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The Most Noxious of All Wild Beasts is the Wild Man
God ordained rational creatures to act voluntarily and of themselves. When we believe in His son, and have assurance that Jesus as the Christ exists, a correct idea of His character, and a knowledge that we are striving to live according to His will, we are blessed with His infinite power, intelligence, and love. While, as we have seen, many men were uncertain how much of their religion would be left standing after natural selection had been fully accepted, others were quite as troubled by questions about what Darwinism would mean for the moral life. Spenser and the evolutionary anthropologists promised them that it would mean progress, perhaps perfection. The Malthusian element in Darwinism, however, pointed to an endless struggle for existence regulated by no sanction more exalted than mere survival. While some expected a new and higher morality, others feared a complete collapse of moral standards. Senator Gore, one of the characters in Henry Adams’ novel Democracy (1880), which was set against the dissolute and money-mad atmosphere of Washington in the Gilded Age, expressed the essential aimlessness and sterility of what many men feared would be the dominant values of the future: “But I have faith; not perhaps in the old dogmas, but in the new ones; faith in human nature; faith in science; faith in the survival of the fittest. Let us be true to our times, Mrs. Lee! If our age is to be beaten, let us die in the ranks. If it is to be victorious, let us be the first to lead the column. Anyway, let us not be skulkers or grumblers.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Men with a deeper sense for traditional ideals hoped for more than this. Did Darwinism really justify brutal self-assertion, the neglect of the weak and the poor, the abandonment of philanthropic enterprise? Did it mean that progress must be dependent upon the ruthless elimination of the unfit, in an expanding population forever pressing upon the bounds of subsistence? In a nation trained in Christian ethics and fortified by a democratic and humanitarian heritage, such a Nietzschean ransvaluation of values was out of the question. Spencer’s econciliation of evolution and idealism, with its forecast of a transition from militancy to peace and from egoism to altruism was the commonest answer. Yet Spencer often spoke in rude selectionist language which could satisfy few who were not uncompromising defenders of a strictly competitive order or who were not willing to make drastic concessions to a naturalistic ethic, bare of all the warm and familiar theological sanctions. In The Principles of Sociology, he declared: “Not simply do we see that in the competition among individuals of the same kind, survival of the fittest has from the beginning furthered production of a higher type; but we see that to the unceasing warfare between species is mainly due both growth and organization. Without universal conflict there would have been no development of the active powers.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
In the light of all this talk about “unceasing warfare” and “universal conflict,” what was the value to those interested in the here and now of Spencer’s promise of a remote social Nirvana? One philanthropist asked: “Would not mankind take chloroform if they had no future but Spencer’s? No individual continuance, no God, no superior powers, only evolution working towards a benevolent society here and perfection on Earth, with great doubt whether it could succeed, and, if it succeeded, whether the end would pay.” “Herbert Spencer’s ethics will certainly be the final ethics,” wrote another critic, “but with question does press itself upon us, what is to be the ethics for the time now present and passing?” “What are we to do,” queried James Cosh, “with our reading youth entering upon life who are told in scientific lectures and journals that the old sanctions of morality are all undermined?” In 1879 the Atlantic Monthly published an essay by Goldwin Smith with the significant title “The Prospect of a Moral Interregnum,” which faced the troublesome questions raised by naturalism. Religion, Smith believed, had always been the foundation for the western moral code; and it would be idle for positivists and agnostics to imagine that while Christianity was being destroyed by evolution the humane values of Christian ethics would persist. Ultimately, he conceded, an ethic based upon science might be worked out, but for the present there would be a moral interregnum, similar to those which had occurred in past times of crisis. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
“There had been such an interregnum in the Hellenic World after the collapse of its religion brought about by scientific speculation; there had been another in the Roman World before the coming of Christianity gave it a new moral basis; a third collapse in western Europe following the Renaissance had produced the age of the Borgias and Machiavelli, the Guises and the Tudors; finally, Puritanism in England and the Counter Reformation in the Catholic Church had reintroduced moral stability. At present another religious collapse is under way: What then, we ask, is likely to be the effect of this revolution on morality? Some effect it can hardly fail to have. Evolution is force, the struggle for existence is force, natural selection is force, the struggle for existence is force, natural selection is force…But what will become of the brotherhood of man and of the very idea of humanity?” What would keep the stronger races from preying on the weak? (Smith had heard of an imperialist who said, “The first business of a colonist is to clear the country of wild beasts, and the most noxious of all wild beasts is the wild man.”) Or, is a tyrant should seize the reins of power in any of the great states, what could be said against him, consistently, under the survival doctrine? (Had not Napoleon been selected for survival?) What would happen to nineteenth-century humanitarianism? How were the passions of social conflict to be abated? To these questions Smith had no answer, but he was sure that the impending crisis in morals would bring with it a crisis in politics and the social order. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The basic principle of the humanistic management method is that, despite the bigness of the enterprises, centralized planning, and cybernation, the individual participant assets himself toward the managers, circumstances, and machines, and ceases to be a powerless particle which has no active part in the process. Only by such affirmation of his will can the energies of the individual be liberated, and his mental balance be restored. The same principle of humanistic management can also be expressed in this way: While in alienated bureaucracy all power flows from above downward, in humanistic management there is a two-way street; the “subjects” of the decision made above respond according to their own will and concerns; their response not only reaches the top decision makers but forces them to respond in turn. The “subjects” of decision making have a right to challenge the decision makers. If enough “subjects demanded that corresponding bureaucracy (on whatever level) answer questions, explain its procedures, such a challenge would first require the decision makers to respond to the demand. At this point, so many objections to the foregoing suggestions will have accumulated in the mind of the reader. The first objection probably is that the type of active participation of the “subjects” would be incompatible with efficient centralized management and planning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
This objection is plausible (a) provided one does not have any compelling reason to think that the present method of alienated bureaucracy is pathogenic; (b) if one thinks only of the tired and proven methods and shies away from imaginative new solutions; (c) if one insists that even if one could find new methods, the principle of maximal efficiency must never be given up even for a time. If, on the other hand, one follows the considerations offered in this essay and recognizes the grave danger for the total system of our society inherent in our bureaucratic methods, these objections are not as compelling as they are to those who are satisfied with the operation of our present system. More specifically, if one recognizes the difficulties and does not start out with the conviction that they are unsurmountable, one will begin to examine the problems concretely and in detail. Here, too, one may arrive at the conclusion that the dichotomy between maximal centralization and complete decentralization presents an unnecessary polarization, that one can deal with the concept of optimal centralization and optimal grass-roots participation. Optimal centralization would be the degree of centralization which is necessary for effective large-scale organization and planning; optimal participation would be the participation which does not make centralized management impossible, yet permits the participants the optimum of responsible participation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
This formulation is obviously rather general and not sufficient as a basis for taking immediate action. If a problem of such a magnitude emerges in the application of scientific knowledge to technique, the engineer is not discouraged; he recognizes the necessity of research which will result in the solution of the problem. However, as soon as we deal with human problems, such difficulties tend to discourage most people of they flatly state that “it cannot be done.” Whenever a conscientious student first investigates abnormal psychology, he or she inevitably finds characteristics of the abnormal that also seem part of the student’s self. Can you also see in yourself some of the healthy characteristics described by the many thinkers and researchers in this area? Here are some of them: Openness to new ideas and to people. Care for self, for others and for the natural World. Ability to integrate negative experiences into the self. Creativity. Ability to do productive work. Ability to love. It does no harm to measure yourself in these terms. And if one does come up with some deficiencies, there are ways to earn to improve and develop oneself. Some of the traditional ways involve getting into counseling or psychotherapy, finding friends who are constructive and facilitative of one’s growth, even reading and practicing what is recommended in authentic self-help books and working with a behaviour-modification “manager” permits you to change aspects of yourself that you chose, rather than making changes dictated by social pressures from friends or authorities. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
New institutions of learning and healing have emerged in the past decade, which aim to promote a person’s education and training beyond a typical upbringing. There are now growth centers, where people can go to learn greater autonomy, creativity, and authenticity. One of the first of these—Esalen Institute—was founded in 1962 at Big Sur in California. Since then, more than two hundred have sprung up in the United States of America and the rest of the World. We are living in an age when the population is increasing to the point beyond which the Earth may not support live. Human beings have destroyed each other by the millions, sometimes praying to the same God, through the same clergy, for guidance for more effective ways to do this. In the nature of economic development, people have destroyed entire civilizations; animal species; and the soil, water, and air, making life an uncertainty for the generations that follow, and of dubious quality for those now living. We need now to identify those people who can reverse these processes. If not impossible, it is difficult to give a succinct definition of a healthy personality. Nevertheless, for purposes of orientation, we offer this as a preliminary effort: Healthy personality is a way for a person to act, guided by intelligence and respect for life, so that personal needs are satisfied and so that the person will grow in awareness, competence, and the capacity to love the self, the natural environment, and other people. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Our friend, Clare, who many have come to know and love other the weeks, has been an interesting case study that many can relate to. Whether Clare would have recognized the full severity of her entanglement without the external pressure exerted by Peter’s breaking away from her is a question some have been wondering about. It might be thought that Clare, having passed through the development that occurred before the separation, could not possibly have stopped permanently at an essentially untenable compromise solution, but would have gone on sooner or later. On the other hand, the forces opposing her final liberation had great strength, and she might still have gone to considerable lengths to make further compromises. If it did not touch upon an attitude toward analysis not infrequent among analysts as well as patients, this would be an idle speculation not worth mentioning. This attitude is an assumption that analysis alone can solve everything. However, when treatment is endowed with such omnipotence it is forgotten that life itself is the best therapist. What analysis can do is to make one able to accept the help that life offers, and to profit from it. And it had done exactly this job in Clare’s case. It is probable that without the analytical work that she accomplished she would have reached out for a new partner as soon as possible, and thus perpetuated the same pattern of experience. The important point is not whether she could have freed herself without outside help but whether, when that help came, she was able to turn it into a constructive experience. And this she did. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
As to the content of Clare’s findings in this period, the most important one was the discovery of an active defiance against living her own life, feeling her own feelings, thinking her own thoughts, having her own interests and plans, in short against being herself and finding the center of gravity within herself. In contrast to her other findings, this one was merely an emotional insight. She did not arrive at it by way of free association, and there were no facts to substantiate it. Nor did she have any inkling of the nature of the opposing forces; she merely felt their existence. Retrospectively we can understand why she could hardly have gone any further at that point. Her situation was comparable to that of a person who is driven from his homeland and confronted with the task of putting his whole life on a new basis. Clare had to make a fundamental change in her attitude toward herself and in her relations with others. Naturally she was bewildered by the complexity of this prospect. However, the main reason for the blockage was that, despite her determination to solve the problem of dependency, there were still powerful unconscious forces preventing a final solution. She was, as it were, in mid-air between two ways of dealing with life, not ready to leave the old and not ready to reach out for the new. In consequence the following weeks were characterized by ups and downs in quick succession. Clare wavered between times in which the experience with Peter and all that it entailed appeared as part of a far-distant past, and others in which she desperately longed to win him back. Solitude, then, was felt as an unfathomable cruelty perpetrated on her. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
In one of these latter days, going home alone from a concert, Clare found herself thinking that everyone was better off than she. However, she argued, other people are alone, too. Yes, but they like it. However, people who have accidents are worse off. Yes, but they are taken care of in hospitals. And what about the unemployed? Yes, they are badly off, but they are married. At this point she suddenly saw the grotesqueness of her way of arguing. After all, not all the unemployed were happily married; and, even if they were, marriage was not a solution for everything. She recognized that a tendency must be at work which made her talk herself into an exaggerated misery. The could of unhappiness was dispelled and she felt relieved. When Clare began to analyze this incident the melody of a song from Sunday school occurred to her, without her being able to recall the text. Then an emergency operation she had had to have for appendicitis. Then the “neediest cases” was published at Christmas. Then a picture of a huge crevice in a glacier. Then a movie in which she had seen that glacier; somebody had fallen into the crevice and was pulled out at the last moment. Then a memory from the time when she was about eight years old. She was crying in bed and felt it was unthinkable that her mother would not come and console her. She did not know whether a quarrel with her mother had gone before. All she recalled was the unshakeable conviction that her mother would be moved by her distress. The mother did not come, and she fell asleep. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Presently she recalled the text of the melody from Sunday school. It declared that no matter how great our sorrow, God will help us if we pray to Him. She suddenly saw the clue to her other associations and to the exaggerated misery that had preceded them: she had an expectation that great distress would bring about help. And for the sake of this unconscious belief she made herself more miserable than she was. It was shockingly silly, yet she had done it, and had done it. And she remembered any number of occasions when she had felt herself the most abused of all mortals, only to realize some time later that she had made matters much worse than they were. When she had been in the spell of such unhappiness, however, the reasons for it looked, and even felt, real. At such times she had often telephoned Peter, and he was usually sympathetic and helpful. In this regard she could almost count on him; here he had failed her less than anybody else. Perhaps this was a more important tie than she had realized? However, sometimes Peter had not taken her unhappiness at its face value and had teased her about it, as her mother and brother had teased her in childhood. Then she had felt deeply offended and was furious with him. Yes, there was clear pattern that repeated itself—exaggerated misery and at the same time an expectation of help, consolation, encouragement, from her mother, from God, from Bruce, from her husband, from Peter. Her playing the martyr role, apart from everything else, must have been also an unconscious plea for help. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
There seem to be two levels of guiltiness. The deeper one is when I am not true to myself. My deeper self, then, seems to be reproaching me. The other guilt comes when I do what is in accord with me, but without seeing clearly (sometimes not seeing at all) the distinction between what I want and what others say that I should want. When I do what is in accord with me without this clear seeing, I feel “wrong” or “bad” and that I must be somewhat unsane or disreputable to like what I do. The introjected values are like a monitor saying to my own responses, “You must not do that!” When I act in accord with me and know clearly what I am doing, then I am freed of both guilts at once: myself no longer reproaches me (it expresses content by a feeling of ease and innocence), and the reproaches of other people seem to have nothing to do with me. Which of course they do not. One of my clients told me, “The real truth of the matter is that I’m not the sweet forbearing guy that I try to make out that I am. I get irritated at times. I feel like snapping at people, and I feel like being selfish at times, and I don’t know why I should pretend that I’m not that way.” This statement could seem to mean that it’s good to snap at people. I know some people use me as their authority for popping off with the first thing that comes into their head. However, it is no good for one to pretend that they are not a certain way. When one notices that they are pretending, and removes oneself from that dishonesty, then one is free to notice that one feels like snapping. (If one thinks that one is not a snappy person and one’s mind is on that, how can one notice that one feels like snapping? This seems to be simple mechanics.) #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
However, if one notices that one feels like snapping and snaps, as the snapping people do, then one has not noticed oneself in a way that brings about a basic change. When one notices that one wants to snap that is simple acceptance of the fact, without opinion. If one thinks that it is good to snap, one is in the same fix as one is if one thinks that it is bad to snap. If one notices that one wants to snap at or about, this is still the wrong noticing. If one feels justified, one is in the wrong place, too. One must go more deeply inward, and notice simply the feeling of one’s irritation. When one notices one’s irritation in this inward way, something changes. One does not know anything about brain circuits, but one must be able to use a switch in some way because when one has done this noticing, even if one says the same words that one might have said otherwise, they do not sound the same, and the sound is part of the message. The “switch” seems to be the same one that one uses with someone one loves very much, when one wishes to hurt and at the same time one’s love comes through. This is not the same as repressing one’s hurt. In the pause, one does not review things and thinks what one is going to say. It is more like an officer putting his hand to stop the traffic in one way so that the traffic the other way can come through. One choose to let one’s love come through, and that is one’s own choosing, having nothing to do with commandments from the Christian Bible or anywhere else. One’s love comes from one and that is a love an individual can like. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
When we consider a father with sadistic impulses, who tends to punish and mistreat his children, he is convinced that he beats them because that is the only way to teach them virtue and to protect them from doing evil. He is not aware of any sadistic satisfaction—he is only aware of rationalization, his idea of duty and of the right method of bringing up children. Here is still another example: a political leader may conduct a policy which leads to war. He may be motivated by a wish for his or her own glory and fame, yet one is convinced that one’s actions are determined exclusively by one’s patriotism and one’s sense of responsibility to one’s country. In all these instances the underlying and unconscious desire is so well rationalized by moral consideration that the desire is not only covered up, but also aided and abetted by the very rationalization the person has invented. In the normal course of his life, such a person will never discover the contradiction between the reality of one’s desires and the fiction of one’s rationalizations, and hence one will go on acting according to one’s desire. If anyone would tell one the truth, that is to say, mention to one that behind one’s sanctimonious rationalizations are the very desires which one bitterly disapproves of, one would sincerely feel indignant or misunderstood and falsely accused. This passionate refusal to admit the existence of what is repressed, Dr. Freud called “resistance.” Its strength is roughly in proportion to the strength of the repressive tendencies. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
In 1955, the United States of America’s Congress passed the Mental Health Study Act which provided for the establishment of a Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health. This commission was changed to make a thoroughgoing appraisal of the extent of mental illness, the availability of resources for treatment and research, and the needs for the future. The following statement appears in the commission’s final report: “Persons who are emotionally disturbed—that is to say, under psychological stress that they cannot tolerate—should have skilled attention and helpful counseling available to them in their community if the development of more serious mental breakdowns is to be prevented. This is known as secondary prevention, and is concerned with the detection of beginning signs and symptoms of mental illness and their relief; in other words, the earliest possible treatment. In the absence of fully trained psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, psychiatric social workers, and psychiatric nurses, such counseling should be done by persons with some psychological orientation and mental health training and access to expert consultations as needed.” The Joint Commission recognizes the vital preventative and treatment potential of persons other than the acknowledged “experts.” The above statement seems to suggest that it is as an unfortunate artifact of the “absence” of the psychiatrist and his colleagues that the important task of secondary prevention “should” be done by others. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
It would be more positive and realistic to emphasize that preventive counseling can be and is done efficiently by the non-experts, that it must be done by persons with something other than a stereotyped “full training,” and that it is the effectiveness of these invisible therapists that keeps the experts from being completely swamped. It is time to recruit actively the assistance of these people, to encourage positively their important contribution rather than to acknowledge it reluctantly as better than nothing, and to provide reasonable avenues whereby their skills and sophistication may be enhanced. Exciting empirical support for the feasibility of the Joint Commission’s proposal has been generated by an experimental project at the National Institute for Mental Health. Under the direction of an experienced clinical psychologist, a group of mature housewives without previous professional training but with serious interest in mental health work was selected for a two-year program of part-time study and practice of psychotherapy under close supervision. Careful evaluation by three experts of the recorded therapy sessions of these women led to the conclusion that their skills were equal to those of psychiatric residents, analytic institute candidates, and graduate students in clinical psychology. On an objective, written examination in psychiatry prepared by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology these women scored above the national average. Upon completion of their training, all were employed in local mental health agencies. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Everything that belongs to the ego and its desires or fears must go. For some men it is hard to put aside pride, for others it is harder to put aside shame, but both feelings must go. His thoughts, his feelings, and his actions must work in combination to effect this great self-purification which must precede the dawn of illumination. And this means that they must work upon themselves and divert their attention from other persons whom they may have criticized or interfered with in the past. The aspirant must reserve his condemnation for himself and leave others alone to their karma. If you have analysed its meanings and profited by its lessons, you are right to shut the door on the past, but not otherwise. It is a useful practice, both for general moral self-improvement and for combatting our ego, every time we become aware that preoccupation upon ourselves and let it deal with our own faults, which we usually overlook. After we have judged ourselves, only then have we earned the right to judge others. However, although the aspirant will be greatly helped by a calm analysis of the transiency, suffering, and frustration inherent in life, he will be greatly hindered if he uses it as an excuse for a defeatist mentality and depressive temperament. The gallant inspiration to go forward and upward is indispensable. The self-righteousness which prompts him to criticize others, and especially his fellow-questers, is a bad quality which ought to be excised as quickly as possible. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The Sacramento Fire Department is about readiness, people helping people, rescuer safety, and doing good for the greatest number. “The first time I was in a dangerous situation was a few years back. We had a tough job at a three-story dwelling. When we pulled up, there was heavy smoke and fire on the first floor, which was a store front. Fire was blowing out and up, and each window had people in it. We put ladders up to the sides of the windows and started to get the people out. A couple of the people lunged at us while we were still coming up the ladder. One fell on the guy who was our driver at the time. He just stuck out his arm and caught the girl right across the belly. It was just his brute strength that held her. He got her down, and we pulled a couple more out. Some had gone back into the building. In those days we were using all-service air masks. I had the mask on, and the chief said, “Get in, get in.” The ladder is here, and the window is to the right about three feet. Okay, get in. Sure. But I’ve got to look this situation over because I’m going to have to jump from this ladder to the window, and there was no way of rolling over because we still had some fire. When I leaped over to the windowsill, I was dangling from it. Somehow, unbeknownst to me, the nipple with the filter on the top of my air canister was lifted up, so I had no filter whatsoever. I went in and crawled around, found a young boy, and brought him to the window to one of the guys. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“I was taking on smoke, and I didn’t realize why. I checked the face piece, and it seemed okay. It baffled me that I was taking on smoke, and the smoke was getting heavier. I went back a second time and found some older guy, who was in the back room, and I dragged him out. By then, I was so dizzy I didn’t know what I was doing. I got out to the ladder, and as soon as I took the mask off and the cold air hit me, I collapsed right there. The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital, lying right next to one of the guys we had rescued. I heard the doctor say, ‘Give me a scalpel, I have to do a tracheotomy.’ I immediately started breathing well. I mean, I was pumping up in panic. I thought there was no way in hell that he was going to cut my throat for a tracheotomy. So he did the tracheotomy on one of the victims we had pulled out. The fellow lived, by the way. But I didn’t know how bad I was. I knew they had brought me in because I was overcome by smoke. I sure in hell didn’t want no trache done on me, so I started breathing like a new machine. That was the first time that I thought this job might be a little difficult.” The imagination of the Sacramento Fire Department is in creating the blueprints that will outdistance their resources to build solutions. Creating and maintaining strategic alliances that work in an intelligent, orchestrated fashion will help them apply their limited resources where they will make the most difference. You can help save lives by donating to the Sacramento Fire Department. It is also important to raise your child(ren) to love America. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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The Haunting of Llanada Villa
The sun began its slow descent from the sky. The wind was blowing shrill and shrewd. As Llanada Villa settled, it started to rumble and grumble. The last glimmer of daylight died away. Everywhere, twilight released shadows. The night was bitterly cold and gloomy. As I sat by the fire, forms and faces from the past, from the grave appeared from a deep gulf. The wind was rumbling in the chimney and howling in the house. The footsteps in the dark from unseen entities were no longer as entertaining as they used to be. I had a feeling there was a tragic cloud hanging over the premises. Something must have happened long ago that left a very vivid psychic impression here…something very terrible. With more than $300 million at stake and not wanting to make light of the spirits, I discouraged any visits, especially those of thrill seekers. The walls and mirrors of Llanada Villa were draped in rose-coloured silk, and the mantles were decorated with poinsettia blossoms and lilies. In a doorway between the ballroom and the parlor, there was an umbrella covered with moss sprayed over with carnations with a fringe of gilded cypress cones. At the dinner table, however, I still kept a centerpiece of an old stain scarf border with blue plush and embroidered with begonia leaves to appease my spirit guests. Along the table were silver vases with roses and a tall silver candelabra. The names of some of the spirits guests were on cards painted with pink poppies. Llanada Villa itself had been readied to receive persons of wealth. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Although I have been experiencing unforeseen difficulties for some time now, the spirits had become very real to me. I was getting used to having them around. Besides, some of them were less trouble than some people I knew. Along with the day-to-day difficulties of conducting any kind of business, I had to deal with “the way things are done in California.” One incident involved a monthly payment to be made to a “railroad superintendent” to ensure my rail cars and carriages made it safely to my estate. There had been several frightening attempts at extortion. The disgruntled renegade demanded a payment. He “needed the money.” I refused to pay him. He left my home, uttering and glaring. Shortly after, a letter arrived at my home.
