To restore a sense of reality, I think Walt Disney should have had a Hardluckland. With so few resources of ills, humans in the state of nature hardly has any need therefore of remedies, much less physicians. Human race is in no worse condition than all the others in this respect; and it is easy to learn from hunters whether in their chases they find many sick animals. They find quite a few that have received serious wounds that healed quite nicely, that have had bones or even limbs broken and reset with no other surgeon than time, no other regimen than their everyday life, and that are no less perfectly cured for not having been tormented with incisions, poisoned with drugs, or exhausted with fasting. Finally, however correctly administered medicine may be among us, it is still certain that although a sick savage, abandoned to oneself, has nothing to fear except one’s illness. This frequently makes one’s situation preferable to ours. Therefore we must take care not to confuse savage humans with the humans we have before our eyes. Nature treats all animals left to their own devices with a partiality that seems to show how jealous se is of that right. The horse, the cat, the bull, even he mule, are usually taller, and all of them have a more robust constitution, more vigour, more strength, and more courage in the forests than in our homes. They lose half of these advantages in becoming domesticated; it might be said that all our efforts at feeding them and treating them well only end in their degeneration. It is the same for humans themselves. In becoming habituated to the ways of society and a slave, one becomes weak, fearful, and servile; one’s soft and effeminate lifestyle completes the enervation of both one’s strength and courage. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

Let us add that the difference between the savage and the human and the domesticated human should be still greater than that between the savage and the animal and the domesticated animal; for while animal and human have been treated equally by nature, humans give more comfort to themselves than to the animals they tame, and all of these comforts are so many specific causes that makes them degenerate more noticeably. It is therefore no great misfortune for those first humans, nor, above all, such a great obstacle to their preservation, that they are naked, that they have no dwelling, and that they lack all those useful things we take to be so necessary. If they do not have furry skin, they have no need for it in warm countries, and in cold countries they soon learn to help themselves to the skins of animals they have vanquished. If they have but two feet to run with, they have two arms to provide for their defense and for their needs. Perhaps their children learn to walk late and with difficulty, but mothers carry them easily: an advantage that is lacking in other species, where the mother, on being pursued, finds herself forced to abandon her young or to comfort her pace to theirs. [It is possible there are some exceptions to this. For example, the animal from the province of Nicaragua which resembles a fox and which has feet like a man’s hands, and according to Dr. Coreal, has a pouch under its belly in which the mother places her young when she is forced to take flight. No doubt this is the same animal that is called tlaquatzin in Mexico; the female of the species Laet descries as having a similar pouch for the same purpose.] #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

Finally, unless we suppose those singular and fortuitous combinations of circumstances of which I will speak later, and which might very well have never taken place at any rate it is clear that the firs human who made clothing or a dwelling for oneself was giving oneself things that were hardly necessary, since one done without them until then and since it is not clear why, as a grown human, one could not endure the kind of life he had endured ever since one was a child. Alone, idle, and always near danger, savage humans must like to sleep and be a light sleeper like animals which do little thinking and, as it were, sleep the entire time they are not thinking. Since one’s self-preservation was practically one’s sole concern, one’s best trained faculties ought to be those that have attack and defense as their principal object, either to subjugate one’s prey or to prevent one’s becoming the prey of another animal. On the other hand, he organs that are perfected only by softness and sensuality must remain in a state of crudeness that excludes any kind of refinement in one. And with one’s senses of touch and taste: those of sight, hearing and smell will have the greatest subtlety. Such is the state of animals in general, and, according to the reports of travellers, such also is that of the majority of savage peoples. Thus we should not be surprised that the Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope can sight ships with the naked eye as far out at sea as he Dutch can with telescopes; or that the savages of America were as capable of trailing Spaniards by smell as the best dogs could have done; or that all these barbarous nations endure their nakedness with no discomfort, whet their appetites with hot peppers, and drink European liquors like water. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

