The pace of events is moving so fast that unless we can find some way to keep our sights on tomorrow, we cannot expect to be in touch with today. The Sanskrit word mandala means “circle” in the ordinary sense of the word. In the sphere of religious practices and in psychology it denotes circular images, which are drawn, painted, modelled, or danced. Plastic structures of this kind are to be found, for instance, in Tibetan Buddhism, and as dance figures these circular pattern occur also in Dervish monasteries. As psychological phenomena they appear spontaneously in dreams, in certain states of conflict, and in cases of schizophrenia. Very frequently they contain a quaternity of multiple of four, in the form of a cross, a star, a square, an octagon, et cetera. In alchemy we encounter this motif in the form of the quadratura circuli. In Tibetan Buddhism the figure has the significance of a ritual instrument (yantra), whose purpose is to assist meditation and concentration. Its meaning in alchemy is somewhat similar, inasmuch as it represents the synthesis of four elements which are forever tending to fall apart. It is at the same tie an image of God and is designated as such. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

The innermost divine essence of humans, is characterized by symbols which can just as well express a God-image, namely the image of Deity unfolding in the World, nature, and in humans. When God is not acknowledged, egomania develops, and out of this mania comes sickness. The fact that images of this kind have under certain circumstances a considerable therapeutic effect on their authors is empirically proved and also readily understandable, in that they often represent very bold attempts to see and put together apparently irreconcilable opposites and bridge over apparently hopeless spirts. Even the mere attempt in this direction usually has a healing effect, but only when it is done spontaneously. Nothing can be expected from an artificial repetition or a deliberate imitation of such images. Vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit (invoked or not invoked, the God will be present). It is not a matter of indifference whether one calls something “mania” or a “god.” To serve a mania is detestable and undignified, but to serve a god is full of meaning and promise because it is an act of submission to a higher, invisible, and spiritual being. Religion seizes control of the human subject, who is always rather its victim than its creator. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

The numinosum, that is, a dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will, whatever its cause may be, is an experience of the subject independent of one’s will. At all events, religious teaching as well as the consensus gentium always and everywhere explain this experience as being due to a cause external to the individual. The numinosum is either a quality belonging to a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a peculiar alteration of consciousness. This is, at any rate, the general rule. There are, however, certain exceptions when it comes to the question of religious practice or ritual. A great many ritualistic performances are carried out for the sole purpose of producing at will the effect of the numinosum by means of certain devices of a magical nature, such as invocation, incantation, sacrifice, meditation and other yoga practices, self-inflicted tortures of various descriptions, and so forth. However, a religious belief in an external and objective divine cause is always prior to any such performance. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

The Catholic Church, for instance, administers the sacraments for the purpose of bestowing their spiritual blessings upon the believer; but since this act would amount to enforcing the presence of divine grace by an indubitably magical procedure, it is logically argued that nobody can compel divine grace to be present in the sacramental act, but that it is nevertheless inevitably present since the sacrament is a divine institution which God would not have to be if he had not intended to lend it his support. Religion appears to me to be a peculiar attitude of mind which could be formulated in accordance with the original use of the word religio, which means a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors, that are conceived as “powers”: spirits, daemons, gods, laws, ideas, ideals, or whatever name humans have given to such a factors in their World as one has found powerful, dangerous, or help enough to be taken into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful, and meaningful enough to be devoutly worshipped and loved. In colloquial speech one often says of somebody who is enthusiastically interested in a certain pursuit that one is almost “religiously devoted” to one’s cause. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

I want to make it clear that by the term “religion” I do not mean creed. Religion is that which gives reverence and worship to some higher nature [which is called divine]. It is, however, true that every creed is originally based on the one hand upon trust, or loyalty, the experience of the numinosum and on the other hand upon faith and confidence in a certain experience of a numinous nature and in the change of consciousness that ensures. The conversation of Paul is a striking example of this. We might say, than, that the term “religion” designates the attitude peculiar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinsum. If we allow ourselves to draw conclusions from modern mandalas we should ask people, first, whether they worship stars, suns, flowers, and snakes. They will deny this, and at the same time they will asset that the globes, stars, crosses, and the like are symbols for a center in themselves. And if asked what they mean by this center, they will begin to stammer and to refer to this or that experience which may turn out to be something very similar to the confession of my patient, who found that the vision of one’s World clock had left one with a wonderful feeling of perfect harmony. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