Mrs. Sarah L Winchester:
We’ve investigated you and know you can pay. We want $67,588 in hundred-dollar bills—and we want it soon so get it together and we’ll contact you again. If you go to the constable, we are going to blow up your whole house with everybody in it—and take care of your family too. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
I disregarded his warning. This, after all, was a clear and present danger, not ghostly footfalls on the path or in the hallways. The constable agreed to work on the case. I told them about the dissatisfied client. They only succeeded in letting the renegade know that the authorities were after him. I was livid! Now that my extortionist knew I had made contact with law enforcement, he would probably carry out the rest of his threats. I had an army of bodyguards and vicious dogs guarding my estate. I refused to fan the fires of anybody’s superstitions, but there was always a guard just waiting inside the mansion with a cocked Winchester. “Well, Mrs. Winchester,” the butler said, mollified, “I’m glad you’re takin’ the serious. This could be trouble. We’ll take some axes and cut us a supply of firewood while it’s still dry.” “Very well,” I said. It was good that they wasted no time, for the rain began well before nightfall. There was a chill, driving wind, and the horses and mules took shelter in a stand of pines that were on the estate. The chimneys drew well, and roar fires did well to life the spirit of the house. I lit a candle and went over the long halls thoroughly, finding nothing. However, a careful examination of the floor revealed nothing except a reddish-brown stain that might have been blood, long since dried. The storm raged on, unabated. There was a crash of thunder that shook the house that immediately frightened the servants. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Then, on the heels of a clap of thunder, like an echo, came the unmistakable bark of a Winchester. Three of the deadly weapons added their voices to the fury of the storm, and taken by surprise, the guards fought back with their Winchester’s. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the fuselage ended. The thunder had diminished, and in the lightning flashes there were revealed three huddled bodies. With trembling hands, I stepped out the door and stood on the veranda, staring grimly into the rain-swept darkness. I marveled at how rapidly events could take a turn for the worse. We were suddenly free of any threat of the troublesome band of renegades, but three of them lay grievously wounded. There were sinister shapes in the shadows. The Observational Tower alone, rising toward the dark rolling clouds, was eerie enough with its deep apertures suggesting the chilly blackness that lay within. I did not envy the butler who had to climb those stairs in the dead of the night to make sure it was secure. When he had entered the nine-story tower, he found every item of furniture smashed or upset. Blood had been smeared over the walls and holy pictures. The tables had been overturned. Every gasolier has been ignited. However, he had come upon no intruder. Whoever—or whatever—had been in the tower had vanished, leaving behind only more wrecked furniture. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
If the butler had not been so obsessed with the idea of “demonic possession,” then perhaps the local constabulary would have become involved. There was someone out there, someone moving through the garden. Using a good deal of stealth, too. And headed for the tower. I sat near the back of the darkened library, screen partly by a mahogany pillar. The only light came from the high stained-glass windows each time night clouds slid from the face of the moon. My hands were tucked deep inside my overcoat pockets. I shivered. Then heard a sound somewhere in the darkness. A breeze flickered against my face. A door had bene opened. And there it was, a black form, somehow misshapen, moving among the shadows. I kept still, curious to see that the intruder would do. A match was struck, the sound harsh in the cavernous mansion. A candle was lit. Then another. The figure moved—glided, it almost seemed—around the table, lighting more. That area of the mansion grew brighter and I sank down in my seat, even though I was still in the shadow, for now the intruder’s true shape was more discernible. It was bent, as if hunched back, and it wore some kind of robe, the head covered by a large cowl. I now understood why the figure had appeared crooked, for now it was lifting something. Something heavy. As I watched, the intruder raised the container and began to pour liquid over the table. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
I waited by the door and only when the figure I had been watching had disappeared from view did I enter. My teeth clenched tight when the door groaned on its hinges. I hurried through. I reached the other side of the room and peered round. There was no sign of the person I had been watching. A noise to my right caught my attention. There it was, a shape dodging around the hallways. However, it was headed to an exit. My eyes narrowed. Christ, the thought of it all made my skin crawl. It was cruel. I was as jumpy as a bear scenting humans. A wind went whistling through the room. The room had darkened more, and I clearly heard footsteps. There was a heavy and gloomy shadow gathering. It turned colder, too. There was a chill and a dismal feeling in the air. I took a lantern and went on, through the long, dark passages. As the gloom and shadow thickened behind me, in that place where it had been gathered so darkly. The glimpses themselves were at first merely strange than horrible, but it took me by surprise to see a ghastly cold, and colourless face dressed in a gloomy nightgown, motionless without a sound. Then I noticed there were multiple levels of black vaults below, and never-opened trapdoors. I seemed to be a prisoner, and horror hung broodingly over everything I saw. My home seemed so limitless. There were almost endless leagues of rooms two hundred feet wide. They differed greatly in aspect. Many of these rooms seemed so limitless that they must have a frontage of several thousand feet, while there were stairs that shot up to the steamy heavens. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
I could not resolve this impression into details. In certain places I beheld enormous dark cylindrical towers which climbed far above any of the other structures. They were built of a completely bizarre masonry, and tapered slightly toward their rounded tops. Nowhere in this part of Llanada Villa could I find traces of windows or other apertures save huge oak doors be found. My omnipresent home was almost terrifying in its strangeness, with bizarre and unfamiliar architecture. Abnormally, this night, my home had grown curiously. Through the countless miles of this haunting city there were French reception rooms in Renaissance and Louis VX taste. The spirit may not have been here to harm me, but were showing me how to build. Vivid blossoms embossed in the windows. Terrance and roof-top gardens to suggest artificial breeding. Here and there enormous domes and arches. Certainly, many persons have dreamed intrinsically stranger things. For some time, I accepted the visions as natural, even though I had never before been an extravagant dreamer. In the course of some months, however, these elements came to life. Carpenters worked day and night to unfailingly create my dreams with accumulating force. My home reflected the curious impressions regarding time, the sense of an exchange with my personality, and, considerably later, the inexplicable emotional grip of these spirits. It disturbed me so vastly to find that my dreams had been so closely duplicated; especially since the ideas came from apparitions. Many of those accounts supplied with detailed explanations. This despite the fact that I was and still am ignorant of the languages involved in the creation, which appeared to be a fairly consistent mixture of myth and hallucination whose scope and wildness left me utterly dazed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The Winchester Mystery House
This excessive, if not bizarre home of Sarah L. Winchester combined with Victorian and Gothic styles, at one time contained as many as 600 rooms. Building and furnishing the home consumed approximately $5 million. The house now contains 161 rooms. The vast mansion required employment of about one hundred servants, including chefs, cooks, maids, housekeepers, maintenance workers, carriage men and hostlers. Its unique floor plan resulted in operational efficiencies and many unusual features.
“One occasion, I heard a door open and heavy footstep slowly walking through the house. I checked on the lowest level of the house a door which is never opened—it was nevertheless fully open. Evidently, the ghost knew I was coming.” -Caretaker 5
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
What I Have is Good and Still I am Unhappy
Our Heavenly Father wants us to love ourselves, to see ourselves as He see us: we are His cherished children. When this truth sinks deep into our hearts, our love for God grows. Berating others does not help them progress; it only discourages them. Along with correction, they also need encouragement. The goal with self-love is never to justify omission, rationalize sin, or slip into complacency. I recognize that certain negative feelings can help me, such as godly sorrow—but I should not wallow in it, because that is not progression. Guilt has an important role as it awakens us to changes we need to make, but there are limits to how far guilt will help us. Guilt is like a battery in a gasoline-powered BMW. It can light up the Ultimate Driving Machines, start the engine, and power the headlights, but it will not provide the fuel for the long journey ahead. The battery, by itself, is not sufficient. Ans neither is guilt. I must be intentional not to slip into negative thinking patterns and should instead focus on loving Jesus as the Christ. I once had an image of myself as a fish. My fish image was that I was a fish, struggling to swim against the stream. I was not able to do that yet. I was held where I was, which gave a chance to learn how to swim against the stream (go the way that I wanted to go) by two shadowy figures on a bridge, each of them holding a line which I was hooked like a fish. This kept me from being swept away by the swiftly moving stream. I know that the two figures were the doctor and Aldous Huxley. Neither of them understood everything, but each of them understood enough to be helpful. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
When I got worse physically, the doctor got me back to some degree of steadiness. When, through experimenting with my mind, I got into something that neither the doctor nor I understood, so I was afraid to go on with it, I wrote to Huxley and he explained it. These two men kept me from being swept away while I thrashed around, learning how to swim against the stream. This was a persistent image that I lived with for about a year. These men were also people to whom I could tell anything and they would not “call the cops.” This meant to me that they would not call men to lock me up. I thought of being “locked up” as being in a madhouse, but it was not a mental hospital that I was afraid of, although I did not know what the “madhouse” was. It meant being pushed back into what I was struggling to get out of. Other people tended very much to do this to me, so I lived more and more alone and when, at last, I was just barely able to travel I went to a place where I knew no one, and kept myself alone, so that I could get together with myself. I wanted desperately to be with someone who understood more than I did about what I was trying to understand, but since I could not do that, I could at least remove myself from people who were confusing me. After all that, some of my present knowings seem small and perhaps ridiculous, but I know now that they are not “unimportant.” I am living near the beach in an apartment which has an outside deck with a railing. When my son was here, he started to throw his damp swimming trucks and towel over the railing, then said, “The management probably wouldn’t like that—I can see why.” I agreed, and his statement was accurate, but whose seeing was the seeing why? When I agreed, in my mind there was an image of the uncluttered railing as described, something that I like. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
However, a few days later when I walked past a building with a railing draped with swimsuits and towels, I knew that I liked this, that to me it looked gay and human, alive with an activity of people. Then I knew how much I missed seeing clothes on lines blowing in the wind, people working untidily in gardens, sweeping sidewalks, dashing out of houses half-dressed to do something that should be done right now, or a woman drying her hair in the sun. When I looked out on the tidy street with no sign that anyone lives behind the curtains in the windows of the houses, it seems so lifeless. The alwaysness of this tidiness tires me the way that hunger does; something is missing from my intake. If no one else feels as I do, this still is the way that I feel, and when I think that I do not, I am not together with myself. If I could deceive myself completely by accepting other people’s values, then there might be an argument for giving up and letting other people tell me what to do. However, my inner valuing does not cease: it just gets buried to my knowing and is forever in conflict with the values that I have accepted from outside. When I had not noticed my own valuing of the street on which I live, there was nothing that I could do about it but be irked without knowing why, and feel that I must be ungrateful because “what I have is good” and still I am unhappy. Now that I have noticed, I feel happy. The conflict in me has been removed. Having accepted myself, I can accept other things too, in a way that is very different from “making the best of it.” It is the way I lived from age 12 to 16, when I wanted to quit school but the law would not let me. So, I lived with what was around me, including school, until the time when I could leave. The circumstances are different now, but the feeling is the same. I do not feel trapped. I do not feel that something has been done to me (victimized). And I do not feel guilty. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Currently in the United States of America there has been a lot of resentment to people who have immigrated illegally. Because of that, anyone who looks like they could be of Hispanic background have been facing a lot of discrimination. However, even if someone has illegally immigrated, it is not right to treat them less than human. If you do not like people being allowed to immigrate illegally, then that that up with your government, stop voting democrat. It is not your place to judge them. All individuals are children of God and part of His divine family. As His children, we all have divine potential and are precious in His eyes/ The scriptures teach that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men,” and “all are alike” unto Him. He does not love one race or culture more than any other. The gospel of Jesus as the Christ is for all of God’s children. The Book of Mormon teaches that the Lord invites “all to come unto Him and partake of His goodness; and He denieth none that come unto Him, black and white, bond and free, male and female.” Our standing with God depends on our devotion to Him and His commandments, not on the colour of our skin, our ethnicity, our citizenship status, or other attributes. Because we are children of God, we are all brothers and sisters. God has commanded us to “love one another.” In the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus Christ taught that the commandment to love our neighbour transcends ethic, cultural, and religious differences. The Saviour exemplified this teaching. He “went about doing good,” teaching and healing people of all backgrounds. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Manifest Destiny; the belief that it is our duty, as Americans, to settle the continent, conquer the World and prosper. The idealized settlers who reached the promised land of the West were ordained by God to expand the boarders of America from sea to shining sea. The settlers overcame death to reach the American West, bathed in a welcoming golden light. There was a price to be paid, however. Frontiersmen had to be willing to face the risks inherent in migration—but had their parents not faced similar risks in coming to America? They had to be willing to do the backbreaking work required to turn a wilderness into prosperous farms and towns—but had their ancestors not done that as well? They had to be willing to break with the familiar and comfortable, and even face hardship—perhaps even death. They created the blueprint to expand America’s dominion over the entire planet, and perhaps one day there will no longer be any boarder and people can travel freely to whatever part of the World they wish. So many people want to come to America because it does have a lot of freedom and law and order. With Manifest Destiny, this freedom and law and order will spread to other parts of the World. I am grateful that the heart of the gospel revolves around love. The love of God, love of others, and love for myself. It would be a grave error to believe that philosophy is merely the practice of reflection over lofty or lovely thoughts. It is also the shedding of tears over low or unlovely ones, the remorseful weeping over past and present frailty, the poignant remembrance of errors and incapacities. We who practice it must examine ourselves periodically. This means that we should not, at any time, be satisfied with ourselves but should always recognize the need of improvement. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Hence, we should constantly strive to detect and remedy the moral, temperamental, and mental defects which disclose themselves. We will need to look into our hearts more deeply than ever before, and search their darker labyrinths for the motives and desires hiding away from our conscious aspiration. We are called upon to make the most searching criticism of ourselves, and to make it with emotional urgency and even profound remorse. If it meant only looking at our human frailty and mortal foolishness, this advice to look within would be idiotic. A morbid self-obsession, a continuously gloomy introspection and unending analysis of personal thoughts and experience is to be avoided as unhealthy. Such ugly egocentricity does not make us more “spiritual.” However, the advice really means looking further and deeper. It means an introspective examining operation much longer in time, much more exigent in patience, much more sustained in character, than a mere first glance. It means intensity of the first order, concentration of the strongest kind, spiritual longing of the most fervent sort. Although philosophy bids us avoid morbid thoughts of depression, doubt, fear, worry, and anxiety because they are weakening and because they represent only one side—the dark side—of a two-sided situation, this counsel must not be misunderstood. It does not bid us ignore the causes which give rise to such thoughts. On the contrary, it bids us take full note of them, face up to them, frankly, examine them carefully, and understand the defects in our own character which led to them. Finally, we are to adopt the practical measures needed to deal with them. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
However, this once done, and thoroughly done, we are to turn our back upon them and let them go altogether to keep our serenity and contain our spiritual detachment. In every painful problem which is ultimately traceable to our own wrong-doing, the best way to rid ourself of the worry and anxiety it brings is first, to do what is humanly possible to mend matters in a practical way; second, if others are concerned, to make such reparation to them as we can; third, to unmask our sin pitilessly and resolutely for what it is; fourth, to bring clearly into the foreground of consciousness what are the weaknesses and defects in our own character which have led us into this sin; fifth, to picture constantly in imagination during meditation or pre-sleep, our liberation from these faults through acquiring the opposite virtues; sixth, and last, when all this has been done and not until then, to stop brooding about the miserable past or depressing future and to hand the whole problem with its attendant worries into the keeping of the Overself and thus attain peace concerning it. If this is successfully done, every memory of sin will dissolve and every error of judgment will cease to torment us. Here, in its mysterious presence and grace, whatever mistakes we have made in practical life and whatever sins we have committed in moral life, we need not let these shadows of the past haunt us perpetually like wraiths. We may analyse them thoroughly and criticize ourselves mercilessly but only to lay the foundation in better self-knowledge for sound reform. We must not forget them too soon, but we ought not hug them too long. After the work of self-analysis is well done, we can turn for relief and solace to the Overself. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
We have been discussing Clare and her journey through self-analysis. During her period of inner turmoil, she obtained a new lease on life and a renewed incentive to work at the problems she was having in her interpersonal relationships. However, several questions arose. If the loss of her intimate partner, Peter, could still upset her as deeply as it did, what about the value of the foregoing analytical work? Two considerations have a bearing on this question. One is the insufficiency of the previous work. Clare had recognized the fact that she was compulsively dependent, and had seen certain implications of this condition. However, she was far from reaching a real grasp on the problem. If one doubts the value of the work accomplished one makes the same mistake that Clare herself made during the whole period before the climax, underrating the import of the neurotic trend and therefore expecting too quick and easy results. The other consideration is that overall, the final upheaval was itself of a constructive nature. It presented the culminating point of a line of development that runs from a compete ignorance of the problem involved, and the most vigorous unconscious attempts to deny its existence, to a final full realization of its severity. The climax brought it home to her that her dependency was like a cancerous growth which cannot be kept within safe boundaries (compromises) but must be eradicated lest one’s life be gravely jeopardized. Under the pressure of acute distress Clare succeeded, too, in bringing into sharp conscious focus a conflict which had hitherto been unconscious. She had been entirely unaware of being torn between wanting to relinquish her dependency on another person and wanting to continue it. This conflict had been camouflaged by her compromise solutions with Peter. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Now Clare had faced it, and was able to take a clear stand as to the direction in which she wanted to go. In this regard the phase she was now going through illustrates a fact mentioned in the past, that at certain periods in analysis it is necessary to take a stand, to decide. And if through the analytical work a conflict has sufficiently crystallized for the patient to be able to do this, it must be reckoned as an achievement. In Clare’s case the issue, of course, was whether she would immediately try to replace the lost pillar with a new one. Naturally it is upsetting to face a problem in that uncompromising way. And here a second question comes in. Did Clare’s experience produce a greater danger of suicide than it would have without analysis? For consideration of this question, it is relevant that she had indulged in suicidal notations at previous times. She had never, however, been able to terminate them so decisively as she did this time. Formerly they had simply faded out of the picture because something “nice” happened. Now she refunded them actively, consciously, and with a constructive spirit. Also, as mentioned above, her first reaction of gratefulness that Peter had not withdrawn earlier was in part a genuine feeling that she was now more capable of coping with his desertion. It seems safe to assume, therefore, that the suicidal tendencies would have been stronger and more persistent without the analytical work that was done. Human nature is universally frail; Clare’s is no exception. Nevertheless, if she is appalled at her mistakes, of this anguish is doubled because what she has done wrongly is irreparable, is there nothing else left to do than to give herself up to helpless despair? The true answer is more hopeful than that. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
I know that if one keeps patient while cultivating humility and silencing the ego’s pride, one shall grow away from old weaknesses and overcome former mistakes. This should be the first stage of her new attitude. For the next one, Clare can at least go over the events of the past and amend them in thought. She can put right mentally those wrong decisions and correct those rash impulsive actions. She can collect the profits of lessons expensively learnt. The first value of self-confession of sin is not so much getting rid of an uncomfortable sense of guilt over a particular episode or series of episodes as getting at the weakness in character responsible for them, and then seeking to correct it. Merely to remove the sense of discomfort and to leave its moral source untouched is not enough. Any priestly rite of forgiveness is ineffective until it is done. If it is to be real, if it is to be successful in purifying her character, it must produce repentance and that in its turn must produce penance. The second value of the confession is to induce the sinner to make amends or restitution to those one has hurt and thus balance one’s karmic account with them. Humans commit many sins and fall into many errors before the failure of their own conduct finally dawns upon them. By raising one’s point of view regarding any grievous situation, whether it involves oneself alone or other persons, one attracts the entry of a higher power into it which will work for one’s benefit and in one’s favour. One will learn to endure the blows of misfortune with a bravery heretofore unknown and a serenity heretofore unexperienced. It is better for one’s real progress that one’s eyes should fill with tears of repentance than with tears of ecstasy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
A healthy personality comes from the optimal self, which refers to a person who is functioning at the highest level. There are modes of human fulfillment, or characteristics of the optimal person. Efficiency: functional competence (being able to do things well), effective work autonomy (being able to work independently), and commitment to projects of concern outside of oneself. Creativity: experiences familiar things in fresh ways; openness to the novel, strange, and socially unacceptable; creates new style of life. Inner harmony: likes self; need for some amount of privacy or solitude. Relatedness: compassion, to be genuinely transparent, making self available to receive what others seek to communicate. Transcendence: mystical unity with a larger whole, relationship to some all-encompassing totality, to nature or God. Psychologists have been too timid and guarded in identifying the high-level functioning or healthy personality. We have disguised the true, human image of this person behind language that is so stiff that the person in the description is lost. The healthy personality is a “beautiful and noble person” (BNP). The beauty described here does not refer to physical beauty, although that may sometimes be found in the healthy personality. It more specifically describes someone whose behaviour and work is such that the effect upon self and other is one of producing an essentially aesthetic feeling. Nobility also, of course, does not refer to parentage but to the kinds of behaviour and acts performed by such a person. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
While some have argued that even psychotic people may sometimes be thought of as healthy, Ted Landsman insists that the BNP must first be normal—perceive reality essentially as it is and to be free of bizarre symptoms (such as hallucinations, grimaces, and so on). The first stage in the evolution of the BNP is described as the passionate self. The passionate self is seen as someone who truly likes, even loves himself or herself, someone who enjoys being alone, and who respects and accepts self. This is not the same as selfishness, but rather is an awareness of self as a worthwhile person. Bragging and possessiveness are avoided. The second stage involves a concept not dealt with in detail by most other writers: the environment-loving person. A passionate caring for the physical environment is seen in the person at this stage. The human relates to mountains, flowers, music, buildings—the entire physical environment—with appreciation and with joy, preserves it, nurtures it, and delights in it. The final stage in the evolution of the BNP is described as the compassionate self. This is a person who deeply loves others, who cares about people who hurt or are in need, and who acts, often at a great personal risk, to help others. The compassionate person does not only feel for others, but acts to alleviate or remedy their pains or injustices. There are major positive experiences that lead to the development of the beautiful and noble personality. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