In any terrestrial being I see nothing but an ingenious machine to which nature has given senses in order for it to renew its strength and to protect itself, to a certain point, from all that tends to destroy or disturb it. I am aware of precisely the same things in the human machines, with the differences that nature alone does everything in the operations of an animal, whereas humans contribute, as a free agent, to one’s own operations. The former chooses or rejects by instinct and the later by an act of freedom. Hence an animal cannot deviate from the rule that is prescribed to it, even when it would be advantageous to do so, while humans deviate from it, often to one’s own detriment. Thus a pigeon would die of hunger near a bowl filled with choice meats, and so would a cat perched atop a pile of fruit or grain, even though both could nourish themselves quite well with the food they disdain, if they were of a mind to try some. And thus dissolute humans abandon themselves to excesses which cause them fever and death, because the mind perverts the senses and because the will still speaks when nature is silent. Every animal has idea, since it has senses; up to a certain point it even combines its ideas, and in this regard humans differ from animals only in degree. Some philosophers have even suggested that there is a greater difference between two given humans than between a given human and an animal. Therefore it is not so much understanding which causes the specific distinction of humans from all other animals as it is one’s being a free agent. Nature commands every animal, and beasts obey. Humans feel the same impetus, but they know they are free to go along or to resist; and it is above all in the awareness of this freedom that the spirituality of one’s soul is made manifest. For physics explains in some way the mechanism of the senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power, we find only purely spiritual acts, above which the laws of mechanics explain nothing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

However, if the difficulties surrounding all these questions should leave some room for dispute on tis difference between human and animal, here is another very specific quality which distinguishes them and about which there can be no argument: the faculty of self-perfection, a faulty which, with the assistance of circumstances, successively develops all the others, and resides among us as much in the species as in the individual. On the other hand, an animal, at the end of a few months, is what it will be all its life; and is species, at the end of a thousand years, is what it was in the first of those thousand years. Why are humans alone to becoming imbeciles? Is it not that they thereby return to their primitive state, and that, while the animal which has acquired nothing and which also has nothing to lose, always retains its instinct, human, in losing through old age or other accidents all that one’s perfectibility has enabled one to acquire, thus falls even lower than the animal itself? It would be sad for us to be forced to agree that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all human’s misfortunes; that this is what, by dint of time, draws one out of that original condition in which one would pass tranquil and innocent days; that this is what, through centuries of giving rise to one’s enlightenment and one’s errors, one’s vices and one’s virtues, eventually makes one a tyrant over oneself and nature. It would be dreadful to be obliged to praise as a beneficent being the one who first suggested to the inhabitant on the banks of the Orinoco the use of boards which one binds to one’s children’s temples, and which assure them of at least part of their imbecility and their original happiness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

Savage humans, left by nature to instinct alone, or rather compensated for the instinct one is perhaps lacking by faculties capable of first replacing them and hen of raising one to the level of instinct, will therefore begin with purely animal functions. Perceiving and feeling will be one’s first state, which one will have in common with all animals. Willing and not willing, desiring, and fearing will be the first and nearly the only operations of one’s soul until new circumstances bring about new developments in it. Whatever the moralists may say about it, human understanding owes much to the passions, which, by common consensus, also owe a great deal to it. It is by their activity that our reason is perfected. We seek to know only because we desire to find enjoyment; and it is impossible to conceive why someone who had neither desires nor fears would go to the bother of reasoning. The passions in turn take their origin from our needs, and their progress from our knowledge. For one can desire or fear things only by virtue of the ideas one can have of hem, or from the simple impulse of nature; and savage humans, deprived of every sort of enlightenment, feels only the passions of this latter sort. One’s desires do not go beyond one’s physical needs. The only goods one knows in the Universe are nourishment, a woman and rest; the only evils one fears are pain and hunger and homelessness. I say pain and not death because an animal will never know what it is to die; and knowledge of death and its terrors is one of the first acquisitions that humans have made in withdrawing from the animal condition. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

Were it necessary, it would be easy for me to support this view with the facts and to demonstrate that, among all the nations of the World, the progress of the mind has been precisely proportionate to the needs received by peoples from nature or to those needs to which circumstances have subjected them, and consequently to the passions which inclined hem to provide for those needs. I would show the arts coming into being in Egypt and spreading with the flooding of the Nile. I would follow their progress among the Greeks, where they were seen to germinate, grow and rise to the Heavens among the sands and rocks of Attica, though never being able to take root on the fertile banks of the Eurotas. I would point out that in general the peoples of the north are more industrious than those of the south, because they cannot get along as well without being so, as if nature thereby wanted to equalize things by giving to their minds the fertility it refuses their soil. However, without having recourse to the uncertain testimony of history, does anyone fail to see that everything seems to remove savage humans from the temptation and the means of ceasing to be savage? One’s imagination depicts nothing to one; one’s heart asks nothing of one. One’s modest needs are so easily found at hand, and one is so far from the degree of knowledge necessary to make one desire to acquire greater knowledge, that one can have neither foresight nor curiosity. The spectacle of nature becomes a matter of indifference to one by din of its becoming familiar to one. It is always the same order, always the same succession of changes. One does not have a mind for marveling at the greatest wonders; and we must not seek in one the philosophy that a human needs in order to know how to observe once what one has seen everyday. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

