The only complete love is for God. The goal is to love everyone equally, but it does not necessarily work out that way. Theology might possibly take the psychological self as an allegory of Christ. This opposition is, no doubt, very irritating, but unfortunately inevitable, unless psychology is to be denied the right to exist at all. I therefore plead for tolerance. Nor is this very hard for psychology since as a science it makes no totalitarian claims. The Christ-symbol is of the greatest importance for psychology in so far as it is perhaps the most highly developed and differentiated symbol of the self, apart from the figure of Buddha. We can see this from the scope and substance of all the pronouncements that have been made about Christ: they agree with the psychological phenomenology of the self in unusually high degree, although they do not include all aspects of this archetype. The almost limitless range of the self might be deemed a disadvantage as compared with the definiteness of a religious figure, but it is by no means the task of science to pass value judgment. Not only is the self indefinite but—paradoxically enough—it also includes the quality of definiteness and even of uniqueness. This is probably one of the reasons why precisely those religions founded by historical personages have become World religions, such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

The inclusion is a religion of a unique human personality—especially when conjoined to an indeterminable divine nature—is consistent with the absolute individuality of the self, which combines uniqueness with the absolute individuality of the self, which combines uniqueness with eternity and the individual with the universal. The self is a union of opposites par excellence, and this is where it differs essential from the Christ-symbol. The androgyny of Christ is the utmost concession the Church has made to the problems of opposites. The opposition between light and good on the one hand and darkness and evil on the other is left in a state of open conflict, since Christ simply represents good, and his counterpart the devil, evil. This opposition is the real World problem, which at present is still unsolved. The self, however, is absolutely paradoxical in the it represents in every respect thesis and antithesis, and at the same time synthesis. (Psychological proofs of this assertion abound, though it is impossible for me to quite them here in extenso. I would refer the knowledgeable reader to the symbolism of the mandala.) Once the exploration of the unconscious has led the conscious mind to an experience of the archetype, the individual is confronted with the abysmal contradictions of human nature, and this confrontation in turn leads to the possibility of a direct experience of light and darkness, of Christ and the devil. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

For better or worse there is only a bare possibility of this, and not a guarantee; for experiences of this kind cannot of necessity be induced by any human means. There are factors to be considered which are not under our control. Experience of the opposites has nothing whatever to do with intellectual insight or with empathy. It is more what we would call fate. Such an experience can convince one person of truth of Christ, another of the truth of the Buddha, to the exclusion of all other evidence. Without the experience of the opposite there is no experience of wholeness and hence no inner approach to the sacred figures. For this reason Christianity rightly insists on sinfulness and original sin, with the obvious intent of opening up the abyss of universal opposition in every individual—at least from the outside. However, this method is bound to break down in the case of a moderately alert intellect: dogma is then simply no longer believed and on top of that is thought absurd. Such an intellect is merely one-sided and sticks at the ineptia mysterii. It is miles from Tertullian’s antinomies; in fact, it is quite incapable of enduring the suffering such a tension involves. Cases are not unknown where the rigorous exercises and proselytizings of the Catholics, and a certain type of Protestant education that is always sniffing out sin, have brought about psychic damage that leads not to the Kingdom of Heaven but to the consulting room of the doctor. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Although insight into the problem of opposites is absolutely imperative, there are very few people who can stand it in practice—a fact which has not escaped the notice of the confessional. By way of a reaction to this we have the palliative of “moral “probabilism,” a doctrines that has suffered frequent attack from all quarters because it tries to mitigate the crushing effect of sin. Whatever one may think of this phenomenon one thing is certain: that apart from anything else it holds within it a large humanity and an understanding of human weakness which compensate for the World’s unbearable antinomies. The tremendous paradox implicit in the insistence on original sin on the one hand and the concession made by probabilism on the other is, for the psychologist, a necessary consequence of the Christian problem of opposites outlined above—for in the self good and evil are indeed closer than identical twins! The reality of evil and its incompatibility with good cleave the opposites asunder and lead inexorably to the crucifixion and suspension of everything that lives. Since the soul by nature is Christian this result is bound to come as infallibly as it did in the life of Jesus: we all have to be crucified with Christ, id est, suspended in a moral suffering equivalent to veritable crucifixion. In practice this is only possible up to the point, and apart from that is so unbearable and inimical to life that the ordinary human being can afford to get into such a state only occasionally, in fact as seldom as possible. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

