Eat plenty of garlic. This guarantees you twelve hours of sleep—alone—every night, and there is nothing like rest to give you shinning orbs. Every time I look in the mirror, I thank God for high cheek bones. Discontent destroyed the children of God in the wilderness! Do not do a repeat—thank God for what He has done in your life! Now accepting the Aristotelian Principle as a natural fact, it will generally be rational, in view of the other assumptions, to realize and train mature capacities. Maximal or satisfactory plans are almost certainly plans that provide for doing this in significant measure. Not only is there a tendency in this direction postulated by the Aristotelian Principle, but the plain facts of social interdependency and the nature of our interests more narrowly construed incline us the same way. A rational plan—constrained as always by the principles of right—allows a person to flourish, so far as circumstances permit, and to exercise one’s realized abilities as much as one can. Moreover, one’s fellow associates are likely to support these activities as promoting the common interest and also to take pleasure in them as displays of human excellence. To the degree, then, that the esteem and admiration of others is desired, the activities favoured by the Aristotelian Principle are good for other persons as well. There are several points to keep in mind in ordering to prevent misunderstandings of this principle. For one thing, it formulates a tendency and not an invariable pattern of choice, and like all tendencies it may be overridden. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25

Countervailing inclinations can inhibit the development of realized capacity and the preference for more complex activities. Various hazards and risks, both psychological and social, are involved in training and prospective accomplishment, and apprehensions about these may outweigh the original propensity. We must interpret the principle so as to allow for these facts. Yet if it is a useful theoretical notion, the tendency postulated should be relatively strong and not easily counterbalanced. I believe that this is indeed the case, and that in the design of social institutions a large place has to be made for it, otherwise human beings will find their culture and form of life dull and empty. Their vitality and zest will fail as their life becomes a tiresome routine. And this seems borne out by the fact that the forms of life which absorbs human’s energies, whether they be religious devotions or purely practical matters or even games and pastimes, tend to develop their intricacies and subtleties almost without end. As social practices and cooperative activities are built up through the imagination of many individuals, they increasingly call forth a more complex array of abilities and new ways of doing things. That this process is carried along by the enjoyment of natural and free activity seems to be verified by the spontaneous play of children and animals which all shows the same features. A further consideration is that the principle does not assert that any particular activity will be preferred. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25

It says only that we prefer, other things equal, activities that depend upon a larger repertoire of realized capacities and that are more complex. More precisely, suppose that we can order a certain number of activities in a chain by the inclusion relation. This means that the nth activity exercises all the skills of the n—1th activity and some further ones in addition. Now there are indefinitely many such chains with no elements in common, let us say; and moreover, numerous chains may start from the same activity representing different ways in which this activity can be built upon and enriched. What the Aristotelian Principle says is that whenever a person engages in an activity belonging to some chain (and perhaps to several chains) one tends to move up the chains. In general, one will prefer doing the nth to doing the n—1th activity; and this tendency will be stronger the more one’s capacity is yet to be realized and the less onerous one finds the strained of learning and training. Presumably there is a preference for ascending the chains or chains which offer the greatest prospects of exercising the higher abilities with the least stress. The actual course that a person follows, the combination of activities that one finds most appealing, is decided by one’s inclinations and talents and by one’s social circumstances by what one’s associations appreciate and are likely to encourage. Thus natural assets ad social opportunities obviously influence the chains that individuals eventually prefer. By itself the principle simply asserts a propensity to ascend whatever chains are chosen. It does not entail that a rational plan includes any particular aims, nor does it imply any special form of society. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25

Again, we may suppose, although it is probably not essential, that every activity belongs to some chain. The reason for this is that human ingenuity can and normally will discover for each activity a continuing chain that elicits a growing inventory of skills and discriminations. We stop moving up a chain, however, when going higher will use up resources required for raising or for maintaining the level of a preferred chain. And resources here is to be taken broadly, so that the reason why, for example, we are content to lace our shoes or tie our tie in a straightforward way, and do not ordinarily make complex rituals of these daily actions. There are only so many hours in a day, and this prevents our ascending to the upper limits of our capacity all the chains that are open to us. However, then a prisoner in a cell might take time with daily routines and invent ways of doing them that ne would not otherwise bother with. The formal criterion is that a rational individual selects a preferred pattern of activities (compatible with the principle of justice) and proceeds along each of its chains up to the point where no further improvement results from any feasible change in the schedule. This overall standard does not, of course, tell us how to decide; rather it emphasizes the limited resources of time and energy, and explains why some activities are slighted in favour of others even though, in the form in which we engage in them, they allow for further elaboration. Now it may be objected that there is no reason to suppose that the Aristotelian Principle is true. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25

