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Today We Begin the Harrowing Story
I have many beautiful art glass windows in my house, but the most expensive in the house was specially designed for me by Tiffany’s of New York. I originally installed it in an outside wall, but later added a series of rooms that blocked off all direct sunlight. There is a peculiar apparition that is seen in the window itself. The form seen is that of a figure dressed in white walking across the window. At first there was only one figure, and then thirteen appeared. The figures began to move across the window long before the carpenters noticed them. They did so as many as twenty or thirty times a day, and would stop shortly after noon. Of the three figures, one was a man, stone was a woman, and one was a child. the man was an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd’s-check trousers, not over-clean black frock coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head and the expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features. The woman was very distinct in appearance. She was tall and very graceful. The two-year-old boy showed signs of disturbed behaviour, laughed hysterically and talked of “funny drinks.” The order of the apparitions in the window had a slight variation: the mother came alone from the northside of the window, and having gone about halfway across, she would stop, turn around, and wave her arms towards the quarter whence she had come. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
This gesture was answered by the entry of the father with the child. Both parents then bent over the child, and seemed to bemoan his fate; but the mother was always the most endearing in her gestures. The father then moved towards the other side of the window, taking the child with him, leaving the mother in the center of the window, from which she gradually retired to the north corner, whence she had come, waving her hand, as though making signs of farewell, as she retreated. After some little time she again appeared, bending forward, and evidently anticipating the return of the father and son, who never failed to reappear from the south side of the window where they had disappeared. The same gestures of distress and despair were repeated, and then all three retired together to the north side of the window. One evening, about nine o’clock, I was at the south-west door with Mr. Hansen. As I was unlocking it, I said, “Did you ever find anybody locked in here by accident?” “Mrs. Winchester, twice I saw shadows moving in that beautiful window. What a noise they did make!” Mr. Hasen then waited, leaning against the pillar, and watched the light wavering along the length of the landing. Mr. Hansen said they were well worthy seeing. “I suppose,” he said, as we walked toward the steps to the third floor, “that you’re too much used to going about here at night to feel nervous—but you must get a start every now and then, don’t you, when a book falls down or a door swings to?” “No, Mr. Hansen, I can’t say I think much about noises, not nowadays: I’m much more afraid of finding an escape of gas or a burst in the stove pipes than anything else. Still there have been times, years ago. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
“If you have an have half an hour to spare, sir, when we get back down to the second floor, Mr. Hansen, I could tell you about a tomb that was unearthed. I will not begin now; it strikes cold here, and we do not want to be dawdling about all night.” “Of course, Mrs. Winchester, I should like to hear it immensely.” “Very well, sir, you shall. Now if I might put a question to you,” I went on, as we passed down the hallway of the third floor, “in my little local guide—and not only there, but in the little book on Llanada Villa in the series—you will find it stared that this portion of the mansion was erected previous to the twelfth century. Now of course I should be glad enough to take that view, but—mind your step, sir—but, I put it to you—doe the lay of the stone here in this portion of the wall (which I tapped with my key), does it to your eye carry the flavour of what you might call Saxon masonry? No, I thought not; no more it does to me: now, if you will believe me, I have said as much to the other carpenters. However, there it is, I suppose every one’s got their opinions.” The discussion of this peculiar trait of human nature occupied Mr. Hansen almost up to the moment when we returned to the second floor. Usually the apparitions appeared during musical performances in the Grand Ballroom, and especially during one long eight-line hymn, when—for the only occasion without the child—the two parents rushed on (in stage phrase) and remained during the whole hymn, making the most frantic gestures of despair. Indeed the louder the music in that hymn, the more carried away with their grief did they seem to be. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Nothing could be more emphatic than the individuality of the several figures; the manner of each had its own peculiarity. If the stained glass were removed, I do not doubt that a much plainer view would be obtained. I think so, because the nearer the center of the window, where the stained glass was thickest, there the less distinct were the forms. It was like catching glimpses of them through leaves. However, nearer the edge of the window, where the colours were less bright, they were perfectly distinct; and still more so on the pane of unstained glass at the edge. There they seemed most clear, and gave one the impression of being real persons, not shadows. Mental disturbance, it is true, will age one rapidly; but the face of Mr. Hasen since working on this project had taken on a subtle cast which only the very aged normally acquired. While standing on the landing looking at the window, I noticed his respiration and heart action had a baffling lack of symmetry; the voice was lost, so that no sounds above a whisper were possible. His skin had a morbid chill and dryness. Of course, we were witnessing the most remarkable and perplexing incident in the whole spectacle. When the father and the child had taken their departure, the mother waved her hands, and after walking slowly to the very edge of the window, turned round whilst on the pane of unstained glass and waved her arm towards the other two with what one would call a stage gesture, and then I most distinctly saw, and emphatically declare I did see, the arm bare nearly to the shoulder, with beautiful folds of drapery hanging from it like a picture of a Greek vase. Nothing could be plainer than the drag of the robes on the ground after the figures as they retired at the edge of the window, where the clear glass was, previous to going out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
The impression produced was that one saw real persons in the air, for though the figures were seen on the window, yet they gave one the impression of walking past the window outside, and not moving upon the glass. I am not inclined to think that the trees outside the mansion at the east end can originate the appearance by any optical illusion produced by waving branches. I could see their leaves rustling in the air, and their movement was evidently unconnected with the appearance and movement of the figures. So I began making enquires on my estate. I discovered that several people had indeed seen the shapes upon the glass. One spoke of a female figure with a slightly skipping step. Another servant said he saw an ancient gravestone from the window. The belief that the tree beside the Tiffany window were somehow responsible for the optical illusion was soon dashed; the trees were cut down, but the figures appeared still. One correspondent wrote to me in the winter of 1889, explain that “as I have no faith in ghost, I have been most wishful to have the matter cleared up. On 25 March 1687, the land you now own was involved in a remarkable satanic horror story. A young girl came to the farmhouse for help, saying that she wanted to get away from a group of satanists who had threatened to kill her. She confessed to the owner that she had murdered her own baby in ‘frenzied ritual.” He befriended the girl, twenty-three-year-old Caludia, and allowed her to stay in his home. She kept telling him that she couldn’t stand hearing the screams of her children inside of her head. And on April 20th, 1687, she died from an overdose of Laudanum and postmortem examination revealed thirteen scars and burns on her body which he tended to and which supported her claims of having been involved in satanic ritual. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
“Further, Claudia left a 13-page diary in which she said he had been involved with a satanic group since she was hired to work on a nearby farm at age thirteen and her writings went on to make incredible claims. She described how she went to coven meetings with a boy named Dorian whom she had met while living on the farm. The boy’s mother was a High Priestess and his father was The Master—a known satanic term for the leading member of the group. She described other practice which are known to be common in satanic altar initiations—that of having her armed pricked and blood drained into a chalice from which it was drunk. ‘Much sexual perversion went on that night…later I learned more of Satan and practiced my arts calling on my power of darkness. Satan had become my Lord and Master.’ Later she described how she aborted a baby she was expecting by Dorian then made the claim that Dorian himself was sacrificed by his own father in retribution, and how she was forced to watch as he was hung upside down. She claimed to have seen other sacrifices of many new born babies, stabbing them at orgies in which Laudanum was taken heavily. She also appeared to have had another child of her own which was also offered up for sacrifice. At her inquest of 13 May, the midwife recorded an open verdict after the she noted that Claudia’s body had signs which confirmed she had given birth at least once, and had been subject to sexual abuse. The constables took up the case, but no charges were brought and the investigation was closed without further action.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
I was shocked of these allegations which seemed to be more than enough to inspire the most lurid of headline writers, more than to testify to the credibility of all who were proffering these dramatic and barely believable accounts of satanic abuse. Everything these people said was being taken as gospel in the village because the allegations were coming from the mouths of so-called experts. However, there were claims of rampant satanic worship in Nova Albion at this time, which was documented by English charters led by Sir Francis Drake for England. There were horrifying claims that fifty women were suffering from the after-effects of cannibalism and an average of ten occult survivors a week were being sacrificed. Dr. Harley said he read of several cases recorded by Theodorous de Bry where children had been killed. There were, of course, also several stories concocted around these three figures in my home. Some said that they issued from the grave beside the east window. Other said that they were victims of the plague, and were burned outside where this window now stands. It may or may not be relevant that the figures seemed to appear when the sound of the organ and of voices raised in song. The case was thoroughly investigated in 1889 by Dr. Robert Radakovic of The Ghost Club, where it was revealed that Llanda Villa had been “haunted” for two or three hundred years by the same figure or figures. Optical tests on the possible patterns of light and reflection had come to no results. It was remarked that “the ghost has been seen from the inside while outside nothing was visible.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
The interior of Lalanda Villa was much altered in the late nineteenth century, and a complex of rooms was built behind this haunted window. However, no satisfactory explanation has ever been given for the strange phenomena reported here. While designing Lalanda Villa, I was gaining my tastes from the venerable town around me, and from the relics of the past which filled every corner of my mansion. With the years, my devotion to ancient things increased; so that history, genealogy, and the study of gothic architecture, furniture, and craftsmanship at length crowded everything else from my sphere of interests. These tastes are important to remember for they outwardly concealed knowledge of bygone matters so that one would have fancied the they are literally transferred to a former age through some obscure short of autohypnosis. However, the true madness, I am certain, came with a later change; after the portrait and ancient papers of Saint Adalrich the Duke of Alsacre had been unearthed. Some terrible invocations being chanted under strange and secret circumstances; after certain answers to these invocations had been plainly indicated, and a frantic letter penned under agonizing and inexplicable conditions; after the wave of vampirism and the ominous legends of Neustria; and after the farmer’s memory commenced to exclude contemporary images whilst his voice failed and his physical aspect underwent the subtle modification so many subsequently noticed. He was later diagnosed with porphyria. And a final investigation resulted which virtually proved the authenticity of the papers and of their monstrous implications at the same time that those papers were borne forever from human knowledge. Loving antiquities so keenly, the papers and portrait were secretly concealed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
Bedroom fashions changed dramatically over the Victorian years due to several factors. Early in the period, homes were heated by fireplaces and therefore could be uncomfortable in the colder mothers, although a heated bedroom was considered an indulgence and windows were left open during the winter. In reality, only the rich had fireplaces in their bedrooms. Still, one had to keep warm while asleep and bed drapery, consisting variously of canopies, tents, and other enclosures used to shut out drafts, was essential, as was heavy draper on windows. Even doors had decorative, but also functional, drapes called portieres that served to keep out drafts when covering the door.
Mrs. Winchester was wealthy and her wealth and prosperity were even envied among the elite. She had no less than 47 fireplaces in her home. By the end of the century, two things had changed that affected bedroom styles. First, coal and woodburning parlour stoves came into use, were more efficient at heating a house, and could be installed in any room. (Central heating, though available after the Civil War, was really only for the very rich.). Secondly, and more importantly, was an increased knowledge of diseases, germs, and bacteria and how to combat them. Plenty of fresh air with good circulation, and the elimination of materials such as bed draper that not only impeded air circulation but provided a place for dust and bacteria to collect were deemed essential. Since the bedroom served as the place where daily and weekly ablutions were performed (until bathrooms became separate entities), and as a birthing and maternity room, it was important that it have a healthy environment.
Styles of bedroom furniture were affected by this new found interest in and concern for prevention of illness and diseases. The classic English styles of Sheraton, Chippendale, and Hepplewhite migrated from the eighteenth century into the Victorian period. Tall, four-poster canopied beds enclosed the sleeper in heavy drapes of wool or lined damask of velvet, a carryover from the time when houses were built without corridors, and enclosures around the bed were needed for privacy, as well as warmth. By the time mid-century had arrived, the full enclosure had receded to the half-tester, or half-canopy, from which hung draperies that covered only the head and shoulders. Fully enclosed beds were now considered unhygienic, as they limited air circulation and the yards of fabric attracted dust. Dust ruffles and window valances were also discarded in the same house cleaning. In the southern climates, netting was still necessary to protect against insects, and its slightness did not impede air movement.
Gothic Revival furniture was the style into the 1840s and its massiveness was particularly suited to bedrooms. Closets were not an architectural feature at this time; clothing was stored in large cabinets called armories or wardrobes, usually with double, mirrored, and washstand, topped with marble or wood, were manufactured for middle-class homes in the cottage style. “Spool” beds were popular, nicknamed “Jenny Lind beds” because the Swedish Nightingale was rumoured to have slept in when she toured the United States of America. Made of less costly woods like maple or pine, the simple furniture could be elaborately painted with floral or foliage patterns. The well-to-do preferred the more opulent style of Rococo Revival or Renaissance Revival in woods or walnut, mahogany, or rosewood with carvings and applied moldings. As with other furniture in the house, golden oak, promoted by the Arts and Crafts Movement, was popular at the end of the century. Additional pieces of furniture found in the bedroom were writing desks, chaises, or other upholstered furniture.