For how could one remain ordinary in the face of such suffering! A more or less probabilistic attitude to the problem of evil is therefore unavoidable. Hence the truth about the self—the unfathomable union of good and evil—comes out concretely in the paradox that although sin is the gravest and most pernicious thing there is, it is still not so serious that it cannot be disposed of what “probablisist” arguments. Nor is this necessarily a lax or frivolous proceeding but simply a practical necessity of life. The confessional proceeds like life itself, which successfully struggles against being engulfed in an irreconcilable contradiction. Note that at the same time the conflict remains in full force, as is once more consistent with the antinomial character of the self, which is itself both conflict and unity. Christianity has made the antinomy of good and evil into a World problem and, by formulating the conflict dogmatically, raised it to an absolute principle. Into this as yet unresolved conflict the Christian is cast as a protagonist of good, a fellow player in the World drama. Understood in its deepest sense, being Christ’s follower involves a suffering that in endurable to the great majority of humankind. Consequently the example of Christ is in reality followed either with reservation or not at all, and the pastoral practice of the Church even finds itself obliged to lighten the yoke of Christ. This means a pretty considerable reduction in the severity and harshness of the conflict and hence, in practice a relativism of good and evil. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Good is equivalent to the unconditional imitation of Christ and evil is its hindrance. Human’s moral weakness and sloth are what chiefly hinder the imitation, and it is to these that probabilism extends a practical understanding which may sometimes, perhaps, come nearer to Christian tolerance, mildness, and love of one’s neighbour than the attitude of those who see in probabilism a mere laxity. Although one must concede a number of cardinal Christian virtues to the probabilist endeavour, one must still not overlook the fact that it obviates much of the suffering involved in the imitation of Christ and that the conflict of good and evil is thus robbed of its harshness and toned down to tolerable proportions. This brings about an approach to the psychic archetype of the self, where even these opposites seem to be united—though, as I say, it differs from the Christian symbolism, which leaves the conflict open. For the latter there is a rift running through the World: light wars against night and the upper against the lower. The two are not one, as they are in the psychic archetype. However, even though religious dogma may condemn the idea of two being one, religious practice does, as we have seen, allow the natural psychological symbol of the self at one with itself an approximate means of expression. One the other hand, dogma insists that three are one, while denying that four are one. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Since olden times, not only in the New World but also in the Old World, uneven numbers have been regarded as masculine and even numbers as feminine. The Trinity is therefore a decidedly masculine deity, of which the androgyny of Christ and the special position and veneration accorded to the Mother of God are not the real equivalent. With this statement, which may strike the reader as peculiar, we come to one of the central axioms of alchemy, namely the saying of Maria Prophetissa: “One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.” Alchemy is rather like an undercurrent to the Christianity that ruled on the surface. It is to this surface as the dream is to consciousness, and just as the dream compensates the conflicts of the conscious mind, so alchemy endeavours to fill in the gaps left open by the Christian tensions of opposites. Perhaps the most pregnant expression f this is the axiom of Maria Prophetissa quoted above, which runs like a leitmotiv throughout almost the whole of the lifetime of alchemy, extending over more than seventeen centuries. In this aphorism the even numbers which signify the feminine principle, Earth, the regions under the Earth, and evil itself are interpolated between the uneven numbers of the Christian dogma. They are personified by the serpens mercurii, the dragon that creates and destroys itself and represents the prima materia. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

This fundamental idea of alchemy points back to the Tehom (“And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Go moved upon the face of the waters,” reports Genesis 1.2.), to Tiamat with her dragon attribute, and thus to the primordial matriarchal World which, in the theomachy of the Marduk myth, was overthrown by the masculine World of the Father. The historical shift in the World’s consciousness towards the masculine is compensated at first by the chthonic femininity of the unconscious. In certain pre-Christian religions the differentiation of the masculine principle had taken the form of the father-son specification, a change which was to be of the utmost importance for Christianity. Were the unconscious merely complementary, this shift of consciousness would have been accompanied by the production of a mother and a daughter, for which the necessary material lay ready to hand in the myth of Demeter and Persephone. However, as alchemy shows, the unconscious chose rather the Cybele-Attis type in the form of the prima materia and the filius macrocosmi, thus proving that it is not complementary but compensatory. This goes to show that the unconscious does not simply act contrary to the conscious mind but modifies it more in the manner of an opponent partner. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

