The stone moved out easily enough, as I had seen before, and it had a hook on the inside of it by which I could pull it closed behind me. However, to get into the narrow dark passage I had to lie on my belly. And when I dropped down on my knees and peered into it, I could see no visible light at the end. I did not like the look of it. I knew that if I had been a mortal still, nothing could have induced me to crawl into a passage like this. It would be too much to expect the mass of people to take to this quest in its fullness. They are unable to make more than an elementary effort to confine the lower nature within the requires limits. Most people are like sleep-walkers, caught up in their own illusions. Their belief that they are awake is the biggest of these illusions. The poor are overpowered by their grinding poverty, the rich by their fortune; both find neither the time nor taste for spiritual enquiry. Easily stupefied by sensuality, thoroughly bewitched by constant repetition of the same pleasure, they shrug aside the disturbing thoughts and visible reminders of life’s transitoriness and the body’s infirmity. So, why is it so hard for people to see that if one really cares about some other person, there will be some attachment, some normal jealousy and one will be vulnerable to pain; and that the aim with jealousy is not to exorcise it entirely, but to realize it is a problem only when it reaches neurotic proportions? #RandolphHarris 1 of 13

The awareness of normal jealousy is the one corrective to the growth of neurotic jealousy, the dreary picture of which we have seen in these vignettes. It times in which there were difficulties standing in the way of pleasures of the flesh, such as perhaps during the decline of the ancient civilization, love became worthless and life empty, and strong reaction-formations were required to restore indispensable affective values…the ascetic current in Christianity created physical values for love which pagan antiquity was never able to confer on it. The decline of the ancient civilizations, when love became worthless and life empty, is related to the disintegration of our mores and culture. Too many people focus on pleasures of the flesh as an antidote against anxiety; the neurological pathway that carries the sexual stimulation cuts off that pathway which transmits anxiety. In our own concern with the innumerable problems in our society that we cannot solve, it is understandable that we turn to our preoccupation with pleasures of the flesh. However, we should avoid making principles out of our own abnormal state. The books and TV shows are alike in that they reflect and act upon the moral vacuousness that has become so commonplace as to be nearly normative in recent writings about pleasures of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13

Is not this moral vacuity one explanation for the fact that, while we never has more talks and workshops and public-school teachings on pleasures of the flesh, contraception, terminating pregnancies, and complication with unprotected and even protected sex, the rate of venereal disease, teenage pregnancies and abortions are rising dramatically? Pleasures of the flesh and intimacy that goes with it are so basic a part of human existence that one cannot separate them from one’s values. To treat pleasures of the flesh and values as totally divorced from each other is not only to block the development of one’s freedom, but also to make the cultural problem of pleasures of the flesh simply insoluble. Moral concern in pleasures of the flesh hinges on the acceptance of one’s responsibility for the other as well as for oneself. Other people do matter; and the celebration of this gives pleasures of the flesh its ecstasy, its meaning, and its capacity to shake us to our depths. When made into the be-all and end-all of pleasures of the flesh, without a committed relationship, at the legal age, and without intimacy—it is an expression of narcissism. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13

Narcissism is not beautiful. It is actually a personality disorder in which a person has an inflated sense of self-importance. There are fewer than 200,000 cases diagnosed per year, so it is rare. Treatment can help, but this condition cannot be cured. It requires a medical diagnosis, but lab test or imaging not required. Chronic narcissism can last for years and be lifelong. Narcissism is a refusal to love, a running from the beautiful Echo as Narcissus did in the myth. Pleasures of the flesh as solitary stimuli, carried on in the absence of sharing, without intimacy, is an overpowering concern with one’s own stimuli, a peering endlessly at oneself, as Narcissus peered into the pool. As a way of life, pleasures of the flesh without intimacy is motivated by resentment and vengeance, like Echo’s myth. Narcissus allegedly self-destructs by stabbing himself, but we self-destruct by a long, drawn-out amputation of vital parts of ourselves. Our contemporaries seem not to be vengeful because some specific person will not love them now (as was the case with Echo), but they seem to carry a vengeance from infancy, an experience of not having been loved, that they have never come to terms with. They have never accepted, as one must accept, their destiny, with all its cruel and its beneficent strains. Nor have the accepted the fate that no one ever gets enough love. This yearning for love makes us human. Having accepted that aspect of destiny, perhaps then we can join the human race. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13

