This document summarizes key points from Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power regarding Law 26: Keep Your Hands Clean. It discusses using scapegoats and cat's paws to avoid blame and dirty work. Specific strategies mentioned include blaming others to feel better, finding people willing to do tasks to keep you in power, and never doing work that others can do for you. The document then summarizes Law 27 about creating a cult-like following, outlining five ways to do so: keeping messages vague and simple, emphasizing visuals over intellect, borrowing religious structures, disguising financial sources, and creating an us-vs-them mentality.

1. 48 Laws of Power
Zeeshan Ahmed Lodro
B.E-VII[ECE] Fall 2017
Department of Electrical Engineering
Sukkur IBA University

2. Law 26
Keep Your Hands Clean
“You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: Your hands are
never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless
appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat’s-paws to disguise
your involvement.”

3. Conceal your mistakes-have a scapegoat
around to take the blame
• A great accident happened in the town one day.
• The town cobbler murdered one of his customers.

4. Conceal your mistakes-have a scapegoat
around to take the blame
Blame me you will feel better
So who’s your scapegoat?

5. Make use of the cat's-paw
• In the fable (a short story
typically with animals as
characters conveying moral)
• the Monkey grabs the paw of his
friend, the Cat, and uses it to fish
chestnuts out of the fire, thus
getting the nuts he craves,
without hurting himself.

6. Who Are the Cat’s Paw People?
• There will always be people who will do your dirty little tasks to keep you on the
throne.
• This will usually be a person from outside your immediate circle, who will
therefore be unlikely to realize how he or she is being used. You will find these
dupes everywhere.
The Key Strategies - Never Do Work that a Cat’s Paw can Do.

7. Law 27
Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike
Following
Cult:- a person or thing that is popular or
fashionable among a particular group or section
of society
So what is Cultlike following?
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly
dedicated to a work of culture.

8. Five ways to create a cult
• 1. Keep It Vague; Keep It Simple.
• 2. Emphasize the Visual and the Sensual over the Intellectual.
• 3. Borrow the Forms of Organized Religion to Structure the Group.
• 4. Disguise Your Source of Income.
• 5. Set Up an Us-Versus-Them Dynamic.

9. 1. Keep It Vague; Keep It Simple.
• First attract attention. This you should do not through actions, which
are too clear and readable, but through words, which are hazy and
deceptive. Your initial speeches, conversations, and interviews must
include:
• The promise of something great and transformative.
• The other a total vagueness.

10. 2. Emphasize the Visual and the Sensual
over the Intellectual.
• Once people have begun to gather around you, two dangers will
present themselves:
• a. Boredom - will make people go elsewhere.
• b. Skepticism - will allow them the distance to think rationally about
whatever it is you are offering.

11. 3. Borrow the Forms of Organized Religion
to Structure the Group.
• Organize them into a hierarchy, ranking them in grades of
sanctity, and giving them names and titles that resound with
religious overtones

12. 4. Disguise Your Source of Income.
• Your group has grown, and you have structured it in a churchlike
form. Your coffers are beginning to fill with your followers' money.
Yet you must never be seen as hungry for money and the power it
brings. It is at this moment that you must disguise the source of
your income.

13. 5. Set Up an Us-Versus-Them Dynamic.
• The group is now large and thriving, a magnet attracting more and
more particles. To keep your followers united, you must now do
what all religions and belief systems have done.