One of the ways memory of helplessness is stored is as muscle tension or feelings of disintegration in the affected body areas: head, back, and limbs in accident victims, the private parts and rectum in victims of sexual abuse. The lives of many trauma survivors come to revolve around bracing against and neutralizing unwanted sensory experiences, and most people I see in my practice have become experts in such self-numbing. They may become serially obese or anorexic or addicted to exercise or work. At least half of all traumatized people try to dull their intolerable inner World with drugs or alcohol. The flipside of numbing is sensation seeking. Many people cut themselves to make the numbing go away, while others try bungee jumping or high-risk activities like prostitution and gambling. Any of these methods can give them a false and paradoxical feeling of control. When people are chronically angry or scared, constant muscle tension ultimately leads to spasms, back pain, migraine headaches, fibromyalgia and other forms of chronic pain. They may visit multiple specialists, undergo extensive diagnostic tests, and be prescribed multiple medications some of which provide temporary relief but all of which fail to address the underlying issues. Their diagnosis will come to define their reality without ever being identified as a symptom of their attempt to cope with trauma. My interviews with wife rape survivors revealed that women not only developed strategies for coping during the sexual assaults, but they also developed strategies for emotional survival after each incident of sexual abuse. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

Emotional survival is defined as the extent to which women are able to reconstruct their lives so that the experience of sexual violence does not have an overwhelming and continuing negative impact on their lives. Following their experiences of wife rape, the women in this sample, like other sexual assault survivors, worked not only to exist but also to put back together the pieces of their lives. Six women in this study began to do this by terminating their relationships with their partners immediately following their first experience of wife rape. Thus, as I indicated earlier, they did not take steps to manage the violence. They emotionally survived the assault by distancing themselves from their partners, seeking the help of service providers and turning to friends. Gwen was raped once by her partner after she returned home from having major surgery. Following the rape, she remembered getting dressed and leaving the house in a daze: “I wound up at the police department, and then I found out husbands can rape their wives, so they sent me to a doctor for a rape test [kit] and then…I signed a criminal complaint and called [a rape crisis center] the next day.” However, the majority of women in this sample were raped multiple times by their partners. These women developed strategies to cope after each assault. Kayla typifies the reaction of many women in this sample. She recalled what happened one time after she was raped: “He fell asleep and I got up and cleaned myself up and then I pretended that nothing happened. I thought about the kids coming over, and I just didn’t deal with it [the rape]. I thought to myself, it wasn’t that bad.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

Kayla’s recollection reveals the complex process of coping after sexual abuse and indicates several of the strategies women I interviewed used to put their lives back together again—cleaning themselves up, forgetting about the incident, justifying the assault, and minimizing the effects of the violence. Like other survivors of sexual assault, most of the women I interviewed felt the need to “be clean” following their experiences of rape. For example, Sally told me, “I went into the shower and I washed myself and scrubbed myself. I did everything a rape victim would do. Everything. It was like you knew what had been done to you and that this was something all rape victims do. And you knew you had to heal yourself because if you didn’t heal yourself, nobody else would.” After each sexual assault, Sara said she would “take shower after shower because I felt so dirty and I couldn’t get clean.” Two other strategies women used were to rationalize the violence and minimize the severity of the assault. It Is important for women who decide to stay in the relationship, either because they do not want to leave or are unable to leave the marriage, to discount the trauma of the rape. Similarly, minimizing the effects of sexual violence allows women to define the violence in a way in which they do not have to immediately act, possibly because they see no other available options or because they fear the consequences of their actions. Thus, for most women to be able to remain in the marriage, they must “work” on their emotions, transforming the social reality of their situation, so that they do not see themselves as victims or their husbands as rapists. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Many abused wives reconstruct their experiences by holding themselves, rather than their husbands, responsible. Although self-blame is a characteristic more commonly associated with wives who are battered than with those who are raped, a significant number of raped wives (estimates range from 6 percent to 20 percent) engage in self-blame. The length of time a women remains in the violent relationship and the extent to which she holds traditional ideals about the family are directly related to self-blame. In this sample, one third of the women initially blamed themselves to some extent for their husband’s actions. Many of these women felt they had failed in their roles as wives so they were able to rationalize that it was their own fault that the forced sex occurred. For example, both Sonya and Cory were incest survivors who were generally not interested in having sexual intercourse with their partners. They felt their unresponsiveness was the cause of the sexual abuse. Sonya said, “I wouldn’t let him touch me for the first 2 months after we got married because of what I went through with my father….and I was afraid he was going to go and get an annulment, and I felt like part of the problem of our marriage is because I can’t. It’s like I want to have sex with him, but I keep having flashbacks about what happened to me, and I just can’t handle it. And I knew he’s my husband.” Some people who have been raped may feel unsure about sex and may not want to enjoy it after a rape or are mentally and physically unable to because their feelings are distorted, and/or their body is injured. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