 Like the idealist notion of self-realization, to which the Aristotelian Principle bears a certain resemblance, it may have the ring of a philosopher’s principle with little to support it. However, it seems to be borne out by many facts of everyday life, and by the behaviour of the children and some of the higher animals. Moreover, it appears to be susceptible to an evolutionary explanation. Natural selection must have favoured created whom this principle is true. Aristotle says that humans desire to know. Presumably we have acquired this desire by a natural development, and indeed, if the principle is sound, a desire to engage in more complex and demanding activities of any kind as long as they are within our reach. Human beings enjoy the greater variety of experience, they take pleasure in the novelty and surprises and the occasions for ingenuity and invention that such activities provide. The multiplicity of spontaneous activities is an expression of the delight that we take in imagination and creative fantasy. Thus the Aristotelian Principle characterizes human beings as importantly moved not only by the pressures of bodily needs, but also by the desire to do thing enjoyed simply for their own sakes, at least when the urgent and pressing wants are satisfied. The marks of such enjoyed activities are many, varying from the manner and way in which they are done to the persistence with which they are returned to at a later time. Indeed, we do them without the incentive of evident reward, and allowing us to engage in them can itself act often as a reward for doing others things. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25

Since the Aristotelian Principle is a feature of human desires as they now exist, rational plans must take it into account. The evolutionary explanation, even if it is correct, is not of course a justification for this aspect of our nature. In fact, the question of justification does not arise. The question is rather: granted that this principle characterizes human nature as we know it, to what extent is it to be encouraged and supported, and how is it to be reckoned with in framing rational plans of life? The role of the Aristotelian Principle in the theory of the good is that it states a deep psychological fact which, in conjunction with other general facts and the conception of a rational plan, accounts for our considered judgments of value. The things that are commonly thought of as human goods should turn out to be the ends and activities that have a major place in rational plans. The principle is part of the background that regulates these judgements. Provided that it is true, and leads to conclusions matching our convictions about what is good and bad (in reflective equilibrium), it has a proper place in moral theory. Even if this conception should not be true of some persons, the idea of a rational long-term plan still applies. We can work out what is good for them in much the same way as before. Thus imagine someone whose only pleasure is to count blades of grass in various geometrically shaped areas such as park squares and well-trimmed laws. One is otherwise intelligent and actually possesses unusual skills, since one manages to survive by solving difficult mathematical problems for a fee. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25

The definition of the good forces us to admit that the goo for this human is indeed counting blades of grass, or more accurately, one’s good is determined by a plan that gives an especially prominent place to this activity. Naturally we would be surprised that such a person should exist. Faced with one’s case, we would try out other hypotheses. Perhaps one is peculiarly neurotic and in early life acquired an aversion to human fellowship, and so one counts blades of grass to avoid having to deal with other people. However, if we allow that one’s nature is to enjoy this activity and not to enjoy any other, and that there is no feasible way to alter one’s condition, then surely a rational plan for one will center around this activity. It will be for one the end that regulates the schedule of one’s actions, and this establishes that it is good for one. I mention this fanciful case only to show that the correctness of the definition of a person’s good in terms of the rational plan for one does not require the truth of the Aristotelian Principle. The definition is satisfactory, I believe, even if this principle should prove inaccurate, or fail altogether. However, by assuming the principle we seem able to account for what things are recognized as good for human beings taking them as they are. Moreover, since this principle ties in with the primary good of self-respect, it turns out to have a central position in the moral psychology underlying justice as fairness. It is impossible to produce future shock in large numbers of individuals without affecting the rationality of society as a whole. Today, according to Daniel P. Moynihan, the former chief White House advisor on urban affairs, the President of the Untied States of America “exhibits the qualities of an individual going through a nervous breakdown.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 25