One’s soul, agitated by nothing, is given over to the single feeling of one’s own present existence, without any idea of the future, however, near it may be, and one’s projects, as limited as one’s views, hardly extend to the end of the day. Such is, even today, the extent of the Carib’s foresight. In the morning one sells one’s bed for cotton and in the evening one returns in tears to buy it back, for want of having foreseen that one would need it at night. The more one meditates on this subject, the more distance from pure sensations to the simplest knowledge increases before our eyes; and it is impossible to conceive how a human could have crossed such a wide gap by one’s forces alone, without the assistance of communication and without the provocation of necessity. How many centuries have perhaps gone by before humans were in a position to see any fire other than that from the Heavens? How many different risks did they have to run before they learned the most common uses of that element? How many times did they let it go out before they had acquired the art of reproducing it? And how many times perhaps did each of these secrets die with the one who had discovered it? What will we say about agriculture, an art that requires so much labour and foresight, that depends on so many other arts, that quite obviously is practicable only in a society which is at least in its beginning stages, and that serves us not so much to derive from the Earth food it would readily provide without agriculture, as to force from it those preferences that are most to our taste? #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

However, let us suppose that humans multiplied to the point where the natural productions were no longer sufficient to nourish them: a supposition which, it may be said in passing, would show a great advantage for the human species in that way of life. Let us suppose that, without forges or workshops, farm implements had fallen from the Heavens into the hands of the savages; that these humans had conquered the mortal hatred they all have for continuous work; that they had learned to foresee their needs far enough in advance; that they had guessed how the soil is to be cultivated, grains sown, and trees planted; that they had discovered the arts of grinding wheat and fermenting grapes: all things they would need to have been taught by the gods, for it is inconceivable how they could have picked these things up on their own. Yet, after all this, what human would be so foolish as to tire oneself out cultivating a field that will be plundered by the first comer, be it human or beast, who takes a fancy to the crop? And how could each human resolve to spend one’s life in hard labour, when, the more necessary to one the fruits of one’s labour may be, the surer one is of not realizing them? In a word, how could this situation lead humans to cultivate the soil as long as it is not divided among them, that is to say, as long as the state of nature is not wiped out? There is no security against Miracle to be found by the study of Nature. She is no the whole of reality but only a part; for all we know she might be a small part. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23

If that which is outside her wishes to invade her she has, so far as we can see, no defences. However, of course many who disbelieve in Miracles would admi all this. Their objection comes from the other side. They think that the Supernatural would not invade: they accuse those who say that it has done so of having a childish and unworthy notion of the Supernatural. They therefore reject all form of Supernaturalism which assert such interference and invasions: and specially form called Christianity, for in it the Miracles, or at least some Miracles, are more closely bound up with the fabric of the whole belief than in any others. All the essentials of Hinduism would, I think, remain unimpaired if you subtracted the miraculous, and the same is almost true of Mohammedanism. However, you cannot do that with Christianity. It is precisely the story of a great Miracle. A naturalistic Christianity leaves out all that is specifically Christian. The difficulties of the unbeliever do not begin with questions about this or that particular miracle; they begin much further back. When a human who has had only the ordinary modern education looks into any authoritative statement of Christian doctrine, one finds oneself face to face with what seems to one a wholly “savage” or “primitive” picture of the Universe. One finds that God is supposed to have had a “Son,” just as if God were a mythological deity like Jupiter or Odin. He finds that this “Son” is supposed to have “come down from Heaven,” just as if God had a palace in the sky from which He had sent down His “Son” like a parachutist. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