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The Syndrome of Growth
The pathology of incestuous fixation depends obviously on the level of regression. In the most benign cases there is hardly any pathology to speak of expect, perhaps, a slight overdependence on and fear of women. Dr. Freud’s thinking was based on an evolutionary scheme of libido development, from the narcissistic to the oral-receptive, oral aggressive, anal-sadistic, to the phallic- and genital-character orientations. According to Dr. Freud the gravest type of mental sickness was that caused by a fixation on (or regression to) the earliest levels of development of the libido. As a consequence, for example, regression to the oral-receptive level would be considered a more severe pathology than regression to the anal-sadistic level. In my experience, however, this general principle is not born out by clinically observable facts. The oral-receptive orientation is in itself one that is closer to life than is the anal orientation; hence, generally speaking, the anal orientation could be said to be conducive to more severe pathology than the oral-receptive. Furthermore, the oral-aggressive orientation would seem to be more conducive to severe pathology than the oral-receptive, because of the element of sadism and destructiveness involved in it. As a result, we would arrive almost at a reversal of the Freudian scheme. The least severe pathology would be that connected with the oral-receptive orientation, followed by more severe pathology in the oral-aggressive and in the anal-sadistic orientations. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Assuming the validity of Dr. Freud’s observation that genetically the sequence of development is from the oral-receptive to the oral-aggressive to the anal-sadistic orientation, one would have to disagree with his standpoint that fixation on an earlier phase means more severe pathology. However, I believe that the problem cannot be solved by the evolutionary assumption that the earliest orientations are the roots for the more pathological manifestations. As I see it, each orientation in itself has various levels of regression, reaching from normal to the most archaic pathological level. When it is combined with a generally mature character structure, that is, a high degree of productivity, the oral-receptive orientation, for instance, can be mild. On the other hand, it can be combined with a high degree of narcissism and incestuous symbiosis; in this case the oral-receptive orientation will be one of extreme dependency and malignant pathology. The same holds true as regards the almost normal anal character in comparison with the necrophilic character. Therefore, to determine pathology not according to the distinction between the various levels in libido development, but according to the degree of regression which can be determined within each orientation (oral-receptive, oral-aggressive, et cetera). It must furthermore be kept in mind that we are dealing not only with the orientation which Dr. Freud sees as being rooted in the respective erogenous zones (modes of assimilation), but also with forms of personal relatedness (like love, destructiveness, sado-masochism) which have certain affinities to the various modes of assimilation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Thus, for instance, there is an affinity between the oral-receptive and the incestuous, between the anal and the destructive orientations. There also exists an affinity between biophilia and the “genital character” and between incestuous fixation and the oral character. The deeper the regression in each orientation, the more the three tend to converge. In the state of extreme regression, they have converged to form what I have called the “syndrome of decay.” On the other hand, with the person who has reached an optimum of maturity, the three orientations also tend to converge. The opposite of necrophilia is biophilia; the opposite of narcissism is love; the opposite of incestuous symbiosis is independence and freedom. The syndrome of these three attitudes I call the “syndrome of growth.” Now suppose, for example, that an individual has a neurotic need for absolute independence. After recognizing the trend and learning something of its origins one would have to spend quite a while understanding why only this way is open for reassurance, and how it manifests itself in one’s daily living. One would have to see in detail how this need expresses itself in one’s attitude toward physical surroundings, how it takes the form, perhaps, of an aversion to obstructed views, or an anxiety that arises when one sits in the middle of a row. One would have to know how it influences one’s attitude toward dress, as evidenced by such signs as sensitivity toward girdles, shoes, neckties, or anything that may be felt as a construction. One would have to recognize the influence of the trend on work, shown perhaps in rebellion against routine, obligations, expectations, suggestions, a rebellion against time and against superiors. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
One would have to understand its influence on love life, observing such factors as an incapacity to accept any ties or a tendency to feel that any interest in another person means enslavement. Thus an estimate would gradually crystallize as to the various factors which in greater or less degree serve to touch off the feeling of coercion and to force one to be on one’s guard. The mere knowledge that one has a great wish for independence is not nearly enough. It is only when one recognizes its all-inclusive compelling force and its negativistic character that one can muster a serious incentive to change. Thus the therapeutic value of the second step is, first, that it strengthens a person’s willingness to conquer the disturbing drive. One begins to appreciate the full necessity for change, and one’s rather equivocal willingness to overcome the disturbance turns into an unambiguous determination to grapple with it seriously. This determination certainly constitutes a powerful and valuable force, indispensable for effecting any change. However, even the most vigorous determination is of little avail without the ability to carry it through. And this ability is gradually increased as one manifestation after another is clearly seen. While a person is working at the implication of the neurotic trend one’s illusions, fears, vulnerabilities, and inhibitions are gradually loosened from their entrenchments. As a result one becomes less insecure, less isolated, less hostile, and the resultant improvement in one’s relationships with others, and with oneself, in turn makes the neurotic trends less necessary and increases one’s capacity to deal with it. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
This part of the work has the added value of kindling an incentive to discover those factors that impede a more profound change. The forces thus far mobilized have helped to dissolve the power of the particular trend and thereby to bring about certain improvements. However, the trend itself and many of its implications are almost sure to be closely bound up with other, possibly contradictory, drives. Therefore the person cannot fully overcome ones difficulties by working only at the substructure developed around a particular trends. Clare, for instance, lost some of her compulsive modesty through the analysis of that trend, but certain of its implications were out of reach at that time because they were intertwined with the morbid dependency and could be tackled only in conjunction with that further problem. This third step, the recognition and understanding of the interrelations of different neurotic trends, leads to a grasp on the deepest conflicts. It means an understanding of the attempts at solutions and of how these attempts have meant only a deeper and deeper entanglement. Before this part of the work is reached the person may have gained a deep insight into the component parts of a conflict, but still have adhered secretly to a belief that they could be reconciled. One may have realized deeply, for instance, the nature of one’s drive to be despotic and also the nature of one’s need to be applauded for superior wisdom. However, one has tried to reconcile these trends by simply admitting occasionally the despotic drive without having the least intention to change it. One has expected secretly that the admission of the despotic trend would allow one to continue it and at the same time win one recognition for the amount of insight shown. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Another person who strove for superhuman serenity, but also was driven by vindictive impulses, has imagined that one could be serene for the larger part of the year but spare out a sort of leave of absence when one could indulge in one’s vindictiveness. It is obvious that no fundamental change can take place as long as such solutions are secretly adhered to. As the third steps is worked through, it becomes possible to understand the makeshift nature of these solutions. The therapeutic value of this step lies also in the fact that it makes it possible to disentangle the vicious circles operating among the various neurotic trends, the ways in which they reinforce one another as well as the ways in which they conflict with one another. Thus it means an understanding at last of the so-called symptoms, that is, the gross pathological manifestations, such as attacks of anxiety, phobias, depressions, gross compulsions. One often hears statements to the effect that what is really important in psychotherapy is to see the conflicts. Such statements are of the same value as a contention that what is really important is the neurotic vulnerability or rigidity or striving for superiority. What is important is to see the whole structure, not more and not less. Existing conflicts may sometimes be recognized quite early in the analysis. Such recognition, however, is of no avail until the components of the conflicts are thoroughly understood and diminished in their intensity. Only after this work has been accomplished, do the conflicts themselves become accessible. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
No amount of knowledge can fulfill the expectations of a detailed and definite direction of the road to be taken in analysis. One reason for this is that the differences among people are too great to allow the pursuit of any prescribed path. Even if we should assume that there is but a limited number of discernible neurotic trends existing in our civilization, say fifteen, the possible combinations of such trends would be practically infinite. Another reason is that in analysis we see not one trend neatly separated from another, but the sum total of entanglements; a flexible ingenuity is therefore necessary in order to isolate the components of the picture. A third complication is that often the consequences of the various trends are not apparent as such but are themselves repressed, thus making recognition of the trend considerably difficult. And, finally, analysis represents a human relationship as well as a common research. It would be a one-sided comparison to think of an analysis as an exploratory trip in which two colleagues or friends are engaged, both as much interested in observing and understanding as in integrating the observations and drawing the inferences. In analysis the patient’s peculiarities and disturbances—not to speak of the analyst’s—are vitally important. One’s need for affection, one’s pride, one’s vulnerability, are just as present and as effective in this as in other situations, and in addition the analysis itself inevitably elicits anxieties and hostilities and defenses against insights that threaten one’s safety system or the pride one has developed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
While all these reactions are helpful, provided one understands them, they nevertheless render the process more complex and less susceptible of generalization. The assertion that to a large extent each analysis must produce its own sequence for tackling problems may be intimidating to apprehensive souls, particularly to those who need a guarantee that they are always doing the right thing. They should keep in mind, however, for their own reassurance, that this sequence is not artificially created by the analyst’s clever manipulation but occurs spontaneously because it lies in the nature of the problems that one becomes accessible after another one is solved. In other words, when anyone analyzes oneself one will usually take the steps described above by merely following the material that presents itself. It will sometimes happen, of course, that one touches upon questions that at the time being are not answerable. At such points an experienced analyst will probably be able to see that the particular subject is beyond the reach of the patient’s understanding and is therefore better left alone. Let us assume, for instance, that a patient who is still deeply immersed in convictions of one’s absolute superiority over others brings up material suggesting that one has a fear of not being acceptable to others. The analyst will know that it would be premature to tackle as yet the patient’s fear of rejection, because the latter would regard it as inconceivable that such a superior being as one believes oneself to be could possibly have such a fear. Many other times the analyst will recognize only in retrospect that, and why, a problem was not accessible at a certain point. In other words, one, too, can proceed only by trial and error. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
While much is recorded as to the basic identifying characteristics presenting symptomatology, and official diagnosis of the hospitalized psychiatric patient, the patient whose problems are treated exclusively on an outpatient basis has so far not been a regular subject for comprehensive census taking. This is not to say that we do not know the forms that psychoneurosis may take so far as symptom patterns are concerned, or something of the particular problems associated with treatment of the discriminably diagnosable outpatient syndromes, and something of the rate of response to psychotherapy. Much of this information is discursive and clinical, even when it represents statical accumulation of the experience of a particular clinic it rarely goes beyond the diagnostic grouping of patients. We do not have a truly comprehensive and representative picture of the broadly identifying characteristics of the consumers of psychotherapy, including the content of their problems, that goes beyond specification of such ubiquitous presenting complaints as depression and anxiety. In the absence of more information about these persons it is difficult to imagine that we can provide either specifically or adequately for their needs. Unless, of course, in our approach to mental health education, we are meaning to create a consumer demand for the particular product we feel they need! Let us consider what is known about the actual and potential candidates for psychotherapy. Our information is primarily general description for which psychotherapy is thought to be a primary treatment—the psychoneurotics. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
A scientifically based medical attack upon the neuroses as medical problems is hampered by the nonobjectivity, ambiguity, and inclusiveness of the diagnoses. A corollary of this fact is the absence of explicit statements of exclusion: When organic illness is not a factor, when psychic disturbance of psychotic proportion is ruled out, what patterns of disturbance or discomfort (or degrees of these) may be encountered that do not qualify for the label “neurosis”? Put another way, does the presence of mental conflict or the experience of anxiety or the condition of emotional depression constitute ipso facto a neurosis? Or, must the proper diagnosis of a neurosis entail consideration of the arousing circumstances, the duration, and the severity of these conditions? There is no clear consensus on these questions among psychiatric authorities. Note again that the formal definitions emphasized the character of the person’s response and subjective experience and generally ignore the situational matrix to which the person is responding. In practice this means that a patient, without the presenting symptoms and history which would support some other diagnosis, who presents oneself to an appropriate “mental health expert” with complaints of depression, conflict, or anxiety is likely to be diagnosed as psychoneurotic—even though any “hallmark” symptoms such as hysterical conversions, phobias, obsessions or compulsions may be absent. In a sense, these are “self-diagnosed” patients who are accepted by the therapist without much concern for whether they technically qualify as psychoneurotics. All of these factors contribute to the nonspecificity of a diagnosis of psychoneurosis and this nonspecificity must be kept in mind when considering the following data. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
While the great majority of neurotics are treated exclusively on an outpatient basis, there are some whose illness is of such severity or whose life situation is so devoid of support that hospitalization is necessary. According to our research, the average neurotic patient was 38 years old at the time of hospital admission. Two thirds of the neurotics were in the 20-44 age range at admission. At all ages, the admission rates were higher for females than males. Psychoneuroses are relatively more prevalent among the higher economic classes. With gender and age controlled for a standard population having a base age of 25 and over, the rate of first admissions with diagnosed psychoneurosis was at a minimum among those with little or no formal education and increased progressively to a maximum among patients who attended college. Among the hospitalized neurotics, there was a clear preponderance of single, widowed, and divorced patients over married patients. The excess of single patients was greatest among those over age 35. In one of the very rare reports on the clientele of private psychiatrists, descriptions are given of the general characteristics of 100 unselected, consecutive cases seen in office practice. Sixty percent of these patients were between the ages of 20 and 40. Slightly more than half (54 percent) were men, and slightly more than half were married (52 percent). Eighty percent were of Protestant faith. One third of these patients were office workers or skilled labourers; only 12 percent held professional jobs. One third of them had been referred to the psychiatrists by other patients; nearly one fourth were self-referrals. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The major compliant presented by these patients were nervousness, tension, and depression; other complaints included insecurity, self-consciousness, and shame or confusion regarding gender. Only half of these patients were diagnosed as psychoneurotic, but psychotherapy was recommended for 70 percent of them. Forty percent of this sample made but s single visit. Of those who undertook outpatient treatment the average cost of the treatment was $7,500 per year. Specific diagnoses were not under investigation but it is a reasonable presumption that the majority of these patients were neurotics. The following generalizations may be proposed from this study: The typical psychiatrist sees preponderantly more female than male patients. By contrast, psychologists and social workers tend to have clients of both genders in equal numbers. The complete age range is represented in the clients of three professions. However, the number of psychiatrists who specialize in patients under age 15 is very small, while one out of five psychologists concentrates on this age group. In contrast to the social workers and psychologists, many more psychiatrists have a clientele in which persons over the age of 40 predominate. The complete range of educational achievement is represented in the patients seen by all three professions. Psychiatrists are relatively inexperienced with patients having less than an eighth-grade education, while social workers very rarely carry-on individual therapy with college graduates or persons with postgraduate education. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