For the cumulative impact of sensory, cognitive or decisional overstimulation, not to mention the physical effects of neural or endocrine overload, creates sickness in our midst. This sickness is increasingly mirrored in our culture, our philosophy, our attitude toward reality. It is no accident that so many ordinary people refer to the World as a “madhouse” or that the theme of insanity has recently become a staple in literature, art, drama, and film. Peter Weiss in his play Marat/Sade portrays a turbulent World as seen through the eyes of the inmates of the Charenton asylum. In movies like Morgan, life within a mental institution is depicted as superior to that in the outside World. In Blow-Up, the climax comes when the hero joins in a tennis game in which the players hit symbolic acceptance f the unreal and irrational—recognition that he can n longer distinguish between illusion and reality. Millions of viewers identified with the hero in that moment. The assertion that the World has “gone crazy,” the graffiti slogan that “reality is a crutch,” the interests in hallucinogenic drugs, the enthusiasm for astrology and the occult, the search for truth in sensation, ecstasy and “peak experience,” the swing toward extreme subjectivism, the attacks on science, the snowballing belief that reason has failed humans, reflect the everyday experience of masses of ordinary people who find they can no longer cope rationally with change. Millions sense the pathology that pervades the air, but fail to understand its roots. These roots lie not in this or that political doctrine, still less is some mystical core of despair or isolation presumed to in here in the “human condition.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 25

Nor o they lie in science, technology, or legitimate demands for social change. They are traceable, instead, to the uncontrolled, non-selective nature of our lunge into the future. They lie in our failure to direct, consciously and imaginatively, the advance toward super-industrialism. Thus, despite its extraordinary achievements in art, science, intellectual, moral and political life, the United States of America is a nation in which millions of young people flee reality by opting for drug-induced lassitude; a nation in which tens of millions of their parents retreat into video-induced stupor or alcoholic haze; a nation in which legions of elderly folk vegetate and die in loneliness; in which the flight from family and occupational responsibility has become an exodus; in which masses tame their raging anxieties with Miltown, or Librium, or Equanil, or a score of other tranquilizers and psychic pacifiers. Such a nation, whether it knows it or not, is suffering from future shock. “I am not going back to America,” says Ronald Bierl, a young expatriate in Turkey. “If you can establish your own sanity, you do not have to worry about other people’s sanity. And so many Americans are going insane.” Multitudes share this unflattering view of American reality. Lest Europeans or Japanese or Russians rest smugly on their presumed sanity, however, it is well to ask whether similar symptoms are not already present in their midst as well. Are Americans unique in this respect, or are they simply suffering the initial brunt of an assault on the psyche that soon will stagger other nations as well? #RandolphHarris 9 of 25

Social rationality presupposes individual rationality, and this, in turn, depends not only on certain biological equipment, but on continuity, order and regularity in the environment. It is premised on some correlation between the pace and complexity of change and human’s decisional capacities. By blindly stepping up the rate of change, the level of novelty, and the extent of choice, we are thoughtlessly tampering with these environmental preconditions of rationality. We are condemning countless millions to future shock. Our youth need to develop more confidence in the gospel than they have in popular culture, the media, and academic philosophies. We need to assure our youth that the Heavenly Father loves us and has provided ways for us to know the truth. To help guide us we have the words of God and of His Son Jesus Christ found in our holy scriptures. We have the counsel and teachings of God’s prophets. Of paramount importance, we have been provided with a perfect example to follow—even the example of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Knowing there are very real attacks waged against our children of all ages, let us better arm them with all the tools they need to discern between the World’s teachings and the Lord’s and to help them “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places,” reports Mosiah 18.9. The World bombards our youth with messages that are filled with half-truths. The truth is out there, but so are lies. There are misleading headlines, falsified studies, and all type of immortality. These things are hitting them at an alarming speed and coming at them from every direction. Some of the errors are obvious, while many are subtle and require a great deal of discernment. We need to better equip youth to question what they learn from the World—especially those things that contradict gospel teachings.  #RandolphHarris 10 of 25

Indeed, Satan’s attacks are directed against everything the proclamation of the United States of America’s Constitution stands for: marriage between man and women; the law of chastity; the sanctity of life; the birth of children within marriage; the divine roles of mothers and fathers. Parents and leaders need to have a testimony of this prophetic document in order to help the youth tackle these issues succinctly—and to speak out when necessary. Let us not just assume that youth will somehow get the drift of these doctrine and covenants on their own. Remember, Satan is bold and unapologetic in teaching youth his false doctrines. If we apologize for the Lord’s standards and commandments or shy away from boldly teaching truth, I think we do our youth a great disservice. The adversary is using false teachings, the fake news media, and confusion to undermine our youth’s ability to progress spiritually. With the rapid growth of alarming social trends, we need to teach the doctrines clearly, concisely, and without apology. It is critical to keep up to date with current social issues and trends in order to understand what the youth are dealing with at school and online. We have to be better prepared and willing to talk to them about tough issues candidly—without tiptoeing around the doctrine. Youth and young adults can handle it! They want to talk about these things. They are craving guidance and direction on these touch issues. To be the adherent of a creed, therefore, is not always religious matter but more often a social one and, as such, it does nothing to give the individual any foundation. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25