There are experiences that lead to the development of the beautiful and noble personality: Positive experiences in childhood. Experiences of joy, delight, ecstasy at all levels, not just peak. High levels of intense positive feeling. Negative experiences that have been made positive in effect. These are important painful experiences, such as disgrace, failure, death of loved ones, automobile accidents, being fired from a job, which the person has been able to “turn around” and make into significant learning or growth experiences. The following, collected by Smith, is written by a female prisoner: “Coming to prison. Never thought it would happen to me. Anyone else but not me. It happened. I’m glad I’ve stopped and reviewed my life up to age 17. Complete destruction for me. I was destroying myself and going at it at top speed. I’ve met beautiful people here. I’ve learned a lot about me. This experience I would not change if I could. I need this. Now maybe I can be a better person. I can stop and think and reason with myself….Had I not served time I would still be going at top speed I’m sure. Only what would I be into now?” The solitude experience. Instances in which an individual can escape from the immediate pressures—social, job, interpersonal—and explore the self, one’s own feelings, one’s relationship to others, to the World. Opportunities to think freely and clearly are usually accomplished in solitude, in intentional isolation, such as a short walk in the woods, or a year’s living in the desert alone. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
The authentic dialogue. This, in a sense, is the obverse or “flip side” of the previous experience. You seek the opportunity to converse, deeply, freely, without guile or pretense, with someone you trust totally. Both persons in the dialogue must be committed to authenticity and openness, which differs somewhat from most counseling or psychotherapeutic approaches, where only the silent is the communicator about self. The transcendent experience is one in which you achieve far beyond what you would normally expect of yourself: writing an unusually beautiful open, being far more sensitive than one would expect, performing a physical feat such as lifting a beam from an injured person or winning an athletic contest. These experiences are difficult to predict or create, but when they do occur, they give you the sure confidence that you have possibilities and potential of which you never dreamed. The approach to beautiful and noble personhood stresses openness, relationship to self and to others. It builds up Maslow’s system of peak experiences to suggest the importance of a whole range of experiences, especially the positive, and inserts the importance of the relationship, a passionate one, with the physical environment, music, mountains, flowers, lakes, and so on. When a mane lets go of his ego, all the virtues come submissively to his feet. If he can let it go only for a little while, they too will stay only a little while; but if her can make the parting permanent, then the virtues are his forever. However, this is a high and uncommon state, for it is a kind of death few will accept. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
The social character which makes people act and think as they must act and think from the standpoint of the proper functioning of their society is only one link between the social structure and ideas. The other link lies in the fact that each society determines which thoughts and feelings shall be permitted to arrive at the level of awareness and which must remain unconscious. Just as there is a social character, there is also a “social unconscious.” By “social unconscious” I refer to those areas of repression which are common to most members of a society; if the society with its specific contradictions is to operate successful, these commonly repressed elements are those contents which a given society cannot permit its members to be aware of. The “individual unconscious” with which Dr. Freud deals refers to those contents which an individual represses for reasons of individual circumstances peculiar to his personal life situation. Dr. Freud deals to some extent with the “social unconscious” when he talks about the repression of incestuous strivings as being characteristic of all civilizations; but in his clinical work, he mainly deals with the individual unconscious, and little attention is paid by most analysts to the “social unconscious.” The conflict between the unconscious reality within ourselves and the denial of that reality in our consciousness often leads to neurosis, by making the unconscious conscious, the neurotic symptom or character trait can be cured. Dr. Freud believed that this uncovering of the unconscious was the most important tool for the therapy of neurosis, his vision went far beyond this therapeutic interest. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Dr. Freud saw how unreal most of what we think about ourselves is, how we deceive ourselves continuously about ourselves and about others; he was prompted by the passionate interest in touching the reality which is behind our conscious thought. Dr. Freud recognized that most of what is real within us is not conscious, and that most of what is conscious is not real. This devotion to the search for inner reality opened a new dimension of truth. If he says what he knows, the person who does not know the phenomenon of the unconscious is convinced he says the truth. Dr. Freud showed that we all deceive ourselves to a larger or smaller degree about the truth. Even if we are sincere regarding what we are aware of we are probably still lying because our consciousness is “false,” it does not represent the underlying real experience within ourselves. Dr. Freud started out with observation on an individual scale. Here are some random examples: a man may have a secret pleasure in looking at pornographic pictures. He does not admit any such interest to himself but is convinced, consciously, that he considers such pictures to be harmful and that it is his duty to see to it that they are not exhibited anywhere. In this way he is constantly concerned with pornography, looks at such pictures as part of his campaign against them, and this satisfies his desire. However, he has a very good conscience. His real desires are unconscious, and what is conscious is a rationalization which hides completely what he does not want to know. Thus, he is enabled to satisfy his desire without sensing the conflict with his moral judgment. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Success in the 21st century will require new ways of doing things. Innovation requires the Sacramento Fire Department to systematically identify changes that have already occurred—in business, in demographics, in values, in technology or science—and then to look at them as opportunities. It also requires them to abandon rather than defend yesterday—something that is most difficult for existing companies to do so. “I worked with the Sacramento Fire Department for seven years. We had an eight-week basic firefighter course. We also attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and earned fire science degrees. They have a rather good fire science program. I was fortunate to have started at a very young age in a quite active fire department and had experience in just about every aspect of the fire service. I remember one of those biggest fires that I had ever seen. I was on the first ladder, second alarm. Two spectators and a fire policeman died. The scene was utter chaos. Conditions were deteriorating rapidly. The building was just being taken. It was beyond anything we could ever control. There was a downwind, the fire created more wind, all the characteristics of a conflagration. The thing was made completely out of wood. Our truck company did a lot of repositioning. We set up our aerial ladder and the ladder pipe at the end of the building, then the fire got hotter and hotter and we had to back out. It was amazing, the progress the fire made. It was self-propagating, and we repositioned three times. Rescues were made from ladders, a lot of people were rescued. Our company was at the scene at least thirty-six hours, but others were there a good three or four days. It taught me that firefighting would never be an easy job. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
“Before becoming a firefighter, I was already an emergency medical technician. On a typical day, we start by running several miles and then do a series of, let’s say, eight exercises, moving from one to the other. Then it would be classroom session. Then, in the afternoon, drill tower training, more classroom sessions, or actual fire simulation. What was nice about it is that this was Monday through Friday. On weekends I could ride on one of the busier engines or trucks in town. I had to retake emergency medical service training here as part of the program. We have to maintain our EMT status by taking a new test every two years. We put in hours, do a full day of practical work, and then we take the test. It’s an ongoing process.” Not only does the fire department save lives and reduces property loss, but they also prevent harm. Preventing harm covers many areas, including specialized rescue, health and wellness of citizens, and injury prevention. Protecting property includes protecting community resources—people, property, natural resources, the environment, and the community infrastructure—from harm and loss. Also, protecting property includes mitigation of natural and technological disasters. Simply put, preventing fires, injuries, and disease is the most effective means of “preventing harm.” Public education and prevention is of equal importance to fire suppression in the role of the fire service in the community. You can help the Sacramento Fire Department’s mission by making a contribution. Americans love to see America prosper. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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If Life is Not to be Trivial, it Must be Hard
Several people say they turn to the TV news to figure out what is going on in the World. However, only 20 percent of Americans regularly attend church, but 57 percent of Americans tune in to TV news. The Christian Bible is the account of God’s action in the World, and His purpose for creation. Therefore, it is more logical to attend church and learn more about the World, yourself and God. Psychology is a nice supplement to religion. Maslow continuously pondered what humans might become, in the hope of learning how more of us might grow toward those seemingly Utopian levels of being. Maslow’s work remains as one of the most helpful sets of principles governing the development of the healthy personality. He suggested the existence of two kinds of motivation: B, or being motivation, and D, or deficiency motivation. D-motivations are those that grab us when we are deeply deprived or have a loss of some basic need, such as the burglar who may be driven by hunger or the coward who may be driven by fear for personal safety. In contrast, the self-actualizing person is seen as motivated by the being needs, to be the fullest possible self, to be able to sing, create, work at highest capacity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
The peak experience concept has met with a great deal of interest. Maslow suggests the existence of these marvelous experiences that overwhelm the person and are great heights of delight and joy or meaningfulness, awesome experiences that may occur to a self-actualizing person but are not exclusively confined to that kind of person. Here are two contrasting examples of the more moderate peak or positive experiences collected from tenth-grade students: “Mine happened just last night. I love the summer and hate the winter. So last night when I stepped outside and found how warm it was I just couldn’t go back into the house. I walked around the house and then looked around. You can see all the houses around from our house and just looking around at them and hearing the sounds of the night relaxed me and I felt like I was watching over the whole World. It was a gentle feeling and gave me a little bit of a thrill.” “Yes, in the winter I love to walk out in the snow and let it fall lightly on my face. When this happens it seems to make a strange sort of happiness fall on me also.” Deep philosophic courage is a power not easily gained. A man must overcome much within himself, must hold his spine unbending and his effort undeviating. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
All those negative qualities which act as encumbrances to true understanding of situations, occasions, events, and persons must be guarded against in attitude and action. Amid his gross brutalization and maniacal exaggerations, Nietzsche’s evil mysticism expressed some truth. He affirmed rightly that if life is not to be trivial, it must be hard. His quest of the Overself must be an untiring one. It is to be his way of looking at the World, his attitude toward life. It is far more important to develop the strength within himself needful to break the spell than to be for preventative protection against it. In the first case, he progresses enormously and rapidly; in the second, he is static. Each difficulty surmounted, each weakness resisted will fortify his will and increase his perseverance. It will evoke the better part of his nature and discipline the baser, and thus fit him more adequately to cope with the next ones. He must be equally steadfast in adhering to this attitude whether other people utter complaints against him or make compliments to him. We must retain our determination and our loyalty to the quest in all circumstances. Physical pains, climatic extremes must not deter us. We must console ourselves with the thought that these things are certain to pass away. They are mental figments, ideas which will be negated, whereas the truth and reality we seek belong to the immutable, and can never be negated. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
Few of us can withdraw from the World and most of us must engage in its activity. However, that is no reason for accepting the evils which are mixed in with this activity. Tenacity of purpose is a characteristic of all who accomplish great things. Drawbacks cannot disgust him, labour cannot weary him, hardships cannot discourage him in whom the quality of persistence is always present. However, to the man without persistence every defeat is a Waterloo. Indecision of purpose and infirmity of will must yield to the resolute mind and the determined act. The person who sways uncertainly between one side and the other misses opportunity. The student’s inner reactions to outer events provide him with the opportunity to use his free will in the right direction. His attitude towards his lower nature, that is, how far he encourages or discourages it, is another. And his recognition of what are good opportunities and what should be avoided, together with his acceptance or rejection of them, is still another. Mental indolence and moral lethargy are hardly likely to waft us into the high haven of spiritual peace. We must learn to think fearlessly and courageously about every problem that faces us; we must try to elevate our hearts above the level of the moral lepers and spiritually disabled of our time. He will learn to endure the blows of misfortune with a bravery heretofore unknown and a serenity heretofore unexperienced. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
If he is to achieve a full self-mastery, the strength of will which can lead a man to command of his desires for pleasure of the flesh cannot stop there. It must also go on to his diet and feelings, his speech and habits. However, many people, including the less affluent not only practice age discrimination, but they also advocate a lower-class bias. Class-stereotype is ambivalent, describing lower class people both negatively (less competent, less human, more objectified), and sometimes positively, perhaps warmer than upper class people. At a variety of levels and life stages, social-class stereotypes reinforce inequality. Sometimes, people who have benefited from Affirmative Actions like to uplift people of their culture, but discriminate against others as an act of revenge for bias that have faced. Social class matters, as a social construction, can be described in terms of what persons do; their jobs, habits, hobbies, lifestyles, but also in terms of what other people expect from them, their personality traits, life choices, aspirations, motivations. These oversimplified characterizations (id est, stereotypes) entail descriptions and prescriptions that impact individuals’ achievements, self-evaluations, and well-being. However, some of the elite feel a certain personal alienation from the dominant characters and opinions of American intellectual life, which doubtlessly quickens their championship of those who are thought to have little chance of succeeding in life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Some think that free silver is a poor social remedy, and it will only lead to monetary inflation like what many are experiencing since the COVID pandemic. There are also those who think the proper way to deal with poverty and inequality is by advocating careful elimination of the unfit and dependent, chiefly by eugenic methods. While others believe that education is a great way to end inequality. Proponents of equality want a field that shall be broad enough to embrace the whole human race. However, as it stands, we are assimilating a mass crude material from the bottom and they are just exacerbating conditions of racism, agism, discrimination, harassment, and facilitating the expansion of criminal activity. This is leading many to believe that society is doomed to hopeless degeneracy. Yet, it is possible to take another view. The only consolation, the only hope, lies in the truth that so far as the native capacity, the potential quality, the promise and potency of a higher life are concerned, those swarming, spawning millions, the bottom layer of society, the proletariat, the working class, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, nay even the denizens of the slums—that all these are by nature the peers of the boasted aristocracy of brains that now dominates society and looks down upon them, and the equals in all but privilege of the most enlightened teachers of eugenics. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
In the past, sociocracy, or the planned control of society by society was considered a solution. Under sociocracy, purposeful social activity, or collective telesis, could be harmonized with individual self-interest by means of attractive legislation designed to release the springs of human action for socially beneficial deeds by positive rather than negative and compulsory devices. Where individualism has created artificial inequalities, sociocracy would abolish them; and while socialism seeks to create artificial equalities, sociocracy would recognize inequalities that are natural. A sociocratic World would distribute its favours according to merit, as individualist demand, but by equalizing opportunity for all it would eliminate advantages now possessed by those with underserved power, accidental position or wealth, or antisocial cunning. We need to arrive at a better understanding of the importance of feeling in human motivation. The unique and artificial character of social organization and social processes are an odd inconsistency to deck out sociology with physics, chemistry, and biology, and to set it in the framework of a cosmological system. Some are not only ahead of the masses in point of time, but they are head, shoulders and hips above the general population in many respects scientifically. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
All the efforts which are made to develop and maintain the mental hygiene practices of our citizens help to restrain what would otherwise be an ever-growing demand for psychiatric services. The role of the family in contributing to emotional stability is a most crucial one and the programs in parent education which are offered under a variety of auspices play a vital role in contributing to sound psychological environments in the home. We would do well to give all possible support to programs in parent education and to resources for parent consultation; we should be particularly concerned to provide programs for parental guidance in those areas and communities in which they are presently lacking. The psychiatrist and psychologist can find especially effective avenues for their services as consultants in clinics or other programs for parent education. Next to home, the school provides a universal setting with potential for teaching and demonstrating sound mental hygiene principles. If the schools have been less than optimally effective in this responsibility in the past it is partly because they have been uncertain of the relative priorities of the provision of subject-matter instruction versus the stimulation of the pupil’s total personal growth. While the contribution of the individual teacher can occur in a variety of way, ranging from early detection of emotional distress and referral to provision of “emergency” tension relief and even relationship therapy, the optimal participation of teachers in mental hygiene activities is greatly enhanced in those schools that have provided for formal integration of mental health services, with the consultative assistance of professional workers. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
Better preparation of teachers for their opportunities, responsibilities, and limitations as mental hygienists can help much to reduce the demand for specifically psychiatric or psychological treatment. Such resources for expert treatment of childhood problems are even more severely restricted than are those for adult patients, and there must be increasing attention to the development of consultative skills—on the part both of teachers and experts. The potential of the church and the clergy in helping to promote mental health and to render assistance in cases of milder personal maladjustments is presently only partially realized. Based on a questionnaire survey, it was found that the average clergyman devotes only about two hours per week to personal counseling. Fewer than one out ten spend as much as ten hours a week on this activity. There is, considering the readiness of the distressed person to turn to his clergyman, a clear need to augment the preparation of the minister for this activity and to support him in his endeavours to render assistance, especially by giving him access to consultation. Increasing the effectiveness of our public education toward positive mental health and working toward more effective utilization of the front-line troops in early recognition and treatment of emotional upset constitute two ways of holding down the always excessive demand for psychiatric help. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
A third avenue deserving careful consideration would consist of efforts to educate the public more specifically as to the precise nature of psychiatric treatment, specifically of psychotherapy, to try to lower the public’s presently naïve and immodest expectations of what occurs in and what can happen because of psychotherapy, and to encourage a proper appreciation for therapeutic conversation. As an important part of this effort, both psychotherapists and potential patients should be helped to recognize that there is neither magical cure nor specific expert treatment for the philosophical neuroses. If all of these methods of reducing the demand for the psychotherapeutic services of psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker are vigorously pursued, the problem of manpower shortage will be alleviated but not solved. There will still be a fully “legitimate” call for individual psychotherapy exceeding the supply available through the present and future supply of the acknowledged specialist. Is there a rational and socially conscionable answer to this problem? The man who seeks to release himself from moral responsibility for his actions or his fortunes can in no way make any real progress on the spiritual path. He may improve his capacity to mediate, he may become more sensitive physically, but his real battle—against the ego—remains unfought and therefore unwon. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
We have looked at social character as the structure through which human energy is molded in such specific ways, that it is usable for the purposes of any given society. It is also the basis from which certain ideas and ideals draw their strength and attractiveness. This relation between character and ideas is easy to recognize in the case of the individual character structure. A person with a hoarding (anal, according to Dr. Freud) character orientation, will be attracted to the ideal of saving, he will be repelled by ideas of what he would call “reckless spending.” On the other hand, the person with a productive character will find a philosophy centered around saving “dirty,” and will embrace idea which emphasize creative efforts and the use of material goods is concerned, the relationship between character and ideas is the same. Some examples ought to show this relation clearly. With the end of the feudal age, private property became the central factor in the economic and social system. There had been, of course, private property before. However, in feudalism private property consisted largely of land, and it was connected to the social situation of the landowner in the hierarchic system. Since it was part of the social sole of the owner, it was not salable on the market. Modern capitalism destroyed the feudal system. Private property is not only property in land, it is also property in the means of production. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
All property is alienable; it can be bought and sold on the market, and its value is expressed in an abstract form—that of money. Land, machines, gold, diamonds—they all have in common the abstract money form in which their value can be expressed. Anybody can acquire private property, regardless of his position in the social system. It may be through industriousness, creativeness, luck, ruthlessness, or inheritance—the ownership of private property is not affected by the means of its acquisition. The security, power, sense of strength of a person does not, as in the feudal system, depend any longer on a person’s status, which was relatively unalterable, but on the possession of private property. If the man of the modern era loses his private property he is nobody—socially speaking; the feudal lord could not lose it as long as the feudal system remained intact. As a result, the respective ideals are different. For the feudal lord, and even for the artisan belonging to a guild, the main concern was the stability of the traditional order, the harmonious relation to his superiors, the concept of a God who was the final guarantor of the stability of the feudal system. If any of those ideas were attacked, a member of feudal society would even risk his life to defend what he considered to be his deepest convictions. For modern man the ideals are different. His fate, security, and power rest on private property; hence for bourgeois society, private property is sacred, and the ideal of the invulnerability of private property is a cornerstone in its ideological edifice. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Although the majority of people in any of the capitalist societies do not own private property in the sense used here (property in the means of production), but only “personal” property such as a BMW, television set, etcetera—that is, consumer goods—the great bourgeois revolution against the feudal order has nevertheless formulated the principle of the invulnerability of private property so that even those who do not belong to the economic elite have the same feeling, in this respect, as those who belong. Just as the member of the feudal society considered an attack against the feudal system immoral, and even inhuman, so the average person in a capitalist society considers an attack against private property a sign of barbarism and inhumanity. He will often not say so directly but rationalize his hate against the violators of private property in terms of their godlessness, injustice, and so on; yet and often unconsciously, they appear to him as inhuman because they have violated the sanctity of private property. The point is not that they have hurt him economically, or that they even threaten his economic interests realistically; the point is that they threaten a vital ideal. It seems, for instance, that the repugnance and hate which so many people in capitalistic countries have against communist countries is largely based on the very repugnance they feel against the outright violators of private property. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
There are so many other examples of ideas which are rooted in the socio-economic structure of a society that it is hard to select the most representative ones. Thus, liberty became the paramount idea for a middle class fighting against the restrictions that the feudal class imposed upon them. “Individual initiative” become an ideal in the highly competitive capitalism of the nineteenth century. Teamwork and “human relations” became the ideals of the capitalism of the twentieth century. Since “fairness” is the basic law of the free market in which commodities and labour are exchanged without force or fraud, fairness became the most popular norm in capitalist society. At the same time, the idea of fairness became identified with an older norm, “love thy neighbour,” via the popularized version of this norm in the form of the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The theory that ideas are determined by the forms of economic and social life does not imply that they have no validity of their own, or that they are mere “reflexes” of economic needs. The ideal of freedom, for instance, is deeply rooted in man, and it is precisely for this reason that it was ideal for the Hebrews in Egypt, the slaves in Rome, the German peasants in the sixteenth century, the German workers who fought the dictators of East Germany. On the other hand, the idea of authority and order is also deeply implanted in human existence. It is precisely because any given social order can appeal to ideas which transcend the necessities of this order that they can become so potent and so appealing to the human heart. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