All occupational levels are represented in the psychotherapy cases of the three professional groups as are all income levels. Certain occupational groups (exempli gratia, domestic and personal service, and agriculture, forestry, and fishing) have very little representation in the case loads of these psychotherapists. Other occupational groups (exempli gratia, professional, and managerial-office jobs) have a high frequency among the patients. Prevalence of Maladjustment: Over one third of the sample when queried about previous sources of unhappiness made reference to economic or material considerations, including their jobs. Two out of every five respondents indicated their primary source of worry to be in the economic or material sphere. Nearly one out of every five persons sampled reported that they had at some time in their past felt an “impending nervous breakdown.” Less than half of these persons felt that their problem was relevant for outside help. Nearly 40 percent of these persons reported their problems as external, exempli gratia, illness, death, work tension, finances. Factors Related to Maladjustment: While the genders did not differ in the frequency with which they reported unhappiness, the women more frequently reported worry, fear of breakdown, and need for help. In general, women reported suffering from more symptoms, both physical and psychological, than did the men of the sample. With increasing amounts of education, there is an increase in symptoms which express immobilization, inertia, and an attitude of passivity. This syndrome of immobilization is more prevalent among the younger persons than the older. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Greater distress is reported by women than by men in all adjustment areas—they are more disturbed in general adjustment, in their self-perceptions, in their martial and parental functioning. This gender difference is most marked at the younger age intervals. “Psychological anxiety” symptoms are found most frequently at the two extremes of the income distributions. Occupational status is less related to over-all adjustment than are education and income. The unmarried (whether single, separated, divorced, or widowed) have a greater potential for psychological distress than do the married. A feeling of impending breakdown is reported more frequently by the divorced and separated females than by any other group of either gender. In general, single women experienced less psychological discomfort than do single men. Factors Related to Seeking of Help: With respects to readiness to seek help for personal distress, the more highly educated persons surpass all other groups. The highly educated are more introspective, orient themselves toward life in terms of self-questioning rather than unhappiness or dissatisfaction express concern over the personal and inter-personal aspects of their lives, predominate in psychological rather than physical symptoms. It is if particular interest to note that the highly educated people more often go for help despite the fact that they express more happiness and satisfaction on the adjustment indices than do the less educated people. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Of those persons who actually sought help, over half reported problems in the area of personal relationships. Most commonly the problem was with a spouse and was less frequently ascribed to the relationship than to a defect in either the respondent (23 percent) of the spouse (25 percent). First step toward clear-mindedness: to grasp the extent to which we have been seduced—namely, it could have been exactly the other way around: The unknown World could perhaps be a stupid and more trivial form of existence—so constituted as to make us long for “this World.” The other World,far from accommodating our desires, which would find no satisfaction there, could be among a host of things that make this World possible for us: coming to know it would be a way of making ourselves happy. The true World: but who is it that tells us that the apparent World must be worth less than the true one? Des not our instinct contradict this judgment? Does not man perpetually create a fictious World because he wants to have a World better than reality? Above all: why does it ever occur to us that our World is not the true one? After all, the other World could be the “apparent” one (in fact, the Greeks, for example, conceived of a realm of shadows, an apparent existence alongside true existence). And finally: What gives us the right to estimate, as it were, degrees of reality? That is something different from an unknown World—that is already wanting to know something of the unknown. The “other,” the “unknown,” World—good! However, to say “true World” means “to know something about it”—that is the opposite of the assumption of an x-World. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The World x could be in every sense more tedious, more inhumane, and less worthy than this World. It would be something else again to assert that there are x Worlds, id est, every possible World besides this one. However, that has never been asserted. The word “wiles” in the original means “methods,” and bears in its varied forms the thought of craft, artifice or trickery. To “work wiles” is to outwit, or to methodically go in pursuit. The ultimate negative’s war on the saints can be summed up in the phrase “the wiles of the ultimate negative.” He does not work in the open but always being cover. The method of his deceiving spirits are adapted to each one, and they have a skill and cunning gained by years of experience. Generally, the wiles are primarily directed against a person’s mind or thoughts, so, unless the believer has yielded to known sin, most of the workings of the Ultimate negative in one’s life may be traced back to a wrong thought or belief admitted into one’s mind and not recognized to be from deceiving spirits. For is a believer thinks that all that the ultimate negative does is manifestly bad, the ultimate negative has only to clothe himself with “good” to gain full credence with that man. The way, therefore, is a war of deceit and counterfeit, and only those who seek the fullest truth from God about God, the ultimate negative, and themselves can stand against the Deceiver’s wishes. The more common solution to the Christ-and-culture problem is to unite somehow the extremes of the first two types. This center position, therefore, acknowledges the goodness of creation, the radical character of sin, the necessity of human cultural activity, and the primacy of grace. However, the reconciliation of these opposing principles can be achieved in several different ways. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
One way is by a synthesis of the two, which we term the Christ-above-culture type. According to the synthetic view, there is a gap between Christ and culture that accommodation Christianity never takes seriously enough, and the radicalism does not try to overcome. Its starting point is the doctrine that Jesus as the Christ did not come to abolish the law and prophets, but to fulfill them. It is exemplified in history by the theology of Clement of Alexandria and Thomas Aquinas. The synthesis holds that grace builds on and perfects nature, that the Creator and the Saviour are one. Jesus as the Christ is above culture as its fulfilment and crown. We drive for unity between Christ and culture with an insistence upon grace. However, the unity is effected by a vertical structuring that is divided into layers, and this is repugnant because it resembles the natural-supernatural framework which we detests. The synthesists regards cultural efforts as a mere propaedeutic for the culmination of Christianity in a future afterlife. Furthermore, as Niebuhr observes, the synthesis tends to view his own culturally conditioned synthesis as absolute, so that Jesus as the Christ who is above culture as its fulfilment has been first whittled down to the proportions of the prevailing culture. The result is a cultural conservatism which is akin to idolatry. When we say, “The Father alone is God,” such a proposition can be taken in several senses. If “alone” means solitude in the Father, it is false in a categorematical sense; but if taken in a syncate gorematical sense it can again be understood in several ways. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
For if it excludes (all others) from the form of the subject, it is true, the sense being “the Father alone is God”—that is, “He who with no other is the Father, is God.” In this way Augustine expounds when he says (De Trin. Vi, 6): “We say the Father alone, not because he is separate from the Son, or from the Holy Ghost, but because they are not the Father together with Him.” This, however, is not the usual way of speaking, unless we understand another implication, as though we said “He who alone is called the Father is God.” However, in the strict sense the exclusion affects the predicate. And thus the proposition is false if it excludes another in the masculine sense; but true if it excludes it in the neuter sense; because the Son is another person than the Father, but not another thing; and the same applies to the Holy Ghost. However, because this diction “alone,” properly speaking, refers to the subject, it tends to exclude another Person rather than other things. Hence such a way of speaking is not to be taken too literally, but it should be piously expounded, whenever we find it in authentic work. We do not say absolutely that the Son alone is Most High; but that He alone is Most High with the Holy Ghost, in the glory of God the Father. 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. Happy is the man that has regard for the poor; the Lord will deliver him in the day of evil. Every day, the Sacramento Fire Department displays bravery, strength, honesty, determination and compassion for the lives of others. Please kindly donate to the Sacramento Fire Department. You donation will greatly benefit the welfare of the community. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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The Winchester Mystery House
On December 25, 1905 there was a sudden terrible noise from the nine story Observational Tower. Mrs. Winchester was convinced that the tower was falling but, on hasty inspection, there was nothing whatever the matter with the fabric of the building. More strange incidents continued to occur. Doors rattled as if someone were attempting to get in; there were sounds of footsteps, chandeliers exploded. Mrs. Winchester also a phantom battalion in the hallway on the fourth floor. One of the young men appeared to be the leader and was ahead of the column. He wore dark trousers, a tan coloured shirt, and a dark vest which he wore open. One his head he had a brown hat with an upturned brim and a satin hatband. Perhaps the oddest part was that they were not carrying military arms, but picks and shovels, as if they were some work detail. They also had packs on their backs and marched wearily as if returning from the fields of toils.
The column was only about fifty feet away from two housemaids, so they got a good look at them. They joked about how strange they seemed, and kidded each other that they may have just seen an apparition. Suddenly, as if realizing exactly where they were, the housemaids got serious and decided to turn around just after they passed by the balcony to see if she could find out where the men were going. In a matter of moments, they were back at the site where the party had been seen…but the oddly-dressed boys and their picks and shovels were gone.
These incidents were widely reported to the local press. Of course The Winchester Mansion soon became known as “the most haunted house in the West.” Mrs. Winchester was also blessed with the faculty of second sight. A few months later, 5.13 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major Earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI. It severely damaged Mrs. Winchester’s home, toppling the nine-story Observational Tower and some cupolas. She herself was badly shaken, trapped in her favourite Daisy Bedroom near the front of the mansion. It took several caretakers hours to locate her and then pry open the door and rescue her.
It had been reported that Mrs. Winchester felt the Earthquake was a warning from the spirits that she had spent too much time and money on the front section of the house, which was nearing completion. After having the structural damage repaired, she immediately ordered the front thirty rooms—including the Daisy Bedroom, Grand Ballroom, and the beautiful front doors—sealed up. The heavy, ornate front doors, which had been installed just prior to the Earthquake, had only been used by three people—Mrs. Winchester and the two carpenters who installed them.
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The Syndrome of Decay
The ballot is stronger than the bullet. Sexual relations between family members who are not spouses, formally known as incest, is illegal across the United States of America because of the harm that it can cause to family relationships. With genetic inbreeding there is a high rate of birth defects. Incest has long been taboo and has been the subjects of myths, legends and literature (for example Oedipus—the tragedy of Sophocles). A large number of sources explain why incest should be banned. The reasons for the band range from psychodynamic traditions to genetic, sociological, religious, and historical needs in relations between kinship systems. Peter Choate and Radha Sharan note a high incidence of pathological genes in offspring. If incest leads to pregnancy and childbirth, the risk of genetic defects in such offspring is higher than that of offspring of unrelated couples—especially if both partners have a recessive gene in incest. The pathology of incestuous fixation depends obviously on the level of regression. In the most benign cases there is hardly any pathology to speak of except, perhaps, a slight overdependence on and fear of women. The deeper the level of regression the more intense are both the dependence and the fear. On the most archaic level, both dependence and fear have reached a degree which conflicts with sane living. There are other elements of pathology which also depend on the depth of regression. The incestuous orientation conflicts, as narcissism does, with reason and objectivity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
If I fail to cut the umbilical cord, if I insist on worshipping the idol of certainty and protection, then the idol becomes sacred. It must not be criticized. If “mother” cannot be wrong, how can I judge anyone else objectively if he is in conflict with “mother” or disapproved of by her? This form of impairment of judgement is much less obvious when the object of fixation is not mother but the family, the nation, or the race. Since these fixations are supposed to be virtues, a strong national or religious fixation easily leads to biased and distorted judgments which are taken for truth because they are shared by all others who participate in the same fixation. After the distortion of reason, the second most important pathological trait in incestuous fixation is the lack of experiencing another being as fully human. Only those who share the same blood or soil are felt to be human; the “stranger” is a barbarian. As a consequence I remain also a “stranger” to myself, since I cannot experience humanity beyond that crippled form in which it is shared by the group united by common blood. Incestuous fixation impairs or destroys—in accordance with the degree of regression—the capacity to love. The third pathological symptom of incestuous fixation is conflict with independence and integrity. The person bound to mother and tribe is not free to be himself, to have a conviction of his own, to be committed. He cannot be open to the World, nor can he embrace it; he is always in the prison of the motherly racial-national-religious fixation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Man is only fully born, and thus free to move forward and to become himself, to the degree to which he liberates himself from all forms of incestuous fixation. Incestuous fixation is usually recognized as such, or it is rationalized in such a way as to make it appear reasonable. Somebody strongly bound to his mother may rationalize his incestuous tie in various ways: It is my duty to serve her; or, She did no much for men and I owe her my life; or, She has suffered so much; or She is so wonderful. If the object of fixation is not the individual mother but the nation, the rationalizations is the concept that one owes everything to the nation, or that the nation is so extraordinary and so wonderful. The tendency to remain bound to the mothering person and her equivalents—to blood, family, tribe—is inherent in all men and women. It is constantly in conflict with the opposite tendency—to be born, to progress, to grow. In the case of normal development, the tendency for growth wins. In the case of severe pathology, the regressive tendency for symbiotic union wins, and it results in the person’s more or less total incapacitation. Dr. Freud’s concept of the incestuous strivings to be found in any child is perfectly correct. Yet the significance of this concept transcends Dr. Freud’s own assumption. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Incestuous wishes are not primarily a result of sexual desire, but constitute one of the most fundamental in man: the wish to remain tied to where he came from, the fear of being free, and the fear of being destroyed by the very figure toward whom he had made himself helpless, renouncing any independence. In their less severe manifestations, necrophilia, narcissism, and incestuous fixation are quite different from each other, and very often a person may have one of these orientations without sharing in the others. Also, in their non-malignant forms no one of these orientations causes grave incapacitation of reason and love, or creates intense destructiveness. (As an example for this, I would like to mention the person of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was moderately mother-fixed, moderately narcissistic, and a strongly biophilous person. In contrast, Mr. Hitler was an almost totally necrophilous, narcissistic and incestuous person.) However, the more malignant the three orientations are, the more they converge. First of all there is a close affinity between incestuous fixation and narcissism. Inasmuch as the individual has not yet fully emerged from mother’s womb or mother’s breast, he is not free to relate to others or to love others. He and his mother (as one) are the object of his narcissism. This can be seen most clearly where the personal narcissism has been transformed into group narcissism. There we find very clearly incestuous fixation blended with narcissism. It is this particular blend which explains the power and the irrationality of all national, racial, religious, and political fanaticism. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
In the most archaic forms of incestuous symbiosis and narcissism they are joined by necrophilia. The craving to return to the womb and to the past is at the same time the craving for death and destruction. If extreme forms of necrophilia, narcissism, and incestuous symbiosis are blended, we can speak of a syndrome which I propose to call the “syndrome of decay.” The person suffering from the syndrome is indeed evil, since he betrays life and growth and is a devotee of death and crippledness. Th best-documented example of a man suffering from the “syndrome of decay” is Mr. Hitler. He was deeply attracted to death and destruction; he was an extremely narcissistic person for whom the only reality was his own wishes and thoughts. Finally, he was an extremely incestuous person. Whatever his relationship to his mother may have been, his incestuousness was mainly expressed in his fanatical devotion to the race, the people who shared the same blood. He was obsessed by the idea of saving the Germanic race by preventing its blood from being poisoned. First of all, as he expressed it in Mein Kampf, to save it from syphilis; second, to save it from being polluted by Jewish people. Narcissism, death, and incest were the fatal blend which made a man like Mr. Hitler one of the enemies of mankind and of life. This triade of traits has been most succinctly described by Richard Hughes in The Fox in the Attic: #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