 Others will confess that a similar vision came to them in a moment of extreme pain or profound despair. To others again it is the memory of a sublime dream or of a moment when long and fruitless struggles came to an end and a reign of peace began. If you sum up what people tell you about their experiences, you can formulate it this way: They came to themselves, they could accept themselves, they were able to become reconciled to themselves, and thus were reconciled to adverse circumstances and event. This is almost like what used to be expressed by saying: He has made his peace with God, he has sacrificed his own will, he has submitted himself to the will of God. A modern mandala is an involuntary confession of a peculiar mental condition. There is no deity in the mandala, nor is there any submission or reconciliation to a deity. The place of the deity seems to be taken by the wholeness of human beings. When one speaks of humans, everybody means one’s own ego—and when one speaks of others one assumes that they have a very similar personality. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

However, since modern research has acquainted us with the fact that individual consciousness is based on and surrounded by an indefinitely extended unconscious psyche, we must needs revise our somewhat old-fashioned prejudice that humans are nothing but their consciousness. This naïve assumption must be confronted at once with the critical question: Whose consciousness? The fact is, it would be a difficult task to reconcile the picture I have of myself with the one which other people have of me. Who is right? And who is the real individual? If we go further and consider the fact that humans are also what neither one oneself nor other people know of one—and unknown something which can yet be proved to exist—the problem of identity becomes more difficult still. Indeed, it is quite impossible to define the extent and the ultimate character of psychic existence. When we speak of humans we mean the indefinable whole of one, an ineffable totality, which can only be formulated symbolically. I have chosen the term “self” to designate the totality of human, the sum total of their conscious and unconscious contents. I have chosen this term in accordance with Easter philosophy, which for centuries as occupied itself with the problems that arise when even the gods cases to incarnate. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

The World is as it ever has been, but our consciousness undergoes peculiar changes. First, in remote times (which can still be observed among primitives living today), the main body of psychic life was apparently in human and in nonhuman objects: it was projected, as we should say now. Consciousness can hardly exist in a state of complete projection. At most it would be a heap of emotions. Through the withdrawal of projections, conscious knowledge slowly developed. Science, curiously enough, began with the withdrawal, so to speak, of the most distant projections. This was the first stage in the despiritualization of the World. Once stop followed another: already in antiquity the gods were withdrawn from mountains and rivers, from trees and animals. Modern science has subtilized its projections to an almost unrecognizable degree, but our ordinary life still swarms with them. You can find them spread out in the newspapers, in books, on social media, rumours, and ordinary social gossip. All gaps in our actual knowledge are still filled out with projections. We are still so sure we know wat other people think or what their true character is. We are convinced that certain people have all the bad qualities we do not know in ourselves or that they practise all those vices which could, of course, never be our own. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

We must still be exceedingly careful not to project our own shadows too shamelessly; we are still swamped with projected illusions. If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all these projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a considerable shadow. Such an individual has saddled oneself with new problems and conflict. One has become a serious problem to oneself, as one is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against. One lives in the “House of Gathering.” Such a human knows that whatever is wrong in the World is in oneself, and if one only learns to deal with one’s own shadow one has done something real for the World. One has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day. These problems are mostly so difficult because they are poisoned by mutual projections. When one does not even see oneself and the darkness one unconsciously carries with one into all dealings how can anyone see straight? #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