For foundation, one has to depend exclusively on one’s relation to an authority which is not of the World. The criterion here is not lip service to a creed but the psychological fact that the life of the individual is not determined solely by the ego and its opinions or by social factors, but quite as much, if not more, by a transcendent authority. It is not ethical principles, however lofty, or creeds, however orthodox, that law the foundations for the freedom and autonomy of the individual, but simply and solely the empirical awareness, the incontrovertible experience of an intensely person, reciprocal relationship between man and an extramundane authority which acts as a counterpoise to the “World” and its “reason.” This formulation will not please either the mass man or the collective believer. For the former the policy of the State is the supreme principle of thought and action. Indeed, this was the purpose for which one was enlightened, and accordingly the mass human grants the individual a right to exist only in so far as one is a function of the State. The believer, on the other hand, while admitting that the State has a moral and factual claim on one, confesses to the belief that not only man but the State that rules one is subject to the overlordship of “God,” and that, in case of doubt, the supreme decision will be made by God and not by the State. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25

Since I do not presume to any metaphysical judgments, I must leave it an open question whether the “World,” id est, the phenomenal World of humans, and hence nature in general, is the “opposite” of God or not. I can only point to the fact that the psychological opposition between these two realms of experience is not only vouched for in the New Testament but is still exemplified very plainly today in the negative attitude of the dictator States to religion and of the Church to atheism and materialism. Just as humans, as social beings, cannot in the long run exist without a tie to the community, so the individual will never find the real justification for one’s existence and one’s own spiritual and moral autonomy anywhere except in the extramundane principle capable of relativizing the overpowering influence of external factors. The individual who is not anchored in God can offer on resistance on one’s own resources to the physical and moral blandishments of the World. For this one needs the evidence of inner, transcendent experience which alone can protect one from the otherwise inevitable submersion in the mass. Merely intellectual or even moral insight into the stultification and more irresponsibility of the mass human is a negative recognition and only amounts to not much more than a wavering on the road to the atomization of the individual. It lacks the driving force of religious conviction, since it is merely rational. The dictator State has one great advantage over bourgeois reason: along with the individual it swallows up one’s religious forces. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25

The State takes the place of God; that is why, seen from this angle, the socialist dictatorships are religions and State slavery is a form of worship. However, the religious function cannot be dislocated and falsified in this way without giving rise to secret doubts, which are immediately repressed so as to avoid conflict with the prevailing trend towards mass mindedness. The result, as always in such cases, is overcompensation in the form of fanaticism, which in its turn is used as a weapon for stamping out the least flicker of opposition. Free opinion is stifled and moral decision ruthlessly suppressed, on the plea that the end justifies the means, even the vilest. The policy of the State is exalted to a creed, the leader or party boss becomes a demigod beyond good and evil, and one’s votaries are honoured as heroes, martyrs, apostles, missionaries. There is only one truth and beside it no other. It is sacrosanct and above criticism. Anyone who thinks differently is a heretic, who, as we know from history, is threatened with all manner of unpleasant things. Only the party boss, who holds the political power in one’s hands, can interpret the State doctrine authentically, and one does so just as suits one. When, through mass rule, the individual becomes social unit Number so-and-so and the State is elevated to the supreme principle it is only to be expected that the religious function too will be sucked into the malestorm. Religion, as the careful observation and taking account of certain invisible and uncontrollable factors, is an instinctive attitude peculiar to humans, and its manifestations can be followed through human history. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25