“After all, how could that monistic “I” of Hitler’s ever without forfeit succumb to the entire act of sex, the whole essence of which is recognition of other “Other”? Without damage I mean to his fixed conviction that he was the universe’s unique sentient centre, the sole authentic incarnate Will it contained or had ever contained? Because this of course was the rationale of his supernal inner ‘Power’: Hitler existed alone. ‘I am, none else beside me.’ The universe contained no other persons than him, only things; and thus for him the whole gamut of the ‘personal’ pronouns lacked wholly its normal emotional content. This left Hitler’s designing and creating motions enormous and without curb: it was only natural for this architect to turn also politician for he saw no real distinction in the new things to be handled: thee ‘men’ were merely him-mimicking ‘things,’ in the same category as other tools and stones. All tools have handles—this sort was fitted with ears. And it is nonsensical to love or hate or pity (or tell the truth to) stones. Hitler’s then was that rare diseased state of the personality, an ego virtually without penumbra: rare and diseased, that is, when abnormally such an ego survives in an otherwise mature adult intelligence clinically sane (for in the new-born doubtless it is a beginning normal enough and even surviving into the young child.) Hitler’s adult “I” had developed thus—into a larger but still undifferentiated structure, as a malignant growth does. The tortured, demented creature tossed on his bed. ‘Rienzi-night,’ that night on the Freinberg over Linz after the opera: that surely had been the climatic night of his boyhood for it was then he had first confirmed that lonely omnipotence within him. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
“Impelled to go up there in the darkness into that high place he had not been shown there all earthly kingdoms in a moment of time? And facing there the ancient gospel question had not his whole being been one assenting Yea? Had he not struck the everlasting bargain there on the high mountain under the witnessing November stars? Yet now…now, when he had seemed to be Rienzi-like the crest of the wave, the irresistible wave which with mounting force should have carried him to Berlin, that crest had begun to curl: it had curled and broken and toppled on him, thrusting him down, down in the green thundering water, deep. Tossing desperately on his bed, he gasped—he was drowning (what of all things always Hitler most feared). Drowning? Then…that suicidal boyhood moment’s teetering long ago on the Danube bridge at Linz…after all the melancholic boy had leaped that long-ago day, and everything since was dream! Then this noise now was the mighty Danube singing in his dreaming drowning ears. In the green watery light surrounding him a dead face was floating towards him upturned: a dead face with his own slightly-bulging eyes in it unclosed: his dead Mother’s face as he has last seen it with unclosed eyes white on the white pillow. Dead, and white, and vacant even of its love for him. But now that face was multiplied—it was all around him in the water. So his Mother was this water, these waters drowning him! At that he ceased to struggle. He drew up his knees to his chin in the primal attitude and lay there, letting himself down. So Hitler slept at last.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
In this short passage all the elements of the “syndrome of decay” have been brought together in the way only a great writer can do. We see Mr. Hitler’s narcissism, his longing to drown—the water being his mother—and his affinity to death, symbolized by his dead mother’s face. The regression to the womb is symbolized in his posture, with his knees drawn up to his chin in the primal attitude. Mr. Hitler is only one outstanding example of the “syndrome of decay.” There are many who thrive on violence, hate, racism, and narcissistic nationalism, and who suffer from this syndrome. They are the leaders of or the “true believers” in violence, war, and destruction. Only the most unbalanced and sick among them will express their true aims explicitly, or even be aware of them consciously. They will tend to rationalize their orientation as love of country, duty, honor, et cetera. However, when the forms of normal civilized life have broken down, as happens in international war or civil war, such people no longer need to repress their deepest desires; they will sing hymns of hate; they will come to life and unfold all their energies at times when they can serve death. Indeed, war and an atmosphere of violence is the situation in which the person with the “syndrome of decay” becomes fully himself. Most likely it is only a minority of the population who are motivated by this syndrome. Yet the very fact that neither they nor those who are not so motivated are aware of the real motivation makes them dangerous carriers of an infectious disease, a hate infection, in times of strife, conflict, cold and hot war. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Hence it is important that they be recognized for what they are: men who love death, who are afraid of independence, for whom only the needs of their own group have reality. They would not have to be isolated physically, as is done with lepers; it would be sufficient if persons who are normal were to understand their crippledness and the malignancy of the strivings hidden being their pious rationalizations, in order that normal persons might acquire a certain degree of immunity to their pathological influence. In order to do this it is, of course, necessary to learn one thing: not to take words for reality, and to see through the deceptive rationalizations of those who suffer from a sickness that only man is capable of suffering from: the negation of life before life has vanished. The recognition of neurotic trend, means the recognition of a driving force in the disturbance of the personality, and this knowledge in itself has a certain value for therapy. Formerly the person felt powerless, at the mercy of intangible forces. The recognition of even one of these forces not only means a general gain in insight but also dispels some of the bewildered helplessness. Knowledge of the concrete reason for a disturbance provides a realization that there is a chance to do something about it. This change may be illustrated with a simple example. A farmer wants to grow fruit trees, but his trees do not thrive, though he puts great efforts into their care and tries all the remedies he knows. After some time he becomes discouraged. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
However, finally he discovers that the trees have a special disease or need a special ingredient in the soil, and there is an immediate change in his outlook on the matter and his mood regarding it, though nothing has changed as yet in the trees themselves. The only difference in the external situation is that there is now a possibility of goal-directed action. Sometimes the mere uncovering of a neurotic trend is sufficient to cure a neurotic upset. A capable executive, for instance, was deeply disturbed because the attitude of his employees, which had always been one of devotion, changed for reasons outside his control. Instead of settling differences in an amicable way, they started to make belligerent and unreasonable demands. Although he was a highly resourceful person in most matter he felt utterly incapable of coping with this new situation, and reached such a measure of resentment and despair that he considered withdrawing from the business. In this instance the mere uncovering of his deep need for devotion of people dependent on him sufficed to remedy the situation. Usually, however, the mere recognition of a neurotic trend does not engender any radical change. In the first place, the willingness to change which is elicited by the discovery of such a trend is equivocal and hence lacks forcefulness, and, in the second place, a willingness to change, even if it amounts to an unambiguous wish, is not yet an ability to change. This ability develops only later. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
The reason why the initial willingness to overcome a neurotic trend does not usually constitute a reliable force, despite the enthusiasm that often goes with it, is that the trend has also a subjective value which the person does not want to relinquish. When the prospect arises of overcoming a particular compulsive need, those force are mobilized which want to maintain it. In other words, soon after the first liberating effect of the discovery the person is confronted with a conflict: he wants to change and he does not want to chance. This conflict usually remains unconscious because he does not like to admit that he wants to adhere to something which is against reason and self-interest. If for any reason the determination not to change prevails, the liberating effect of the discovery will be only a fleeting relief followed by a deeper discouragement. To return to the analogy of the farmer, if he knows or believes that the required remedy is not available to him, his change in spirit will not last long. Fortunately these negative reactions are not too frequent. More often the willingness and the unwillingness to change tend to compromise. The patient then sticks to his resolution to change, but want to get away with as little as possible. If he uncovers the origin of the trend in childhood, or if her merely makes resolution to change, or he may hope that it will be enough, or he will fall back on the delusion that a mere recognition of the trend will change everything overnight. Earlier attempts to train experts in neuropsychiatry have largely failed. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Medical education is still struggling, without notable success, to produce physicians who can understand not only the peculiarities and limitations of the biological apparatus with which man has to effect his adaptations, but who can appreciate the problems of man in making the psychosocial adaptations demanded by modern culture. Neuropsychiatry has been replaced in recent time by the separate specialties of psychiatry and neurology. And within psychiatry there is growing evidence of a “working” schism—on the other hand, there are psychiatrists who treat almost exclusively by the administration of drugs, electroshock, or other physical means, and on the other hand, there are psychiatrist who almost exclusively treat by conversation. In his own nature, man is not a complex of dissociated parts and functions. He is a unity. A proper pill will lift his spirits, so will a proper word. It is probably that an appropriately integrated application of medicine and conversation will accomplish more thorough and lasting therapeutic benefit than will either alone. We do not now understand all that we must in order to be able to prescribe and administer optimally integrated therapy to the emotionally ill, but even if we had such knowledge there are strong forces that would continue to work toward fractioned, one-sided treatment. A very provocative study points up not only the marked dualism in the therapeutic activities of psychiatrists, but also indicates that the selection of physical or psychological treatment is determined less by the nature of the illness than it is by the social class of the patient. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Members of the higher social class (defined by education, occupation, and residence) are much more likely to receive psychotherapy than are members of the lower social class who typically receive electroshock therapy or custodial hospitalization. With this comparison we can once again look at the treatment of mental illness in historical perspective. Today we recognize three major forms of treatment: chemotherapy (the tranquilizers, anti-depressants, and other drugs), shock therapies (electroshock, insulin coma therapy, and variants of these), and psychotherapy. The use of drugs in treatment of emotionally disturbed persons has a long history. The current upsurge of interest and enthusiasm with the advent of the ataractic (tranquilizing) medications is responsive to a technology advance in drug chemistry rather than to any basically new idea. The ancient physicians of Greece had their pharmacopoeia; though their medications were selected with less knowledge both of chemistry and physiology, they allowed for the ubiquitous and potent effect of suggestion which is almost inextricably associated with any clinical use of medication. The Greeks were not without enthusiasm for their prescriptions. While electroshock therapy represents a highly refined and nicely controlled administration of a physical agent to produce sudden unconsciousness, the general notion of severe stimulation and violent psychological shock was a stock-in-trade of early physicians, exempli gratia, immersion to the point of drowning, the “surprise bath,” and comparable procedures. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
The physical and chemical treatments of the early physicians are better recorded than are their prescriptions for psychological counseling, but we do know that the ancients were not totally ignorant of psychogenic factors in hysteria and melancholy and it is likely that therapeutic conversation was effectively engaged in, although the forerunner of our modern psychotherapist may not have been aware that his words were having beneficial impact. If we look to ancillary treatments such as music therapy, recreational therapy, and milieu therapy, we readily find their counterparts in the descriptions of the Aesculapian sanitaria. Objective observation of distinctive avenues of therapeutic approach to the psychiatric patient would suggest that time has brought chiefly refinement and extension rather than basic innovation. Psychotherapy is practiced on a broader scale than ever before in history and with a greatly increased knowledge of psychopathology. When seen in full perspective this historical development constitutes less progress than suggested at first glance. The availability of therapeutic conversion, which many authorities would hold to be the most thorough and effective of psychiatric therapies, is largely restricted by social class membership. It has been true throughout history that the treatment of the emotionally ill person has been determined less by the nature of his illness, less by his need, less by what promised cure than by his ability to pay. Sedation, seclusion, recreation, and extended personal access to the physician for support, reassurance, and exhortation (and possibly insight), have been the prescription for the wealthy. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Institutionalization, restraint, and shock therapy have been the prescription for the indigent psychiatric patient. Neither the essential content and nature of psychiatric treatment nor its distribution have really changed markedly over the centuries. With the development of dynamic psychiatry based upon the more fundamental and durable of psychoanalytic insight, with the modern developments in chemotherapy, and with the growing availability of community mental health centers, it is possible for an enlightened public with the help of the pertinent professions to develop now a truly integrated and logistically feasible program for the treatment of mental illness, with treatment optimally prescribed in accord with the needs of the individual rather than dictated by irrelevant economic factors or denied by an artificially limited supply of personnel. Closely bound up with the wrestling of the spirit is the necessity of prayer—not so much the prayer of petition to a Father as the prayer of one joined in spirit with the Son of God, his will fused with His—declaring to the enemy the authority of Christ over all their power. Sometimes the self-actualized has to “wrestle” in order to pray; at other times, to pray in order to wrestle. If he cannot “fight” he must pray, and if he cannot pray, he must fight. To further highlight this illustration, if the self-actualized is conscious of a weight on his spirit, he must get rid of the weight by refusing all the “causes” of the weight—for it I necessary to keep the spirit unburdened to fight, and to retain the power of detection. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The delicate spirit-sense becomes dull under “weights” or pressure upon it; hence the enemy’s ceaseless tactics to get “burdens” or pressure on the spirit, unrecognized as from the foe, or else recognized and allowed to remain. The man may feel “bound up” and the cause be in others, for there may be no open spirit or open mind in another disciple to receive from the spirit and mind of the one who feels bound up; there may be no capacity in the other to receive any message of truth; there may be no capacity in the other to receive any message of truth; there may be some thought in the mind of the other which is checking the flow of the spirit. If in the morning the self-actualized finds a “weight” or heaviness on his spirit, and it is not dealt with, he is sure to lose his position of victory through the day. In dealing with weight on the spirit, the moment it is recognized the self-actualized must at once act in spirit, and stand withstand and resist the powers of darkness. Each of these positions requires spirit-action, for these words do not describe a “state” or an “attitude,” nor an act by soul or body. To “stand” is a spirit-action repelling an aggressive move of the enemy; to “withstand” is to make an aggressive move against them; and to “resist” is actively to fight with his spirit, even as a man “resists” with his body another who is physically attacking him. When we consider the Christ of Culture, there is a pro-culture people, those who feel no great tension between church and World, the social laws and the Gospel, the workings of divine grace and human effort, the ethics of salvation and the ethic of social conservation or progress. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
They interpret the culture through Christ and Christ through culture. They establish this harmony by selecting the best elements of civilization and matching them with the eternally true, rational principles exemplified in Christianity. There are, however, several objections to the Christ-of-culture position. First, it constructs apocryphal gospels by exclusive attention to a single trait of Jesus, such as spiritual knowledge, reason, a sense for the infinite, the moral law, or brotherly love. The result is that loyalty to contemporary culture has so far qualified the loyalty to Christ that he has been abandoned in favour of an idol called by his name. Secondly, the culture Christian dilutes the radical power of sin by explaining it as ignorance, superstition, or stupidity which is dispelled by the pure light of reason refracted through Christ. Finally, cultural Christianity is embarrassed by the doctrine of grace because it seems to demean the natural goodness of human nature. Still, we consider Jesus the Christ and the New Being. We recognize the fact of universal estrangement, and the power of sin to tear the cultural fabric asunder. And, we know that the all-pervading influence of grace grasps the human spirit in an ultimate concern and reveals the religious depths of cultural creations. The cultural Christians operate at the level of morality. They are content with the essential harmony of Christ and the World. They are confident in the power of man’s rational spirit, while we rely upon the grace of the divine Spirit. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
The “True” and the “Apparent World”—the seductions that emanate from this concept are of three kinds: An unknown World: we are inquisitive adventurers—the known World seems to make us weary (the danger of the concept lies in its insinuating that “this” World is known to us). Another World, where things are different: something in us recalculates; our silent acquiescence, or reticence thereby lose their value—perhaps everything will be fine, we have not hoped in vain. The World where things are different, where we ourselves (who knows?) are different. A true World: this is the most amazing trick and offense that has ever been perpetrated against us; so much has gotten encrusted on the word true that we unwittingly offer it all up as a present to the “true World”—the true World must also be a truthful World, one that does not cheat us, does not make fools of us: believing in it is virtually having to believe (out of decency, as it is among those worthy of confidence). The concept “the unknown World” insinuates that this World is “known” (as tedious); the concept “the other World” insinuates that the World could be otherwise—supersedes necessity and fate (unnecessary to submit, to adapt); the concept “the true World” insinuates that this World is untruthful, deceitful, dishonest, inauthentic, inessential—and, consequently, not a World adapted to our needs (inadvisable to adapt to it; better to resist it). We therefore divest from “this” World in three ways: With our inquisitiveness—as if the most interesting part were elsewhere; with our submission—as if it were not necessary to submit; as if this World were not a necessity of the highest order; with our sympathy and respect—as if this World did not deserve them, were impure, had been dishonest with us. We have revolted three ways—we have made an x into a critique of the “known World.” 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. The Sacramento Fire Department has courage, integrity, selflessness, and determination. They help humanity progress and prosper by saving lives and property. Please make a donation to these heroes. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Become What You are Capable of Becoming