What the proponents of the ideal of pleasures of the flesh without intimacy as the way to genuine freedom have grossly overlooked is that freedom in the pleasures of the flesh is like freedom in every other realm of life: one is free only as one recognizes one’s limits—for instance, one’s destiny. The structure, the design, of the pleasures of the flesh function in life needs to be seen steadily and whole. In human relations responsibility comes out of ever-present loneliness and our inescapable need for others, which is dramatically true in pleasures of the flesh; and without this sense of responsibility there is no authentic freedom. Our freedom is pleasures of the flesh then grows in proportion to the parallel growth of our sensitivity to the needs, desires, wishes of the other. These needs, desires, and wishes of the other are the givens. The fact that pleasures of the flesh are stimuli can blossom into authentic intimacy and into love is one of the mysteries of life which can give us a lasting solace and joy. As in all aspects of confronting destiny, there is a risk. If you have feelings, you are bound to be vulnerable and hurt. And sometimes the pain and ache and even agony of miscarried love is almost more than we can bear. However, accepting this risk is the price of freedom, and especially the freedom to love authentically. Who wishes to trade these for existence as a zombie? #RandolphHarris 5 of 13

Standing under the basic word of separation which keeps apart I and It, one has divided one’s life with one’s fellow mortals into two neatly defined districts: institutions and feelings. It-district and I-district. Institutions are what is out there where for all kinds of purposes one spends time, where one works, negotiates, influences, undertakes, competes, organizes, administers, officiates, preaches; the halfway orderly and on the whole coherent structure where, with the manifold participation of humans heads and human limbs, the round of affairs runs its course. Feelings are what is in here where one lives and recovers from the institutions. Here the spectrum of emotions swings before the interested eye; here one enjoys one’s inclination and one’s hatred, pleasure and, if it is not too bad, pain. Here one is at home and relaxes in one’s rocking chair. Institutions comprise a complicated forum; feelings, a boudoir that at least provides a good deal of diversity. This separation, to be sure, is continually engendered, as our supportive feelings break into the most objective institutions; but with a little good will it can always be restored. A dependable separation is most difficult in the areas of our so-called personal life. In marriage, for example, it is not always so simple to attain; but time works wonders. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13

In the areas of so-called public life it is eminently successful: consider, for example, how in the age of political parties, but also of groups and movements that claim to be above parties, Heaven-storming congresses alternate flawlessly with the day-to-day operations that crawl along on the ground, whether mechanized and evenly or organically and slovenly. However, the severed It of institutions is a golem, and the served I of feelings is a fluttering soul-bird. Neither knows that human being; one only the instance and the other only the object. Neither knows person or community. Neither knows the present: these, however modern, know only the rigid past, that which is finished, while those, however persistent, know only the fleeting moment, that which is not yet. Neither has access to actual life. Institutions yield no public life; feelings, no personal life. That institutions yield no public life is felt by more and more human beings, to their sorrow; this is the source of the distress and search of our age. That feelings yield no personal life has been recognized by few so far; for they seem to be the home of what is most personal. And once one has learnt, like a modern mortal, to become greatly preoccupied with one’s own feelings, even despair over their unreality will not easily open one’s eyes; after all, such despair is also a feeling and quite interesting. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13

Those who suffer because institutions yield no public life have thought of a remedy: feelings are to loosen up or thaw or explode the institutions, as I they could be renewed by feelings, by introducing the freedom of feelings. When the automatized state yokes together totally uncongenial citizens without creating or promoting any fellowship, it is supposed to be replaced by a loving community. And this loving community is supposed to come into being when people come together, prompted by free, exuberant feelings, and want to live together. However, this is not how things are. True community does not come into being because people have feelings for each other (though that is required, too), but rather no two accounts: all of them have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to a single living center, and they have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to one another. The second event has its source in the first but is not immediately given with it. A living reciprocal relationship includes feelings but is not derived from them. A community is built upon a living, reciprocal relationship, but the builder is the living, active center. Even institutions of so-called personal life cannot be reformed by a free feeling (although this is also required). #RandolphHarris 8 of 13

Marriage can never be renewed expect by that which is always the source of all true marriage: that two human beings reveal the You to one another. It is of this that the You that is I for neither of them builds a marriage. This is the metaphysical and metaphysical fact of love which is merely accompanied by feelings of love. Whoever wishes to renew a marriage on another basis is not essentially different from those who want to abolish it: both declare that they no longer know the fact. Indeed, take the much-discussed eroticism of our age and subtract everything that is really egocentric—in other words, every relationship in which one is not at all present to the other, but each uses the other only for self-enjoyment—what would remain? True public and true personal life are two forms of association. For them to originate and endure, feelings are required as a changing content, and institutions are required as a constant form; but even the combination of both still does not create human life which is created only by a third element: the central presence of the You, or rather, to speak more truthfully, the central You that is received in the present. The basic word I-It does not come from evil—anymore than matter comes from evil. It comes from evil—like matter that presumes to be that which has being. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13