Yet why a certain idea gains ascendance and popularity is to be understood in historical terms, that is, in terms of the social character produced in each culture. One more qualification must be made. It is not only the “economic basis” which creates a certain social character which, in turn, creates certain ideas. The ideas, once created, also influence the social character and, indirectly, the social economic structure. Social character is the intermediary between the socioeconomic structure and the ideas and ideals prevalent in a society. It is the intermediary in both directions, from the economic basis to the ideas and from the ideas to the economic basis. Many people are confronted by a confusing false dichotomy. They believe that the choice is between an anarchic system without any organization and control and, on the other hand, the kind of bureaucracy which is typical both for contemporary industrialism. However, this alternative is by no means the only one, and we have other options. One option is between the “humanistic bureaucratic” or “humanistic management” method and the “alienated bureaucratic” method by which we conduct our affairs. This alienated bureaucratic procedure can be characterized in several ways. First, it is a one-way system; orders, suggestions, planning emanate from the top and are directed to the bottom of the pyramid. There is no room for the individual’s initiative. Persons are “cases,” whether welfare cases of medical cases, or, whatever the frame of reference is, cases which can all be put down on a computer card without those individual features which designate the difference between a “person” and a “case.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Our bureaucratic method is irresponsible, in the sense that it does not “respond” to the needs, views, requirements of an individual. This irresponsibility is closely related to the case-character of the person who becomes an “object” of the bureaucracy. One cannot respond to a case, but one can respond to a person. This irresponsibility of the bureaucrat, feeling himself part of the bureaucratic machine, most of all wishes not to take responsibility to make decisions for which he could be criticized. He tries to avoid making any decisions which are not clearly formulated by his case rules and, if in doubt, he sends the person to another bureaucrat who, in turn, does the same. Anyone who has dealt with a bureaucratic organization knows this process of being sent around from one bureaucrat to the other and, sometimes after much effort, coming out at the same door which he had entered without ever having been listened to except in the peculiar way in which bureaucrats listen, sometimes pleasantly, sometimes impatiently, but also always with an attitude which is a mixture of their own helplessness, irresponsibility, sense of superiority toward the “petitioning” subject. Our bureaucratic method gives the individual the feeling that there is nothing which he can initiate and organize without the help of the bureaucratic machine. As a result, it paralyzes initiative and creates a deep sense of impotence. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Firefighters are important because they save lives. The Sacramento Fire Department is a highly skilled organization which makes huge contributions to the community. “I was lucky enough to make a rescue after eight or nine months in the volunteers. Luck is a factor because, you have to be at a fire where somebody needs to be rescued. Then you have to be at the right place at that fire. You have to have enough knowledge to know how to do it and then be lucky enough to successfully pull it off. You can’t plan it. I don’t believe in fate per se, but I think there are certain things in the cards. I was fairly young. I was on a pumper, and we were the third or fourth pumper there. The truck company was pretty heavily engaged, and there were a number of people on the fire escapes. Sacramento is basically a bedroom community. You know, little private dwellings. All of a sudden, we had an -apartment house fire, which was taxing. It was a nine-story building, and the fire was in the cellar, so the whole building was at risk. My pumper pulled up, and another fellow and I reported to the chief. “What do you want us to do?” He said, “I’ve got a report that there’s a baby in that apartment.” A baby, right. It happens so often it seems to be a cliché. So we went up the hallway, it was pretty smoky, and we came to two doors. I had a feeling that the baby was to the right. The other guy said, “I’ll go straight.” I went into the room at the right, it wasn’t extremely hot, but it was smoky. On my first search I didn’t find anybody, but I figured I better do it again. The second time around, I found the baby lying on the floor between a night table and a bed, I guess he rolled off the bed or something, I’m not sure. He had on a little green-and-white-striped shirt and Pampers. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
“Right then, when I took him out, I knew that the rewarding feeling was similar to putting a fire out, only more so. Shortly after probie school, I was assigned to Engine Company 2 in Midtown Sacramento. There I was fortunate enough to be involved in my first City of Sacramento rescue. You make your own luck in many instances. It was very unusual for a probie in an engine company to be put into a search with an officer. We were at a false alarm when the dispatcher asked us if we were available. The battalion chief gave us the go-ahead, and we were first at the fire by a good fire minutes. It was a high-rise apartment building. Being a gung-ho probie, I had gotten completely geared up for the false alarm. I had a mask on and everything. The other guys, because it was a hot summer night and although this was a known false alarm box, hurried to the scene. People at the apartment were screaming that there was a baby trapped. Another baby, right. People leave them behind like old bathrobes. The lieutenant, seeing I was a new guy said, “Let’s go.” We went up the elevator part of the way, then ran up the stairs to the hallways leading to the fire apartment. The door was open, and the smoke was nearly to the floor. It was hot. We went in the direct of the heat. Again it was another one of those, he went to the left, and I went to the right, and I found this little boy on the floor. He was conscious, and I removed him to the street and took him to the hospital. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
“The sad part was that there was another child in the apartment, the lady’s nephew. A guy, I think he was from another truck, went in off the aerial ladder, got in the window, cut himself on the glass, and made a real spectacular rescue of the child. The kid was badly burned, and he didn’t make it. It was just one of those things again. You just go along doing your job, and there you are. It was unusual for me to be there, because the truck company is in charge of forcible entry, going in and searching for victims, and they work more or less independently. Whereas in an engine company the people work together in one group to fight the fire. It was not so much aggressiveness on my part, it was my ‘gung-ho-ness.’ I was serious about every aspect of the job, even cleaning the brass, and every time we went out the door, I wanted to be fully prepared. And it paid off. Sure, putting out a fire is satisfying, there’s nothing like it except making a grab, rescuing somebody. But even in a busy area, some companies don’t make one grab a year. While a nozzle man in a busy area is going to put out three, four fire a night. There’s a lot to be said for that. That’s an enjoyable part of it, too.” Life safety is the primary job of the Sacramento Fire Department. You can help save lives by making a contribution. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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People Leading Stupid Lives in Stupid Jobs
Many people strongly dislike hearing bad news. They tend to shy away from people who always have negative things to say. However, nearly sixty percent of Americans watch the news, which is almost, always, negative. A.H. Maslow devoted his life to studying the conditions under which human beings develop their capacities to the fullest degree. He believed the key to such development was gratification of basic needs. These needs exist in a hierarchical sequence. Humans must meet the demands of lower needs before those of the higher levels can emerge, according to Maslow. However, there is doubt among some researchers about the primacy of the lower needs. This hierarchy, from lowest to highest, includes physical needs, such as the need for food and water; safety needs, illustrated by the quest for a milieu relatively free from threats to life and fostering a sense of security; belonging and love needs, illustrated by the hunger for affectionate, accepting relationships with other persons; esteem needs, manifested in the desire to be respected by others for one’s accomplishments and the quest for recognition and prestige. Once a person has successfully learned to cope with these needs as they arise, his or her energies will then be more readily free for self-actualization. Actualization of self cannot be sought as a goal, however; rather, it is a byproduct of active commitment of one’s talents to causes outside the self, such as the quest for beauty, truth, or justice. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The task awakens the person’s dormant capacities; without the mission, the person would never discover his or her hidden resources. Maslow emphasized the importance of actualizing one’s self through productive, meaningful work. He wrote (1970, p. 49), “I have seen a few cases in which it seemed clear to me that the pathology (boredom, loss of zest in life…) was produced in intelligent people leading stupid lives in stupid jobs.” Other higher needs described by Maslow later included cognitive and conative needs (need to know and to understand the World). He also strongly suggested that some special people have a basic aesthetic need, a craving for beauty—“They get sick from ugliness and are cursed by beautiful surroundings” (1970, p. 51). Maslow developed his ideas through the study of people who met his criteria for being well along in the process of actualizing themselves. Some of the traits that appeared consistently in his self-actualizing (S-A) cases were the following: A more efficient percentage of reality and more comfortable relations with reality than occurring in average people. His S-A cases seemed to detect the spurious, the fake, and the dishonest in interpersonal relationships and to be attuned to truth and reality in all spheres of life. They rejected the illusory and preferred to cope with unpleasant reality rather than to retreat to pleasant fantasies. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Other traits include a high degree of acceptance of themselves, of others, and of the realities of human nature. They were not ashamed of being what they were, and they were not shocked or dismayed to find shortcomings in themselves or in others. Spontaneity; simplicity; naturalness. The S-A people displayed spontaneity in their thinking, emotions, and behaviour to a greater extent than average people. They prefer company that enables them to be free and natural. Problem-centeredness. Maslow’s subjects seemed all to be focused on problems outside themselves. They were not overly self-conscious; they were not problems to themselves, and could hence devote their attention to a task, duty, or mission that seemed peculiarly cut out for them. A need for privacy. The S-A people could enjoy solitude; indeed, they would even seek it on occasion, needing it for periods of intense concentration on subjects of interest to them and for meditation. A high degree of autonomy. The S-A people seemed able to remain true to themselves in the fact of rejection or unpopularity; even when it hurt to do so, they were able to pursue their interest and projects and maintain their integrity. A continued freshness of appreciation. The S-A people showed the capacity to “appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life…a sunset, a flower, a baby, a person.” It was as if they avoided merely lumping experiences into categories and then dismissing them. Rather, they could see the unique in many commonplace experiences. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Additional features include frequent “peak experiences.” The S-A people seemed subject to periodic experiences that are often called “mystic” or “oceanic”—feelings that one’s boundaries as a person have suddenly evaporated and that the one has become a part of all humanity or nature. Gemenischaftsgefuhl. The German word gemeinschaftsgefuhl means brotherly feeling, the feeling of belonging to all humanity (related to the mystic experiences); the attitude was found to be characteristic of S-A people. They felt a sense of identification with humanity, such that they could become concerned not only with the lost members of their immediate family, but also with the situations of persons from different cultures. Close relationships with a few friends or loved ones. Maslow found that his S-A subjects, although not necessarily very popular, did have the capacity to establish truly close, loving relationships with at least one or two other people. Democratic character structures. The S-A people tended to judge people and be friendly with them not based on race, status, religion, or other group membership traits, but as individual persons. A strong ethical sense; discrimination between good and evil. The S-A subjects were found to have a highly developed sense of ethics. Though their notions of right and wrong were not wholly conventional, their behaviour was always chosen with reference to its ethical meaning. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Different properties of displayed in self-actualizing people are an unhostile sense of humour. The S-A people had a sense of humour that made common human foibles, pretensions, and foolishness the subject of laughter, rather than sadism, smut, or rebellion against authority. Resistance to enculturation. The S-A subjects could detach themselves somewhat from complete brainwashing or imprinting by their cultures, permitting them to adopt critical attitudes toward cultural inconsistencies or unfairness within their own society. Truly, this is a most impressive collection of attributes. One would like to meet or to become such a person. There is a fundamental error in the thinking of others that the favours of this World are distributed entirely according to merit. Poverty is only a proof of indolence and vice. Wealth simply shows the industry and virtue of the possessors. The very most is made of Malthusianism, and human activities are degraded to a complete level with those of animals. Those who have survived simply prove their fitness to survive; and the fact which all biologists understand, videlicet, that fitness to survive is something wholly distinct from real superiority, is, of course, ignored by many because they are not biologists. Nature itself does not display wastefulness. The emerging human mind can mold the narrow genetic process of nature into vastly different forms. If the were no larger cosmic process for life, no guiding hand behind the emergence of higher species, if evolution was a planless outcome of random variations, purposefulness has no place in the Universe, and societies must grow and change as aimlessly as the rest of life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
However, if there is no cosmic purpose, there is at least human purpose, which has already given man a special place in nature and may yet, if he wills it, give organization and direction to his social life. Purposeful activity must henceforth be recognized as a proper function not only of the individual but of a whole society. If he has cultivated the quality of calmness, then he will automatically derive from it the quality of patience. If he has not done so, he will yet get something of its atmosphere quite involuntarily and unconsciously from the stretching-out of his intellectual outlook by his metaphysical vast studies, with their unveiling of the cosmic plan, the eternal cyclic laws, and the ego’s own long-drawn evolution. How valuable a trait of character patience can be is best revealed in the domain action. It will stop premature deeds, it will guide him to the knowledge of when to act, and it will teach him that wise activity is a well-timed, ripened activity. The student will now see how necessary it is to develop the quality of equipoise. Without it he is at the mercy of every desire and passion, every emotion and impulse, every negative thought which rises from within himself or is picked up from contacts or neighbours outside himself. However, with it there will be at least a conflict before surrender or a conflict leading to victory. When a mystic’s words are spoken or written from too high a level for the aspirant, so that he can see no trail leading up to that level itself, the aspirant is likely to become depressed and discouraged at the magnitude of the climb before him. Let him not lose heart too quickly at this point of his upward course, for the path does indeed involve the work of many rebirths in Jesus as the Christ. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Here is his chance to learn two useful qualities: resignation and patience. Yes, there is hope for him, but it is a realistic and not a dramatic one. He must learn to be patient because his labours are not in vain. He must learn to be resigned because the hour when he will gather their fruits is in God’s hands. He must discipline himself in patience, where patience is needful. He must learn discipline himself in patience, where patience is needful/ He must learn to wait and let a situation ripen until it is ready for him to use advantageously. On the other hand, it would be foolish for him to delay and over-prepare, for an opportunity which occurs once may never occur again. It is the work of a lifetime to venture on such a great improvement of character as will place the lower self under our control, instead of our being controlled by it. We are likely to get disheartened at times by the seeming slowness of progress. This is partly because we are too apt to think in terms of this single incarnation only, whereas those who understand life’s actual range think of it in terms of dozens and scores. Hence, we must learn a certain tolerant patience with ourselves, while at the same time maintaining an ardent aspiration for self-improvement and a critical attitude towards our weaknesses. This sounds contradictory but it is not so. It is rather a matter of getting a proper balance between the two attitudes. We find by rueful experience that years are needed to begin to correct a weakness, let alone to complete the correction. Moral adjustment to truth is a long-drawn affair. If we seek quick results, this is disheartening. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
The formidable nature of our task of self-changing discloses itself. Without Grace, tendencies built up through many a lifetime cannot be altered, in a single year. Patience is called for in dealing with them. However disheartening the slowness of his growth may be to his emotions, the remembrance that he is a self-actualized Christian in embryo should always be encouraging to his reason. Patience is needed, and confidence in the path chosen. Resignation rather than rebellion brings results. “Becoming a person,” “Freedom to be,” Courage to be,” “Learning to be free,” all these labels mean “getting together with myself.” When I do this, I feel freer and “more like a person.” This can also be called, “looking through my own windows instead of someone else’s” seeing what I see, not what someone else thinks that I should see. I do not always do this, but now I am moving clearly in the direction of being more myself. This is very different from when I felt unfree and did not know how I was unfree. It seemed that I “had done something wrong” without the faintest notion what the wrongness was. I felt accused, but who was accusing me? Myself? When I did not know what I was accused of, how could I accuse me? I had lost something. That I knew, and that was all I knew. When I did not know what it was or where to look for it and other people were no help to me, how could I find it? They said that I should not be restless, should not be dissatisfied, that I should be happy with what I had, and that is the way life is and I should put up with it as everyone else did. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
When I was eighteen, these were the things that I had been told, but when I was eighteen, I was not so confused: I knew what I wanted, and I did not feel guilty. It was also clear to me then that life is the way it is because everyone says, “That is the way it is” and go along with it. Later one when I did what seemed right and good to me, that clarity had got so lost, I felt “irresponsible,” but I was in a complete fog about why. Getting out of that certainly was “a confused and groping moment.” Sometimes though, there was a sudden flash of seeing clearly—a brief, bright instant—but then that got lost and I had to grope my way back to something that I knew was there although I could not remember what it was. Sometimes it was like being for an instant on a mountain top, taking in the whole scene—all different facets of the mountain and all the different views around it. While I was there, I understood everything. However, then, I was not there anymore. I was a half-inch high person at the bottom of the mountain that I had to find my way back to the top of. Sometimes it seemed that I was walking underground for months and miles, then suddenly I was on top, and everything could be seen. However, after only a few steps I was underground again, dropped like an elevator going down. Each man must fight his lonely battle which nobody else can share with him, must work out personal problems in the solitude of his own mind, has to gain command of his passions in the secrecy of his own heart. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Where the good and the evil are so closely blended, as in human character, unless he makes his self-portrait harsh, uncompromising, and unbeautiful, he will waste many years in illusions, only to find at the end that everything remains to be done. If he will be strong enough to rise above the cowardice of conformity and above the embarrassment of setting himself apart from others, he will receive a proportionate though intangible reward. He will know the delight and strength of being himself to that extent. In revisiting our process of record research involving Clare, she last felt that her life had been smashed to pieces by losing Peter. As soon as the issue was thus clear in her mind and struggle set in of unexpected intensity. It was only now that she felt the unmitigated power of her need to merge with another person. There was no more fooling around with the persuasion that it was “love”: she realized it was like a drug addiction. She saw with perfect clarity that she had only the two alternatives of succumbing to the dependency, and finding another “partner,” or overcoming it altogether. However, could she overcome it? And was life worth living without it? She tried frantically and pathetically to persuade herself that after all life offered her many good things. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Did Clare not have a nice home? Could she not find satisfaction in work? Did she not have friends? Could she not enjoy music and nature? It did not work. It all seemed as unappealing and irrelevant as a Justin Timberlake performance during halftime at the Super Bowl. Halftime was all right—one marked time as pleasantly possible until the game started again—but no one would want to go merely to the Justin Timberlake performance at the halftime. It struck her only fleetingly that this reasoning was thoroughly inapplicable. The feeling prevailed that any real change was beyond her strength. Finally, a thought occurred to her which despite its profound simplicity brought a turn for the better. It was the old wisdom that often an “I cannot” is an “I will not.” Perhaps she simply did not want to put her life on a different basis? Perhaps she actively refused to turn to anything else in life, like a child who refuses to eat anything if he does not get apple pie? Since she had recognized her dependency, Clare had merely seen that her being caught hand and foot in the one relationship had so sapped her energies that nothing was left for anybody else. Now she realized that it was more than a mere drainage of interest. She herself rejected and devaluated everything she did on her own, or with anybody but the “beloved.” Thus is dawned on her, for the first time, how deeply she was caught in a circle: her devaluation of everything outside the one relationship necessarily made the partner in that relationship all important; and this unique importance in turned alienated her more widely from herself and others. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
This dawning insight, which later proved to be right, startled Clare and encouraged her. If forces were operating within her which prevented her from becoming free from captivity, then perhaps she could do something about her bondage? Self-reliance is not a quality which can be given to others. Only by providing them with your own example can you contribute to this end. Each virtue is the fruit of a long self-discipline, a constant self-denial. It is not picked up easily, but has to be cut from the solid rock. One must not be swayed by emotions into unreasonable actions nor lured by intellect into unintuitive ones. A person cannot help being what one is but one can help remaining what one is. When we enlarge our love of the Divine by making it a matter of the will as well as feeling, we ennoble it. Where self-confidence is based on the possession of adequate knowledge and innate ability, and not on arrogant conceit, where furthermore it arises from a conscious and logical carrying out of predetermined courses, it is a useful attribute. The problem of critical shortage of expert mental health personnel must be attacked simultaneously on two fronts: there must be enhanced effort to recruit and train for the mental health profession, and there must be careful efforts to reduce the demand for their services. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
In the past there has been too exclusive an emphasis upon efforts simply to produce more psychiatrists, more psychologists, and more social workers. There has been a relative inattention to factors which may inflate artificially the demand for the services of these specialist, and too little attention has been paid to the difficult problem of defining a valid psychiatric case, id est, one needing and probably responsive only to the services of a psychiatrist and his professional colleagues. Consequently, we must be very concerned with the efficiency with which we utilize the talents of these specialists, and we must seek to rectify any influence leading to an inappropriate demand for their services Reduction of the demand for the direct services of the mental health professions is possible through at least three channels: education directed toward mental hygiene; public education toward limited and enlightened expectations of these professions; and increased use of “peripheral” resources, such as teachers, clergy, and others. When we correctly consider the concept of genesis and function of the social character, we are confronted with a puzzling problem. Is not the assumption that a person’s character structure is moulded by the role which the individual must play in his culture contradicted by the assumption that a person’s character is moulded in his childhood? The structure of society and the function of the individual in the social structure may be considered to determine the content of the social character. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The family, on the other hand, may be the psychic agency of society, the institution which has the function of transmitting the requirements of society to the growing child. The family fulfills this function in two ways: (1) by the influence the character of the parent has on the character formation of the growing child: since the character of most parents is an expression of the social character, they transmit in this way the essential features of the socially desirable character structure to the child. (2) In addition to the character of the parents, the methods of childhood training which are customary in a culture also have the function of moulding the character of the child in a socially desirable direction. There are various methods and techniques of children training which can fulfill the same end and, on the other hand, there can be methods which seem identical, but which nevertheless are different because of the character structure of those who practice these methods. By focusing on methods of child training, we can never explain the social character. Methods of child training are significant only as mechanism of transmission, and they can be understood correctly if we understand first what kinds of personalities are desirable and necessary in each culture. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