These women viewed sex as their marital obligation and felt their husbands were being neglected because they were unable to fulfill their duties. Thus, they did not, at last initially, blame their husbands for raping them. Three other women I interviewed did not blame their husbands for assaulting them but instead blamed drug or alcohol use for triggering the attacks. Crack cocaine was one substance that several of the women blamed for changing their partners from loving individuals into sexually and physically abusive men. These examples indicate that rather than viewing their husbands as assailants, these women perceived them as the victims in some way. By constructing the violence in this way, their husbands were free from blame, and they were able to remain in their relationships and cope with the sexual abuse. It was not uncommon for victims of rape to minimize or limit the impact of incidents that they defined as abusive to some degree. Many of the women in this sample also minimized the extent of the sexual violence they had suffered. For example, after each rape, Debbie would tell herself, “That wasn’t that bad. I got through that one so I’ll get through another.” Similarly, Becky thought, “I love him and I know he really loves me, so it [the abuse] wasn’t so bad.” These women were hesitant to acknowledge the severity of their experiences because for a variety of reasons, including emotional and economic ties, they were not in a position to leave. Thus, rather than leave the relationships, they redefined their experiences in ways that were acceptable to them and developed elaborate coping strategies allowing them to survive from day to day. However, eventually all of these women reached a point where they were unable to cope with the violence any longer and ended their relationships. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

A high value can be placed on loneliness or from empathy for others undergoing such experiences. Looking back on childhood, for many people it was very lonely—at least all the requirements were there—and yet one may not have been aware of it as such; one may not think of calling it by that name. As a child, when an individual is hospitalized, they may have no real understanding of the situation. Being given shots every four hours, having several blood transfusions per day, and learning that one may not live is shocking. However, sometimes people want time away from their parents and their parents’ friends so they can be a lone and experience a real life without being manipulated. By being close to oneself, confronting oneself, and learning who you are and what about you is artificial is a crucial part of development. When a person is alone, two things may change: one is one’s decision to undergo psychoanalysis, and the other is their intimate relationship with their girlfriend. Both of these are acute and unavoidable confrontations of oneself with oneself. Both are quite painful, particularly the relationship with the girl, for one may feel like she never really accepted one as one was (perhaps this may be mutual), and yet neither party wants to break it off either. And at the same time one never has experienced such violence of emotion—love or hate—except for as a preteen. Feelings which one never suspected of having inside well up to overwhelm the individual, often feelings of lust or hate. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

