From Salt Lake City workshop tape 2

 So the degree team never bothers you as long as you are conscious that all of these things are just possibilities for you to have a challenge - to see if you are asleep or conscious. Now this is the whole idea of initiation. It is to initiate us out of childhood and into adulthood. Somebody said that when I was a child, I thought as a child, spoke as a child, and acted as a child. But when I became a man, or when I was initiated into adulthood, not just grew up by a number of years, but I was initiated into it, then I began to think, act, and behave like a man. So this is the whole idea of initiation is for us to see that all of these degree team people, we are so gritched about, are degree team people.

Excerpt from Andrew and the clowns

 From Tape 42 Andrew and the clowns (see Marsha Summers page for full tape) 

But in the circus, he begins to see it in a different light because it was exaggerated. They had on clown suits, which says this is a parody of everyday existence. If you have ever observed clowns, you will see their basic technique of producing laughter is that they take insignificant events, and make them very very important. And as we wander about observing all those wonderful people, who are conditioned, we can observe that "I" is sound asleep, and that those make up the greater population. They have never had the opportunity to wake up because they have never questioned the purpose of living. Without questioning, they don't get the opportunity. They go on and on year in and year out. EVERY CONCEIVABLE KIND OF EFFORT IS MADE TO MAKE THEM COMFORTABLE, BUT NO EFFORT IS EVER SPENT TO WAKE THEM UP. IT IS ALL BASICALLY TO TRY TO PUT THEM TO SLEEP. You see, if they are disturbed or upset, then what we want to do is make them comfortable, so then they will sleep. Of course in their sleep they may have nightmares, and they get a little violent here and there--maybe very violent, but it is not due to intention. It is not due to evilness in the person. It is due to conditioning, and as we understand that this conditioning comes in two versions, one from the very early establishment of the being, to stick up for his rights, to complain, and to blame, and from the other side, which was conditioned from the environment, to control him and make him what be what is called 'good," to be non disturbing to others the two sides setting this conflict into existence.