When it comes to planning a community, we have based a lot of our ideas on the theoretical assumption that the planners were essentially determined by their wish for the optimal welfare of society and the individuals which make it up. However, unfortunately, such an assumption cannot be made. (I am, of course, not speaking about the ideas planners have about their own motivations. They, like most men, believe their motives to be rational and moral. Most men need to have such rationalization [ideologies] for their actions partly to support themselves by the feeling of moral righteousness, partly to deceive others about their real motivations.) On the level of government planning, the personal interest of the politicians often interferes with their integrity and hence with their capacity for humanist planning. This danger can be reduced only by a much more active participation of the citizens in the decision-making process, and by finding ways and methods by which government planning is controlled by those for whom the planning is done. Should then government planning be further reduced and most planning, including that in the public sector, be left to the big corporations? The arguments for this idea that the big corporations are not burdened with outmoded procedures and are not dependent on fluctuating political pressures; that they are more advanced in system analysis, immediate application of research to technique; and that they are guided by men who must fight every few years in election campaigns for their right to continue their work. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Most importantly, management and system analysis being now one of the most advanced types of activities, it stands to reason that it will attract many of the most advanced minds, not only in terms of intelligence but also in terms of a vision of human well-being. These and many other arguments are very persuasive but not convincing regarding two crucial points: First, the corporation operates for profit, and its interest in profit, although very modified in comparison with the profit interest of the nineteenth-century entrepreneur, often interferes with the best interests of the community. Second, the private corporation is not even subject to that small control to which government is subject in a democratic system. (If one would object to this by saying that the corporation is controlled by the market, id est, indirectly by the consumer, one would ignore the fact that the tastes and desires of the consumer are largely manipulated by the corporation.) To believe in the wisdom and good will of the management is not a sufficient guarantee that the majority might not plan in accordance with impersonal technical feasibility rather than for the sake of human development. Precisely because the more conventionally minded managers do not lack goodwill, but rather imagination and vision of a fully human life, they are even more dangerous, from the standpoint of humanistic planning. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
For these reasons, I do not share the optimism expressed by John Kenneth Galbraith and others. I propose that corporation planning also should be subject to controls, by government and by independent bodies of those who are subjects of their planning. Classic socialism thought that this problem could be solved only by the socialization (nationalization) of the big enterprises. However, aside from the fact that in the United States of America such a step is politically not feasible, it is also questionable as a real solution to the problem. As the example of Russian shows, the state-appointed managers may make their decisions in terms of the same efficiency and material output criteria as those of the private corporation. What matters are the values which guide the planning, and the degree of control from below. One basic requirement for the well-being of man is to be active, in the sense of the productive exercise of all his faculties; one of the most pathogenic features in our society is the trend to make man passive, by depriving him of the chance of active participation in the affairs of his society, in the enterprise in which he works, and, in fact, although more hidden, in his personal affairs. This “passivation” of man is partly due to the “alienated bureaucratic” method used in all centralized enterprises. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“When it comes to professional liability in the Sacramento Fire Department, the fire chiefs, when they have a lot of new guys, put in requests for courses on the essentials of firemanship. The instructor comes to the firehouse every Tuesday night for thirteen weeks. We tell the guys they must take it. It is interesting to see guys leave the company for various reasons and then come back strong five years later. They retrain themselves, go back through fire school. I certainly will do that when I get out of medical school. I learned most of my firefighting in California. I had a beeper for four years. We did maybe one brush fire the summer that I joined. Then I started doing large interior attacks. It was my job during a structure fire to get on the engine, put the masks on the people, then get up to the structure, pull the hose line, and make the initial attack and the initial knockdown. Four or five of us young guys worked a lot together, and we would switch around. We trusted each other completely. However, an earlier time when I came back from school on Christmas vacation, we fought a structure fire. I didn’t know where we kept the air packs on the engine, that’s how unfamiliar I was with my own company at that time. It was kind of a nightmare—what every paid fireman thinks volunteer firemen are like. I took an inch-and-a-half into the house. The others doused both ends of the house with two-and-a-halfs, blowing water at smoke, not able to see the fire. When I crawled in with the inch-and-a-half and tried to fight the fire, I got hit in the head by the fogs and streams from the idiots at the windows. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
“Then my air tank went dry. I was about two rooms into the structure, and I was out of air. It was the old grab-the-hose-and-follow-it-back-out. This was an old mask that had no alarm on it. It was unbelievable, because the Hamilton company was on the cutting edge of having the best breathing apparatus. So from that summer on I got very involved in the company, getting our breathing apparatus up to date, so when the new standards came out we were right with it. There is a lot of tunnel vision in the fire service. When you’re young, all you see is that doorway and that flame, and you want to go right through it. But when you’re a chief, you stand back and look at the big picture, you see what’s in store for the enforcement of the building and when the building is geared up for an early collapse. I suppose there are times when you could feel guilty for not going in or for backing down. Once I became a medic in the Hamilton Fire Department, I felt I had a very serious commitment to the people and to the village. Then, when the beeper rand during class, I was right out the door. Back home after leaving college, there was a bad accident on the thruway that runs through our district. Basically, a truck driver was cut in half, and it was kind of rough getting him out and dealing with how badly mutilated his body was. The chief, at the accident, asked me, “Are you going to be around for long?” I said, “Yes.” He asked if I wanted to be assistant chief. I said, “Yeah, I’d like that.” I guess they all felt strongly about my experience. I did some drills and I did some training, and apparently I was fairly good at it. So I became the training officer to the company. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“There are rituals that take place inside of a burning room, like religious rites of passage. I would never give a nozzle to someone who is a rookie or a probie who really doesn’t know what he’s doing. He could spray all the way down the hall and he hasn’t even seen the fire yet. You have to find it. It’s like, ‘God, where’s the fire? I feel a little heat on this side of my ear, let’s go down this way.’ You’re always going to remember the first guy who ever takes you in, you know, when it turns out to be your fire, and it’s your judgment, listening to the crackling, watching the fire, to be able to track it down. You know when you’ve done it right, but it was good that you had that guy right with you. At least that’s the way it is in the volunteer service, where the buddy system is ironclad.” All aspirants on this spiritual quest have to go through periods of discouragement from time to time and I myself was no exception. Physical nature does not easily permit us to escape from her grasp and her resistance to the individual spiritual effort is inevitable. Perseverance is therefore an indispensable quality. An ordinary fortitude of the will is enough to enable one to bear the trifling disappointments of life, but a deep philosophic courage is needed to bear the crushing blows of life. Such power is not easily gained. You can help save lives and property by contributing to the Sacramento Fire Department. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Frightened Restitution
The thought has crossed the minds of many that humankind faces a fate of evolutionary destruction of self. However, it is plain to see that others continually strive for the higher aspects of their own possibilities, to be more compassionate; loving; creative; to create great, beautiful parks and vast, wild, free lands; more exquisite poetry and buildings—to perfect themselves and the World about them. There is a struggle, the movement of humankind is heading toward the development of the self to levels of superb functioning for perhaps a few persons who become models of human effectiveness and for higher levels of living, joy of living, for much greater numbers. Humans have sought to perfect themselves throughout history. Early Christians sought purification of self in the face of temptation, salvation, and underwent training to be reborn in Jesus as the Christ. It is recognized that humans are capable of states of being that far surpass present levels of beauty and goodness. The term healthy personality is used here to describe those ways of being that surpass the average in actualization of self and in compassionate relationships with others. The human can be studied as a natural phenomenon, with methods appropriate to the study of zoology or ethology. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
However, humans have the capacities for speech and for self-consciousness. People give meaning to their World and can communicate meanings to other persons. If we wish to understand human behaviour, we must not view it as we would the behaviour of animals struggling to survive in each environment; we must regard behaviour as action, as a kind of speech. Humans “say” something to the World and to their companions by their actions. If we wish to understand humans in their existence as human beings, we must find out what they mean to say, and how they say it in words, action, and even in physiological responses. Of course, we also find out what they mean by asking them to tell us. Perhaps the most overrated virtue in our list of shoddy virtues is that of giving. Giving builds up the ego of the giver, makes him superior and higher and larger than the receiver. Nearly always, giving is a selfish pleasure, and in many cases, it is a downright destructive and evil thing. One has only to remember some of our wolfish financiers who spend two-thirds of their lives clawing fortunes out of the guts of society and the latter third pushing it back. It is not enough to suppose that their philanthropy is a kind of frightened restitution, or that their natures change when they have enough. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Such a nature has enough, and nature does not change that readily. I think that the impulse is the same in both cases. For giving can bring the same sense of superiority as getting does, and philanthropy may be another kind of spiritual avarice. Pure altruism is a rare and difficult quality, remote from the actuality of human condition. The cautious person is also entitled to ask whether it is justifiable, whether a man is not entitled to do justice to himself as well as to others. The obvious reply is that there is no reason why his own good should not be included in that of the whole community. Although we must admit that He acted most generously, it is an arguable question whether God did the right thing by sacrificing His son. He may love mankind without being in love with mankind. He may act with unwearying altruism and compassion towards them and yet with clear sight of their moral uglinesses and mental deformities. An intellectual enlightenment not accompanied by moral purification, can lead only to a meagre result when turned to the service of humanity. The altruist must educate his own character before he can influence effectually the character of others. Only then are false steps and dangerous missteps less likely to be taken. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
If the motive is pure, a generous act not only helps the beneficiary but ennobles the doer. The wisdom of the act is, however, a different matter and requires separate analysis. When some scientists dare to study the human being, they think of the subject as being like a laboratory rat. At least it would seem that way from the large amount of research in psychology based upon that animal. And there is no doubt that many things about the white rat are similar to aspects of the human being, including some motivations—pleasures of the flesh, hunger, safety, and so on. However, another image of the human being has been expressed in the Psalms (Psalm 8.5), that of being “just a little lower than the angels.” This implies many powers and capacities and almost suggests “sainthood” capabilities. However, we are exploring the “normal” person. There is a group of persons who are entirely mortal, who have their imperfections, and yet have discovered a way of life that is beyond what most people attempt to create for themselves. One of the characteristics of such people seems to be that they do have compassion, or caring, for others; but it is a very human kind of love. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
People who care about themselves, respect themselves, and like to present their best self to others also take care of their bodies. They jog or exercise in some other way, watch the intake of their food, and avoid either smoking or being where heavy smokers are taking up the good air. They recognize that having a healthy body is in great part controllable by the individual. Similarly, having a healthy personality is in greatest part under the control of the person who owns it. While there are genetic factors that seem to influence the personality and there are environmental forces that influence one’s style of interacting with people, the humanist also recognizes the tremendous power of the person to affect his or her own personality-destiny. This is perhaps the most important reason for studying a healthy personality. All of us want to be as fully functioning, self-actualizing, and healthy as we can be. Knowledge of what constitutes a healthy personality should help you to develop this type of personality. Secondly, the impact of the environment, especially of the people in your environment, has a great effect upon your personality. This still does not leave you helpless in the face of the influence of your friends, because you can choose your friends and even choose many other aspects of your environment. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
There are those people, friends, relatives, teachers, companions, who, when you are with them, make you feel that you are growing, becoming. These kinds of persons are known as “personality growth facilitators.” And there are also those who can destroy you psychologically. We call these “lethal personalities.” Thus, the second reason for the study of the personality is so that you may truly distinguish those people who are personality growth facilitators and find ways to be close to them. What about your effect upon others? How do you influence others so that they will feel they are growing? Almost all of us will have some role in raising children in our lifetimes, either through being parents, teachers, or neighbours. A third reason for studying the healthy personality is to be better able to have a good effect on the people who are close to us, particularly friends and children. If only for the reasons of pure curiosity, science claims the privilege of exploring the unknown. Science searches for basic laws and principles that may have no immediate benefit or that might be explored without any specific benefit in mind. Often those discoveries of basic principles and laws do have important applied use. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
More often, however, the advantages and benefits are not immediately apparent, and legislators impatient for solutions are prone to cut off funds for all but the most applied research. Even if there is no longer a trunkful of diamonds deep in the darkness of The Winchester Mansion, science for its own sake, for the sake of pushing back ignorance and obscurity, is a viable reason for studying the healthy personality. The origin of organized society was caused by the conquest of one race by another. Caste system had developed out of such conquest, and society had then passed successively through five stages: the mitigation of caste coupled with the survival of inequalities; the consolidation of relationships through the growth of law; the origin of the state; the gradual cementing of the groups into a homogeneous people; and, finally, the development of patriotism and the national form of social organization. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Progress has frequently resulted from the forcible fusion of unlike elements. As much as one may deplore the horrors of war, it has been a necessary condition of race progress in the past, and the conquest of backward races is inevitable in the future. In advanced societies, rational and peaceful forms of social assimilation may supersede the genetic and violent method of the past. It is possible that a friendly pacific age is about to dawn—just as Spencer’s militant type of society gives way to the industrial—but it is doubtful that the World has yet reached the point at which war ceases. Whether the cessation of conflict would even be desirable was an open question to Ward. His adherence in these respects to the conflict school did not in the least alter the fundamental structure of Ward’s melioristic sociology. The fact is that man and society are not. Except in a very limited sense, under the influence of the great dynamic laws that control the rest of the animal World. If we call biologic processes natural, we must call social processes artificial. The fundamental principle of biology is natural selection, that of sociology is artificial selection. The survival of the fittest is simply the survival of the strong, which implies and would better be called the destruction of the weak. If nature progresses through the destruction of the weak, man progresses through the protection of the weak. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
A study of the system of Man can lead to the acceptance of objectively valid values, on the grounds that they lead to the optimal functioning of the system or, at least, that if we realize the possible alternatives, the humanist norms would be accepted as preferable to their opposites by most sane people. Whatever the merits of the source of the validity of humanist norms, the general aim of a humanized industrial society can be thus defined: the change of the socioeconomic, and cultural life of our society in such a way that it stimulates and furthers the growth and aliveness of man rather than cripples it’ that it activates the individual rather than making him passive and receptive; that our technological capacities serve man’s growth. If this is to be, we must regain control over the economic and social system; man’s will, guided by his reason, and by his wish for optimal aliveness, must make the decisions. Given these general aims, what is the procedure of humanistic planning? Computers should become a functional part in a life-oriented social system and not a cancer which begins to play havoc and eventually kills the system. Machines or computers must become means for ends which are determined by man’s reason and will. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
The values which determine the selection of facts and which influence the programing of the computer must be gained on the basis of the knowledge of human nature, its various possible manifestations, its optimal forms of development, and the real needs conducive to this development. That is to say, man, not technique, must become the ultimate source of values; optimal human development and not maximal production of the criterion for all planning. What we have failed to do in all this is to ascribe operational meaning to the so-called desirables that motivate us, to question their intrinsic worth, to assess the long-range consequences of our aspirations and actions, to wonder whether the outcome we seem to be expecting does in fact correspond to that quality of life we say we are striving for—and whether our current actions will lead us there. In other words, we are in the deeper sense failing to plan. Aside from this, planning in the field of economics must be extended to the whole system; furthermore, the system Man must be integrated into the whole social system. Man, as the planner, must be aware of the role of man as part of the whole system. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Just as man is the only case of life being aware of itself, man as a system builder and analyzer must make himself the object of the system he analyzes. This means that the knowledge of man, his nature, and the real possibilities of its manifestations must become one of the basic data for any social planning. In speaking of the socioeconomic structure of society as moulding one’s chaactrer, we speak only of one pole in the interconnection between social organization and man. The other pole to be considered in man’s nature, moulding in turn the social conditions in which he lives. If we start out with the knowledge of the reality of man, his psychic properties, as well as his physiological ones, and if we examine the interaction between the nature of man and the nature of the external conditions under which he lives, and which he must master if he is to survive, only then can the social process be understood. While it is true that man can adapt himself to almost any condition, he is not a blank sheet of paper on which the culture writes its text. Needs like the striving for happiness, belonging, love, and freedom are inherent in his nature. They are also dynamic factors in the historical process. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
While it is true that man can adapt himself to almost any conditions, he is not a blank sheet of paper on which the culture writes its text. Needs like the striving for happiness, belonging, love, and freedom are inherent in his nature. They are also dynamic factors in this historical process. If a social order neglects or frustrates the basic human needs beyond a certain threshold, the members of such a society will try to change the social order to make it more suitable for their human needs. If this change is not possible, the outcome will probably be that such a society will collapse, because of its lack of vitality, and its destructiveness. Social changes which lead to a greater satisfaction of human needs are easier to make when certain material conditions are given which facilitate such changes. It follows from these considerations that the relation between social change and economic change is not only the one which Marx emphasized, namely, the interests of new classes in changed social and political conditions, but that social changes are at the same time determined by the fundamental human needs which make use, as it were, of favourable circumstances for their realization. The middle class which won the French revolution wanted freedom for their economic pursuits from the fetters of the older order. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
However, they also were driven by a genuine wish for human freedom inherent in them as humans beings. While most were satisfied with a narrow concept of freedom after the revolution had won, the very best spirits of the bourgeoisie become aware of the limitations of bourgeois freedom and, in their search for a more satisfactory answer to man’s needs, arrived at a concept which considered freedom to be the condition for the unfolding of the total man. When students are permitted to be in contact with real problems; when resources—both human and technical—are made psychologically available by the teacher; when the teacher is a real person in his relationships with students and feels an acceptance of and an empathy toward his students, then an exciting kind of learning occurs. Students go through a frustrating but rewarding process in which gradually responsible initiative, creativity, and inner freedom are released. The kind of personal and intellectual change which comes about has many parallels with the changes which occur in psychotherapy. The nature of these changes has to some extent been investigated empirically. For the most part, modern culture does not, operationally, want persons to be free, despite many ideological statements to the contrary. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Both two main streams of modern life—Western and Communist—are extremely fearful of and ambivalent about any process which leads to inner freedom. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the surest roads to World catastrophe are individual rigidity and constricted learning. If we prefer to develop flexible, adaptive, creative individuals, we have a beginning knowledge as to how this may be done. We know how to establish, in an educational situation, the conditions and the psychological climate which initiate a process of learning to be freed. Learning to be free is something that our beloved Clare so desperately needs to learn. The whole area in her personality that consisted of arrogance, contempt for people, need to excel, need to triumph, was still so deeply repressed in her, even after therapy, that it had only been illuminated by flashes of insight. Even before she had started her analysis, she had occasional realizations of her need to despise people, of her great elation at any success, of the role ambition played in her daydreams, and it was a fleeting insight of this kind that she had now. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
However, this whole problem was still so deeply buried that its manifestations could scarcely be understood. It was as if a shaft learning into the depth was suddenly lit up, and soon after obliterated by darkness. Thus, another implication of this series of associations remained inaccessible. The picture of extreme solitude as presented in the tower in the desert referred not only to her feeling alone without Peter, but to her isolation in general. Subversive arrogance was one of the factors responsible for it, as well as resulting from it. And fastening herself to one person—“two on an island”—was a way of escaping from such isolation without having to straighten out her relations with people in general. Clare believed that she could now cope with Peter in a better way, but soon afterward a double blow came which brought her problems to a climax. First, she learned indirectly that he was having or had had an affair with another woman. She had barely received that shock when Peter wrote to her that it would be better for both if they separated. Clare’s first reaction was to thank Heaven that this had not occurred earlier. Now, she thought, she could stand it. The first reaction was a mixture of truth and self-deception. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The truth in it was that a few months before she probably could not have endured the stress without grave injury to herself; in the months to come she not only proved that she could stand it, but came closer to a solution of the whole problem. However, this first matter-of-fact reaction apparently resulted also from the fact that she did not let the blow penetrate beneath a defensive armour. When it did penetrate, within the next few days, she was thrown into a turmoil of wild despair. She was too deeply upset to analyze her reaction, which is understandable. When a house is on fire one does not reflect on causes and effects but tries to get out. Clare recorded two weeks later that for a few days the idea of suicide kept recurring to her, though it never assumed the character of a serious intention. She quickly became aware of the fact that she was merely playing around with the idea, and she then faced herself squarely with the question whether she wanted to die or to live. She wanted to live. However, if she did not want to live as a wilting flower, she not only had to ride herself of her longing for Peter, and the feeling that her life was smashed to pieces by losing him, but also to overcome radically her whole problem of compulsive dependency. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