It is impossible for one to really feel again those feelings a one is stagnant. One knows they happened, some as recently as two or three months ago, and yet to recall them is exceedingly difficult. Partly because they are part of a whole complex which one would probably prefer submerged out of the picture. At the same time, one knows when one reads poetry now one responds with more feeling and understanding then before all of this happened. Now is that not strange? It is just like music. When you fall in and out of love the songs have more feeling, or when you know you are an outcast or doing your best, you can really connect with how the artist may be feeling. I had completely forgotten an experience that happened to me this summer. I went down on foot into the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It is hard for me to really believe that I could have been totally unaware of what I was getting in for, and yet I acted that way. I took with me a camera, a few biscuits, and a small canteen of water; I ended up walking, with occasional rest periods, for 14 or 15 hour, with next to no food or water. Why did I do it? I have no understanding of it, and yet connections are forming in my mind. If you will, it was senseless, stupid, and yet I had been guided by sense I would have avoided with this experience. I have rarely wanted (or perhaps I have had the want beaten out of me) to communicate my inmost thoughts to others, because I know that they will not understand. I have very rarely withheld my sympathy from anyone, but I just now wonder if that is not some kind of compensation for the fact that I do withhold other things. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

For a while now, I do not know how long exactly, I have felt prepared to die. By that I do not mean at all that I want to (though I have felt that too), but rather that I was alive enough to die. I went through a long period when I was very anxious about death. However, this past week I looked at the parade of planets, and somehow realized that I could accept my death as mine because when you die, your mind releases a chemical and every living essence goes into another realm. And maybe that is where we experience true freedom. Heaven and Hell may be a myth. There is some kind of pleasure in knowing that my death is waiting for me somewhere. Distinctions between the various workings of prince Satan and his demonic agents should be definitely noted, so to understand their devious methods at the present day. For to many, the Adversary is merely a tempter, while they little dream of his power as a deceiver (Rev. 12.9), hinderer (1 Thess. 2.18), murderer (John 8.44), liar (John 8.44), accuser (Rev. 12.10), and a false angel of light; and still less do the imagine the hosts of spirits under his command, constantly besetting their path, bent upon deceiving, hindering, and prompting to sin. A vast host is wholly given up to wickedness (Matt. 12.43-45), delighting to do evil, to slay (Mark 5.2-5), to deceive, to destroy (Mark 9.20)—and has access to men of every grade, prompting them to all kinds of wickedness, being satisfied only when success accompanies their wicked plans to ruin the children of men (Matt. 27.3-5). #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

There is, however, a distinction between Satan, the prince of the demons (Matt. 9.34), and his legion of wicked spirits—a difference in rank which is clearly recognized by Christ and may be noted in many parts of the Gospels (Matt. 25.41). We find Satan in person challenging the Lord in the wilderness temptation, and Christ answering him as a person, word for word, and thought for thought, until he retires, foiled by the keen recognition f his tactics by the Son of God (Luke 4.1-13). We read of the Lord describing him as the “prince of the World” (John 14.30); recognizing him as ruling over a kingdom (Matt. 12.26); using imperative language to him as a person, saying, “Get thee hence”; while to the Jewish people He describes his character as “sinning from the beginning,” and being a “murderer” and a “liar.” He is the “father of lies” who “abode not in the truth” (John 8.44) having departed from the position which he once held as a great archangel of God. Moreover, he is called “that wicked one” (1 John 3.12), the “Adversary,” and that “old serpent” (Rev. 12.9). In respect of the devil’s method of working, the Lord speaks of hum as “sowing tares,” which are “sons of the evil one,” among the wheat, the sons of God’s kingdom (Matt. 13.38-39)—thus revealing the Adversary as possessing the skill of a mastermind, who directs, with executive ability, his work as “prince of the World” throughout the whole inhabited Earth, having power to place the men who are called his “sons” wherever he wills. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