 One finds that this “Son” then “descended into Hell”—into some land of the dead under the surface of a (presumably) flat Earth—and thence “ascended” again, as if by a balloon, into His Father’s sky palace, where He finally sat down in a decorated chair places a little to His Father’s right. Everything seems to presuppose a conception of reality which the increase of our knowledge has been steadily refuting for the last two thousand and twenty-two years and which no honest human in one’s sense could return to today. It is this impression which explains the contempt, and even disgust, felt by many people for the writings of modern Christians. When one a human is convinced that Christianity in general implies a local “Heaven,” a flat Earth, and a God who can have children, one naturally listens with impatience to our solutions of particular difficulties and our defences against particular objections. The more ingenious we are in such solutions and defences the more perverse we seem to one. “Of course,” he says, “once he doctrines are there, clever people can invent clever arguments to defend them, just as, when once a historian has made a blunder one can go on inventing more and more elaborate theories to make it appear that it was not a blunder. However, if one had read one’s documents correctly in the first instance, it is clear that none of these elaborate theories would have been thought of. In the same way, if the writers of the New Testament had had he slightest knowledge of what the real Universe is actually like, is it not clear that Christian theology would never have come into existence at all?” #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

 Thus, at any rate, I used to think myself. The very human who taught me to think—a hard, satirical atheist (ex-Presbyterian) who doated on the Golden Bough and filled one’s house with the products of the Rationalist Press Association—thought in the same way; and one was a man as honest as the daylight, to whom I here willingly acknowledge an immense debt. His attitude to Christianity was for me the starting point of adult thinking; you may say it is bred in my bones. And yet, since those days, I have come to regard that attitude as a total misunderstanding. Remembering, as I do, from within, the attitude of the impatient sceptic, I realize very well how one is fore-armed against anything I may say for the rest of this essay. “I know exactly what this man is going to do,” he murmurs. “He is going to start explaining all these mythological statements away. It is the invariable practice of these Christians. On any matter whereon science has not yet spoken and on which they cannot be checked, they will tell you some preposterous fairytale. And then, the moment science makes a new advance and shows (as it invariably does) their statement to be untrue, they suddenly turn round and explain that they did not mean what they said, that they were using a poetic metaphor or constructing an allegory, and that all they really intended was some harmless moral platitude. We are sick of this theological thimblerigging.” Now I have a great deal of sympathy with that sickness and I freely admit that “modernist” Christianity has constantly played just the game of which the impatient sceptic accuses it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

However, I also think there is a kind of explaining which is not explaining away. In one sense I am going to do just what the sceptic thinks I am going to do: that is, I am going to distinguish what I regard as the “core” or “real meaning” of the doctrines from that in their expression which I regard as inessential and possibly even capable of being changed without damage. However, then, what will drop away from the “real meaning” under my treatment will precisely not be the miraculous. It is the core itself, the core scraped as clean of inessentials as we can scrape it, which remains for me entirely miraculous, supernatural—nay, if you will, “primitive” and even “magical.” “Do not unfold your heart to anyone,” said the cautious Jeremiah (17.5). When you get a problem, present it to a counselor who knows what one is doing and does not hesitate to tell you. The Book of Proverbs suggests much the same (25.9). Do not hang on the youngster and do not dawdle with the outsiders. Do not dally with the rich and famous; or so says the Book of Proverb (25.6). The humble and the simple, the devout and the obedient, these are the ones to associate with. And with them busy yourself only in the Edifiables. Do not commend yourself to any one woman in particular, but commend all women as a group to God. That is what Jesus son of Sirach would have us do (9.1-9). Do not draw attention to yourself in a crowd. However, if you must have some familiars, then choose God and His Holy Angels. Charity knows no bounds, but familiarity, apparently, has its limits. For example, we hear of a person who has a glowing reputation and immediately thing we could be such good friends. However, when we meet one face to face, of course we are polite, but once one opens one’s mouth, our eyes begin to glaze. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

And we are just vain enough to think that the opposite is not true. However, how true it is! Others should be quite pleased to meet us, we think, but, astonishingly, as soon as we begin to speak, and of course we speak so very well, their eyes grow steely, staring right through us; that is to say, they sense the latent load that is in us. It is a great thing you are living under obedience; that is to say, doing things the way a superior wants them, not the way you think they ought to be. And it is safer too. Nobody blames an inferior when something goes wrong. However, many Devout under obedience today feel they are prisoners, and their complaints rise like murmurings from the cell block. However, these Devouts will never achieve freedom of mind until they wholeheartedly subject themselves to the will of God. However, do not let me stop you. If you want, hit the road, hithering and thithering wherever you like! Mark you, you will not find rest until you humbly subject yourself to the superior’s regime. However, if you are so dreamy, then dream this: Yourself in front of the last monastery at the end of the World, ringing the bell at the gate—things will definitely be better here! Sweet dream, I grant you, but it is still a dream. And how many of today’s Devout have fallen for it! Yes, it is true, each one of us associates with those who feel the same way. However, Go is among us now. If we ever hope to achieve peace of soul, we have to leave behind what we feel. Is that too much to ask? #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