If someone were to tell you ugly things about yourself, would you take heed to their words and try to make changes to yourself or would you blow them off and boot them out of your life? Why or why not? It is not always easy to see when someone is playing mind games with you. If they are adept at it, it is nearly impossible to see it, until it is too late. The principles and practice of group psychotherapy (several patients having a simultaneous session with a single group leader-therapist) have been in existence for some time. This approach to psychological treatment of emotional illness has been continually assigned a secondary role. It has been considered by many authorities to be a desirable adjunct to individual psychotherapy, but it has not generally achieved the status and prestige in the eyes either of the professionals or of patients which has been accorded to individual psychotherapy. The general preference for and greater effectiveness presumed for individual therapy is not founded on any rigorous research that has properly compared the relative efficacy of the two approaches. It is quite plausible that such a study might demonstrate group methods to be of at least equal potency to individual therapy. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
If it is incumbent upon psychiatrists and psychologists to do therapy, until this is adequately disproved, they would do better to extend their skills to the larger numbers treatable in a group setting. Experts who have had extended experience in individual psychotherapy will have acquired some sensitivities, skills, and insights that can be usefully applied in group therapy. Those persons administratively responsible for the treatment programs of clinics and hospitals should provide increasingly for group approaches to psychotherapy, with a corresponding deemphasis of the one-to-one therapeutic conversations. Where both forms of treatment are to be offered there should always be provision for careful evaluation of their relative effectiveness in producing significant changes in the patient. Firefighting is an interesting career. “There are a lot of strict requirements in the company, professional liability being what it is these days. We’re trying to weed out those who don’t come to work, those who don’t come to training, who don’t know what’s going on or how to use the new equipment. When you get someone with a new air pack who trained on an old, outdated model the last time he went to fire school ten years ago and hasn’t attended an update since, he goes into a fire situation and doesn’t know how to use the equipment. They have to take time out and go to the state fire school for thirteen consecutive weeks.” You can help prevent fires by contributing to the Sacramento Fire Department. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
The Winchester Mystery House
Today marks the 50th anniversary of Winchester Mystery House being designated a historical landmark in California. Let’s celebrate this important milestone and pay tribute to the legacy of Sarah Winchester, the visionary behind this remarkable architectural masterpiece 🏰
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The History of Horrors
One night, soon after I was in bed, I fell asleep and dreamed that I was returning to Llanada Villa. I thought that it would not be too much out of my way to go through San Francisco. Accordingly, I set out but remembered nothing that happened by the way till I came to my house; I went to the front door and tried to open it; but found it fast. Then I went to the back door, which I opened and went in; but finding all the servants were in bed, I crossed the rooms only, went upstairs, and entered the chamber where my butler, Frau, and his wife Tilly Heroldsbach, were in bed. As I went by the side of the bed on which Frau lay, I found him asleep, or thought he was so; then I went to the other side, and having just turned the foot of the bed, I found Tilly awake to whom I said these words: “Tilly, I am returning from a long journey, and wish to let you know I am home.” Upon which she answered in fright, “Oh dear Mrs. Winchester, thou are dead!” With this I awoke, and took no notice of it more than a common dream, except that it appeared to me very perfect. For some odd reason, I found that Frau and Tilly were no longer on my staff anymore. Claus, one of the carpenters told me that, “they have become frightened to set foot inside the place. It seems they believe demons have taken charge.” I grinned, unable to help myself. “Claus,” I said, “Naturally something like this could make me look pretty silly.” “Mrs. Winchester,” he replied, “this so-called ‘possession’ has become common knowledge in the town. Some of the townsfolk are enjoying the fun of it, while others are quite frightened.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
In a few days after, as soon as a letter could reach me, I received one by post from Frau; upon the receipt of which I was a little surprised, and concluded something extraordinary must have happened, as it was but a short time before I had a letter from him. Upon opening it I was more surprised still for my former butler addressed me as though I were dead, desiring me, if alive, or whose ever hands the letter might fall into, to write immediately; but id the letter should find me living, they could concluded I should not live long, and gave me the reason of their fears. That on a certain night, naming it, after they were in bed, my butler asleep and his wife awake, she heard somebody try to open the front door; but finding it fast, the person went to the back door, which one opened, came in, and came directly through the servants rooms upstairs, and she perfectly knew it to be my step; but I came to her beside, and spoke to her these word, “Tilly, I am returning from a long journey, and wish to let you know that I am home.” Upon which she answered me in a fright, “Oh, dear Mrs. Winchester, thou are dead!”—which were the circumstances and words of my dream. However, she heard nothing more; neither did I in my dream. Much alarmed she woke her husband, and told him what had occurred; but he endeavoured to appease her, persuading her that it was only a dream. She insisted it was no dream, for that she was as perfectly awake as she ever was, and had not the least inclination to sleep since she was in bed. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
From these circumstances I am inclined to think it was at the very same instant when my dream happened, though the distance between us was about one hundred miles; but of this I cannot speak absolutely. I do know that it was cooler inside of my house than outside. Was my home always this cold? Spiritual warmth was one thing, but there was no physical warmth here. Blood had been smeared on the walls and statues. Furniture soaked with it. I arrived one morning to find the fountain filled with blood. People who break into my home with malicious intent like to defile it in the foulest way possible. Hebe and Demeter had been marked. I, myself, scrubbed them clean of the more obscene and diabolic disfigurations. My organ in the Grand Ball Room had been battered beyond repair. The carvings had been chipped, there were scratches in the wood that resembled claw marks. The side door looked like it had been attacked with an ax. It was the same with the front doors. However, the marks were on the inside. They were not made by someone trying to gain entry. The only sound I heard that night was the toll of a single bell. There was, too, a feeling of profound and inexplicable horror concerning myself. I developed a queer fear of seeing my own form, as if my eyes would find it something utterly alien and inconceivably abhorrent. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
With a blinding flash and a violent crack, a storm erupted. Then, very suddenly, thought, and shuddering terror, and earnest endeavour to comprehend my true state. There I suffered, while I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I longed, yet not dared to employ my vision. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. For a moment, did I suppose myself actually dead? A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my heart, and for a brief period, I lapsed into insensibility. There is something, some mysterious horror, that holds me here as surely as if I were bound with fetters. I wanted my soul to be in harmony with other souls. I sank down onto the cold floor, my arms wrapped around my knees as I stared straight ahead. A hundred terrible objects seemed to haunt me. The next day, I rose from my bed ill in health and humiliated in mind. I was ashamed of myself for feeling the desire to escape from my haunted home. However, with some haste, I made my way to the balcony to seek in open air some relief to my nervous system, shaken as it were by this horrible encounter by visitors from another World. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Night after night, demons wonder the halls to kill young children of my servants for their hideous rituals, either by strangulation or more often by piercing their throats with a sharp dagger and letting the hot blood stream into the chalice as they cry: “Astaroth, Asmodee, je vous conjure d’accepter le sacrifice que je vous presente! They have heaped curses on me and trampled underfoot and spat upon holy images and artifacts in my home. In return the demon promises that he will at all times afford them prompt assistance; that he will accomplish all their desires in this World and make them eternally happy after their death. The whole question is, perhaps, one of the most dark and difficult connected with Witchcraft and magic, and the details of these hideous connections are such—for as the Saints attain to the purity of angels, so, on the other hand, will the bond slaves of Satan defile themselves with every kind of lewdness. These relations, far from being untrue, bear the strongest marks of authenticity which can be given them by official proceedings regulated and approved with the caution and judgment brought to bear upon them by enlightened and conscientious magistrates who, throughout all ages, have been in a position to test plain facts. It seems to me that if unshaken evidence means anything at all, if the authority of the ablest and acutest intellects of all ages in all countries is not count for merest vapourings and fairy fantasies, the possibility—I do not, thank God, say the frequency—of these demonical connections is not to be denied. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Evil spirits have appeared in my home in the shape of a man, a woman, or even some animal. This is either a real and actual presence, or the effect of imagination. They decide that this sin incurs particular guilt which must be specifically confessed, to with an evil superstition whereof the essence is a compact with the Devil. The inquiry is made whether a demon may thus attack a man or woman, whose obsession would be suffered if the subject were wholly bent upon obtaining perfection and walking the highest paths of contemplation. One night, as the moon-beams came through two deep and narrow windows, and showed the spacious chamber, richly furnished in an antique fashion, the shadow of the diamond panes were thrown upon the floor; the ghostly light through the other slept upon a bed, falling between the heavy silken curtains, and illuminating the face of one of the housemaid’s. However, how quietly the slumberer lay; now pale her features; and how like a shroud the sheet was wound about her frame! Yes, it was a corpse in burial clothes. Suddenly, the fixed features seemed to move with dark emotion. Strange fantasy! It was but the shadow of the fringed curtain, waving betwixt the dead face and the moonlight, as the door opened. Why, then, should the soul be satisfied with the house—the body—in which it lived? Would it not want to change the curtains, as it were. And the paintwork. And perhaps even build a new window? #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
In certain places around Llanda Villa, the spirits encouraged me to build enormous dark cylindrical towers which climbed far above any of the other structures. So they would appear to be of a totally unique nature. They hovered an inexplicable aura of menace and concentrated fear. There were colossal round windows and high arched doors, and pedestals or tables. Vast shelves of dark wood lined the walls, holding what seemed to be volumes of immense size with strange occult symbols on their backs. The windows glazed with fine artwork, though I dared not peer out of them. There were stairs that led to passageways never meant to be opened. Some of the structures towered toward the sky. Multiple levels of black vaults below and never-opened trapdoors, sealed down with metal bands and holding dim suggestions of some special peril. I seemed to be a prisoner. The skies were almost always moist and cloudy, and sometimes I would seem to witness tremendous rains. We could summon to our side the spirits of those whom we have so fondly cherished and converse with them of things holy and eternal, we could learn wisdom from their fuller knowledge, and be assured in their own sweet accents of their fadeless love, as we were comforted with the sight of their well-known faces, the touch of their hands upon ours. Was it God’s will that Spiritism be a most blessed and sacred thing, consolation to the afflicted, succour to the distressed, a shining light upon Earth’s dark ways, a ready to help us all? #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The Winchester Mystery House
There are sometimes instances of sudden and solitary visions, which to others might deem to be hallucinations. This gentleman, walking alone in a certain hallway at The Winchester Mystery House, met a casual acquaintance, a well-known local businessman and was just shaking hands with him, when the guy vanished. Nothing in particular happened to either of them; the businessman was not in the caretaker’s mind at that moment. These appearances, frequent and well attested, might be described as the ghosts of the living. There are reports of figures, seen momentarily before disappearing, that seem to emanate evil and malevolence; the seer is then confronted by the living person months or even years later.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
The Moment of Truth
Manipulative people do not understand the concept of boundaries. They are relentless in their pursuit to get what they want, and they have no regard for who gets hurt along the way. A manipulator may be defined as a person who exploits, uses and/or controls himself and others as things in certain self-defeating ways. The opposite of the manipulator is the actualizer…who may be defined as a person who appreciates himself and his fellowman as persons or subjects with unique potential—an expresser of his actual self. The paradox is that each of us is partly a manipulator and partly an actualizer, but we can continually become more actualizing. When manipulation becomes the usual mode of interacting with others, it is a serious sign of impaired personality health. It implies, among other things, a profound distrust of the other person, even contempt for him. Furthermore, the habitual manipulator of others must repress his spontaneous feelings, thereby promoting further self-alienation. The contriving, manipulative insincere individual, often without conscious awareness, places popularity and “success” at the peak of his value hierarchy. He sells his soul (his real self) to achieve it. He strives to determine what kind of behaviour the other person likes and then pretends to be the kind of person who habitually behaves that way. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
The major factor responsible for habitability contrived interpersonal behaviour is the belief, conscious or implicit, that to be one’s real self is dangerous; that exposure of real feelings and motives will result in rejection or ridicule. Such a belief stems from experiences of punishment and rejection at the hands of parents and other significant persons. To avoid punishment in the future, the child represses the real self in interpersonal situations and learns to become a contriver, an “other-directed” character. Of course, more serious outcomes are possible too: neurosis, psychopathic personality, and psychosis. Scientific students of the learning process, following the lead of Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner, have been able to demonstrate that people’s behaviour can be manipulated without their awareness. A psychologist was able to get subjects in an experiment to increase the frequency with which they uttered plural nouns simply by murmuring “Mm-hmm” whenever the subject spontaneously uttered the desired class of words. Many other experimenters have demonstrated that the content of another’s conversation can subtly be controlled by properly timed “reinforcing” stimuli, such as saying, “That’s good.” There seems little doubt that, with a little training, anyone could improve the efficiency with which he or she could thus influence the behaviour of others without their awareness that they had been so manipulated. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
All it calls for is the study of the other person, to discern what things will function as reinforcers to his or her behaviour, and then supplying these things whenever the desired behaviour occurs. However, most people resent being manipulated, and they become properly angry when they discover that they have been treated like puppets or animals. A nineteen-year-old male student once consulted with me, seeking help in improving his relations with people. He stated that he had studied Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People and found the advice given there extremely helpful to him in “conning” others, especially girls. He was successful as a campus lover and had six of the most attractive coeds in love with him at the time of seeking help. The help he sought was any suggestions that psychology might offer to him in his campaign to win over the affections of the campus queen, who rejected him, telling him he was a “phony.” This rejection upset him. He wondered if there were some new gimmicks he might learn to seem authentic. Parenthetically, he mentioned that, once he won a girl’s affections, he rapidly became bored by her, stating, “Once you’ve won a girl, it’s like a book you’ve just read; you don’t want to have anything more to do with her.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
I refused to help him learn new manipulative methods. In several interviews, I helped him gain insight into his motives and background, and he became more authentic and less of an unscrupulous user of other people. Individuals within a given society differ, of course, in their personal characters; in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that if we are concerned with minute differences, there are no two people whose character structure is identical. Yet if we disregard minute differences, we can form certain types of character structures which are roughly representative for various groups of individuals. Such types are the receptive, the exploitative, the hoarding, the marketing, the productive, character orientations. If it can be shown that nations or societies or classes within a given society have a character structure which is characteristic for them, even though individuals differ in many specific ways, and even though there will be always a number of individuals whose character structure does not fit at all into the broader pattern of the structure common to the group as a whole, the problem of character structure gains in importance far beyond the individual. The name for this character which is typical for a society is the “social character.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
Like the individual character, the “social character” represents the specific way in which energy is channelized; it follows that if the energy of most people in each society is channelized in the same direction, their motivations are the same, and furthermore, that they are receptive to the same ideas and ideals. What is the social character? The nucleus of the character structure which is shared by most members of the same culture, in contradistinction to the individual character in which people belonging to the same culture differ from each other. The concept of social character is not a statistical concept in the sense that it is simply the sum total of character traits to be found in the majority of people in a given culture. It can be understood only in reference to the function of the social character. Each society is structuralized and operates in certain ways which are necessitated by a number of objective conditions. These conditions include methods of production which in turn depend on raw materials, industrial techniques, climate, size of population, and political and geographical factors, cultural traditions and influences to which the society is exposed. There is no “society” in general, but only specific social structures which operate in different and ascertainable ways. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
Although these social structures do change in the course of historical development, they are relatively fixed at any given historical period; any society can exist only by operating within the framework of its particular structure. The members of the society and/or the various classes or status groups within it must behave in such a way as to be able to function in the sense required by the social system. It is the function of the social character to shape the energies of the members of society in such a way that their behaviour is not a matter of conscious decision as to whether or not to follow the social pattern, but one of wanting to act as they have to act and at the same time finding gratification in acting according to the requirements of the culture. It is the social character’s function to mold and channel human energy within a given society for the purpose of the continued functioning of this society. Modern, industrial society, for instance, could not have attained its ends had it not harnessed the energy of free men for work in an unprecedented degree. Man had to be molded into a person who was eager to spend most of his energy for the purpose of work, who had the qualities of discipline, orderliness and punctuality, to a degree unknown in most cultures. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
If everyone had to make up his mind consciously every day that he wanted to work, to be on time, etcetera, it would not have sufficed since any such conscious deliberation would lead to many more exceptions than the smooth functioning of society can afford. Nor would threat and force have sufficed as a motive since the highly differentiated tasks in modern industrial society can, in the long run, only be the work of free men and not of forced labour. The social necessity for work, for punctuality, and orderliness had to be transformed into an inner drive. This means that society had to produce a social character in which these strivings were inherent. While the need for punctuality and orderliness are traits necessary for the functioning of any industrial system, there are other needs which differ, say, in nineteenth-century capitalism, as against contemporary capitalism. Nineteenth-century capitalism was still mainly occupied with the accumulation of capital, and hence with the necessity of saving; it had to fortify discipline and stability by an authoritarian principle in the family, religion, industry, state and church. The social character of the nineteenth-century middle class was precisely one which in many ways can be called the “hoarding orientation.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
Abstention from consumption, saving, and respect for authority were not only virtues, but they were also satisfactions for the average member of the middle classes; his character structure made him like to do what, for the purposes of his economic system, he had to do. The contemporary social character is quite different; today’s economy is based not on restriction of consumption, but on its fullest development. If people—the working and the middle classes—were not to spend most of their income on consumption, rather than to save it, our economy would face a severe crisis. Consuming has become not only the passionate aim of life for most people, but it has also become a virtue. The modern consumer—the men who buys on installments—would have appeared an irresponsible and immoral waster to his grandfather, just as the latter would appear an ugly miser to his grandson. The nineteenth-century social character is to be found today only in the more backward social strata of Europe and North America; this social character can be defined as one for whom the principal aim was having; the twentieth first-century social character is one for whom the aim is using. A similar difference exists with regard to the forms of authority. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
In this century, at least in the developed capitalistic countries of the West, there is enough material satisfaction for all, and hence less need for authoritarian control. At the same time control has shifted into the hands of bureaucratic elites which govern less by enforcing obedience than by eliciting consent, a consent, however, which is to a large degree manipulated by the modern devices of psychology and a “science” called “human relations.” As long as the objective conditions of the society and the culture remain stable, the social character has a predominantly stabilizing function. If the external conditions change in such a way that they no longer fit the traditional social character, a lag arises which often changes the function of character into an element of disintegration instead of stabilization, into dynamite instead of a social mortar, as it were. Man has been brought to his present stage of development by natural selection, of which his intellect is the supreme product; but man cannot consider himself finally superior to other animals until he supplants genetic with telic progress by applying his intellect to his own improvement. Social progress consists in an increase in the aggregate enjoyment throughout a society and a decrease in the aggregate suffering. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Thus far, social progress has in a certain awkward manner taken care of itself, but in the near future it will have to be cared for. To do this and maintain the dynamic condition against all hostile forces which thicken with every new advance, is the real problem of Sociology considered as an applied science. Feelings are the basic component of the mind; the intellect has been evolved as a guide to the feelings. The social mind, a generalization or composite of individual minds, is made up of the social intellect and social feelings. The unrestrained working out of feelings results in conflict and destruction; but intellect can guide feelings into constructive channels by setting down laws and ideals. Intellect, in its growth, finally becomes capable of formulating ideals for social as well as individual guidance. Those actions which bring progress are called “dynamic actions,” and can only be performed by creating a state of “dynamic opinion” in which the social intellect is equipped for its guiding function. If a whole society is to embark upon a dynamic action, its people must be prepared and equipped through the broadest possible diffusion of knowledge. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Intelligence, hitherto a growth, is destined to become a manufacture. The knowledge of experience is, so to speak, a genetic product; that of education is a teleological product. The origination and distribution of knowledge can no longer be left to chance and to nature. They are to be systematized and erected into true arts. Knowledge artificially acquired is still real knowledge, and the shock of all men must always consist chiefly of such knowledge. The artificial supply of knowledge is as much more copious than the natural as is artificial supply of food more abundant than the natural supply. Education is more than a device for social engineering; it is also a leveling instrument, a means of bringing opportunity to humble people and enabling them to use their talents. Greatly impressed from our childhoods is the vast difference between the educated and uneducated, but this chasm cannot be attributed to difference in native capacities. People also have such a compassionate view of education because it springs from their own personal triumph. Education is a long-term instrument for the improvement of mankind. Acquired knowledge itself cannot be transmitted by heredity, but the capacity to acquire knowledge is another matter. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
Certain arts and talents which apparently run in family lines cannot be accounted for by the theory of natural selection because these talents have no value in the struggle for survival; natural selection has no explanation for the persistence of such talents from generation to generation. The persistence of talents can best be explained by assuming that part of what man gains by the exercise of mental faculties in a specific pursuit may be handed down to become part of the heritage of the race. This does not mean that human nature is not malleable; it means that it allows only a limited number of potential structures, and confronts us with certain ascertainable alternatives. The most important alternative as far as the technological society is concerned is the following: if man is passive, bored, unfeeling, and one-sidedly cerebral, he develops pathological symptoms like anxiety, depression, depersonalization, indifference to life, and violence. The long-range implications of a cybernated Word for mental health are disturbing. Most planners deal with the human factor as one which could adapt itself to any condition without causing any disturbances. The possibilities which confront us are few and ascertainable. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