Modern psychological development leads to a much better understanding as to what humans really consist of. The gods at first lived in superhuman power and beauty on top of snow-clad mountains or in the darkness of caves, woods, and seas. Later on they drew together into one god, and then that god became man. However, in our day even the God-man seems to have descended from his throne and to be dissolving himself in the common man. That is probably why his seat is empty. Instead, the common man suffers from a hybris of consciousness that borders on the pathological. This psychic condition in the individual corresponds by and large to the hypertrophy and totalitarian pretensions of the idealized State. In the same way that the Sate has caught the individual, the individual imagines that one has caught the psyche and holds her in the hollow of his hand. He is even making a science of her in the absurd supposition that the intellect, which is but a part and a function of the psyche, is sufficient to comprehend the much greater whole. In reality the psyche is the mother and the maker, the subject and even the possibility of consciousness itself. It reaches so far beyond the boundaries of consciousness that the latter could easily be compared to an island in the ocean. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Whereas the island is small and narrow, the ocean is immensely wide and deep and contains a life infinitely surpassing, in kind and degree, anything known on the island—so that if it is a question of space, it does not matter whether the gods are “inside” or “outside.” It might be objected that there is no proof that consciousness is nothing more than an island in the ocean. Certainly it is impossible to prove this, since the known range of consciousness is confronted with the unknown extension of the unconscious, of which we only know that it exists and by the very fact of its existence exerts a limiting influence on consciousness and is freedom. Wherever unconsciousness reigns, there is bondage and possession. The immensity of the ocean is simply a comparison; it expresses in allegorical form the capacity of the unconscious to limit and threaten consciousness. Empirical psychology loved, until recently, to explain the “unconscious” as mere absence of consciousness—the term itself indicated as much—just as shadow is an absence of light. Today accurate observation of unconscious processes has recognized, with all other ages before us, that the unconscious possesses a creative autonomy such as a mere shadow could never be endowed with. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

When Dr. Carus, Dr. von Hartmann and, in a sense, Dr. Schopenhauer equated the unconscious with the World-creating principle, they were only summing up all those teachings of the past which, grounded in inner experience, saw the mysterious agent personified as the gods. The Universe’s first principle, be it called God with the religionists or energy with the scientists, is beyond the power of human understanding. At its very best it can know only its own reaction to the Principle. The Biblical announcement “I Am That I Am” is easier understood as “I Am As I Am.” It can have no other meaning that the uniqueness and incomprehensibility of God. For every attempt to being God within the range of the intellectual always fails, and every attempt to being God within the range of the imagination merely symbolizes. If, then, the original sentence is to be understood still more easily, let us read it as: “I am THAT which knows all and sees all, but can be known and seen by none.” The atheist says, “God is nowhere!” The mystic says, “God is here!” The philosopher says, “God is!” #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Human’s mental apparatus being so limited, the truths one conceives through it must be limited too. One cannot possibly know what God is like but only that God—some sort of higher power—is. The Bible’s phrase wherein God is self-described to Moses as “I am that I am” is more philosophically correct and more linguistically right, in the original Hebrew sense, if Englished as “I am what I shall be.” It was one’s consciousness of being untied with this timeless pre-existent as well as ever-existence Life that enabled Jesus to announce: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was I am.” “I am that I am,” was the revelation of God to the Hebrew Master, Moses. “That I am,” was the revelation of God to the anonymous Hindu Master of the Upanishads. All verbal definitions of the World-Mind are inevitably limited and inadequate. If the statements here made seem to be of the nature of strict and rigid doctrines it is because of the inadequacy of language to convey more subtle meaning. They who read these lines with intuitive insight allied to clear thinking will see that the concepts are flexible verbal frames for holding thought steady in that borderland of human consciousness where thinking verges on wordless knowing. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