The son type does not call up a daughter as a complementary image from the depths of the “chthonic” unconscious—it calls up another son. This remarkable fact would seem to be connected with the incarnation in our Earthly human nature of a purely spiritual God, brough about by the Holy Ghost impregnating the womb of the Blessed Virgin. Thus the higher, the spiritual, the masculine inclines to the lower, the Earthly, the feminine; and accordingly, the mother, who was anterior to the World of the Father, accommodates herself to the masculine principle and, with the assistance of the human spirit (alchemy or “the philosophy”), produces a son—not the antithesis of Christ but rather his chthonic counterpart, not a divine man but a fabulous being conforming to the nature of the primordial mothers. And just as the redemption of humans the microcosm is the task of the “upper” son, so the “lower” son has the function of a salvator macrocosmi. This, in brief, is the drama that was played out in the obscurities of alchemy. It is superfluous to remark that these two sons were never untied, except perhaps in the mind and innermost experience of a few particularly gifted alchemists. However, it is not very difficult to see the “purpose” of this drama: in the Incarnation it looked as though the masculine principle of the father-World were approximating to the feminine principle of the mother-World, with the result that the latter felt impelled to approximate in turn to the Father-World. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

What it evidently amounted to was an attempt to bridge the gulf separating the two Worlds as compensation for the open conflict between them. The act of creative meditation which brings the Universe into being is performed by the World-Mind. We, insofar as we experience the World, are participating in this act unconsciously. It is a thought-World and we are thought-beings. Somehow, this infinite life germinates an infinite variety of minds and puts them through an infinite variety of experiences. However real they may seem through its mysterious working, they are all appearances only. This play of mind upon mind will reach its end with the last act, and the World-dream will then begin to dissolve. World-Mind is doing its works by providing the basic materials and necessary energies. The One Mind appears both as the millions of little minds and as the mental images of things, creatures, or evens which they come to know, see or experience. In the end all things finally come from World-Mind and for us come from mind, which itself comes from the same source. The World-Mind is expressing through an infinite number of minds its own infinitude multiplied by infinity an infinite number of times. Each particular thing is expressed by infinite ideas in infinite ways in the infinite understanding of God. In all these studies the principal concept should be returned to again and again: the entire Universe, everything—objects and creatures—is in Mind. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

I hold all the objects of my experience in my consciousness but I myself and held, along with them, in an incredibly greater consciousness, the World-Mind’s. The notion propounded by certain celebrated theologians and mystics that “God has need of me just as I have need of Him” is a fantasy, a self-constructed opinion based upon an egoism which is unwilling and unable to let go of its own importance. God does His own work. He needs n partner, no associate, no helper. Eckhart’s assertion that “Without humans God would not know He existed” requires explanation. It is not that God, the Unique, needs a second thing, a cosmos, in order to be Itself, but that our human thought about God is incapacitated by the utter void in which God dwells. God needs no partner and has no enemy. For the power of God is not only above that of all other entities but it is the source whence they themselves derive. It is the presence of the World-Mind which makes things happen according to the World-Idea: the former does not need to put forward each activity. No engineer can form an engine merely by throwing together all the necessary pieces of metal, not even by throwing together all the finished parts. One’s mind and will must be brought to bear upon them. It is exactly the same with the Universe itself. A universal intelligence, a World-Mind and its willed activity, must be active behind it, too. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Mind is not the final Reality, but a basic aspect of it. Will is another. Often one will not respond and allow an intuition to form itself within one’s mind, because one does not immediately realize what is happening, does not feel a birth is beginning. In the search for guidance when we have to make a momentous decision, or take an important step, it is well to go into “Silence” with our problem. We may not get the answer quickly or even directly but if we are well experienced in this kind of seeking, a light may eventually emerge from the dark and shine down on the problem. One should not form a preconception of what the answer ought to be, for thereby one imposes the ego’s dubious solution in advance upon the higher mind’s. Instead one should be entirely unbiased and try to receive the answer, as well as respond to it, in a perfectly free way. What is sometimes so hard to do is to trust this intuitive monitor when it contradicts the voices of those who are monitorless. However, in the end one will discover by results that this is practical wisdom. Sometimes an intuition appears as a vague feeling which haunts a human and which one cannot shake off. If one firmly believes in one’s own hidden intuitive powers, one will be able to ascribe much of one’s success to one’s readiness to follow their guidance, despite the opposition of logic and circumstances. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