Religion’s evident purpose is to maintain the psychic balance, for the natural human has an equally natural “knowledge” of the fact that one’s conscious functions may at any time be thwarted by uncontrollable happenings coming from inside as well as from outside. For this reason one has always taken care that any difficult decision likely to have consequences for oneself and others shall be rendered safe by suitable measures of a religious nature. Offerings are made to the invisible powers, formidable blessings are pronounced, and all kinds of solemn rites are preformed. Everywhere and at all times there have been rites d’entrée et de sortie whose efficacy is impugned as magic and superstition by rationalist incapable of psychological insight. However, magic has above all a psychological effect whose importance should not be underestimated. The performance of a “magical” action gives the person concerned a feeling of security which is absolutely essential for carrying out a decision, because a decision is inevitably somewhat one-sided and is therefore rightly felt to be a risk. Even a dictator thinks it necessary not only to accompany one’s acts of State with threats but to stage them with all manner of solemnities. Brass, flags, banners, parades and monster demonstrations are no different in principle from ecclesiastical processions, cannonades, and firework to scare off demons. Only, the suggestive parade of State power engenders a collective feeling of security which, unlike religious demonstrations, gives the individual no protection against one’s inner demonism. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25

Hence one will cling all the more to the power of the State, id est, to the mass, thus delivering oneself up to its psychically as well as morally and putting the finishing touches on one’s social depotentiation. That State, like the Church, demands enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, and love, and if religion requires or presupposes the “fear of God,” then the dictator State takes good care to provide the necessary terror. In this and many other ways, the more standards demanded of the citizen of the Kingdom of God inevitably affect the moral standards of the kingdoms of humans. This is not well understood today because of the widespread view that private moral values have no bearing on public conduct. Scripture and history indicate otherwise, as do our own life experiences. Whether a politician cheats on his or her spouse, for example, should have no bearing on one’s fitness for office, many say. However, a broken vow is a broken vow and reveals a weakness of character. If a man or a woman cannot be trusted with private moral decisions, how can he or she be trusted with moral decisions affecting the whole society? Moral values do affect character, and the influence of individual character has an impact on society. Not just with public officials, but in the lives of ordinary citizens. Nowhere is this more evident than in the areas of criminal behaviour. James Q. Wilson, Harvard law professor, after surveying American history and comparing religious activity with crime data during specified periods, discovered a startling correlation. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25

In the middle of the nineteenth century when rapid urbanization would normally lead one to expect increased crime, the level of crime actually fell. Interestingly, it was during that same period that a great spiritual awakening occurred. Thus, Dr. Wilson explains, morality took hold just as industrialization began. From the mid-1800s to 1920, despite environmental, economic, and social pressures that should have made it rise, the crime rate decreased. Conversely, during the “good” economic years of the twenties, crime began to rise. Because, says Dr. Wilson, “the educated classes began to repudiate moral uplift, and Dr. Freud’s psychological theories came into vogue.” People no longer believed in restraining a child’s sinful impulses; they wanted to develop one’s “naturally good” personality. Even more surprising, crime did not rise, as sociologist expected, during the Great Depression when, it is estimated, that 34 million men, women, and children were without any income at all—28 percent of the population. Tough times seem to develop strength of character and a tendency for the populace to pull together, whereas good times leave people free to seek self-interest and satisfaction, legally or otherwise. If this correlation is valid, the soaring crime rates in today’s affluent, egocentric New World culture are altogether understandable. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25

Correlation between religious values and public order was dramatically evident during a religious revival early in the 20^th century. The revival began in small Methodist churches in Wales and quickly spilled out into society. During New Year’s week in 1905, for the first time ever there was not a single arrest for drunkenness in Swansea County, the police announced. In Cardiff the authorities reported a 40 percent decrease in the jail population while the tavern trade fell off dramatically. Prayer meetings sprang up in coal mines; stores reported stocks of Bible sold out; dockets were cleared in criminal courts; and many police were unemployed. Stolen goods were returned to shocked store owners. One historian reported, “Cursing and profanity were so diminished that a strike was provoked in the coal mines….so many men had given up using foul language that the pit ponies dragged the coal trucks in the mine tunnels did not understand what was being said to them and stood still, confused.” The revival soon spread throughout the British Isles and much of the English-speaking World. Church attendance rose, and in many areas, as Wales, public morality was dramatically affected. Men and women who profess allegiance to the Kingdom of God become models for the rest of society. The role of the City of God, as Augustine said, is “to inspire men and women to organize their communities in the image and likeness of the Heavenly City.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 25

