(An update to the text in the book on 'forcing players to summon more demons'.)

The main book says that the GM should force the characters to call up demons by putting them in desperate situations. "If the players don't feel the hot breath of chaos on their ass, they're worthless."

Initial Conclusion from this:
A GM can't allow characters to build up a comfy cushion of Humanity points. Therefore you have to push the players to burn up accumulated Humanity points on more demon-summoning, binding, etc. If you had a story where the kickers could be resolved without calling up more demons or losing copious amounts of Humanity, there would be little point to using the Sorcerer system.

Ron clarified:
All of the above is 100% congruent with my thinking about the game in about 1994. Most of the core-book Sorcerer text represents a transition from this way of thinking to another, which was (in my opinion) made pretty thoroughly for the 2000 book publication, but it is not, for lack of a better word, well-defended against readers/readings that come from that first perspective.

In other words, what you've written is "me" (and nascent Sorcerer) ten years ago. But it's not Sorcerer now, or as of its book publication, four years ago.

Here's what that passage really means: GM applies pressure. That's all. That pressure (in-game) should be physical, ethical, social, artistic, sexual ... whatever. If player-characters have high Humanity scores, then whoopee, time for more pressure, or rather, even more pressure.

There is absolutely no "sweet spot" of Humanity levels for playing the game. It works just as well if player-characters are (a) hovering at 1 or 2, (b) middling along with Humanity somewhere about their other score levels, or comfortably at 6 or higher.

The point for the GM is the pressure: each individual character's raison d'etre is under severe challenge. What he or she chooses is the player's business, and Humanity tends to fluctuate from there. There means the player, not the GM.

I was staring at this idea in action throughout my early Sorcerer play, with great shock: everything I'd prepped to "make sure" story happened was rendered irrelevant during play, and a story happened! They did it, and as long as I applied pressure, they did it more!

At the time a balancing act of Humanity/demons/ethics seemed like it would be central to play and also that the GM was the Guiding Hand thereof. Pile it on, slack it off, pile it on, slack it off - create the illusion for the player that the character is "uh oh, better behave," and so on.

But the GM is not such a Guiding Hand. The system operates instead on a player-driven sense of drama, commitment, identification, and communication among everyone at the table. The GM is best off recognizing this, applying that pressure and remembering that the outcome and specific "inflection point" for that pressure will only emerge through play itself and is totally out of his or her hands.

So the accurate reading of that text is, The GM applies pressure, hard and without reserve. A Sorcerer player-character is meaningless only in the absence of that pressure.

This doesn't mean they have to end up with Humanity scores of 1 or 2. Good rolls and the choices they've made might result in high scores, and that's fine too. [1]