When we keep ourselves busy with everything external and our minds with thoughts about everything external, the intuition is unable to insert itself into our awareness. Even if it whispers to us, we will not realize what is happening. If we continue to ignore it, we may lose the capacity to hear it at all. It is then that we have to retain ourselves to do so. The practice of meditation is one such way of training our receptivity. The source of intuitive knowledge lies outside the conscious mind. The vehicle which conveys that knowledge need not necessarily be within us. It may be without us, in the form of a book, a person, or an event to which we are led, guided, or prompted. We blunder in life and make endless mistakes because we have no time to listen for God’s voice—Intuition. A change of attitude towards one’s problems may help to clear the way for intuition to operate on the conscious level. These inner promptings—when authentic and not ego-biased, and when double-checked by reason—can guide one to wiser decisions concerning both outward work and inner life. If we would heed our intuitions as much as we heed our desires, the trick would be done. Illumination would come in not too long a time. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone: “Of course, it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore all around it; one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the results of thought.” In trying to get an intuitive answer, it is important to formulate the problem or the questions clearly and as sharply as you can. Let one wait tranquilly for the intuitive feeling to warm and enlighten one, as flowers wait tranquilly for the morning Sun to warm them. We leave the word to go away to the thought (which the mind does almost at once) but we ought to leave a wordless intuitive feeling only to go deeper into it. Again and again one’s thoughts should return to whatever memorable experience brought one an intuitive feeling that one was on the right track, or to whatever sudden lighted understanding of mentalism flashed into one’s head after study or reflection. If one feels the intuition but does not attend to it then, however slightly, the very faculty which produced it begins to lose strength. This is the penalty imposed for the failure, and this shows how serious it is. If one is always alert for this intuitive feeling, one will throw aside whatever one is doing and meditate upon it at once. One will depend more and more of these casual exercises, in contrast to the dependence on fixed routine exercises in the Long Path. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Treasure every moment when the intuition makes itself felt and, most especially, when it takes the form of a glimpse into higher truth; it is then that other things should be well put aside in order to sustain and prolong the experience. “For Good, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. However, we have this treasure in Earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves,” reports 2 Corinthians 4.6-7. The primary application of this distinction between treasure and vessel in the context of Saint Paul’s own body and the visible events of his life in the World. Of this he said, “Our otter human is decaying,” reports 2 Corinthians 4.16. He was not troubled by this, for he looked to his spiritual side in the spiritual World. And he wanted the faith of his hearers to stand on the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that [their] faith should not rest on the wisdom of humans, but on the power of God,” reports 1 Corinthians 2.4-5. The weakness of the vessel, Saint Paul’s physical reality, was accepted and recognized by him as the occasion for the triumph of the treasure. However, the same principles of “vessel” and “treasure” apply to our local congregations, their traditions, and their higher-level groupings called “denominations.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Now, it is worthy nothing that nearly everything that defines any given denomination is negative—that is, something “we” do not do that “they” do. By far most of our groups were born in negation. Just think of the mass of people of many denominations who are called Protest-ants. Our identity is that we protest? Against what? And then within both Protestant and Catholic traditions there are the multitudes of groupings that have been defined by what they do not do that others do. Our various groups become over time nearly 100-percent vessel. That is, what they seem to regard as essential and what they devote almost all their attention and effort to, has to do with human, historical contingencies that have attached themselves to individuals brought up a certain way. They of course love those contingencies, and they love the dear ones who have shared life with them within the contingent forms. And because the contingencies are dear to us—often there is much good associated with their past—we mistake them for the treasure of the real presence of Christ in our midst, and we spend most of our time concerned with the historical accidents or contingencies of our group, even trying to urge them upon others as essential to salvation, or at least as what is best for us and for them. No wonder we are distracted from the path of spiritual formation in Christ. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

