It is right to be prepared for all things, and if trouble is sent, to remember as it is not sent without a cause. At a New Year’s Eve dinner the host, the patriarch of the family, ushered in the New Years with a speech. One of his sons-in-law, a lawyer, was not inclined to take the antiquated man seriously, especially when in the course of his speech he expressed himself as follows: “When I open the ledger of the Old Year and glance at its pages I see everything on the asset side and nothing, thank the Lord, on the side of liability; all you children have been a great asset, none of you a liability.” On hearing this the young lawyer thought of X., his wife’s brother, who was a cheat and a liar, and whom he had recently extricated from the entanglements of the law. That night, in a dream, he saw the New Year’s celebration once more, and heard the speech, or rather saw it. Instead of speaking, the antiquated man actually opened the ledger, but on the side marked “assets” he saw his name amongst others, but on the other side, marked “liability,” there was the name of his brother-in-law, X. However, the word “Liability” was changed into “Lie-Ability,” which he regarded as X’s main characteristic. The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for all of us.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

To stand after one’s death before one’s children great and undefiled: who would not wish that? If there were only one body in existence there could be no idea of motion, for motion is the change of position of two bodies relative to one another. Thus sensible qualities, without which there could be no bodies, are essential to the very conception of movement. Furthermore, since sensible qualities are passive existences, and hence bodies are too, movement cannot have it source in body; and as we know what it is to move our own bodies, we know that the source of motion must be found in the mind. Created spirits are responsible for only a small part of the movement in the World, and therefore God, the infinite spirit, must be its prime source. A man who nursed his father during his last illness, and who felt his death very keenly, dreamed some time afterwards that his father was again living, and conversing with him as usual, but (and this was the remarkable thing) he has nevertheless dies, though he did not know it. So too our conception of time is inseparable from our ideas in our minds and from the [articular actions and ideas that diversify the day.  #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

The young man who thought that he was having a conversation with his father was experiencing hypostatized abstraction, which is the belief in humankind’s eternal advance, and to disavow anything that does not fit this preordained vision. And so natural philosophy either presupposed the knowledge of God or borrows it from some superior science. The thesis that God is the ultimate source of motion is a special case of the principle that the only real cause are spirits. This principle has the general consequence, of course, the inanimate bodies cannot act causally upon one another. What are called natural causes are really signs of what follows them. Fire does not cause heat, but is so regularly followed by it that it is a reliable sigh of it as long as “the Author of Nature always operates uniformly.” The kinship of human passion, the sameness of mortal scenery, inevitably touches the heart and charms them.  Must like the Crusades had their origin in a great impulse, and in a certain sense, led to great results, amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.  #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

Natural laws describe but do not explain, for real explanations must be reference to the aims and purposes of spirits, that is, in terms of final causes. The dream of the man talking to his dead father is intelligible if, after he had nevertheless died, we insert in the consequence of the dreamer’s wish, and if after but he did not know it, we add that the dreamer had entertained the really compassionate thought that it would be a good thing if his father, was by miracle of God, well again. Because God is all powerful and can do supernatural things, mechanical explanations of movements in terms of attraction are misleading, unless it is recognized that they merely recorded the rates at which bodies in fact approach one another. While he was mourining his father’s death, this compassionate wish became an unconscious reproach to heal from the traumatic loss of his father. As a general thing, the dreams of a deceased person of whom the dreamer has been fond confront the interpreter with difficult problems, the solution of which is not always satisfying. The reason for this may be sought in the especially pronounced ambivalence of feeling which controls the relation of the dreamer to the dead person.  #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

After the loss of his father and tumultuous years afterwards, the dreamer felt like his heart was bleeding and would have pains in his heart when stretching and if he laughed from watching a funny movie.  In such situations, it could be the minds ways of trying to preserve the dreamer’s body by producing an image of the deceased person to be treated at first as living; then it suddenly appears that he is dead; and in the continuation of the dream he is once more living. This has a confusing effect. However, gravity or to force when these are regarded as explanations of the movements of the body do not deny the importance of Newton’s laws, for Newton did not regard gravity as a true physical quality, but only as a mathematical hypothesis. I at last divined that this alternation of death and life is intended to represent the wish of the dreamer (“It is all one to me whether he is alive or dead, as long as I can see him and talk to him.”) This manifestation is very intense and emotional and he rejects the idea that his father is dead. Forces and attractions are not found in nature but are useful constructions in the formulation of theories from which deductions can be made about what is found in nature, that is, sensible qualities or ideas.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

People have observed the intense bond of attachment that usually develops between a parent and their child, a bond that a mother or father enables one to pick up a hurt or frightened child and rapidly eliminate all external signs of pain and fear. So it is plausible that if someone feeds into a delusion of a person in mouring, they might believe that their father or another loved one has come back to life. We laugh at educated adults who pay large sums to go and play youthful games of touching and hug in scientific institutes, and we fail to see the signs. It is surely an extraordinary sign of our times that adults feel the need to relieve their loneliness by going to scientific institutes, and that they should need scientists to legitimize human intimacy. When a loved one dies and a person feels all alone, the human spirit is in distress and they are willing to believe almost anything if it would bring their loved one back. Someone preying on people who have lost a family member are despicable. Especially if that individual has moved beyond the pain and young come back only to remind them of how much it hurt to lose a father. We do not live in a solitary or purely objective World, nor can we live in isolation. We must learn to live together or increase our chances of dying prematurely.  #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

Aristotle pointed out long ago that, “a man wholly solitary would be either a God or a brute.” There is a brutality in many modern human relationships that directly stems from their very objectivity and pervasiveness of such relationships in our culture is an omnipresent testimony to our interpersonal brutality. A purely objective relationship between two human beings can be brutal precisely because it is detached from human feelings—it is a relationship that by definition creates distance, loneliness, and estrangement, and which can, at its worst, permit completely inhumane actions. Medicine, as an adviser to our society, can help restore respect for the healing power of human companionship and can help people see that they too can prevent and cure loneliness—induced disease by simply caring for one another. Foggy-eyed romanticists might want to believe that a loved one will come back from the dead, and the Bible preaches that one day they will. However, be wise enough to know that anyone who loves you would not torment and use and abuse you and laugh at you in their distress, while boasting about how good their life is, and watching you suffering. We must learn that healing is an affair of the heart.  #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

 The Winchester Mystery House

Your steps echo down the long hall of this historical Victorian mansion. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/