To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life. There is a degree of regression within the incestuous complex. Here, we can distinguish between very benign forms of “mother fixation,” forms which in fact are so benign that they can hardly be called pathological, and malignant forms of incestuous fixation which we call “incestuous symbiosis.” On the benign level we find a form of mother fixation which is rather frequent. Such men need a woman to comfort them, love them, admire them; they want to be mothered, fed, cared for. If they fail to obtain this kind of love, they tend to feel slightly anxious and depressed. When this mother fixation is of slight intensity it will not impair the man’s sexual or affective potency, or his independence and integrity. It may even be surmised that in most men there remains an element of such fixation and the desire to find something of the mother in a woman. If, however, the intensity of this tie is greater, one usually finds certain conflicts and symptoms of a sexual or emotional nature. There is a second level of incestuous fixation which is much more serious and neurotic. (In speaking of distinct level here, we are only choosing a form of description which is convenient for the purpose of a brief presentation; in reality there are not three distinct levels; there is a continuum which stretches from the most harmless to the most malignant forms of incestuous fixation. The levels described here are typical points in this continuum; in a more fully developed discussion of this topic, each level could be divided into at least several “sub-levels.”) #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
On this level of mother fixation, the person has failed to develop his independence. In its less severe forms it is a fixation which makes it necessary always to have a mothering figure at hand, waiting, making few demands, the person on whom one can depend unconditionally. In its more severe manifestations we might find a man, for instance who chooses a wife who is a stern mother-figure; he feels like a prisoner who has no right to do anything which is not in the service of the wife-mother, and he is constantly afraid of her, lest she might be angry. He will probably rebel unconsciously, then feel guilty and submit all the more obediently. The rebellion may manifest itself in sexual infidelity, depressive moods, sudden outbursts of anger, psychosomatic symptoms, or general obstructionism. This man may also suffer from serious doubts in his manliness, or from sexual disturbances such as impotence or homosexuality. Different from this picture in which anxiety and rebellion dominate, is another where mother fixation is mixed with a seductive male-narcissistic attitude. Often such men at an early age felt that mother preferred them to father; that they were admired by mother, while the father was held in contempt. They develop a strong narcissism which makes them feel that they are better than father—or rather, better than any other man. This narcissistic conviction makes it unnecessary for them to do much, or anything, to prove their greatness. Their greatness is built on the tie to mother. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Consequently, for such men their whole sense of self-worth is bound up with the relationship to the women who admire them unconditionally and without limits. Their greatest fear is that they may fail to obtain the admiration of a woman they have chosen, since such failure would threaten the basis of their narcissistic self-evaluation. However, while they are afraid of women, this fear is less obvious than in the previous case, because the picture is dominated by their narcissistic-seductive attitude that gives the impression of warm manliness. However, in this, as in any other type of intense mother fixation, it is a crime to feel love, interest, loyalty toward anyone, whether men or women, except the mother figure. One must not even be interested in anybody or anything else, including work, because mother demands exclusive allegiance. Often, if they have even a most harmless interest in anybody, or they develop into the type of “traitor” who cannot be loyal to anybody, because they cannot be disloyal to mother, such men have a guilty conscience. Here are some dreams characteristics of mother fixation. A man dreams that he is alone on the beach. An elderly woman comes and smiles at him. She indicates to him that he may drink her “mother’s milk.” A man dreams that a powerful woman has seized him, hold him over a deep ravine, drops him, and he falls to his death. A woman dreams that she is meeting a man; at that moment a witch appears and the dreamer is deeply frightened. The man takes a gun and kills the witch. She (the dreamer) runs away, being afraid of being discovered, and beckons to the man to follow her. These dreams hardly need explanation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
In the first one the main element is the wish to be nursed by mother; in the second, if she falls in love with a man, there is a fear of being demolished by an all-powerful mother (the witch) who will destroy her, and only her mother’s death can liberate her. However, what about fixation to father? Indeed, there is no doubt that such fixation exists both among men and women; in the latter case it sometimes is blended with sexual desires. Yet it seems that fixation to father never reaches the depth of fixation to mother-family-blood-Earth. While of course in some particular case father himself can be a mothering figure, normally his function is different from mother’s. It is he who in the first years of life burses the child and gives it that feeling of being protected which is part of the mother-fixated person’s eternal desire. The infant’s life depends on mother—hence she can give life and take away life. The mother figure is at the same time that of the life-giver and that of the life-destroyer, the loved one and the feared one. (In mythology, for instance, the double role of the Indian goddess Kali, and in dreams the symbolization of mother as a tiger, lion, witch, or child-eating sorceress.) The father’s function, on the other hand, is a different one. He represents manmade law and order, social rules and duties, and he is the one who punishes or rewards. His love is conditional, and can be won by doing what is required. For this reason, the person bound to father can more easily hope to gain his love by doing father’s will; but the euphoric feeling of complete and unconditional love, certainty and protection is rarely present in the experience of the father-bound person. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
We also rarely fin in the father-centered person the depth of regression which we find in regards to mother fixation. The deepest level of mother fixation is that of “incestuous symbiosis.” What is meant by “symbiosis”? There are various degrees of symbiosis, but they all have in common one element: the symbiotically attached person is part and parcel of the “host” person to whom one is attached. One cannot live without that person, and if the relationships is threatened, he feels extremely anxious and frightened. (In patients close to schizophrenia the separation may lead to a sudden schizophrenic breakdown.) When I say he cannot live without that person, I do not mean that he is necessarily always physically together with the host person; he may see him or her only rarely, or the host person may even be dead (in this case the symbiosis may take the form of what in some cultures is institutionalized as “ancestor worship”); the bond is essentially one of feeling and fantasy. For the symbiotically attached person it is very difficult, if not impossible, to sense a clear delineation between himself and the host person. He feels himself to be one with the other, a part of her, blended with her. The more extreme the form of symbiosis, the less possible is a clear realization of the separateness of the two persons. This lack of separateness explains also why in the more severe cases it would be misleading to speak of a “dependency” of the symbiotically attached person to his host. “Dependency” presupposes the clear distinction between two persons, one of whom is dependent on the other. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
In the case of symbiotic relationship the symbiotically attached person may sometimes feel superior, sometimes inferior, sometimes equal to the host person—but always they are inseparable. Actually, this symbiotic unity can best be exemplified by mentioning the unity of the mother with the fetus. Fetus and mother are two, and yet they are one. It happens also, and not too rarely, that both persons involved are symbiotically attached, each to the other. In this case one is dealing with a folie a deux, which makes the two unaware of their folie because their shared system constitutes reality for them. In the extremely regressive forms of symbiosis the unconscious desire is actually that of returning to the womb. Often this wish is expressed in symbolic form as the wish (or fear) of being drowned in the ocean, or the fear of being swallowed by the Earth; it is a desire to lose completely one’s individuality, to become one again with nature. It follows that his deep regressive desire conflicts with the will to live. To be in the womb is to be removed from life. The tie to mother, both the wish for her love and the fear of her destructiveness, is much stronger and more elementary the Dr. Freud’s “Oedipus tie,” which he thought was based on sexual desires. There is a problem, however, which lies in the discrepancy between our conscious perception and the unconscious reality. If a man remembers or imagines sexual desires toward his mother, he meets with the difficulty of resistance, yet since the nature of sexual desire is known to him, it is only the object of his desire of which his consciousness does not want to be aware. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
It is quite different with the symbiotic fixation we are discussing here, the wish of being loved like an infant, losing all one’s independence, being a suckling again, or even being in mother’s womb; all these are desires which are by no means covered by the words “love,” “dependence,” or even “sexual fixation.” All these words are pallid in comparison with the power of the experience behind them. The same holds true of the “fear of mother.” We all know what it means to be afraid of a person. He may acold us, humiliate us, punish us. We have gone through this experience and faced it with more or less courage. However, if we were to be pushed into a cage where a lion expected us, or if we were thrown into a pit filled with snakes, we do not know how we would feel? Can we express the terror which would strike us, seeing ourselves sentenced to trembling impotence? Yet it is precisely this kind of experience which constitutes the “fear” of mother. The words we use here make it very difficult to reach the unconscious experience, and hence people often speak of their dependence, or fear, without really knowing what they are talking about. The language which is adequate to describe the real experience is that of dreams or symbols in mythology and religion. If I dream that I am drowning in the ocean (accompanied by a feeling of mixed dread and bliss) of if I dream that I am trying to escape from a lion that is about to swallow me, then indeed, I dream in a language which corresponds to what I really experience. Our everyday language corresponds, of course, to the experiences which we permit ourselves to be aware of. If we want to penetrate to our inner reality, we must try to forget customary language and think in the forgotten language of symbolism. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
In regards to our case study on Clare, the fighting spirit involved in this trend appeared quite early in life. Indeed, it preceded the development of other trends. At this period of the analysis early memories occurred to her of opposition, rebellion, belligerent demands, all sorts of mischief. As we know, she lost this fight for her place in the sun because the odds against her were too great. Then, after a series of unhappy experiences, this spirit re-emerged when she was about eleven, in the form of a fierce ambition at school. Now, however, it was loaded with repressed hostility: it had absorbed the piled-up vindictiveness for the unfair deal she had received and for her downtrodden dignity. It had now acquired two of the elements mentioned above: though being on top she would reestablish her sunken self-confidence, and by defeating the others she would avenge her injuries. This grammar-school ambition, with all its compulsive and destructive elements, was nevertheless realistic in comparison with later developments, for it entailed efforts to surpass others through greater actual achievements. During high school she was still successful in being unquestionably the first. However, in college, where she met greater competition, she rather suddenly dropped her ambition altogether, instead of making the greater efforts that the situation would have required if she stilled wanted to be first. There were three main reasons why she could not muster the courage to make these greater efforts. One was that because of her compulsive modesty she had to fight against constant doubts as to her intelligence. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Another was the actual impairment in the free use of her intelligence through the repression of her critical faculties. Finally, she could not take the risk of failure because the need to excel the others was too compulsive. The abandonment of her manifest ambition did not, however, dimmish the impulse to triumph over others Clare had to find a compromise solution, and this, in contrast to the frank ambition at school, was devious in character. In substance it was that she would triumph over the others without doing anything to bring about that triumph. She tried to achieve this impossible feat in three ways, all of which were deeply unconscious. One was to register whatever good luck she had in life as a triumph over others. This ranged from a conscious triumph at good weather on an excursion to an unconscious triumph over some “enemy” falling ill or dying. Conversely, she felt bad luck not simply as bad luck but as a disgraceful defeat. This attitude served to enhance her dread of life because it meant a reliance on factors that are beyond control. The second way was to shift the need for triumph to love relationships. To have a husband or lover was a triumph; to be alone was a shameful defeat. And the third way of achieving triumph without effort was the demand that husband or lover, like the masterful man in the fantasy, should make her great without her doing anything, possibly by merely giving her the chance to indulge vicariously in his success. These attitudes created insoluble conflicts in her personal relationships and considerably reinforced the need for a “partner,” since he was to take over these all-important functions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
The consequences of this trend were worked through by recognizing the influence they had on her attitude toward life in general, toward work, toward others, and toward herself. The outstanding result of this examination was a diminution of her inhibitions toward work. We then tackled the interrelations of this trend with the two others. There were, on the one hand, irreconcilable conflicts and on the other hand, mutual reinforcements, evidence of how inextricably she was caught in her neurotic structure. Conflicts existed between the compulsion to assume a humble place and to triumph over others, between ambition to excel and parasitic dependency, the two drives necessarily clashing and either arousing anxiety or paralyzing each other. This paralyzing effect proved to be one of the deepest sources of the fatigue as well as of the inhibitions toward work. No less important, however, were the ways in which the trends reinforced one another. To be modest and to put herself into a humble place became all the more necessary as it served also as a cloak for the need for triumph. The partner, as already mentioned, became an all the more vital necessity as he had also to satisfy in a devious way the need for triumph. Moreover, the feelings of humiliation generated by the need to live beneath her emotional and mental capacities and by her dependency on the partner kept evoking new feelings of vindictiveness, and thus perpetuated and reinforced the need for triumph. The analytical work consisted in disrupting step by step the vicious circles operating. The fact that her compulsive modesty had already given way to some measure of self-assertion was of great help because this progress automatically lessened also the need for triumph. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Similarly, the partial solution of the dependency problem, having made her stronger and having removed many feelings of humiliation, made the need for triumph less stringent. Thus when Clare finally approached the issue of vindictiveness, which was deeply shocking to her, she could tackle with increased inner strength an already diminished problem. To have tackled it at the beginning would not have been feasible. In the first place we would not have understood it, and in the second place she could not have stood it. The result of this last period was a general liberation of energies. Clare retrieved her lost ambition on a much sounder basis. It was now less compulsive and less destructive; its emphasis shifted from an interest in success to an interest in the subject matter. Her relationships with people, already improved after the second period, now lost the tenseness created by the former mixture of a false humility and a defensive haughtiness. From experience, this report illustrates the typical course of an analysis, or, the ideal course of an analysis. The fact that there were three main divisions in Clare’s analysis is only incidental; there may just as well be two or five. It is characteristic, however, that in each division the analysis passed through three steps: recognition of a neurotic trend; discovery of its causes, manifestations, and consequences; and discovery of its interrelations with other parts of the personality, especially with other neurotic trends. These steps must be taken for each neurotic trend involved. Clare recognized many important implications of her morbid dependency before she recognized the fact of being dependent and the powerful urge driving her into a dependent relationship. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
With man’s gradual increments of knowledge of the regularities of his World—of lunar cycles, the seasons, the migration of birds, and other periodic phenomena, he was able to develop an awareness of his environment as “natural.” Though his World remained harsh, threatening, and in measure unpredictable, man was slowly able to free himself from fear of the supernatural. As part of this freedom, he came slowly to recognize that his own bodily ills were an expression of natural forces. In this context, mental and emotional disturbances could be seen as eruptions from within the sick person rather than the violent visitations of an evil force. The priest gradually surrendered to the physician. However, for the time, the scourgings and other violences which had evolved in the struggle to cleanse man of “foreign powers” were continued when the naturalistic understanding of disordered behaviour was under way. In the spirit of the new understanding of deranged behaviour as natural phenomena, the same physically violent treatments could be administered in an atmosphere of humane acceptance of the victim and sympathy for him. Again, we see the start of a paradox which has marked much of the history of psychiatry—faulty theory or neglect of theory, coupled with humane motive, permits the efficiency of symptom reduction to justify violence to the individual—from the minimal assault of incarceration to the extreme of brain mutilation. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