When mortals let it have its way, the relentlessly growing It-World grows over one like weeds, one’ own I loses its actuality, until the incubus over one and the phantom inside one exchange the whispered confession of their need for redemptions. In our story, Jesus as well as His foes acknowledge authority. They struggle about valid authority, not about authority as such. And this is what we find everywhere in the Bible and the life of the Church. Paul fights with the original disciples, including Peter, about the foundations of apostolic authority. The bishops fight with the princes about ultimate source of political authority. The reformers fight with the hierarches about the interpretation of the Bible. The theologians fight with the scientists about the criteria of ultimate truth. None of the struggling groups denies authority, but each of them denies the authority of the other group. However, if the authority is split in itself, which authority decides? Is not split authority the end of authority? Was not the split produced by the Reformation the end of the authority of the Church? Is not the split about the interpretation of the Bible the end of the Biblical authority? Is not the split between theologians and scientists the end of intellectual authority? Was not the split between the gods of polytheism the end of their divine authority? #RandolphHarris 10 of 13

Is not the split in one’s conscience the end of the authority of one’s conscience? If one has to choose between different authorities, not they but oneself is ultimate authority for oneself, and this means: there is no authority for one. This, however, creates the dreadful alternative of our historical period. If there is no authority, we must decide ourselves, each for oneself. As finite beings we must act as if we were infinite, and since this is impossible, we are driven into complete insecurity, anxiety and despair. Or, unable to stand the oneliness of deciding for ourselves, we suppress the fact that there is a split authority. We subject ourselves to a definite authority and close our eyes against all other claims. The desire of most people to do this is very well known to those in power. They use the unwillingness of human beings to decide for themselves in order to preserve their power and to increase it. This is true of religious as well as of political powers. On this ground of human weakness the systems of authority are built in past and present. “By what authority” do you do this? Jesus is asked And Christ answering but by pointing to the acting and speaking of John. Here, Christ tells the leaders of his nation, you see the rise of an authority without ritual or legal foundation. However, you deny the possibility of it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13

So you deny both the Baptist and myself. You deny the possibility of an authority guaranteed by its inner power. You have forgotten that the only test of the prophets was the power of what they had to say. Listen to what the people say about us, namely, that we speak with authority and not as you, who are called the authorities. That is what Christ tells them. What would Christ say to us? He would not have to fight about his authority with the chief priests and the scribes and the elders of our day. In our time they all acknowledged Christ. He would have to ask quite a different question of them. He would have to ask: “What is the nature of my authority for you? It is like that of John the Baptist, or is it like that of the authorities who tried to remove me? Have you made the words of those who have witnessed to me, the Bible, the Church Fathers, the popes, the reformers, the creeds, into ultimate authorities? Have you done this in my name? And is so, do you not abuse my name? For whenever my name is remembered, my fight with those who were in authority is also remembered.” After the work done to gain livelihood or fulfil ambition, there is usually a surplus of time and strength, as part of which could and should be devoted to satisfying higher needs. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13

There is hardly a mortal whose life is so intense that it does not leave one a little time for spiritual recall from this Worldly existence. Yet the common attitude everywhere is to look no farther than, and be content with, work and pleasure, family, friends, and possessions. It feels no urge to seek the spiritual and, as it erroneously thinks, the intangible side of life. It makes no effort to organize its day so as to find the time and energy for serious thought, study, prayer, and meditation. It feels no need of searching for truth or getting an instructor. People who find their own company boring, their own resources empty, their own higher aims non-existent, must needs flee from it to some form of escape, such as the cinema, the radio, the theatre, or television. Here they are not confronted by the uncomfortable problem of themselves, by aimless meaningless drifting “I.” Humanity ordinarily shirks this enquiry into truth partly because of its difficulty, partly because of its apparent personal unprofitability, and partly because of its loneliness. There are those—and they are many—who do not want such a quest: its disciplines frighten them away or its studies bore them or its isolation makes too daring a demand on their gregariousness. “Some things lighten nightfall and make a Rembrandt of a grief. But mostly the swiftness of time is a joke; on us. The flame—moth is unable to laugh. What luck. They myth are dead,” reports Stan Rice “Poem on Crawling into Bed: Bitterness” Body of Work (1983). #RandolphHarris 13 of 13