Fanta the world was played out. Dad was at the bar with the crew. Beers with creamy heads were thrown down greedy throats while the barmaid laughed and winked at her favourites. French Farm Workers hogged their corner, the strong smell of Gauloise cigarette tobacco permeating the building and at least 100 yards of the surrounding area.
Figure 2. Tradition work-mans bar. Trading centre.
Figure 3. Barmaid with Favourite customers.
Enter John Davis a quiet, serious man, known to be extremely mean. The tone of the room seemed to be turned down, people seemed to be embarrassed, enjoying themselves frittering away their hard earned cash. John quietly ordered a half – pint and eyed the French Group. Walking over he removed a coin shaped case from his pocket, the French Workers smiled as he spoke conspiratorially to them, all while delivering a hefty dose of brown powder on the carefully crooked back of each hand, the workers eagerly held out. This brown power was sniffed with accompanying snorts, leaving each celebrant with a tell-tale brown smear on their unshaven upper lip.
Figure 4. Example of the habitual use of snuff
What was going on here? The meanest man in my world was offering copious quantities of some precious brown powder to the French Farm Workers. The Beano was forgotten, the Fanta had lost fizz! What on earth was going on?
The answer came fast and furious. As John joined his fellow drinkers with a smile, a Pint of ale was placed in front of him. John looked at his friends and exchanged pleasantries, downing the Pint in record time. Before he could finish another Pint was placed on the bar before him, paid for by the Farm Workers.
John drank eight pints that night (I counted each one), only paying for a half, minus the 1 penny worth of snuff.
John had tapped into the reciprocation rule, used successfully by the Hara Krishna religion to raise funds. Reciprocation is arguably the strongest most pervasive of social forces. So strong is this force, that The Supreme Court of the United States of America, upheld an airports ban on begging. Exactly how this begging played out was using the reciprocation rule. The strength of this rule was tested as the target of the begging was often seen to be in conflict, yet still with ‘gritted teeth’ the sucker paid out.
Figure 5. Argument offered by Krishna devotee: “They just want to get rid of people who make them feel uncomfortable”. Is this assumption correct?
This is how the Krishna Devotees ‘worked a number’ on the general public. In a similar manner to John Davis mentioned above, the Devotees would approach a member of the public in a friendly manner and offer a gift such as a book, magazine or possibly more problematically a flower. Once the punter had the gift in their mitts, they were invited to contribute to the movement. At this very moment the punter is in conflict. She / He does not want to part with hard cash, and yet possibly through an evolutionary requirement, reciprocation kicks in and the punter feels duty bound to shell-out. One may argue that a person feels that they are behaving in a correct manner that is doing the right thing. This scenario is acceptable to a degree, though in the case of the flower which when discarded is retrieved by the Devotee to be re-sold seems to have been a step to far. Hence the airport ban!
Religiously Consuming 