There have been three great stages of enlightenment in the history of man’s struggles with mental illness. The first of these came when derangements of the mind were seen as natural phenomena, not as expressions of supernatural assaults. The second came with the recognition that a humane approach, gentle care coupled with physical hygiene in a calm and sympathetic environment, brought amelioration of symptoms. The third enlightenment, most recent and still only partially realized in consistent and large-scale application, came with the gradual appreciation of the indissoluble bonding of the mental and emotional life of the individual with his physical functioning, and brought the first real understanding of the psychological origins of physiological disorders. The healing touch was replaced with the healing word, physical symptoms were seen to respond to nonphysical treatment, and the potency of thought both to produce and to alleviate distress was revealed. The power of suggestion was appreciated and effectively utilized long before there was any understanding of the psychological laws governing it; even today, as crystallized in the specific phenomena of hypnosis, we are without a generally accepted unifying theory. From knowledge of the power of words to relieve painful physical and mental disorders, there came finally in the discoveries of Dr. Freud a recognition of the potency of ideas and their associated emotions to give rise to malfunction and failure. In our accumulated wisdom, we now recognize that gross pathological disruption or destruction of the brain can produce disorders of behaviour, and that similar disorders can be instigated by stress, frustration, and emotional trauma in the absence of any observable alteration of the gross structure or function of the central nervous system. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
On the side of therapy, we recognize that a painful, recurrent symptom can be relieved by ingestion of a drug, but may be also with equal effectiveness diminished or removed as a result of conversation with a perceptive counselor. It seems relatively easier to explain those disorders in which we can point to a physical agent as cause, and it seems relatively more efficient to use a physical treatment for a symptom which is responsive to it. Because of these apparent utilities and their associated practical efficiencies, we continue to labour with a dualistic approach to mental illness. We fail to establish and maintain an integrated view of man as a unified organism who functions holistically in adapting to the ocean stimuli in which he is immersed. It is possible to wrestle against the powers of darkness only by the spirit. This is a spiritual warfare, and can only be understood by the spiritual man—that is, a man who lives by and is governed by his spirit. Evil spirits attack, wrestle with, and resist the believer. Therefore he must fight them, wrestle with them, and resist them. This wrestling is not by means of soul or body, but by means of the spirit; for the lesser cannot wrestle with the higher. Body wrestles with body in the physical realm; in the intellectual realm, soul with soul; and in the spiritual, spirit with spirit. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
However, the powers of darkness attack the three-fold nature of man, and through body or soul seek to reach the spirit of man. If the fight is a mental one, the will should be used in decisive action, quietly and steadily. If it is a spirit fight, all the forces of the spirit should be brought to join the mind. If the spirit is pressed down and unable to resist, however, then there should be a steady mental fight—when the mind, as it were, stretches out its hand to lift up the spirit. The objective of evil spirits is to get the spirit down, and thus render the believer powerless to take aggressive action against them. Or they may seek to push the spirit beyond its due poise and measure, into an effervescence which carries the believer beyond the control of his volition and mind, and hence off guard against the subtle foe—incapable of exercising proper balance of speech, action, thought, and discrimination—so that under cover they may gain some advantage for themselves. And remember, a great victory means a great danger, because when the believer is occupied with it, the ultimate negative is scheming how to rob him of it. The hour of victory therefore calls for soberness of mind, and watching unto prayer—for a little over-elation may mean its loss and a long, sore fight back to full victory. When the spirit triumphs in the wrestling and gains the victory, there breaks out, as it were, a stream from the spirit—an overflow of triumph and resistance against the invisible, but very real, foe. However, sometimes in the conflict the enemy succeeds in blocking the spirit through their attack on body or soul. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The spirit needs soul and body for expression; hence the enemy’s attacks to close the spirit up, so as to render the man unable actively to resist. When this takes place, the believer thinks that he is “reserved,” because he feels “shut up.” He has “no voice to refuse.” In audible prayer “the words seem empty”; he “feels no effect,” and they seem mere “mockery.” However, the fact is that the spirit is closing up as a result of the wrestling enemy gripping, holding and binding it. The believer must now insist on expressing himself vocally, until the spirit breaks through into liberty. This is the word of testimony” which Revelation 12.11 mentions as part of the tactic for overcoming the dragon. The wrestling believer stands on the ground of the blood of the Lamb, which includes all that the finished work of Calvary means in victory over conduct disorder and psychopathological offenders; he gives the word of his testimony in affirming his attitude to conduct disorder and psychopathological offenders, and the sure, certain victory thought Christ; and he lives in the Calvary spirit, with his life surrendered to the will of God, even unto death. The lordship of Christ is supreme, and the World must be subjected to it. Consequently, nature is suspect, culture is sinful, and one must be guided by the Spirit those presence is guaranteed only by puritanical moral conduct. The Christ-against-culture people tend to band together in a rigidly exclusive community to shun the World. They are exemplified in history by Tertullian, Sr. Benedict, the Mennonites, and Tolstoy. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The movement of withdrawal and renunciation is a necessary element in every Christian life, even though it be followed by an equally necessary movement of responsible engagement in cultural tasks. When this is lacking, Christian faith quickly degenerates into a utilitarian device for the attainment of personal prosperity or public peace. And some imagined idol called by his name takes the place of Jesus as the Christ, the Lord. An immediate awareness of God does not depend upon any one necessary intermediary, from the negative side which protests the demonic exaltation of any being over the ground of being. The Protestant principle in this negative sense stands against culture whenever a cultural form usurps for itself the dignity of ultimacy. Thus, the Cross, the symbol of the Protestant principle, never judges culture as such, but only its demonic distortions. What is truth? Inertia; the hypothesis that produces satisfaction; the least expenditure of mental strength, et cetera. First proposition. The easier mode of thought triumphs over the harder; as dogma; simplex sigillum veri. Dico: the idea that clarity demonstrates something about the truth is perfectly childish. Second proposition. The doctrine of being, of thing, of hard and fast unities, is a hundred times easier than the doctrine of becoming, of development. Third proposition. Logic was intended as facilitation: as a means of expression—not as truth…later it came to function as truth. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
One cannot think what is not; we are at the other end and say, “Whatever can be thought must surely be a fiction.” There are many kinds of eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes—and consequently there are many kinds of “truths,” and consequently there is no truth. Feel no great tension between church and World, the social laws and the Gospel, the workings of divine grace and human effort, the ethics of salvation and the ethics of social conservation or progress. We interpret culture through Christ and Christ through culture, and establish this harmony by selecting the best elements of civilization and matching them with the eternally true, rational principles exemplified in Christianity. The conflict in the World is not between man and God, but between nature and the human spirit, and Jesus as the Christ is the spearhead of the struggle to master and nature and incorporate it within culture. The merit of the Christ-of-culture type s that as a perennial movement the acculturation of Christ is both inevitable and profoundly significant in the extension of his reign. It stives to make Christianity all things to all men to gain them for Christ. Consider and see that the Lord is good; happy is the man that takes refuge in Him. 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. Happy is the man unto whom the Lord counts not iniquity, and in whose spirit, there is no guile. Happy is the man that has made the Lord his trust, and had not turned unto the arrogant. Part of being a good Christian is possessing charity. Please help the Sacramento Fire Department save lives by donating to their organization for they are not receiving all of their resources. Any donation could make a difference. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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There are Always Misunderstandings
How beautiful it is to wake with the dusk, when the silver webs of night begin to form, frost and ice, on everything. My house tinseled and shining with this magic substance, each window glittering. Oh, and the sky, thick as a daisy-filed with the white stars. Llanada Villa is a marvelous sight, but beneath the surface were things far greater and more terrible than one can imagine. It was a quest amid black and black and forbidden realms of the unknown, in which I had hoped to never uncover; my home had a secret life of perpetual animation. I encounter the most ghastly obstacles. Every since I broke ground, I had felt a brooding menace. I half felt that I was followed—a psychological delusion of shaken nerves, enhanced by the undeniably disturbing fact that something supernatural was alive—a frightful carnivorous gorilla-like thing, with abnormally long arms, and a face that conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon. During construction, I kept track of all the deaths and their circumstances with systematic care. However, surreptitious and ill-conducted bouts among the carpenters were common, and occasionally professional talent of low grade was imported, which is why I had rooms torn down, built over and sealed up. Upon the fourth floor is a biting chill like a pane of ghostly vitreous. Sounds transmitted through the flawless silence and amplifications of the Observational tower, scatter through countless miles of the labyrinth, where they are taken for the shrieks of malign invisible devils, tiny as bats, and armed with the barbed sting of scorpions. There are always misunderstandings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The wind tears through the skin and hair to gnaw the bones. To weep with cold earns no compassion of the cold. The night is full of lashing whips of when, and when the fireplaces in the Hall of Fires are lit, they are as white as snow itself, its flames giving nothing. In the winter, it seems possible that never again will there be a summer in the World. Crowds of frightened foreigners gather to watch towers and gables rise and the house mushroom from a farmhouse into a Grand Queen Anne Victorian mansion. Then villagers tell an odd story, about Llanada Villa, besieged by a huge flock, a menace of winged vampires, and how I waited in vain for my husband William to save us. But it seems there was a cruse on William, who on the very night our infant daughter was lost. And soon after he went mad, and himself stole out one night, and let the winged fiends into our castle, so all here perished. Horror was upon the whole pitiful crowd. They suspected that I was holding something back, and perhaps suspected graver things; but I could not tell them the truth because they would not have believed it. They knew, indeed, that Llanada Villa had been connected with activities beyond the credence of ordinary men. During the excavation of the basement, the workmen had struck some exceedingly ancient masonry; undoubtedly connected with the old burying-ground, yet far too deep to correspond with any known sepulcher therein. After a number of calculations, the carpenters decided that it represented some secret chamber beneath a tomb, where the last interment had been made in 1523. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
They studied the nitrous, dipping walls laid bare by the spades and mattocks of men, and were prepared for a gruesome thrill which would attend the uncovering of ancient grave-secrets; but my respect for the dead was more powerful than their curiosity. I ordered the men to leave the masonry intact and they plastered over it. Hours later, something fearsome happened. In the wee hours of the morning, a menacing military figure with a blueish face which was partially eaten away appeared. Most healthy men would drop dead from fright and disgust. He trampled, and bit every carpenter that did not flee; killing three. However, by the time help could be hailed, every trace of the men and the beast had vanished. This thin, misty line between life and death, it has been breached at certain times and in certain places. Many men have related hideous things, not mentioned in print, which have happened on the battlefields of Gettysburg. Some of these apparitions have made me faint, others have convulsed me with devastating nausea, while still others have made me tremble and look behind me in the dark; yet despite the worst of them I believe I can myself relate the most hideous thing of all—the shocking, the unnatural, the unbelievable horror from the shadows. Terror stalked me. A certain number of the servants had remained. However, one was in an asylum, while others had vanished. The ghost soon had achieved such strength that it could hand boards to the carpenters who were working on the house. I stepped in and forbade the carpenters to encourage such familiar interaction with the demon. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The phantasmal, unmentionable thing occurred one midnight late in December, 1887. I wonder even now if it could have been other than a demonic dream of delirium. As I was reading in bed last night, I found myself looking across the room every now and then. There was an effect as if someone kept peeping out between the curtains in one place or another, where there was no edge. The only other thing that troubled me was the wind. There was enough to sway my curtains and rustle them more than I wanted. Then I dozed, and then I woke, and bethought myself that my dog Zip, which ordinarily slept in my room, had not come upstairs with me. Then I though I was mistaken: for happening to move my hand which hung down off the bed within inches of the floor, I felt on the back of it just the slightest touch of a surface of hair, and stretching it out in that direction I stroked and patted a rounded something. But the feel of it, and still more the fact that instead of a responsive movement, absolute stillness greeting my touch, made me look at my arm. What I had been touching rose to meet me. It was a ghoulish thing crawling from the black shadows. There was about it so horrible an air of menace that as I bounded from bed and rushed from the room, I heard myself moaning with fear: and doubtless I did right to fly. As I dashed into the baize door that cut the passage in two, and—forgetting that it opened towards me—beat against it with all the force in me, I felt a soft ineffectual tearing at my back which, all the same, seemed to be growing in power, as if the hand, or whatever wore than a hand was there, were becoming more material as the pursuer’s rage was more concentrated. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Then I remembered the trick of the door—I got it open—I shut it behind me and gained another room. I flung away my candle at random, and, knowing I was near the window, I tore at the curtain and somehow let in enough light to be able to see. There was blood on the table. I walked a little closer. Looking at the floor, I noticed there had been blood smeared on into a wide, thin trail. I abruptly followed the blood trail through the doors. That is when I discovered the body of one of my carpenters Helmut Laux. I began to scream. It was a scream of utter terror. Helmut had marks of murderous violence upon him: the crime was so recently perpetrated, that the body still retained the warmth and pliancy observed in someone who has just died. He had two stab wounds, both in the area of the heart. He apparently was stretched out on the bed when he received them, and the hair had been plucked clear off his head. His throat was also severely cut: the razor with which the wounds had been inflicted was found on the bed. He had eaten breakfast maybe an hour or so before he died, and from our questioning that places the time of death at about ten o’clock. My brain became formless darkness. My eyes glared, seeing nothing. In an effort to warm myself up I turned to the fire; it was an unfortunate move, because it brought the ghost directly over the fire, which immediately was extinguished. A morbid and ghoulish curiosity and secret sense of charnel picturesqueness filled the atmosphere. This dreadful loss, the wort that has ever been or can be. Oh how cruel Death, Cold and Still. The shock was not just that of discovering a dead body; it was the horror of discovering someone had been murdered in my home. My first reaction was disbelief. In my agony of mind, I tried to revive him with hot-water, blankets, massage, brandy, and blessed water, but nothing could rouse him. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
We kept the body as long as we could, in the hope that Helmut could be revived. As the hour grew dangerously near to dawn, we dragged the body across the fruit orchards to a secluded neck of the woods and buried it there in the best sort of grave the froze ground would furnish. The grave was not very deep. The clock clanged out the hour of twelve. There was a sudden banging of doors. A blast of cold air swept through the halls. The Door to Nowhere flew open, in the light of our dark lanterns, a deathly white ghost appeared, retreating back into the abyss of darkness in the room. When the thing returned three nights later, it seemed to take out its anger on us. Then came the steady rattling at the back door. A stick of fire wood suddenly became animated. With red-ringed eyes and a lip that trembled, the butler fired his pistol at it, and we were astonished to see several drops of blood appear on the hearth. The firewood fell to the floor, and a trail of blood began to drip on the stairway as the wounded ghost retreated. The soul-shattering catastrophe held elements of the demonic which made me even doubt they reality of what I saw. Part of my fear came merely from knowing of the existence of such nameless monsters, while another part arose from apprehension of the bodily harm, they might under certain circumstances do. Their disappearance added horror to the situation. A phantom laughter echoed and rebounded, filling the dark mansion with a sound like laughing banshees or demons approving a particularly good jest. And when it struck me, the vibration running through my body was enough to knock me backwards. I was dragged back into the darkness. I screamed once more. Only once. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
The Winchester Mystery House was built for many reasons. One purpose was to heighten the sense of religious experience. To produce a sort of mystical involvement which is the whole meaning of life. On Sunday 23 December 2007 a caretaker glimpsed the figure of a woman he had seen on previous occasion; she was standing in the hallway, wearing a blue scarf before disappearing through the forgotten door (the door that opens to a wall).