The first great truth is that a Supreme Mind minds the Universe. All scientific evidence indicates that there is a single power which presides over the entire Universe, and all religious mystic experience and philosophic insight confirms it. Not only is this so, but this power also maintains the Universe; its intelligence is unique, matchless, incredible. This power is what I call the World-Mind, the Mind of God. “You were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light (for the fruit of light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), verifying what is pleasing to the Lord,” Ephesians 5.8-11. The simple program of Christ for winning the whole World is to make each person one touches magnetic enough with love to draw others. The significance of human life upon the Earth must either be very small or very great. Very small from the strictly natural point of view. If we represent Earth’s history on a twenty-four-hour clock, from midnight to midnight, then according to the evolutionary story, our remotest human ancestors appeared at 11.59 P.M., and what we call the “civilization” of the last several thousand years is represented as the pop of a flashbulb at midnight. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

By any account, if the future of the Earth’s surface resembles its astonishing past, and from the merely scientific point of view, the Earth will not support human society for any long period of time (in cosmic terms). God’s purposes for human history, as set forth in the Bible, are of course quite another matter. According to the biblical picture, the function of human history is to bring forth an immense community of people, from “every nation and tribe and tongue and people,” reports Revelation 14.6, who will be a kingdom of persists under God (Revelation 1.6, 5.10; Exodus 19.6), and who for some period of time in the future will actually govern the Earth under him (Revelation 5.10). They will also, beyond that, reign with him in the eternal future of the cosmos, forever and ever (Revelation 22.5). These people will, together as a living community, form a special dwelling place for God. It will be one that allows one’s magnificence to be known and gratefully accepted by all of creation through all of the ages (Ephesians 2.7; 3.10; Philippians 2.9-11). What the human heart now vaguely senses should be, eventually will be, in the cosmic triumph of Christ and his people. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

 And those who have fully taken on the character of Christ—those “children of light” in Saint Paul’s language—will in eternity be empowered by God to do what they want, as free creative agents. And it will always harmonize perfectly with God’s own purposes. Spiritual formation in Christlikeness during our life here on Earth is a constant movement toward this eternal appointment God placed upon each of us in our creation—the “kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the World” (Matthew 25.34; see also Luke 19.17). This movement forward is now carried on through our apprenticeship to Jesus Christ. It is a process of character transformation toward complete trustworthiness before God. God loves all things that He has made, and amongst them rational creatures more, and of these especially those who are members of His only—begotten Son Himself. Since to love a thing is to will it good, in a twofold way anything may be loved more, or less. In one way on the part of the act of the will itself, which is more or less intense. In this way God does not love some things more than others, because He loves all things by an act of the will that is one, simple, and always the same. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

In another way on the part of the good itself that a person wills for the beloved. In this way we are said to love that one more than another, for whom we will greater good, though our will is not more intense. In the ways we must needs say that God loves some things more than others. For since God’s love is the cause of goodness in things, as has been said, no one thing would be better than another, if God did not will greater good for one than for another. God is said to have equally care of all, not because by His care He deals out equal good to all, but because He administers all things with a like wisdom and goodness. The good that God wills for his creatures, is not the divine essence. Therefore there is no reason why it may not vary in degree. To understand and to will denote the act alone, and do not include in their meaning objects from the diversity of which God may be said to know or will more or less, as has been said with respect to God’s love. Father of All, please absorb our spirits back into your essence. There, please reshape us in your place of molding, preparing us for the Kingdom of Heaven. “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages. Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed,” reports Revelation 15.3-4. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

We are preparing the kingdom to be delivered to the Saviour when he comes in the clouds of Heaven. When the kingdom has been adequately prepared, Jesus will come again. It has always been my feeling that when the trump of God shall sound and the righteous dead shall sound and the righteous dead shall come forth, it will be the lifters and not the leaners that the Saviour will call forth to help one in preparing his kingdom. Salvation in its true and full meaning is synonymous with exaltation or eternal life and consists in gaining an inheritance in the highest of the three Heavens within the celestial kingdom. With few exceptions this is the salvation of which the scriptures speak. It is the salvation which the saints seek. Hallelujah. It is good to sing praises unto our God; it is pleasant and befitting to praise Him. The Lord restores America, He gathers together the dispersed of America; He heals the broken in heart, binding up their wounds. He calls them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite. The Lord upholds the humble; He brings low the wicked to the very ground. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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