However, all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth. If mercy be taken to mean the removal of any kind of defect, mercy and truth are necessarily found in God’s. Not every defect, however, can properly be called a misery; but only defect in a rational nature whose lot is to be happy; for misery is opposed to happiness. For this necessity there is a reason, because since a debt paid according to the divine justice is one due either to God, or to some creature, neither the one nor the other can be lacking in any work of God: because Go can do nothing that is not in accord with His wisdom and goodness; and it is in this sense, as we have said, that anything is due to God. Likewise, whatever is done by Him in created things, is done according to proper order and proportion wherein consists the idea of justice. Thus justice must exist in all God’s works. Now the work of divine justice always presupposed the work of mercy; and is founded thereupon. For nothing is due to creatures, except for something pre-existing in them, or foreknown. Again, if this is due to a creature, it must be due on account of something that precedes. And since we cannot go on to infinity, we must come to something that depends only on the goodness of the divine will—which is the ultimate end. We may say, for instance, that to possess hands is due to humans on account of their rational soul; and one’s rational soul is due to one that one may be human; and one’s being human is on account of the divine goodness. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

So in every work of God, viewed at its primary source, there appears mercy. In all the follows, the power of mercy remains, and works indeed with even greater force; as the influence of the first cause is more intense than that of second causes. For this reason does God out of proportionate to their deserts: since less would suffice for preserving the order of justice than what the divine goodness confers; because between creatures and God’s goodness there can be no proportion. Certain works are attributed to justice, and certain others to mercy, because in some justice appears more forcibly and in others mercy. Even in the damnation of the reprobate mercy is seen, which, though it des not totally remit, yet somewhat alleviates, in punishing short of what is deserved. In the justification of the ungodly, justice is seen, when God remits sins on account of love, though He Himself has mercifully infused that love. So we read of Magdalen: “Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much,” reports Luke 7.47. God’s justice and mercy appear both in the conversation of the Jews and of the Gentiles. However, an aspect of justice appears in the conversation of the Jews which is not seen in the conversation of the Gentiles; inasmuch as the Jews were saved on account of the promises made to the fathers. Justice and mercy appear in the punishment of the just in the World, since by afflictions lesser faults are cleansed in them, and they are the more raised up from Earthly affection to God. The evils that press on us in the World force us to go to God. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Although creation presupposed nothing in the Universe; yet it does presuppose something in the knowledge of God. In this way too the idea of justice is preserved in creation; by the production of beings in a manner that accords with the divine wisdom and goodness. And the idea of mercy, also, is preserved in the change of creatures from non-existence to existence. Hail to the Measurer, who laid things out, putting this one here and that one there, putting in the place it belonged. Hail to the determining one, who established laws, that all things might run smoothly, that all things might perform well. God of establishing, I pray to you: may you fashion the World in such a way as to bring me happiness, as to bring me prosperity, as to bring me peace, as to being blessings on all of your worshippers. None but Thee will be out Redeemer in the Messianic days and none is t be compared unto Thee O Saviour, for the assurance of immortal life. The Lord is Master over all His works; blessed is He, acclaimed by every living thing. His greatness and His goodness fill the Universe, while knowledge and discernment compass Him about. The Lord, exalted over all the celestial host, above the Heavenly Chariot in radiance adorned. Purity and justice stand before His throne, kindness and compassion before His glory go. The luminaries which the Lord has wrought are good, with wisdom, knowledge and discernment were they are made. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester Estate is open today until 4PM! Come walk the grounds and learn about Sarah Winchester’s beautiful home. winchestermysteryhouse.com

Come experience the beautiful Victorian Gardens this weekend while learning more about Sarah Winchester’s story and iconic mansion.

There is more glass at the Winchester Mystery House than the Empire State Building. How many times have you visited Sarah Winchester’s stunning mansion?