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A Little Rebellion Now and then is a Good thing
Freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected—these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guide our steps through an age of revolution and formation. A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. Dr. Freud’s theory, that of the incestuous fixation to mother—this is one of his scientific edifice, and his discovery of the fixation to mother is, indeed, one of the most far-reaching discoveries in the science of man. However, in this area, Dr. Freud narrowed his discovery and its consequences by being compelled to couch it in terms of his libido theory. What Dr. Freud observed was the extraordinary energy inherent in a child’s attachment to mother, an attachment which is seldom entirely overcome by the average person. Dr. Freud had observed the resulting impairment of the man’s capacity to relate himself to women, the fact that his independence is weakened, and that the conflict between his conscious goals and the repressed incestuous attachment may lead to various neurotic conflicts and symptoms. Dr. Freud believed that the force behind the attachment to mother was, in the case of the little boy, the strength of the genital libido which makes one desire one’s mother for pleasures of the flesh and hate one’s father as a rival for pleasures of the flesh. However, in view of the greater strength of this rival, the little boy repressed his incestuous desires, and identifies himself with the commands and prohibitions of the father (in girls this same dynamic plays out with their father as the object of desire and the other as the rival and it is called the Elecktra complex). #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Unconsciously, though, one’s repressed incestuous wishes linger on, even though only in more pathological cases with great intensity. As far as the little girl is concerned Dr. Freud, in 1931, admitted that he had previously underestimated the duration of her attachment to mother. Sometimes it is comprised by far the longer period of the early sexual efflorescence. These facts show that the pre-Oedipal phase in women is more important than we have hitherto supposed. It seems that we shall have to retract the universality of the dictum that the Oedipus complex is the nucleus of neurosis. However, if anyone feels reluctant to adopt this correction one need not do so for one can either extend the contents of the Oedipus complex to include all the child’s relations to both parents or one could say that women reach the normal Oedipus situation only after surmounting a first phase dominated by the negative complex…Our insight into the pre-Oedipus phase in the little girl’s development comes to us as a surprise, comparable in another field with the effect of the discovery of the Minoan-Mycenaean civilization being that of Greece. More than implicitly than explicitly, the attachment to mother is common to both genders as the earliest phase of development and it can be compared with the matriarchal features of pre-Hellenic culture. However, first of all, this is somewhat paradoxical that the phase of Oedipal attachment to the mother, which may be called the pre-Oedipus phase, is far more important in women than it can claim to be in men. Second, this pre-Oedipus phase of the little girl is only in terms of the libido theory. The complaint of many women of not having suckled long enough leaves doubt. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
If one analyzed children who had been suckled as long as in primitive races, one would not encounter the same complaint. However, so great is the greed of the childish libido. This pre-Oedipal attachment of boys and girls to their mother, which is qualitatively different from the Oedipal attachment of boys to their mother is, in my experience, by far the more important phenomenon, in comparison with which the genital incestuous desires of the little boy are quite secondary. I find that boy’s or girl’s pre-Oedipus attachment to mother is one of the central phenomena in the evolutionary process and one of the main causes of neurosis or psychosis. Rather than call it a manifestation of libido, it is a quality which, whether we use the term libido or not, is something entirely different from the boy’s genital desires. This “incestuous” striving in the pre-genital sense, is one of the most fundamental passions in men or women, comprising the human being’s desire for protection, the satisfaction of one’s narcissism; one’s craving to be freed from the risks of responsibility, of freedom, of awareness; one’s longing for unconditional love, which is offered without any expectation of one’s loving response. It is true these needs exist normally in the infant, and the mother is the person who fulfills them. If this were no so, the infant could not live; he or she is helpless, cannot depend on his or her own resources, needs love and care which do not depend on any merits of its own. If it is not the infant’s mother who fulfills this function, it is another “mothering person,” who can undertake the mother’s function; maybe a grandmother, nanny, sister, or aunt. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
However, the more obvious fact—that the infant needs a mothering person—has obscured the fact that not only the infant is helpless and craves certainty; the adult is in many ways not less helpless. Indeed, one can work and fulfill the tasks ascribed to one by society; but one is also more aware than the infant of the dangers and risks of life; one knows of the natural and social forces one cannot control, the accidents one cannot foresee, the sickness and death one cannot elude. What could be more natural, under the circumstances, then man’s frantic longing for a power which gives one certainty, protection, and love? This desire is not only a “repetition” od one’s longing for mother; it is generated because the very same conditions which make the infant long for mother’s love continue to exist, although on a different level. If human beings—men and women—could find “Mother” for the rest of their lives, life would be relieved of its risks and of its tragedy. Should we be surprised that man is driven so relentlessly to pursue this fata morgana? Yet man also knows more or less clearly that the lost paradise cannot be found; that one is condemned to live with uncertainty and risks; that one has to rely on one’s own efforts, and that only the full development of one’s powers can give one a modicum of strength and fearlessness. Thus one is torn between two tendencies since the moment of one’s birth: one, to emerge to the light and the other to regress to the womb; one for adventure and the other for certainty; one for the risks of independence and the other for protection and dependence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Genetically, mother is the first personification of the power that protects and guarantees certainty. However, she is by no means the only one. Later on, when the child grows up, other as a person is often replaced or complemented by the family, the clan, by all who share the same blood and have been born on the same soil. Later, when the size of the group increases, the race and the nation, religion or political parties become the “mothers,” the guarantors of protection and love. In more archaically oriented persons, nature herself, the Earth and the sea, become the great representatives of the “mother.” The transference of the motherly function from the real mother to the family, the clan, the nation, the race has the same advantage which we have already noted with regard to the transformation from personal to group narcissism. First of all, anybody’s mother is likely to die before her children; hence the need for a mother figure which is immortal. Furthermore, the allegiance to one personal mother leaves one alone and isolated from others who have different mothers. If, however, the whole clan, the nation, the race, the religion, or God can become a common “mother,” then mother-worship transcends the individual and unite him with all those who worship the same mother idol; then nobody needs to be embarrassed at idolizing his mother; the praise of the “mother” common to the group will unite all minds and eliminate all jealousies. The many cults of the Great Mother, the cult of the Virgin, the cult of nationalism and patriotism—they all bear witness to the intensity of this worship. Empirically the fact can easily be established that there is a close correlation between persons with a strong fixation to their mothers and those with exceptionally strong ties to nation and race, soil, and blood. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
It is interesting to note in this context that the Sicilian Mafia, a closely bound secret society of men, from which women are excluded (and by which, incidentally, they are never harmed) is called “Mama” by its members. For Dr. Freud the sexual factor in the tie to mother is a decisive element in the little boy’s attraction to mother. Dr. Freud came to this result by combining two facts: the boy’s attraction to mother, and the fact of the existence of his genital striving at an early age. Dr. Freud explained the first fact by the second. There is no doubt that in many cases the little boy has sexual desires for his mother, and the little girl for her father; but quite aside from the fact (which Dr. Freud at first saw, then denied, and which was taken up again by Dr. Ferencz) that the seductive influence of the parents is a very important cause for these incestuous strivings, the sexual strivings are not the cause of the fixation to mother, but the result. Furthermore, in incestual sexual desires which one finds in dreams of adults, it can be established that the sexual desire is often a defense against a deeper regression; by asserting his male sexuality, the man defends himself against his own desire to return to the mother’s breast or into her womb. Another aspect of the same problem is the incestuous fixation of daughters to their mothers. While in the boy the fixation to “mother” in the broad sense used here coincides with whatever sexual elements may enter into the relationship, with girls this is not so. Her sexual attraction would be directed toward the father, while the incestuous fixation, in our sense, would be directed toward mother. This very split makes it more clear that even the deepest incestuous bonds with mother can exist without a trace of sexual stimulation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
There is a great deal of clinical experience with women who have as intense an incestuous tie with mother as can be found in man. The incestuous tie to mother very frequently implies not only a longing for mother’s love and protection, but also a fear of her. This fear is first of all the result of the very dependency which wakens the person’s own sense of strength and independence; it can also be the fear of the very tendencies which we find in the case of deep regression: that of being the suckling or of returning to mother’ womb. These very wishes transform the mother into a dangerous cannibal, or an all-destroying monster. It must be added, however, that very frequently such fears are not primarily the result of a person’s regressive fantasies, but are caused by the fact that the mother is in reality a cannibalistic, vampirelike, or necrophilic person. If a son or a daughter of such a mother grows up without breaking the ties to her, then he or she cannot escape from suffering intense fears of being eaten up or destroyed by mother. The only course which is such cases can cure the fears that may drive a person to the border of insanity is the capacity to cut the tie with mother. However, the fear which is engendered in such a relationship is at the same time the reason why it is so difficult for a person to cut the umbilical cord. Inasmuch as a person remains caught in this dependency, his own independence, freedom, and responsibility are weakened. In the case study of Clare, it became clear that her compulsive modest was one of the reasons that accounted for her need for a partner. Since she could not take care of her own wishes, she had to have someone else who took care of them. Since she could not defend herself, she needed someone else to defend her. Since she could not see her own values, she needed someone else to affirm her worth. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
On the other hand, there was a sharp conflict between the compulsive modesty and the excessive expectations of the partner. Because of this unconscious conflict, Clare had to distort the situation every time she was disappointed over unfulfilled expectations. In such situations she felt herself the victim of intolerably harsh and abusive treatment, and therefore felt miserable and hostile. Most of the hostility had to be repressed because of fear of desertion, but its existence undermined the relationship and turned her expectations into vindictive demands. The resulting upsets proved to have a great bearing on her fatigue and her inhibition toward productive work. The result of this period of analytical work was that she overcome her parasitic helplessness and became capable of greater activity of her own. The fatigue was no longer continual but appeared only occasionally. She became more friendly, though they were still far from being spontaneous; she impressed others as being haughty while she herself still felt quite timid. An expression of the general change in her was contained in a dream in which she drove with her friend in a strange country and it occurred to her that she, too, might apply for a driver’s license. Actually, she had a license and could drive as well as the friend. The dream symbolized a dawning insight that she had rights of her own and need not feel like a helpless appendage. The third and last period of analytical work dealt with repressed ambitious strivings. There had been a period in her life when she had been obsessed by frantic ambition. This had lasted from her later years in grammar school up to her second year in college, and then seemed to disappear. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
One could conclude by inference that it still operated underground. This was suggested by the fact that she was elated and overjoyed at any recognition, by her dread of failure, and by the anxiety involved in any attempt at independent work. This trend was more complicated in its structure than the two others. In contrast to the others, it constituted an attempt to master life actively, to take up a fight against adverse forces. This fact was one element in its continued existence: she felt herself that there had been a beneficial force in her ambition and wished repeatedly to be able to retrieve it. A second element feeding the ambition was the necessity to re-establish her lost self-esteem. The third element was vindictiveness: success meant a triumph over all those who had humiliated her, while failure meant disgraceful defeat. To understand the characteristics of this ambition, we have to understand man and psychic disorder. Earliest history suggests that mental illness has probably been coexistent with mental life. Man’s capacity to perceive, to discriminate, to create symbols for the communication of his perceptions has always entailed the possibility of error—the possibility of misperception, of poor discrimination, of inadequate communication. Such errors throughout all time have had potential to interfere with man’s efforts to adapt, to live securely in his environment. There is reason to believe that earliest man had emotional equipment, that he could experience pain, and learn to fear its source and to be anxious in the presence of reminders of previous hurts. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
There is reason to believe that primitive man was no more a standard unit than his modern brother. Then as now there were probably wide individual difference—differences in susceptibility to pain, differences in the capacity to learn from experience so as to avoid repeated injury or failure, differences in the physiological reactivity to real and symbolic stresses. Some men of early history showed marked disturbances in their behaviour—they exhibited uncontrolled and unremitting fear in the absence of real threat, they engaged in maladaptive, inadequate protective measures, they had sudden fits and fainting spells, and they became violently rageful. Their peers could readily see that these men were disordered but could see such disorder only as a further manifestation of the threatening and unpredictable World. The same powerful agents that brought thunder and lightning must be responsible, it must have seemed, for these wild storms in men. The malevolent spirits responsible for man’s general misery and hardships must be particularly abusive toward the “disordered.” While no meaningful appraisal can be made of the frequency of severe mental dysfunction in earliest man, it is reasonable to conjecture how insanity may have been perceived and treated. Prehistoric man’s life space was compounded of danger and ignorance, and these are the generators of fear, it would be probably that the wild outburst of a demented person would seem fearsome, and those exposed to his violent, strange acts would be move to self-protection rather than to treatment. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
With the insight into conceptions of disordered behaviour and its management revealed by the earliest historical records, we can reasonably project backwards and assume that the nature and treatment of insanity did not suddenly assume new forms with the advent of language. Anthropomorphism is possibly the most primitive and universal of all forms of psychological thought. Primitive man’s talent for projecting his personal qualities into the World about him perhaps exceeded that of his modern cousin only through freedom from self-consciousness. The ancient had need to appease and, later, desire to control the wildness which each day filled his existence with uncertainty. What could be more natural, and more promising of a successful petition, than to cast an image of man-likeness into each of nature’s threatening forms? What could hold greater hope for the attainment of truce, safe passage, and successful endeavour than the possibility that the sun and the moon, and the Earth and the water, and the plants and animals were but variously disguised forms of man stuff? If this were so, the human creature could please with his signs, hope to be comprehended, and expect sympathetic response. Before medicine there was magic. Primitive man peoples the World about him with gods and demons. He seems spirits in the trees, in the winds, and the moving clouds, in storms and lightning, in the running rivers, in sun and moon, in the very stones he treads upon. Those spirits, benevolent and malevolent, control his destiny for good or ill. They are particularly responsible for his misfortune. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The primitive mind does not regard sickness, disease, or even death as the consequence of natural phenomena. Rather are they looked upon as the results of supernatural intervention on the part of the spirits which fill his World. In his naivete primitive man feels confident that by learning certain secrets and mysteries, certain rituals and incantations, he can in turn gain control of the supernatural spirits and manipulate them to his own purposes and desires, or at least to neutralize them—to ward off illness, for instance. His efforts to manipulate external forces through supernatural means or knowledge constitute the kernel of magic. So it may have been that man projected into his cosmos a stage of actors, a dramatis personae of anthropomorphic spirits, and sought by pantomime to convey his prayer and by prayer to achieve his security. This was animism, the investment of physical phenomena, organic and inorganic, with qualities of intention, direction, and force like those perceived within himself and among his brethren. It was natural for primitive man to explain that unpredictable and uncontrolled in his own behavior with the explanation he had for wider phenomena. The disturbed person was “possessed” by an evil which was in him, to appease it, or to ease its exit from his body. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
This, in the earliest period in the history of mental illness and its treatment, we find a crude ideology of powerful, malignant forces which required strong countermeasures to cause “them” to relinquish their grip on the sick person. In this time, holes were bored into the skulls of the “possessed” so as to relieve pressure and permit exit of the evil spirit. Whipping and scourging were inflicted on the sick person, but were directed at the evil within him. Primitive psychology, from which even the most sophisticated modern man must continually struggle to free himself, would generate the thought the evil spirits seek out sympathetic hosts—the possessed person is in his own right evil—and that therefore the exorcism of the evil spirit could appropriately include some punishment of its host. History suggests, and modern knowledge of psychopathology makes it plausible, that some of the violent treatments which were inflicted during the period of primitive animism were effective. In this earliest period of psychiatric history, we have a probable first expression of a repeated paradox—theories of etiology or pathology which are inaccurate or inadequate, or both, may give rise to therapies that prove efficacious, and the very potency of the treatment, unfortunately, may prevent or delay correction of the erroneous theory. How short a step was it from animism to demonism? How soon did our ultimate progenitors detect that there was good and bad in their spirit World? How soon did they discriminate the hostile force from the hospitable circumstance? The fact of the preponderant harshness in their surroundings coupled with appreciation of their frail resources would favour a rapid focusing on the enemies among their anthropomorphic creations. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The prevalence of environmental catastrophe led to the growth of demonology, the identification of evil spirits and of techniques for appeasing them or escaping their malevolent influence. Even primitive and revealed cognizance of the touchstone to social progress—division of labour and its refined expression as based on particularization of talent. There evolved gradually the role of shaman, specialist in the haranguing of demons, singer of incantations and purveyor of potions. His was the task of providing amnesty with the supernatural, protecting the community through group ritual, and treating the afflicted individual with a pharmacopeia of exorcism. It is essential to understand how to fight “in cold blood,” so to speak: id est, wholly apart from feelings of any kind: for the self-actualized may feel it is victory when it is defeat, and vice versa. All dependence upon feeling and acting from impulse must be put aside in this warfare. Some can only recognize “conflict” when they are emotionally conscious of it; they fight spasmodically, or by accident—when forced to it by necessity. However, now the “fight” must be permanent and part of the very life. There needs to be a ceaseless recognition of the forces of darkness “in cold blood”—simply because of knowing what they are—and consequently a “fight from principle.” There needs to be a ceaseless recognition of the forces of darkness “in cold blood”—simply because of knowing what they are—and consequently a “fight from principle.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