Nowhere in modern culture is this more crucial than in the area of the nature and origins of law. In the Kingdom of God, God is King and Lawgiver for all. This does not mean that the Old Testament’s civic code should be passed by modern governments. What it does mean, as Plato and Cicero recognized, is that there are moral absolutes that must govern human behaviour; there is a law rooted in truth upon which the laws of human society are based. The presence of the Kingdom of God in society means the presence of a community of people whose lives testify to this Law behind the law. The eschew relativism, believe that some things are right, some are wrong, and adhere to universal ethical norms. The presence of such people in society, therefore, is a powerful bulwark to legal sanity. However, the Kingdom of God is more than just a model. It actually operates as a restraint on the kingdom of man through its individuals and through its most visible manifestation, the church. For in our society the church is the chief institution with the moral authority to mediate between individuals and government, to hold the state to account for its obligations to its citizens. The American government was established with the understanding that such transcendent values would affect what otherwise is simply a social contract. When the state forgets or denies those values that were original conditions of the contract, in essence it abrogates it contract with its citizens. It is then that the church must take the initiative and call the state to account, for as Richard Neuhaus writes, the church is “the particular society within society that bears institutional witness to the transcendent purpose to which the society is held accountable.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 25

This is the point at which the conflict between the two kingdoms often becomes the greatest. Government by nature seeks power and will always attempt to generate its own moral legitimacy for its decisions. Inevitably, it resents any group that attempts to act as its conscience. However, as history demonstrates, and as we have already discussed, the result of government attempting to impose its own moral vision upon society or acting without the restraint of an independent conscience is tyranny. The only way some politicians can win is by cheating and changing the rules. What is the first thing that will go when a political party packs the court? Your gun rights. Next your freedom us speech and before you know the entire Constitution of the United States and its flag will be up in smokes. Wait, wait, wait, the party(s) that locked healthy people in our homes for months, closed our businesses, mandates what we ear on our face and has been assaulting our first and second amendment rights for decades is telling us they need to pack to court to save democracy? These people are truly questionable. Rigging elections, opening our borders, working with media and big technology firms to censor certain people and groups, rewriting or eliminating history, indoctrinating students, going after our guns and assaulting out first amendment. All part of their plan. The “plandemic” infringements were just a trial run for what they are planning. These new radicals are inappropriate. Contrary to today’s popular illusion, the job of propagating moral vision belongs not to government but to other institutions of society, most notably the church. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25

When the state oversteps the bounds of its authority, the church becomes, as we have seen in Poland, the one effective source of moral resistance. The church does this not for its own ends as an Earthly institution, but for the common good. This may well be the area most perplexing to Christians and secularists alike, for both sides are frequently confused about the right, and indeed in some cases the duty, of the church, as well as individuals within the church, to confront the state. When the rationalist directs the main force of one’s attack against the miraculous effect of the rite as asserted by tradition, one has in reality completely missed the mark. The essential point, the psychological effect, is overlooked, although both parties make use of it for directly opposite purposes. A similar situation prevails with regard to their respective conceptions of the goal. The goals of religion—deliverance from evil, reconciliation with God, rewards in the hereafter, and so on—turn into Worldly promises about freedom from care for one’s daily bread, the distribution of material goods, universal propensity in the future, and shorter working hours. That fulfilment of these promises is as far off as Paradise only furnishes yet another analogy and underlines the fact that the masses have been converted from an extramundane goal to a purely Worldly belief, which is extolled with exactly the same religious fervour and exclusiveness that the creed display in the other direction. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25

The fact is that a natural function which as existed from the beginning, like religious function, cannot be disposed of with rationalistic and so-called enlightened criticism. You can, of course, represent the doctrinal contents of the creeds as impossible and subject them to ridicule, but such methods miss the point and do not affect the religious function which forms the basis of the creeds. Religion, in the sense of conscientious regard for the irrational factors of the psyche and individual fate, reappears—evilly distorted—in the deification of the State and the dictator: Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret (You can throw out Nature with a pitchfork, but she will always turn up again). The leaders and dictators, having weighed up the situation correctly, are therefore doing their best to gloss over the all too obvious parallel with the deification of Caesar and to hide their real power behind the fiction of the State, though this, of course, alters nothing. The dictator State, besides robbing the individual of one’s rights, has also cut the ground from under one’s feet physically by depriving one of the metaphysical foundations of one’s existence. The ethical decision of the individual human being no longer counts—what alone matters if the blind movement of the masses, and the lie thus becomes the operative principle of political action. The State has drawn the logical conclusions from this, as the existence of many millions of State slaves completely deprived of all rights mutely testifies. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25