Who is so wise that one can know everything there is to know? No one, of course. Therefore, do not rely too much on how you feel on any given day. However, do not hesitate to listen to the way others feel. At any given day. However, do not hesitate to listen to the way others feel. At any given moment we all feel we know wat is the right and good thing to do. However, next time it happens to you, take God’s advice and drive it out of your mind. Why? Follow yourself, and you will end up in ever decreasing circles. Follow another, and you will find yourself farter down the path toward perfection than you could have ever dreamed. Good Counsel, or o the Proverb goes (12.15): to accept it keeps one’s spirituality fresh, but to give it to the young of soul on a daily basis ages the counselor prematurely. Advice is one thing, but it is not the only thing. There are also Sound Reason and Good Cause. They too can encourage one to acquiesce to others. No matter whence the wisdom, not to defer to another is clear indication that, no matter what your age, you are either a pompous twit or a willful snot. The causes of life’s history cannot resolve the riddle of life’s meaning. What we today call evolutionary psychology—the study of the evolution of behaviour and the mind, using principles of natural selection—is akin to what psychologist once called “comparative psychology.” Comparative psychology explored sensation, learning, and behaviour across the phylogenetic scale of animal life, from worms to humans. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

With increasing brain complexity, comparative psychologists observed more elaborate learning and behaviours. Then “ethologists”—scientists studying animal behaviour in natural contexts—alerted us to complex behaviours exhibited by simple animals such as ants and bees. Still, all of this was relatively uncontroversial and therefore quite unlike evolutionary psychology, which has made the covers of Time, Der Spiegel, and leading scientific journals. Unlike comparative psychology and ethology, evolutionary psychology has seemed to challenge our self-understanding—our view of huma nature and our place in nature. “From the beginning philosophers have agonized over the question of what make us human,” notes Frans de Waal, a leading primatologist. “Is there a difference in kind or merely a difference in the degree between ourselves and other animals? Direct comparisons between people and animals are often seen as demeaning, even offensive.” Such comparisons are hardly new, even within theological circles. “It is dangerous to show a human too clearly how much one resemble the beast, without at the same time showing him his greatness,” wrote Blasie Pascal in the seventeenth century. “It is also dangerous to allow him too clear a vision of his greatness without his baseness. It is even more dangerous to leave one in ignorance of both.” Evolutionary psychology helps reduce that ignorance. Today, some excited psychologists see evolutionary psychology as mounting a takeover bid for the whole of psychology. David Buss chose the subtitle The New Science of the Mind for his recent book Evolutionary Psychology. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

Dr. Buss then proceeded to reorganize the whole of psychology within evolutionary psychology. Others offer more modest claims. Britain’s Open University says simply, “Evolutionary psychology focuses on how human beings came to be the apparently special terrestrial beings we are today.” However, what is special about us? All terrestrial beings have special properties and abilities. Moles live underground. Bird fly. Monkeys swing through trees. Does language mark us as special? (The training of chimps to communicate by sign suggests a simple form of language in nonhuman primates). Are humans special only by virtue of having more complex thinking abilities? By linking us to animal ancestors, doe evolutionary psychology deny our faith claim of uniqueness that comes from God’s gracious invitation to a personal relationship? We believe no. Evolutionary psychology has no interest in such a question (though individual evolutionary psychologists will have views on this). The Light of God is felt as energy pulsing in space and tingling in the body; it is seen, usually with the mind’s eye but sometimes with the body’s, as an unearthly radiance; it is intuited as a glory filling the whole of one’s inner being. The Light is seen visually as a golden ball, a brilliant ray or shaft or beam, and finally as a vague radiance diffused in all directions. It may stay within the orbit of vision quite motionless and still. Or it may quiver, throb, and pulsate. Or it may shoot forward like a lightning flash. One who beholds the Light may be grateful for several reasons. First, it is the only occult experience of which it may be said ta it is entirely without risk or peril. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