One possibility is that we continue in the direction we have taken. This would lead to such disturbances of the total system that either thermonuclear war or sever human pathology would be the outcome. The second possibility is the attempt to change that direction by force or violent revolution. This would lead to the breakdown of the whole system and violence and brutal dictatorship as a result. The third possibility is the humanization of the system, in such a way that it serves the purpose of man’s well-being and growth, or in other words, his life process. In this case, the central elements of the second Industrial Revolution will be kept intact. The question is, Can this be done and what steps need to be taken to achieve it? As the learning continues, personal changes take place in the direction of greater freedom and spontaneity. In the course of this process, I have seen hard, inflexible, dogmatic persons, in the brief period of several weeks, change in front of my eyes and become sympathetic, understanding, and to a marked degree non-judgmental. I have seen neurotic, compulsive persons ease up and become more accepting of themselves and others. In one instance, a student who particularly impressed me by his change, told me when I mentioned this: “It is true. I feel less rigid, more open to the World. And I like myself better for it. I don’t believe I ever learned so much anywhere.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
I saw shy persons become less shy and aggressive persons more sensitive and moderate. A more personal statement of this kind of change is given by a student at the end of the course. “Your ways of being with us is a revelation to me. In your class I feel important, mature and capable of doing things on my own. I want to think for myself, and this need cannot be accomplished through textbooks and lectures alone, but through living. I think you see me as a person with real feelings and needs, an individual. What I say and do are significant expressions from me, and you recognize this. You follow no plan, yet I’m learning. Since the term began I seem to feel more alive, more real to myself. I enjoy being alone as well as with other people. My relationships with children and other adults are becoming more emotional and involved. Eating an orange last week, I peeled the skin off each separate orange section and liked it better with the transparent shell off. It was juicer and fresher tasting that way. I began to think, that’s how I feel sometimes, without a transparent wall around me, really communicating my feelings. I feel that I’m growing, how much, I don’t know. I’m thinking, considering, pondering, and learning.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
Throughout this description of the learning process in such a climate, I am sure you will have observed the many similarities to the process involved in psychotherapy. Outstanding is the way in which the student begins to rely on his own values as he experiences them, rather than upon the values imposed on him by others. It is also clear that the student is closer to his own feelings, trusts them more, trusts himself more. He is not so afraid of his own spontaneity, not so afraid of change. He is, in short, learning what it means to be free. In our ongoing case study of Clare, she also needs to learn to be free. Her painful relationships left her in a daze. When she had recovered some degree of poise she worked through certain implication. She grasped more deeply the meaning of her fear of desertion: it was because her ties were essential to her that she had such a deep fear of their dissolution, and this fear was bound to persist as long as the dependency persisted. Some weeks later she heard that someone had spread slanderous remarks about her. It did not upset her consciously but led to a dream in which she saw a tower standing in an immense desert; the tower ended in a simple platform, without any railing around it, and a figure stood at the edge. She awoke with mild anxiety. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
The desert left her with an impression of something desolate and dangerous. And it reminded her of an anxiety dream in which she had walked on a bridge that was broken off in the middle. The figure on the tower meant to her merely a symbol of loneliness, which she felt, since Peter, her significant other, was away for some weeks. Then the phrase “two on an island” occurred to her. It brought back fantasies she occasionally had of being alone with a beloved man in a rustic cabin in the mountains or at the seashore. Thus at first the dream meant to her merely an expression of her longing for Peter and of her feeling alone without him. She also saw that this feeling had been increased by the report she heard on the pervious day, that she recognized that the slanderous remarks must have made her apprehensive and enhanced her need for protection. In going over her associations she wondered why she had not paid any attention to the tower in the dream. An image occurred to her, which came to her mind occasionally, of herself standing on a column amid swampland; arms and tentacles arising from the swamp reached out for her as if they wanted to drag her down. Nothing more happened in this fantasy; there was only this picture. Clare had never paid much attention to it, and had seen only its most obvious connotation: a fear of being dragged down into something dirty and nasty. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
The slanderous remarks must have revived this fear. However, she saw suddenly another aspect of the picture, that of putting herself above others. The dream of the tower had this aspect, too. The World was arid and desolate, but she towered above it. The dangers of the World could not reach her. Thus she interpreted the dream as meaning that she had felt humiliated by the slanderous remarks and had taken refuge in a rather arrogant attitude; that the isolated height upon which she thus placed herself was frightening because she was much too insecure to stand it; that she had to have somebody to support her on this height and became panicky because there was nobody on whom she could learn. She recognized almost instantaneously the broader implications of this finding. What she had seen hitherto was that she needed somebody to support and protect her because she herself was defenseless and unassertive. Now she realized that she would occasionally swing to the other extreme, haughtiness, and that in such situations she had to have a projector just as much as she did when she effaced herself. She was greatly relieved because she felt that she had glimpsed a new vista of ties fastening her to Peter, and thereby new possibilities of dissolving them. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
Everyone needs help now and then. When you really need it, it is okay to accept help. However, when someone constantly jumps in to help you, they are not really trying to help you. They are trying to make you dependent on them. Think about two-year-old’s and how they will kick up a fuss when you are trying to help them do something. It is in our biological makeup to want to do things for ourselves. We need some independence. You must remember that when someone is doing everything for you, what are you doing? You are sitting there, wondering why you did it wrong, and someone else must do it for you. You sit there and wonder what is wrong with you—and that is precisely what the brainwasher wants. They want you to think you are inadequate and that you need them. A significant (and possibly major) part of the care afforded by the usual psychotherapist is neither specific to nor dependent upon his technical professional training. Ways must be found to maximize the contribution of the psychiatrist when he is using precisely those skills and knowledges which are unique to his medical training. We must come to recognize the social inefficiency and anachronism represented whenever the psychiatrist spends any sizable portion of his time in therapeutic conversation with individual patients—unless such individual psychotherapy is imbedded in a true research endeavor. The same waste is present when the clinical psychologist functions as individual therapist. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
The shortage of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers in our institutions for several disturbed personalities (and these include no only mental hospitals but reformatories and prisons as well) is the most easily documented of the mental health manpower problems, but it is possibly exceeded by the critical shortage of these experts in the community where their coordinated efforts have a potential for prevention or effective early treatment that may far exceed the impact of their institutional work. In the setting of the community and an outpatient clientele, the most obvious pressure on the psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker is to function as individual psychotherapists. However, if they could be freed to function as researchers and consultants, and if there were a reduction of the pressure on them to do psychotherapy, their greatest potential impact would come. What are the possible avenues of action whereby we might hope to achieve a more effective utilization of the special skills of the psychiatrist, psychologist, and social worker and broaden their contribution to solution of the mental health problem? Any procedures or developments which would enable them to make greater use of their special aptitudes and lesser use of their nonspecific, shared or common abilities would be helpful. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
Programs which would reduce the demand upon them to furnish individual psychotherapy and which would diminish their attraction toward this activity would be beneficial. In ethics we are to seek a subline common sense which means that we are not to help ourselves to the ignoring of others, not to help others to the ignoring of ourselves. When life itself may treat them more harshly because of their mistakes, sins, or weaknesses, to treat others too softly may not be the wise way. He needs to protect himself by the truth which, applied here, means he must strengthen himself against their negative, slushy emotion. A misconceived and middled pity brought in where toughness and reason are needed, would only harm them and him, both. The continued study of this philosophy will inevitably lead the student to accept its practical consequences and thus make the universal welfare of mankind his dominant ethical motive. I have more respect for the man who builds a career of usefulness and service to his community than for the man who turns his back on cares of responsibilities so as to sink into the smug peace of retreat. At the best the latter will address unless appeals to mankind to be better, whereas the former will do something more beneficial and more effective. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
“In firefighting, I think you get into it by degrees. Everybody has his own motives. For most of us, it’s the excitement, the challenge, all the things that go with the fire department, the apparatus and everything. But you still don’t know what it is until you get your first working fire where you have to lay yourself on the line. I don’t want to overdramatize it, but from the time I was fifteen I had been going to fires and pulling hose, but it wasn’t’ until I had been on the Sacramento Fire Department for a few moths that I have my ‘moment of truth.’” Then we got a fire that not only was a working fire, but there supposedly were people trapped. It was about three in the morning, and it was one of those times when you instinctively knew, by the way the alarm came in, that you were going to have a working fire. When we turned into the street we were still four blocks away, and you could smell the smoke. We pulled up, and there was a lady standing out in front in her nightgown, screaming that he daughter was up in the bedroom, and the house was heavily involved in smoke, and some flame was showing. This other guy and I stepped off the back of the engine, and we pulled off the booster line. He was a wonderful guy and a great friend; he became a career firefighter, rose to captain, and was later killed in a fire. Anyhow, he and I started up the stairs with the booster line, and we hit that wall of heart. We didn’t use masks much in those days. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
“We carried a couple of MSA demand masks and a couple of Scott air packs, but we normally didn’t wear them. We only wore them when we thought there as a gas condition. Anyhow, we started up the stairs and hit that wall of heat and smoke, and we thought this girl was trapped in the bedroom. I remember the feeling of ‘I can’t make it.’ I had this great desire to back away and get out of there. The only thing that prevented me from fleeing was the fact that I would be shamed in front of the other firefighter. He later confessed to me that the only thing that stopped him from fleeing was the fact that he would be shamed in front of me. So we continued up the stairs, got on the landing on the second floor, and crawled into the bedroom trying to find this girl. Now the fire was starting to drip down the walls. We couldn’t find her, and then it got real hot. All we had was the booster line. I remember yelling at our captain to bring a big line up. It got so hot that we finally had to start backing out. We just got to the stairs when a flashover occurred, and everything around us took off in fire. We dove head first down the stairs, just as the rest of the company was coming up with a two-and-a-half-inch line. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
“We crawled out onto the street. I don’t remember much at that point. I sort of wore up, and the other firefighter and I were sitting on the back step of the pumper, and they had inhalators on us. They wanted to take us to the hospital, and I wouldn’t go because I was convinced that if I ever to lay down on that stretcher I would never get up again. I also was convinced that I wasn’t cut out to be a fireman, because I knew how close I had come to running away. So we sat there for a while, and the fire was knocked down. It turned out the girl never was there, she was staying at a friend’s house that weekend. Her mother had forgotten. That didn’t matter, really. I’ve been to many fires since when that sort of thing has occurred. The company was up on the roof overhauling, and I remember standing there and thinking to myself, ‘In the morning. I’m going to resign. I’m not going to be a fireman because I know how close I came.’ I got home around five in the morning, got to sleep, and I guess it was around eight o’clock when the alarm went off again. I jumped out of bed, got into my bunkers, headed for the fire. It was a working fire in the basement, a couch, and we went, pulled the couch out. All of a sudden I realized that I was okay, that I wasn’t that much afraid. I guess it was kind of like when you’re thrown from a horse, you get back on. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
“So I had overcome that first obstacle. Then, as the years go on, you get deeper and deeper involved, and you go through various stages until finally you reach the point when, without knowing it, you have made a total commitment to be a fireman. One of the things about the fire service that is perhaps the most satisfying of all is knowing that, as long as you have the equipment and the manpower you need, you can face any challenge that is thrown at you, because of the constant repetition of the procedures—the training you go through, the experience that builds up, the teamwork that’s there. Because when you get into a fire situation, especially one where a life is involved, the adrenaline flows, and it’s very easy to do the wrong thing. The only thing that prevents you from doing the wrong thing, and forces you to do the right thing, is that disciplined training experience, plus the motivation. I think that those are the ingredients for success in anything you do in life. It’s especially true in the fire service. The motivation and the desire and willingness to be a firefighter, the training you go through, the discipline imposed on your, the discipline from your officers, the discipline you impose on yourself to be a part of this team, and finally—and most important of all—the experience. And by following the prescribed procedures, those seemingly routine things that have been drilled into you, when you do it enough, in that crucial situation you will do the right thing. It becomes almost instinct. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
“I’ve also come to believe that fear is a pretty good thing for a firefighter to have. The more you know, the more you’re afraid, because there are things you should be afraid of. What you do is to discipline yourself to cope with your fear. And when you reach the stage of experience when you make that fear work for you, you will then know the dangers you should be looking for—the signs of a possible backdraft situation, the buildup you know is going to lead to a flashover, the signs of a weakness in a structure that could lead to a collapse. Now, that’s smart firefighting, and you do those things only after you have had some close calls and learned that there is good reason to be afraid of certain things. For me, personally, I have always been terrified of electricity. I always look out for live wires.” You can help the Sacramento Fire Department by making a contribution. A generous act not only helps the beneficiary, but if the motive is pure, ennobles the doer. If we want to keep sane, it is safer to keep humble. The path from arrogance to madness is a short one. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
Large rooms, open floor place, with intimate private spaces and a cache of amenities highlight the Cresleigh Home. The large great room features a fireplace, and built-in cabinets. A liberal amount of workspace is available in the kitchen, the breakfast room with built-in cabinets, a dining room, and the laundry. Notice the abundant walk-in pantry and the butler’s pantry. A four-car garage easily holds the family fleet. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/residence-four/
The Sundown Raiders
My heart was beating so hard, I thought it would jump right of my bosom and splatter on the floor. A black silhouette emerged through the fog, walking toward me out of a tunnel in the wall. There was no fluidity in the movements. I did not know what to do; I wanted desperately to run away. Although this was an exhilarating experience, it was horrifying. At an unnatural velocity, the apparition bolted towards me. Her eyes were blue and her face all pink and white like a blossom. She was humming an old Danish song as she crossed the open space. I was so consumed with terror as the blood washed out from under her onto the floor. Violently, she raked her razor-sharp fingers down my face. I cast my eyes to the asunder, as ear-piercing squeals echoed through my mansion. An icy thrill of dread ran down my spine and I began to hyperventilate. With the furious and unappeased physical hunger in her eyes, she feasted on my soul and cast a spell over me. With a roar like a lion, she said “I want you to die!” I could not tell whether her breath was as hot as fire or as cold as ice. “You will not kill me,” I replied calmly. “You will leave my house at once!” “Your life is worth nothing,” the apparition said. “My Lord Lucifer rules here. Or in his absence, me. I doubt your God will stretch out His hand to save your soul. I have lost my children, all six of them dead by the plague, but you grieve so greatly over one baby.” “I know the pain you are suffering.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
The apparition looked at me for a long while, assessing my worth. My breath had quickened; my hands were suddenly clammy. With her arms outstretched as if crucified, her flimsy robe billowed and swayed with the currents, and her black hair spread outward in Gorgonian tresses, as she sunk back into the wall in a black gulf of chaos from which it was called. Trembling and terribly affair, I fled up the stairs. My breathing was laboured, its sound harsh in the moonlit bedroom. I forced calmness upon myself, steading my breaths with concentrated effort. My hand gently soothed the skin over my heart. I sank back on my bed, as my heaving chest gradually subsided, staring at emptiness. Through this horror of imminent death, I felt an arm encircle my throat from behind. I struggled as I was dragged backward, but my efforts were feeble. For one brief and peculiarly lucid moment, I was in another time—an instant of déjà vu—fighting weakly, as a rough hand was pulling at me, lifting me. The cold night air rushing over me. Other hands clutched at my clothes, cruelly pinching the flesh beneath. I was rising, being hauled over the bed. As I was being drawn toward the ceiling, something scraped against my back and then I was lying on the mahogany floor. My head light with dizziness. I was convulsed by a coughing fit as I tried to sit upright. I forced myself to stand, feeling someone helping me, but not knowing whom. Using the wall for support, I pushed myself up. I was still weak, still trembling, and I sat on my bed, resting my elbows on knees, face buried in my hands. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
A ray of moonlight shone on the stairs. It pierced the blackness, shifting the atmosphere. Silence was heavy and the emptiness a dark void. No one was around. Cold air surrounded me, causing me to shiver. A bloodcurdling scream echoed off the walls, causing my heart to pound in my chest. Although it was a cherished place, a curious labyrinth of treasured things, my home held a fresh note of terror for me. I knew the heritage of evil lore it masked, and with this knowledge my vision ran riot in queer new ways. Something was constantly watching at a door to see if it were dark enough to venture forth. It could go wherever the darkness reached, but light would always send it fleeing. It is said that the some enlist the Demon’s service, he gives them in exchange his pledge for honours, riches, and carnal pleasures. Often, the pact is formal, and sometimes, verbal, and there are even instances of a signed document. However, in every case, except for mine, it is usually voluntary. The usual initiation into these foul mysteries is through some secret society at an assembly of which the neophyte bounds oneself with terrific oaths and blasphemy to service all evil. However, there are cases which can only be explained by the materialization of dark intelligence who received a bond from the worshipper. On me a curse had fallen in a paroxysm of wrath, and terror, and the fear of death, black phantoms haunted me. Grief filled me as I thought of my beloved husband and baby. It is perhaps a strange quirk of fate that they both died violently long before their time. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Darkness and a thick silence filled the room, the sliver of moonlight was gone. Doom seemed imminent. If was as if my living had unleashed the fury of the wraiths. Suddenly I heard a pounding on the wall, eventually circling the room and causing me a great fright. As I began to look around, I saw smoke rising to the ceiling, and shaping itself into a human form. Its face was twisting and writhing. Although the candlelight was dim, I could see the dead leaves strewn through her wet hair. She let out an angry shriek. Blood from her open wounds dripped onto the floor. My heart pounded and awful feelings were swarming inside of me. Suddenly, I found myself groping about in an almost black space. All I could see were short, faint, horizontal streaks of blueish light. Whenever I moved, I stumbled over something, and at each noise there would come a sort of answering sound from above—a vague stirring, mixed with the cautious sliding of wood on wood. Before my eyes, a kaleidoscopic range of phantasmal images played, all of them dissolving at intervals into the picture of vast, unplumbed abyss of night. I screamed loudly and ran recklessly out of the room, tripping and bruising myself at every turn. A rising wind blew out most of the candles, so that the scene grew threateningly dark. Stumbling blindly across the lightless hall, there was a nightmare flight through a vast cobweb nave whose ghostly arches reached up to realms of leering shadow. Restless and curious sounds could be heard throughout Llanada Villa. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Suddenly, one of several doors burst open and a dark-haired, dark-suited man barreled out. The lights from the room behind him illuminated his staggered steps. He stumbled to a full stop in front of me. Blood pooled around his knees, pouring like syrup from a gunshot wound in his chest. A dark, cloudy aura of death was surrounding him. I moved back into the shadows. There was a sick, cold certainty that my World was falling into darkness. A hem of shadow had reached my corner of the globe, and without some miracle, without some direct intervention by a wrathful God, this curse would wreak an irrevocable change on my life. I began to pray for a miracle. Wails of pain and horror had penetrated my sanctum, the cries of human suffering echoed through my mind. Uneasy, I returned to the fourth floor. The hallway was empty and dark except for a pale shaft of moonlight slanting through the skylight. Sudden terror tightened along the back of my neck. As I looked out the window, I saw a dark, rangy figure creeping on the lawn, slinking from shadow to shadow then fading into darkness. I tried to say a requiem prayer, but grief-racked my mind and I had lost the words. Beyond the locked door, a faint squeak came from somewhere along the hall. It could have been anything—the wind in the attic, the house settling, but it was long and drawn out; high pitched. Almost like a door opening. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
I dropped to my knees and froze, hands folded in prayer, listening for it again. However, there was nothing but silence. Then there was a rhythmic shuffle in the hall, approaching the door. With my heart pounding frantically against the inner wall of my chest, I rose to my feet and stepped close to the door, listening with my ear almost touching the wood. As if a wave of icy air had penetrated the wood, I felt a sudden chill. A curious sensation came over me. I felt that I was in the presence of something not of this World; something that scientists could neither weigh, measure, nor analyze; of the laws of whose being we know so little, that our imagination has absolutely limitless range. Opening the door, the conviction stealing upon me, that there, before my eyes, was evidence of an existence without the body of a World which, though unseen, unfelt, unknown, might be only near, but absolutely about with me always. How long the figure stood thus, with myself gazing on it in an almost breathless expectancy, I knew not. At last, it moved aside, all but its hand vanishing from my sight; and growing each instant more transparent, relinquished its pointing attitude, seemed to return towards the figure, and with a little waving gesture as of farewell, disappeared as if hidden by folds of drapery. For some time, I could only feel distress and anxiety. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Somewhere in the house a door crashed. Faint scratching noises, like fingernails clawing at stone, came from inside the walls. My hand shook as I fumbled in the darkness for the doorknob. My fingers caressed the cold metal, and I felt joy race through me. A cold hand crossed over my own and squeezed. The pain was immediate and intense, silencing the scream that begged to be released from my throat. As I stood there for a long time, frozen in my tracks, I could not breathe. I was so startled. I began to see strange sights before my eyes. A large, opaque body darkened the window. Never before had the presence of evil so poignantly oppressed me. Later, I must have dropped asleep, for it was out of a phantasmal chaos that my mind leaped when the night grew hideous with shrieks beyond anything in my former experience or imagination. In the shrieking the inmost soul of human fear and agony clawed hopelessly and insanely in my sanity. Demonic rumblings of thunder shook my mansion. I built a small fire in the living room and waited for the full fury of the storm to hit. Sipping tea, I listened, transfixed, to the wind howling. Pounding torrents of rain, driven by gale force winds, hammered the house. A bolt of lightning struck a tree not fifty feet away. I leapt back, almost falling. Picking up my sleeping dog, I retreated to the safety of my library. I warmed myself before the library fireplace. As I stared vacantly into the fire, a horrible sense of despondency settled over me. I was alone—for the first time in my life—utterly alone. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The Winchester Mystery House
When a medium visited The Winchester Mystery House in 2007, he walked up the stairs, stopped and turned around—hate was in his eyes. His left hand became strangely stiff, and he had a feeling that someone was murdered here. The minute he got to the top of the stairs, he was seized with fear. He blundered into other rooms before he could get his bearings. He was really scared. “I feel a great tragedy here,” he said, “especially on the staircase where the landing is. I feel an agonizing screaming. In the room directly above this, there is a complete turmoil. A very beautiful woman, I feel, also a man, and I feel there’s been a death here, a death by violence. The woman is fighting for her mentality. The person who is dead in this apartment is the man.” Sometimes a ghost reattaches himself to the last refuge he had on the Earth plane, even though the body may expire elsewhere, and instantly returns to that place, never to leave it again.