Both the dictator State and denominational religion lay quite particularly emphasis on the idea of community. This is the basic ideal of “communism,” and it is thrust down the throats of the people so much that it has the exact opposite of the desired effect: it inspires divisive mistrust. The Church, which is n less empathic, appears on its side as a communal idea, and where the Church is notoriously weak, as in Protestantism, the hope of or belief in a “communal experience” makes up for the painful lack of cohesion. As can easily be seen, “community” is an indispensable assistance in the organization of masses and is therefore a two-edged weapon. Just as the addition of however many zeros will never make a unit, so the value of a community depends on the spiritual and moral stature of the individual composing it. For this reason one canoe expect from the community any effect that would outweigh the suggestive influence of the environment—that is, a real and fundamental change in individuals, whether for good or bad. Such changes can come only from the personal encounter between human and human, but not from communistic or Christian baptism en masse, which do not touch the inner human. How superficial the effect of communal propaganda actually is can be seen from recent events in America. The communal ideal reckons without its host, overlooking the individual human being, who in the end will assert one’s claim. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25

The problem of our relation to the Overself is difficult to clear up satisfactorily in words. Hence the statement about it in this essay must not be taken too literally and too precisely. Words pertain to a lower order of being. The Overself is not a discriminating observing entity in our human and ordinary sense. However, its power and intelligence are such that the activities of discrimination and observation would appear to be at work merely through its presence. Everything in our lives happens as if the Overself took a direct interest and arranged its manifestation, and that is the wonder and mystery of the human situation. Only by comparing this situation with that of the dreaming human and one’s various dream egos can we even get a hint of what its reality is. There is a Godlike thing within us which theology calls the spirit and which, because it is also a portion of the higher power within the Universe, I call the Overself. One is wise indeed who takes it as one’s truest guide and makes it one’s protective guardian. In the end, after many a life on Earth, one will find that much of what one looks for in others will have to be found in oneself. However, it will not be found in the surface self. It lies deeply submerged, in a region where the purest forms exist. I invoke thee—God Almighty! Hear me: This is the Lord of Gods: This is the Lord of the Universe: This is He Whom the Winds fear. This is He, Whom having made Voice by His Commandment, is the Lord of All Things; King, Ruler, and Helper. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25

I am He! the Bornless Spirit! having sight in the feet: Strong, and the Immortal Fire! I am He! the Truth! I am He Who hate that evil should be wrought in the World! I am He, that lighteneth and thundereth. I am He, from Whom is the Shower of the Life of Earth: I am He, Whose mouth ever flameth: I am He, the Begetter and Manifester unto Light: I am He; the Grace of the World: “The Heart Girt with a Serpent” is My Name! Come Thou forth, and follow Me: and make all Spirit subject unto Me so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under The Earth: on dry Land, or in the Water: of whirling Air or of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God, may be obedient unto me. Such are the Words! Blessed be one that comes in the name of the Lord; we bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and hath given us light; adorn the festival procession with myrtle boughs round the horns of the later. Thou art my God, and I will give thanks unto Thee; the caustic glue of love will hold me for some time. The most romantic thing we can do in Life is to teach each other about Love simultaneously opening doors to a new synthesis. Thou art my God, I will exalt Thee. O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His lovingkindness endureth forever. All Thy works shall praise Thee, O Lord our God, and Thy pious ones, the just who do Thy will, together with all Thy people, the house of America, shall thank and bless, exalt and reverence, sanctify and ascribe sovereignty unto Thy name, O our King. For it is good to give thanks unto Thee, and fitting to sing praises unto Thy name, for Thou art God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Thou King extolled with praises. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25

Cresleigh Homes

When your home is thoughtfully designed, cooking becomes a team sport. 🥞🍞🌮🥙 We’re obsessed with this island – and the fact that the dining room is quickly accessible through the butler’s pantry. #Riverside Residence 2 is a stunning example of just how spacious a single story home can be!

Residence Two a spacious single story home with nearly 2,600 square feet of home thoughtfully designed to maximize every available foot of space. Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a three car garage all come included in this home. The layout if an entertainer’s dream with large kitchen and working island, dining room connected through the butler’s pantry, and a large great room overlooking the ample rear yard.

Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Home Mini! https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-riverside-at-plumas-ranch/residence-2/

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