Secondly, the light is the loftiest of all clairvoyant visions. Third, it confers the feeling of perfect felicity, not in the Worldly sense, but of an ethereal unearthly kind. Fourth, it is a direct manifestation of God to humans, being the first of one’s outpourings, hence an uncommon blessing, a grace. Fifth, if it appears in consciousness as Power, the recipient may feel a tremendous force, unknown otherwise, throbbing all around and within one, or a sudden lightening-like flash of complete comprehension: one understands what neither bodily sense nor intellectual faculty can understand—the supernatural meaning of Spirit, of eternity, of transfiguration, and of reality. The Light may be sent forth as a ray to touch the heart or the head of any particular person to uplift or console, pacify emotions or exalt ideas; it may also be sent to encircle a person protectively. Light is also symbolic. Contrast with darkness, it suggests redemption and knowledge as against sinfulness and ignorance. It is significant that not only is night the time when human crime and passion are at their maximum but it is also the time when worrying thoughts are at their most morbid. The day with its brightness has ever been a symbol of spirituality, the night with its darkness a symbol of materiality. For one who has found one’s own spirit, finds peace and is free from fear, and consequently from its child—worry—too. The very nature of sunshine—all light—and the very condition in which sunrises and sunsets occur—stillness—helps us to understand why Light and the Overself are bracketed together. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

Your own consciousness shinning, void, inseparable from the great body of radiance, is subject neither to birth nor death, but is the same as the immutable light, God. Use the light within you to revert to your natural clearness of sight. Among those who have seen this light, some Christians have named in “the glory of God,” or “the self-effulgent light.” The Light is a shining of the Holy Spirit in the soul. Through this light, God is truly known by the worthy and beloved soul. Light is identical with the Holy Spirit, and it reveals the reality of that Spirit while sanctifying the person. “The Lord is my Light,” report Psalm 27. Since predestination includes will, the reasons can be found on the part of the things willed; inasmuch as God wills one thing on account of something else. Wherefore nobody has been so insane as to say that merit is the cause of divine predestination as regards the ac of the predestinator. However, this is the question, whether, as regards he effect, predestination has any cause; or what comes to the same thing, whether God preordained that He would give the effect of predestination to anyone on account of any merits. Accordingly were some who held that the effect of predestination was pre-ordained for some on account of pre-existing merits in a former life. This was the opinion of Origen, who thought that the souls of humans were created in the beginning, and according to the diversity of their works different states were assigned to them in this World when united with the Body. The Apostle, however, rebuts this opinion where he says (Romans 9.11, 12): “For when they were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil not of works, but of Him hat calleth, it was said of her: The elder shall serve the younger.” The wisdom of the World-Mind has put quick-lines into the terrestrial mind—which you may call instinct if your wish—which show it how to keep alive by picking out the food needed. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

 Humans, being the possessor of a terrestrial body, shares a proportion of these instincts; for the rest one must use one’s judgements. Only good, beneficial thoughts were allowed to enter one’s head and good food one’s stomach. We are free to reduce the area of our destructiveness and to lessen the amount of pain we inflict. If we could examine the prehistoric period of humans, and not merely one’s last century, we would find that the duration of one’s life has since been shortened, while the condition of one’s body has deteriorated through new diseases. The cause in both cases lies in one’s changed feeding habits to some extent, and in one’s unrestricted habits dealing with pleasures of the flesh to a much larger extent. Where humans have given themselves up to excitement involving pleasures of the flesh as a continuing and enduring feature of one’s life—as contrasted with the wild animals which experience it only at particular seasons—the cause exists not in the different nature with which one has been endowed but in the excess of strongly nutritive material which has absorbed into one’s body. To prove that this is so, one has only to take the case of one’s domestic animals which, when also getting superfluous nutriment, are excited more often than the wild ones. Our definition of sin needs is widening. It is also sinful to break the laws of hygiene, to indulge in habits that are either poisonous or devitalizing. The overactive hyper-irritable nerve and brain fatiguing kind of life in which civilized humans have entangled themselves builds up much inner tension and loads one with useless psychic burdens of negative feelings. #RandolphHarrs 20 of 23