We read, also, of Satan watching to snatch away the seed of the Word of God from all who hear it—once again indicating his executive power in the World-wide direction of his agents, whom the Lord describes as “fowls of the air.” In His own interpretation of the parable (Matt. 13-3-4, 13, 19; Mark 4.3-4, 14-15; Luke 8.5, 11-12) Jesus said tht by these “fowls” (plural) He meant the “evil one” (Matt. 13.19), “Satan” (Satanas, Mark 4.15), or the “devil” (diabolos, Luke 8.12). We must remember, however, from the general teaching of other parts of the Scripture that the devil is but one person, and does much of his work through the wicked spirits he has at his command. For although Satan is able to transport himself with lighting velocity to any part of his World-wide dominions, he is not omnipresent. But what shall be the spiritual center of this new World? Already religion has been largely replaced by political and social movements with their new myths of nation and social justice. Yet they have not proved to equal to the task, and so, today, at the center of the World there is a vacuum which demonic forces struggle to fill. The vacuum is an absence of meaning: The spiritual disintegration of our day consists in the loss of an ultimate meaning of life by the people of the Western civilization. Through the racial and gender wars started around the World by the sinful state of California, they have left behind pessimism and cynicism. “The World is going crazy.” Well, many people around the World believes the craziness is seeping from California, to the rest of America and then globally. Whatever the explanation one attaches the philosophy of California, one thing is unmistakably clear. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

The scholars of this generation differ from the generations of their teachers in that the former have been thrust into history, forced to face up to it realistically, and to interpret it theologically. The renowned theological faculties of Berlin, Tubingen, and Halle there existed a consensus that identified the last four centuries of theology with the history of Germany theology. Consequently, it is our feeling that only in Germany is the problem of how to unite Christianity and the modern mind taken seriously. All this was a mixture of limitation, arrogance, and some elements of truth. It has been felt that Germany, after 1800, succeeded to ancient Greece as the center of philosophy. One trait in particular is supped to account for the superiority: the attempt to reunite, in a great synthesis, Christianity with the modern mind. It is in its heart philosophy of religion, it is Weltanschauung, a vision of the World as a whole. And we despised every philosophy which was less than this. Two events have broken the gip of this intellectual provincialism: the fact that the supposedly superior Germany culture could produce Mr. Hitler; and secondly, his emigration to the quite different intellectual climate of the United States of America. Many people, like the Mayor of Sacramento, California USA; Daryl Steinberg, blame America from the creation of Mr. Hitler and if you ask many citizens is not much better than Mr. Hitler. In fact, he does not even try to help the residence of his city, he leaves them sleeping in masses on the street to die, but spends hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on sports entertainment, instead of housing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

American intellectual life is characterized by its imitation relating of theory to practice and by its wide-open horizons. Protestant theology in American cannot rest content with theorizing, but draws out practical conclusions; hence its special contribution in the field of social ethics. Mention has already been made of how its theological horizons have been kept broad, but there is a certain typically American unity of theological discussion, competition, and teamwork. In general, the American bent for practicality permits a widespread concrete realization of religious truth, while the European drive for ultimate insures it profundity. The European danger is a lack of horizontal actualization; the American danger is a lack of vertical depth. There should be a chief concern between the relationship of the infinite and the finite. Our discussions should center around God’s relation to the World and to man. The absolute objectifies itself in nature and becomes conscious of itself through the reflection of man, nature is unconscious but on the way to consciousness, and reaches it with the birth of man. (Also, keep in mind, some people believe Satan is God.) Human consciousness is that which realized God; consequently, all history is the history of religion, and that is true when you look at the crusades and the establishment of America and the wars in other countries. Many of them start over religion. It is in history that man comes to a consciousness of God; thus, even the cultural process is religious in its roots and can be considered from the viewpoint of the history of religion. All men and women have a religious experience. The polarity of mysticism and sense of guilt (Mystik und Schuldbewusstsein) is brought about by man’s union with and separation from God. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Mysticism means the feeling of union with the absolute; it implies the principle of identity of absolute and individual spirit. Guilt means the consciousness of opposition to God; it implies the experience of conflict between the holy Lord and the sinful creature. I began my philosophical school in German idealism and can never unlearn what I there acquired. By idealism, one usually means the identity of thought and being as the principle of truth. Between the human spirit and reality there exists a correspondence which is best expressed in the concept of meaning (Sinn). The system is an expression of a specific but limited encounter with reality. Man lives in existence and not in essence, as the idealists would have him do. The depths of psychology is related to existentialism as part to whole. Their common root is the protest against the philosophy of essence or consciousness which has dominated modern industrial society and endangered freedom, individuality, and creativity. Dr. Freud’s discovery of the irrational, unconscious level of man heled enormously to combat this philosophy. Depth psychology and existentialism are both basically concerned with man’s existential predicament—temporal, spatial, finite and estranged—as opposed to man’s essential nature. There are certain unmistakably existential themes in theology: the original goodness of being and of man, the universal fall, and salvation as healing or making whole a disrupted World. Transposed into philosophical language, these themes are: essential goodness, existential estrangement, and the teleological nature of man which points to a unity beyond the essence and existent. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