Please come and enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café, stroll along the paths of the beautiful Victorian gardens, and wonder through the miles of hallways in the World’s most mysterious mansion. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Stolen Fruits are the Sweetest
Human sin derives from human ignorance of the Presence which is always within man. Who that is aware of It could possibly transgress, could oppose Its benignity or forget Its teaching of reciprocal Universal Laws. It is true that a face may proclaim the possessor’s character, but it is also true that often only a part of this character is revealed and that the hidden part is, schizophrenically, of an opposite kind. The fact must be admitted, as every saint has admitted it, that there are two poles in human nature, a lower and a higher, an animal and an angelic, an outward-turned and an inward-turned one. It is more just to say that each man’s nature is composed of both good and bad qualities. This must be so because the animal, the human, and the angel are all there in him. The need today is not for compromise or patchwork. It is for one, outright, generous gesture. When the teacher establishes an attitudinal climate, when he makes available resources which are relevant to problems which confront the student, then a typical process ensures. Not caring if he harms others, the selfish person thinks only of satisfying his own wants first. The next higher type thinks also of his immediate circle of family and friends. However, the highest type of all gives equal regard to himself, to his family, to whoever crosses his path, and to all others. He feels for everyone, never satisfying his desires by wrongfully taking away from, or harming, another. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
For students who have been taught by more conventional means, there is a period of tension, frustration, disappointment, disbelief. Students turn in such statements as “I felt completely frustrated by the class procedure.” “I felt totally inadequate to take part in this kind of thing.” “The class seems to be lacking in planning and direction.” “I keep wishing the course would start.” After an initial session in which opportunities and resources were described, one mature participant observer described the way one group struggled with the prospect of freedom. “Thereafter followed four hard, frustrating sessions. During this period, the class didn’t seem to get anywhere. Students spoke at random, saying whatever came into their heads. It all seemed chaotic, aimless, a waste of time. A student would bring up some aspect of the subject; and the next student, completely disregarding the first, would take the group away in another direction; and a third, completely disregarding the first two, would start fresh on something else altogether. At times there were faint efforts at a cohesive discussion, but for the most part the classroom proceedings seemed to lack continuity and direction. The instructor received every contribution with attention and regard. He did not find any student’s contribution in order or out of order. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
“The class was not prepared for such a totally unstructured approach. They did not know how to proceed. In their perplexity and frustration, they demanded that the teacher play the role assigned to him by custom and tradition; that he set forth for us in authoritative language what was right and wrong, what was good and bad.” This is a good description of the bafflement and chaos which is an almost inevitable initial phase of learning to be free. One fruit of the change will be that just as the old idea was to watch out selfishly for his own interests, so the new idea will be not to separate them from the interests of others. If he asked, “How can anyone who is attuned to such impersonality be also benevolent?” Well, because he is so attuned to the real Giver of all things, he need not struggle against anyone nor possess anything. Hence, he can afford to be generous as the selfish cannot. And because the Overself’s very nature is harmony and love, he seeks the welfare of others alongside of his own. He is entitled to seek his own profit and advantage, but only in equity with and considerateness for those of the other person concerned. Gradually students come to various realizations. It dawns on them that this is not a gimmick, but that they are really unfettered; that there is little point in impressing the professor, since the student will evaluate his own work; that they can learn what they please; that they can express, in class, the way they really feel; that issues discussed in class which are real to them, not simply the issues set forth in a text. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15
When these elements are recognized, there is a vital an almost awe-inspiring release of energy. One student reads as she has never read before—two books a week in the subject and hopes this “will never end.” Others undertake projects of writing, experimentation, work in a clinic or laboratory with a new zest. The report of one student is typical of many and is worth quoting at some length. “I feel that I want to share my joy with you in relation to the paper that I gave you earlier today—it is what I call ‘my first real learning experience’…I took a few minutes after I finished typing my paper to think what had made this learning experience so different from the many others which I have had. These are my reactions, sketched briefly: Based on real need—not superficial topic…reading was done to satisfy my need, not merely to collect material to fit topic and sound good…I found that I had to scrap my original approach toward writing a paper when I realized that it did not have to sound good or conform to a prescribed pattern. I jotted down my usual idea of a good outline for a paper only to find that it was not geared to my need at all, and I turned to writing about things of significance to me and then made an outline of what I had written. One of the most ‘shocking’ parts of this experience, as I have related to you one day, was the fact that I did not have to do this and yet I wanted to be working on it all the time and rushed through assigned requirements in other courses to devote time to this. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
“I wrote an annotated bibliography for the first time in my life because I wanted to have information regarding this material I had read, for future reference….there was no feeling of drudgery about this paper—I found myself saying, ‘I’m going over to the library to work on my paper for a while’ instead of, ‘Oh, I suppose I’ve got to plow through some more books tonight or I’ll never het that paper done on time.’ The lack of external pressure made this experience one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done. Basically, through experience, it has changed my whole approach to teaching…” This student is discovering what it means to be autonomous, what it means to be creative, what it means to put forth disciplined effort to reach one’s own goals, what it means to be a responsible free person, and most important, is appreciating the satisfactions which come from these experiences. Another element which is a common part of the process is that the group develops a respect and liking for each other as individuals, as they emerge in the group discussion. A teacher trying this approach writes, “In this second group, also, I found that the students had developed a personal closeness, so that at the end of the semester they talked of having annual reunions. They said that somehow or other they wanted to keep this experience alive and not lose one another.” Those who regard altruism as the sacrifice of all egoistic interests are wrong. It means doing well by all, including ourselves. For we too are part of the all. We do not honour altruistic duty by dishonouring personal responsibility. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
Up to a certain point in development, man does right in seeking self-gain. However, beyond that point, he must stop the process and seek self-loss. The attitude of non-interference in other people’s lives is a benign and justifiable one at certain times but an egotistic one at other times. The best charity in the end is to show a man the higher life that is possible for him. By selfishness it is meant seeking advantage to self in all transactions with complete indifference to others’ welfare. When the essential motive imposed on us by Nature is self-interest, it is useless to prate and prattle of altruistic motives. Every man has a right to be selfish. Trouble arises only when he hurts others to fulfil this aim. Then the same Nature which prompted him to concentrate on his own existence will punish him. For the law of compensation cannot be evaded: that which we have given to others, of woe or good, will someday be reflected to us. By human standards, nature itself is uneconomical. Its process proves the least economic of all conceivable process is concealed only by the vastness of the scale on which nature operates and the absolute magnitude of its results. Some of the lower organisms give off as many as a billion ova: only a few develop into maturity, while the rest succumb in the resulting struggle for survival. The waste of reproductive powers is fantastic. Haphazard human strife, particularly in the form of industrial competition, is similarly wasteful. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
Telic phenomena—those governed by human will and purpose—and genetic phenomena, the results of blind natural forces are fascinating concepts. In the face of the immense superiority of the telic over the genetic, the artificial over the natural, the persistent natural-law enthusiasm of laissez-faire theorists is like the nature-worship of Rousseauian romanticism, or, worse still, of primitive religion. The evolutionary view of nature as being in some way inherently beneficent is sheer mysticism. Man’s task is not to imitate the laws of nature, but to observe them, appropriate them, direct them. Just as there are two kinds of dynamic processes, so are there two distinct kinds of economics—the animal economics of life and the human economics of mind. Animal economics, the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, results from the multiplication or organisms beyond the means of subsistence. Nature produces organisms in superabundance and relies upon the wind, water, birds, and animals to sow her seed. A rational being, on the other hand, prepares the ground, eliminates weeds, drills holes, and plants at proper intervals; this is the way of human economics. While environment transforms the animal, man transforms the environment. Competition actually prevents the most fit from surviving. Rational economics not only saves resources but produces superior organisms. The best evidence for this is that whenever competition is wholly removed, as it is when man artificially cultivates a particular form of life, that form immediately makes great strides and soon outstrips those depending upon competition for their progress. Hence, the superior quality of fruit trees, cereals, domestic cattle. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
Even in its most rational form, competition is prodigiously wasteful. Witness the social waste involved in advertising, a good example of the modified form of animal cunning which is the hallmark of business shrewdness. Furthermore, Laissez faire destroys whatever value competition might have in human affairs; for since complete laissez faire allows combination and finally monopoly, free competition can be secure only through some measure of regulation. Validity of norms is based on the conditions of human existence. Human personality constitutes a system with one minimal requirement: avoidance of madness. However, once this requirement is fulfilled, man has choices: He can devote his life to hoarding or to producing, to loving or to hating, to being or having, etcetera. Whatever he chooses, he builds a structure (his character) in which certain orientations are dominant and others necessarily follow. The laws of human existence by no means lead to the postulation of one set of values as the only possible one. They lead to alternatives, and we must decide which of the alternatives are superior to others. However, are we not begging the issue by speaking of “superior” norms? Who decides what is superior? If man is deprived of his freedom, he will become either resigned and lose vitality, or furious and aggressive. If he is bored, he will become passive or indifferent to life. If he cuts down to an IBM-card equivalent, he will lose his originality, creativeness, and interests. If I maximize certain factors, I minimize others. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
The question then arises, which of these possibilities seems preferable: the alive, joyful, interested, active, peaceful structure or the unalive, dull, uninterested, passive, aggressive structure. What matters is to recognize that we deal with structures and cannot pick out preferred parts from one structure and combine them with preferred parts of the other structure. The fact of structurization in social as well as in individual life narrows down our choice to that between structures, rather than that between single traits, alone or combined. Indeed, what most people would like is to be aggressive, competitive, maximally successfully in the market, liked by everybody and at the same time tender, loving, and a person of integrity. Or, on the social level, people would like society which maximizes material production and consumption, military and political power and at the same time furthers peace, culture, and spiritual values. Such ideas are unrealistic, and usually the “nice” human features in the mixture serve to dress up or hide the ugly features. Once one recognizes that the choice is between various structures and sees clearly which structures are “real possibilities,” the difficulty in choosing becomes greatly reduced and little doubt remains which value structure one prefers. Persons with different character structures will be in favour of the respective value system which appeals to their character. Thus, the biophilous, life-loving person will decide for biophilous values, and the necrophilous persons for necrophilous ones. Those who are in between will try to avoid a clear choice, or eventually make a choice according to the dominant forces in their character structure. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
If one could prove on objective grounds that one value structure is superior to all others, nothing much would be gained; for those who do not agree with the “superior” value structure because it contradicts the demands rooted in their character structure, objective proof would not be compelling. Nevertheless, a desirable living system should grow and produce the maximum of vitality and intrinsic harmony, that is, subjectively, of well-being. An examination of the system of Man can show that the biophilous norms are more conducive to the growth and strength of the system while the necrophilous norms are conducive to dysfunction and pathology. The validity of the norms would follow from their function in promoting the optimum of growth and well-being and the minimum of ill-being. Empirically, most people waver between various systems of values, and hence never fully develop in one or the other direction. They have neither great virtues nor great vices. They are like a coin whose stamp has been worn away; the person has no self and no identity, but is afraid to make this discovery. When our protagonist Clare had recovered some degree of poise, she worked through certain implications of her findings of pain in intimate relationships. She grasped more deeply the meaning of her fear of desertion: it was because her ties were essential to her that she had such a deep fear of their dissolution, and this fear was bound to persist as long as the dependency persisted. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
Clare saw that she not only hero-worshiped her mother, Bruce, and her husband, but had been dependent upon them, just as she was upon Peter. She realized that she could never hope to achieve any decent self-esteem if injuries to her dignity meant nothing compared with the fear of losing Peter. Finally, Clare understood that this dependency of her must be a threat and a burden to Peter, too; this latter insight made for a sharp drop in her hostility toward him. Her recognition of the extent to which this dependency had spoiled her relations with people made her take a definite stand against it. This time she dd not even resolve to cut the knot of separation. She knew that she could not do it, but also she felt that having seen the problem she could work it out within the relationship with Peter. She convinced herself that after all there were values in the relationship which should be preserved and cultivated. She felt quite capable of putting it on a sounder basis. Thus in the following months she made real efforts to respect Peter’s need for distance and to cope with her own affairs in a more independent fashion. Clare had discovered a neurotic trend—the first being her compulsive modesty—and a trend that she did not in the least suspect of existing. She recognized its compulsive character and the harm it did to her love life. She did not yet see, however, how it cramped her life in general, and she was far from recognizing its formidable strength. Thus she overrated the freedom she had gained. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
In fact, Clare succumbed to the common self-deception that to recognize a problem was to solve it. The solution of carrying on with Peter was only a compromise. She was willing to modify the trend to some extent but not yet willing to relinquish it. This was also the reason why, despite her clearer picture of Peter, she still underrated his limitations, which were much greater and much more rigid than she believed. She also underrated his striving away from her. She saw it, but hoped that by a change in her attitude toward him she could win him back. You are not always who you think you are. Not so much when you are young and growing, but once one has matured, we have a pretty good idea of who we are and what we stand for. Again, not everyone will stay around someone who says bad things to them—but some will. The brainwasher will say all sorts of things to make their victim believe they are not as smart as they thought they were. They will make one think twice about everything that comes out of their mouth. They will have a good reason to do those things as the brainwasher constantly corrects them, even when they thought the other individual was correct. Some people like to break others down entirely so they can trap them. The goal is to be able to control another individual and they do not like to move on. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
7The exploitative orientation, like the receptive, has as its basic premise the feeling that the source of all good is outside, that whatever one wants to get must be sought there, and that one cannot produce anything oneself. The difference between the two, however, is that the exploitative type does not expect to receive things from others as a gift, but to take them by force or cunning. This orientation extends to all spheres of activity. In the realm of love and affection, these people tend to grab and steal; they tend to fall in love with a person attached to someone else. We find the same attitude regarding thinking and intellectual pursuits. Such people will tend not to produce ideas but to steal them. It is a striking fact that frequently people with great intelligence proceed in this way, although if they relied on their own gifts, they might well be able to have ideas of their own. The lack of original ideas or independent production in otherwise gifted people often has its explanation in this character orientation, rather than in any innate lack of originality. The same statement holds true regarding their orientation in material things. Things which they can take from others always seem better to them than anything they can produce themselves. They use and exploit anybody and anything from whom or from which they can squeeze something. Their motto is “Stolen fruits are sweetest.” Because they want to use and exploit people, the “love” those who, explicitly or implicitly, are promising objects of exploitation, and get “fed up” with persons whom they have squeezed dry. An extreme example is the kleptomanic who enjoys things if he can steal them, although he has the money to buy them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
The most visible and acute part of the mental health problem resides in those patients with major psychiatric disorders who require hospitalization. These are the patients who must have the intensive and coordinated services of the most highly trained members of the mental health team—especially of the psychiatrist. If there were no limitations of money or personnel for the treatment of the major forms of psychiatric illness, the effectiveness of the treatment of the psychotic patient would still be sorely restricted by our lack of knowledge about etiology, pathology, and specific avenues of therapeutic action. There is an urgent need for a greatly expanded research endeavour. The design and execution of research into the causes and treatment of major mental illness requires the full-time effort of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric social workers and other mental health personnel. However, these highly trained experts are in critically short supply and their potential contribution to research is seriously reduced and, in many instances, totally blocked by the demand that they provide those clinical services presently thought to be therapeutic. To the extent that circumstances force them into purely service roles they are prevented from generating investigations that could lead to significant changes in the quality or effectiveness of their services. At the present level of our specific technical knowledge it is will to make explicit distinctions between programs of custodial management and programs of active treatment. It is totally unjustifiable and a serious social waste of critically restricted resources for the most highly trained of our mental health experts to be encouraged to assign higher priority to their clinical services and a lower priority to their responsibilities as investigators. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
Be careful not to limit elements of the quest—action—to altruism or service. It is rather the reeducation of character through deeds. Thus this includes moral discipline, altruistic service, overcoming animal tendencies, temporary physical asceticism, self-training and improvement, and so forth. It is the path of remaking the personality in the external life both through thought-control and acts so as to become sensitive towards and obedient to the Overself. Altruism will then become a mere part of, a subordinate section in, this character training. Whoever labours worthily at a worthy task which does not afflict his conscience is rendering service to humanity. It does not matter whether he is affluent or less affluent. The isolationist individual who stands unmoved by a crime being committed on his doorstep, is tempted by selfishness not to burden himself with another person’s troubles. Ambition can be transformed into service. It takes a lot of altruism and ambition to be a firefighter. “I’ll never forget, it was the third day of fire school, and you know how little things stick in your mind. About four of us were raising up a fifty-foot ladder. It was a windy day, and we were getting the ladder up when it started to fall. There were some guys standing around, and everybody instinctively ran to the ladder and grabbed it to keep it from falling. There was a lieutenant there who said, ‘You know what, there was one guy who ran away. And he should have kept going right out that gate, because firemen don’t run away.’ Firemen don’t run away. All my life I’ve been that way. A good fireman instinctively knows what to do, and one of the things is this: a fireman doesn’t run away. That is some kind of pride I have, and I get it from being a fireman.” We must learn not only to develop right qualities of character, but also not to direct them wrongly. Misplaced charity, for instance, is not a virtue. Please be sure to donate to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure they have all the resources required. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 