Depression, melancholia, and despair have been known to being on wasting ailments and even death. The mind’s suffering, if too intense and too prolonged, may shift to the flesh. Of these lower emotional causes of ill health, fear and shock are perhaps the commonest. Many an illness or the malfunctioning of an organ or a disease begin with a strong negative thought, and, by the latter’s constant repetition until it hardens into a chronic mental-emotional condition, builds up to a crisis in a subsequent year. It is the routine activity of the brain and especially the mental tendency toward anxiety and fear which is expressed through it, which interferes with Nature’s healing process—whether these be spiritual or physical or both—or obstructs them or delays them or defeats them completely. This anxiety arises through he sufferer’s confinement to one’s personal ego and through one’s ignorance of the arrangements in the World-Idea’s body-pattern for the human body’s protective care. The remedy is in one’s own hands. It is twofold: first to change from negative to optimistic thinking through acquiring either faith in this care or else knowledge of it; second, to give body and brain as total a rest as one’s capacity allows, which is achieved through fasting and in prayer. The first change is more easily made by immediately substituting the beneficial and the opposite idea as soon as the pessimistic one appears in one’s field of consciousness. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

One trains oneself not to accept any harmful thought and watches one’s mind during this period of training. This constructive thought must be held and nourished with firm concentration for as long as possible. The second change calls for an abstinence from all thoughts, a mental quiet, as well as an abstinence from anything that may be stressful. To the extent that one can release oneself by inner discipline from one’s negatives, to that extent will one release oneself from many troubles which might otherwise descend upon one. As irritations fell away from one’s personal feelings, ills of body, circumstance, or relationship fall away from threatening one’s personal fortunes. If the mind of a spiritual healer can help to remove disease, it is equally true that the mind of some other person can contribute to cause it. If one’s own wrong thinking may be partly or wholly responsible for one’s diseases, others who are thinking constantly or powerfully about one may be partly or even wholly responsible for them too. His is the basis of sorcery in the East and of witchcraft in the medieval West. The mental and emotional adjustment to frustration or loss which philosophy brings about is definitely therapeutic. If ignorance of the laws of our psychophysical being causes many people to contravene those laws and become sick, carelessness about obeying them brings illness to some who do not know them. Selfish people, worrying people, negative people, complaining people, venomous people need to find this inner peace. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

People have to learn not to conjure dark angels, which fill them with guile and hate One must focus on the Light of God. It will heal them of their moral maladies, which in turn may be the causes of their physical maladies. Psychosomatic illnesses are curable by physical means. However, either the cures are temporary or other symptoms of a different kind appear and replace hose which have disappeared. Merely to express belief in faith healing is no enough to receive healing. If they are directed towards the inner causes of the illness, there must also be willingness to make needed moral and psychological adjustments. Everyone without a single exception wants to be healed of one’s diseases but how few want just as much to be healed of their hatreds, their rages, and their lusts? It is sometimes possible to deduce the nature of the wrong-doing from the nature of the subsequent affliction. Although they have tightly bound my arms and legs, all over the mountain I hear the song of birds, and the forest is field with perfume of spring-flowers. Who can present me from freely enjoying these, which take from the long journey a little of its loneliness? God causes the rain to fall. Thou sustainest the living with lovingkindness, and in great mercy callest the departed to everlasting life. Thou upholdest the falling, healest the sick, settest free those in bondage, and keepest faith with those that sleep in the dust. Who is like uno Thee, Almighty King, who decreest death and life and bringest forth salvation? Faithful art Thou to grant eternal life to the departed. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who callest the dead to life everlasting. Holy art Thou and holy is Thy name and unto Thee holy beings render praise daily. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the Holy God. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

CRESLEIGH MEADOWS AT PLUMAS RANCH

Plumas Lake, CA |

Now Selling!

Cresleigh Meadows is now selling! Found just north of Feather River Boulevard, Cresleigh Meadows is home of the largest neighborhood in Plumas Ranch as well as the popular Bear River Park. With four floor plans available, ranging from approximately 2,000 – 3,500 square feet offering, three to five bedrooms, we are certain you will find the home that fits your needs and lifestyle.

Popular design elements include open floor plans, large kitchen islands, and flex spaces are staples in Cresleigh homes. Multi-generational living options also available in select homes.

Homeowners will love the convenient commuter access to nearly Sacramento and Yuba City.

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 Go. https://cresleigh.com/cresleigh-meadows-at-plumas-ranch/residence-1/