However, while theology contributes its insights to the existentialist movement, existentialism returns the favor. It opens up a whole new psychological dimension in the immense religious literature of the past. It rediscovers sin as a state of separation instead of a series or moral acts. It lays bare the demonic structures that shape conscious decision. It reinforces the meaning of grace as acceptance of the unacceptable—recall the manner in which an analyst handles one’s patient. And, finally, it raises the question of human existence which systematic theology must answer by the reinterpretation of religious symbols. Every individual can relate to skirmishes with friends or family members in which they wrestled the television remote control of the last Eggo waffle away from one’s wanton adversary. If you are coming up short on material, embark on an afternoon visit to your local playground or daycare center and you are sure to find dozens of examples of children using force to gain exclusive rights to their favorite today. These are mundane and seemingly harmless instances of people using force to get what they want. The most extreme manifestations of forcible taking, thefts that often involve weapons and produce serious bodily harm are becoming more common in some communities. The Model Penal Code says an individual is guilty of robbery when he or she inflicts or threatens to inflict serious bodily injury upon another while in the course of committing a theft. The legal notion of what constitutes “in the course of committing a theft” includes those behaviors associated with the individual’s attempt to take the item as well as the flight (escape) efforts that follow. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

In addition, most jurisdictions specify that the assailant need not be armed with a weapon. Any aggressive action on top of the minimal effort required to extract and carry the targeted item away is generally enough to satisfy the force requirement of the robbery statue. Robbery poses a quandary for scholars who prefer to classify crimes as either violent, property, or public order offenses. A robbery is not a simple theft, nor is it a simple act of interpersonal violence. Instead, a robber combines elements of property theft and violence into a single criminal transaction. This prompts some to treat robbery as a unique conceptual entity—an aggravated property crime. On a more practical level, the unpredictable and multifaceted nature of the crime means that the given offense may allow for criminal justice authorities to purse multiple charges against a single perpetrator—it is not uncommon for perpetrators to have charges of theft, fraud, assault, possession of stolen property, burglary, and/or weapons possession stacked on top of a robbery rape. Robbery is treated as a form of violent crime. An estimated 650,795 attempted or complete robberies occurred in the United States of America in 2022. This figure represents 11 percent of the total number of violent offenses that year (second to assault). This translates into a victimization rate of 2.8 robberies per 1,000 persons or households. Police are never made away of a considerable portion of the robberies that occur each year. Roughly 40 percent of robbery victims choose not to notify law enforcement authorities. Generally, 250,000 robberies are withheld from being reported to law enforcement. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

Considerable physical, emotional and financial losses stem from robberies.  Nearly one-third of the robberies (almost 350,000 annually) were shown to produce some form of injury. Of these injuries, 81 percent were describe as minor (id est, bruises, cuts, scratches) while 19 percent were deemed severe (id est, flesh wound, broken bones, loss of consciousness, internal bleeding). More than one-half (53 percent) of the injuries required medical treatment and one in four resulted in a emergency room visit. Surveys of our nation’s hospitals reveal that emergency room personnel administer care to well over 20,000 robbery victims annually. The financial costs of robbery are also sizeable. The FBI states that $532 million in property losses were produced by the more than 400,000 robberies that were investigated by police. This translates to an average dollar loss per incident of $1,258. Given the large numbers of robberies that go unreported to police, one can reasonably assume that somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion in property is lost to robbery offenders each year. Most notably, robbery victimization rates reached an all-time high of 7.4 per 1,000 persons or households. Robbery victimization rates are traditionally higher in the western and southern regions of the United State of America. Victimization rates in the Midwest and Northeast (2.1 and 2.7, respectively) were noticeably lower than in the West and South (3.1 and 3.0 per 1,000 respectively). The District of Columbia, Maryland, New York, California are most burdened by robbery calls. Conversely, Vermont, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota weigh in at the bottom of the state-level rankings. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

As is the case with all forms of violent crime, increased population density yields significantly higher robbery victimization rates. City dwellers experienced a robbery victimization rate of 4.9 per 1,000 persons or households. This compares to reported rates of 2.2 in suburban areas and 1.4 in rural locales. Of our major cities, the FBI lists Atlanta, Newark, and Miami as having the highest robbery rates. At the other end of the spectrum, San Jose, Mesa, and El Paso are major cities with low robbery rates. U.S. robbery rates tend to exceed those experienced in other developed nations. Our robbery rate is 165.4 per 100,000 persons This was surpassed only by Spain which posted a rate of 168.9. Significantly lower robbery rates were experienced in France, England, and Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, and Japan. Robbery is a classic example of an unskilled crime where the offender enlists fear and intimidation tactics to achieve his or her goals. Weaponry and robbery often go hand in hand—roughly half of all robbery victims recently claimed that their assailant was armed: 29.9 percent of attackers were said to carry a gun, 13.6 a knife or sharp object, and 4.6 percent relied on a blunt object (id est, club, pipe, baseball bat). At the same time, almost four in every ten attacks took the form of “strong arm robberies” in which the offender relied only on the threat or use of brute force. Alternative sources of data suggest that the numbers of gun-toting robbers may be significantly higher. A full 42 percent of the robberies that police investigated were found to involve some sort of firearm. Luckily, less than 10 percent of the inmate sample reported firing shots. The FBI estimated a robbery-by-firearm rate of 59.5 per 100,000. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Gun control advocates often attribute our high robbery rates to this country’s fascination with firearms. Reports estimate 223 million firearms were circulating throughout the United States of America. Add to that roughly 4 million new firearms that are purchased each year and another 300,000 or so that get reported stolen, and it becomes abundantly clear that there are plenty of guns to go around. Some have argued that rigorous gun control measures would significantly reduce our robbery rates. However, an in-dept study found that injuries occurred far less frequently in robberies involving a gun than did when a knife, club, or no weapon present. S the perceived lethality of the situation decreased (id est, knives were less threatening than guns), robbery victims exhibited a greater willingness to resist or challenge their attackers. Both good news and bad news flow from these findings. Resisting seems to increase the chances that the victim will remain in control of his or her valuables. However, this course of action increases the likelihood that the attacker will turn to a weapon of choice as an equalizer. In the case of a gun, this generally results in dire consequences for the victim. Look forward and reason backward. It is better to give than to receive when you are the victim of a robbery. Most material items can be replaced and it is best to walk away with your life. Time is money. And sometimes giving away money is certainly worth your time. A robbery is like a negotiation, but you have no power. A lot of people think the United States of America is frequently robbed, but is the World’s Super Power.  The fact that the greater share in bargaining agreements goes to the more patient side also very unfortunate for the United States of America. Our system of government, and its coverage in the media, fosters impatience. When negotiations with other nations on military and economic matters are making slow progress, interested lobbyists seek support from congressmen, senators, and the media, who pressure the administration for quicker results. Our rival nations in the negotiations know this very well, and are able to secure greater concession from us. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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