There must be a fight against these unseen forces even when there is nothing to be seen of their presence or workings, remembering that they do not always attack when they can. If they were to attack on some occasions they would lose by it, because that would reveal the character of the thing and its source. The self-actualized knows that the ultimate negative, being by nature a tempter, is always tempting—and therefore he resists from principle. Anyone who desires perpetual victory must understand that it is a question of principle versus feeling and consciousness. If the warfare is governed by the latter rather than the former, only then can there be intermittent victory. So when the enemy attack him, the self-actualized will find a strong, primary weapon of victory in declaring deliberate position toward conduct disorder and the ultimate negative. The person reckoning himself in the present moment to be “dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto the ultimate concern thereby refuses to yield to conduct disorder and the ultimate negative in any of the points of attack or causes of the conflict. As the self-actualized declares his position in the hour of conflict and onslaught from the foe, he will often find himself obliged to wrestle in real combat with the invisible enemy. Standing on the finished work of Jesus as the Christ, in death to conduct disorder, the spirit of the man becomes liberated for action, and energized to stand against the hierarchic hosts of the ultimate negative—the principalities of powers, the World-rulers of the darkness, and the hosts of psychopathological offenders in the Heavenly (or spiritual) sphere. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
We attach the existential urgency to time in an “ahistorical” fashion: Beginning from and ending in the eternal are not matters of a determinable moment in physical time but rather a process going on in every moment, as does the divine creation. There is always creation and consummation, beginning and end. It is not precisely in a determinable moment of physical time—for example, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as the Christ, our own death, the beginning and end of the World—that the uniqueness, the irreversibility, and hence the historic nature of time brings its full weight to bear? We are here faced with a curious twist: concern for the meaning of history leads us to downgrade historical moments. Our eschatology allows us to depreciate the moment of death. By making the here-and-now eternally significant, our attention is riveted upon the goal of history which lends meaning to the historical process. We appreciate the suffering and the drama of man’s struggle to attain the essentialization which is Eternal Life. Nothing which is gained in the struggle is ever lost, for there are degrees of essentialization, so that no one is completely excluded from Eternal Life. The suggestion is finally made of a transhistorical fulfilment which renders death no longer absolutely decisive for eternity. Inevitability essentialization is a certain ahistorical quality of timelessness and this is why we fail to consider death as truly eschatological. The accent upon the eternally present goals of history may be overshadow the seriousness and the dignity of specific moments of the historical process. There is danger that we do not see the trees for the first, that eternity undercuts time. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The afterlife involves the symbols immortality of the soul and resurrection of the body. The question of the “when” of unambiguous, non-fragmentary participation in the Kingdom of God is a legitimate one, and it leads to the question of the “after.” The self-conscious self cannot be excluded from Eternal Life, and self-consciousness in Eternal Life is not the same as in temporal life. The symbol resurrection of the body sheds even less light, for again only two negative statements are permissible about the resurrected “Spiritual body”: it is not purely spiritual, and it is not simply material. We cannot hope for a final stage of justice and peace within history; but we can hope for partial victories over the forces of evil in a particular moment of time. And now we ask the question of our personal participation in the eternal. So we have a right to hope for it? We have a right to such ultimate hope, even in view of the end of all other hopes, even in the face of death. For we experience the presence of the eternal in us and in our World here and now. Where this is experienced, there is awareness of the eternal, there is already, however fragmentary, participation in the eternal. This is the basis of the hope for eternal life. It is the justification of our ultimate hope. And is as Christians we point to Good Friday and Easter, we point to the most powerful example of the same experience. Religion is the substance of culture, and culture is the form of religion. At its base is God as the ground of being, but reunion with the ground can be had only through the power of the New Being which overcomes the estrangement of existence. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Reception of the New Being in turn begets the theonomous community which is the Spiritual Community, but it I subject to the historical dimension. Theonomy is fully achieved only in the transcendent Kingdom of God where universal essentialization is realized. Structure and content, however, are somewhat mechanical devices. Judgement—the belief that “this and that is so.” Thus, judgment contains the avowal that an “identical case” has been encountered: it this presupposed comparison, with the aid of recollection. Judgment does not create the appearance of an identical case. Rather, it believes it perceives one; it works under the presupposition that there are in general identical cases. What is that function, which must be much older operative much earlier, which levels off and assimilates? What is the second one, which on the basis of the first, et cetera. That which excites the same sensation is the same; but what is “That” that makes sensations the same, “takes” them to be the same? If a kind of equalization had not first been exercised within the sensations, there could be no judgments at all: recollection is only possible with a constant underscoring of what is already accustomed, experienced. Before anything is judged, the process of assimilation must already be completed: thus, here, too, there is an intellectual activity that does not enter into consciousness, like pain following from an injury. An inner event probably corresponds to all organic functions, hence an assimilating, eliminating, growing, et cetera. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Essential” to begin with the body and use it as a guiding thread. It is the much richer phenomenon and affords clearer observation. Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind. However strongly something may be believed, that is no criterion of truth. However, what is truth? Perhaps a kind of belief that has become a condition of life? Then, of course, strength would be a criterion, exempli gratia, with regard to causality. Logical certainty, transparency, as criterion of truth (“omne illud vernum est, quod clare et distincte percipitur,” Descartes): the mechanical hypothesis concerning the World is thereby desirable and credible. However, that is a crude confusion: like simplex aigillum veri. How do we know that the true constitution of things stands in this relation to our intellect? Could not it be otherwise? That the hypothesis that gives the intellect the greatest feeling of power and security is the most preferred, valued, and consequently characterized as true? The intellect posits its freest and strongest capacity and ability as the criterion of the most valuable, consequently of the true. “True”: from the side of feeling—what arouses feeling most forcefully (“I”); from the side of thinking—what gives thinking the greatest feeling of strength; from the side of touching, seeing, hearing—that which calls for the greatest resistance. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Thus, it is the highest degree of activity that awakens belief in the “truth,” that is, the reality, of the object. The feeling of strength, of struggle, of resistance convinces us that there is something here being resisted. The criterion of truth lies in the intensification of the feeling of power. “Truth”: in my way of thinking this designates not necessarily the opposite of error but in the most fundamental cases only the position of various errors in relation to one another. Perhaps one is older or deeper than another, maybe even ineradicable, inasmuch as an organic being of our kind could not live without it; while other errors do not tyrannize us in the same ways as conditions of life but, when measured against such “tyrants,” can instead be set aside and “refuted.” An assumption that is irrefutable—why should it for that reason be “true”? This proposition will perhaps outrage logicians, who regard their limits as the limits of things—but I long ago declare war on this logicians’ optimism. Everything simple is merely imaginary, not “true.” However, what is real, what is true, is neither one nor even reducible to one. Happy is the man whose strength Thou art, O Lord, whose heart is a highway to Thee. Happy is the man whom Thou instructest, O Lord, and teachest out of Thy law. Happy is the man that finds wisdom, and he that obtains understanding. 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. Consider and see that the Lord is good; happy is the man that takes refuge in Him. The Sacramento Fire Department has saved the lives of millions of people and they help the community to survive and rebuild their lives. Please make a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department to ensure the community has a chance for a bright future. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
On December 13, 2023, caretaker was singing while decorating Mrs. Winchester’s house, he was listening “Do you hear what I hear” by Bing Crosby when the song had reached the part “A child, a child shivers in the cold, let us bring him silver and gold,” when he became away of a stranger watching him from the doorway. He had an oval face, blue eyes, and was wearing a cream suit. According to the caretaker, he had a “strange sad look” before melting away.
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Misery Acquaints a Human with Strange Bedfellows
If you think about, the Victorian era was the only time that we could possibly achieve World peace. Misery acquaints a human with strange bedfellows. Looking at it from the standpoint of values it becomes evident that narcissism conflicts with reasons and with love. This statement hardly needs further elaboration. By the very nature of the narcissistic orientation, it prevents one—to the extent to which it exists—from seeing reality as it is, that is, objectively; in other words, it restricts reason. It may not be equally clear that it restricts love—especially when we recall that Dr. Freud said that in al love there is a strong narcissistic component; that a man in love with a woman makes her the object of his own narcissism, and that therefore she becomes wonderful and desirable because she is part of him. She may do the same with him, and thus we have the case of the “great love,” which often is only a folie a deux rather than love. Both people remain each of them will be in need of a new person who can give them fresh narcissistic satisfaction. For the narcissistic person, the partner is never a person in one’s own right or in one’s full reality; one exists only as a shadow of the partner’s narcissistically inflated ego. Nonpathological love, on the other hand, is not based on mutual narcissism. It is a relationship between two people who experience themselves as separate entities, yet who can open themselves and become one with each other. In order to experience love, one must experience separateness. If we consider that the essential teachings of all the great humanist religions can be summarized in one sentence: It is the goal of man to overcome one’s narcissism; the significance of the phenomenon of narcissism from the ethical-spiritual viewpoint becomes very clear. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Perhaps this principle is nowhere expressed more radically than in the teachings of Jesus as the Christ. If humans awaken from their illusions, repent, and becomes aware of the Heavenly Father, the teaching of Jesus as the Christ amounts to saying that humans can save themselves from the reality of sickness, old age, and death, and of the impossibility of ever attaining the aims of one’s greed. The sanctified person who Jesus as the Christ’s teachings speaks is the person who has overcome one’s narcissism, and who is therefore capable of being fully awake. We might put the same thought still differently: Only if humans can do away with the illusions of their indestructible ego, only if one can drop it together with all other objects of one’s greed, only then can one be open to the World and fully related to it. Psychologically this process of becoming fully awake is identical with the replacement of narcissism by relatedness to the World. The Old Testament says: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” Here the demand is to overcome one’s narcissism at least to the point where one’s neighbour becomes as important as oneself. However, the Old Testament goes much further than this in demanding love for the “stranger.” (You know the soul of the stranger, for strangers have you been in the land of Egypt.) The stranger is precisely the person who is not part of my clan, my family, my nation; one is not part of the group to which I am narcissistically attached. One is nothing other than human. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
One discovers the human being in the stranger. In the love for the stranger narcissistic love has vanished. For it means loving another human being in one’s suchness and one’s difference from me, and not because one is like me. When the New Testament says “love thine enemy” it expresses the same idea in a more pointed form. If the stranger has become fully human to you, there is also no longer an enemy, because you have become truly human. Only if narcissism has been overcome, if “I am thou,” to love the stranger and the enemy is possible. The fight against idolatry, which is the central issue of prophetic teaching, is at the same time a fight against narcissism. In idolatry one partial faculty of man is absolutized and made into an idol. Man then worships himself in an alienated form. The idol in which one submerges becomes the object of one’s narcissistic passion. The idea of God, on the contrary, is the negation of narcissism because only God—not man—is omniscient and omnipotent. However, while the concept of an indefinable and indescribable God was the negation of idolatry and narcissism, God soon became again an idol; man identified himself with God in a narcissistic manner, and thus in full contradiction to the original function of the concept of God, religion became a manifestation of group narcissism. The full maturity of man is achieved by his complete emergence from narcissism, both individual and group narcissism. This goal of mental development which is thus expressed in psychological terms is essentially the same as that which the great spiritual leaders of the human race have expressed in religious-spiritual terms. While the concepts differ, the substance and the experience referred to in the various concepts are them same. #Randolphharris 3 of 20
We live in a historical period characterized by a sharp discrepancy between the intellectual development of humans, which has led to the development of the most destructive armaments, and one’s mental-emotional development, which has left one still in a state of marked narcissism with all its pathological symptoms. What can be done in order to avoid the catastrophe which can easily result from this contradiction? Is it at all possible for humans to take a step in the foreseeable future which, in spite of all religious teachings, one has never been able to take before? Is narcissism so deeply ingrained in humans that one will never overcome one’s “narcissistic core,” as Dr. Freud thought? Is there then any hope that narcissistic madness will not lead to the destruction of humans before one had a chance to become fully human? No one can give an answer to these questions. One can only examine what the optimal possibilities are which may help humans to avoid the catastrophe. One might begin with what would seem to be the easiest way. Even without reducing narcissistic energy in each person, the object could be changed. If mankind, the entire human family, could become the object of group narcissism instead of one nation, one race, or one political system being this object, much might be gained. If the individual could experience oneself primarily as citizens of the World and if they could feel pride in mankind and in its achievements, one’s narcissism would turn toward the human race as an object, rather than to its conflicting components. If the educational systems of all countries stressed the achievements of an individual nation, a more convincing and moving case could be made for the pride in being human. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
If the feeling which the Greek poet expressed in Antigone’s words, “There is nothing more wonderful than man,” could become an experience shared by all, certainly a great step forward would have to be added: the feature of all benign narcissism, namely, that it refers to an achievement. Not one group, class, religion, but all of humankind must undertake to accomplish tasks which allow everybody to be proud of belonging to this race. Common tasks for all mankind are at hand: the joint fight against disease, against hunger, for the dissemination of knowledge and art through our means of communication among all the peoples of the World. The fact is that in spite of all differences in political and religious ideology, there is no sector of mankind which can afford to exclude itself from these common tasks; for the great achievement of this century is that the belief in the natural or divine causes of human inequality, of the necessity or legitimacy of the exploitation of one human by another, has been defeated to the point of no return. Renaissance humanism, the bourgeois revolutions, the Russian, Chinese, and colonial revolutions—all are based on one common thought: the equality of man. Even if some of these revolutions have led to the violation of human equality within the systems concerned, the historical fact is that the idea of the equality of all men, hence of their freedom and dignity, has conquered the World, and it is unthinkable that mankind could ever return to the concepts which dominated civilized history until only a short time ago. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
The image of the human race and of its achievements as the object of benign narcissism could be represented by supranational organizations such as the United Nations; it could even begin to create its own symbols, holidays, and festivals. Not the national holiday, but the “day of man” would become the highest holiday of the year. However, it is clear that such a development can occur only inasmuch as many and eventually all nations concur and are willing to reduce their national sovereignty in favour of the sovereignty of mankind; not only in terms of political, but also in terms of emotional, realities. A strengthened United Nations and the reasonable and peaceful solution of group conflicts are the obvious conditions for the possibility that humanity and its common achievements shall become the object of group narcissism. As an example of more specific measures for such an attempt, consider history. History textbooks should be rewritten as textbooks of World History, in which the proportions of each nation’s life remain true to reality and are not distorted, just as World maps are the same in all countries and do not inflate the size of each respective country. Furthermore, movies could be made which foster pride in the development of the human race, showing how humanity and its achievements are the final integration of many single steps undertaken by various groups. Such a change in the object of narcissism from single groups to all humankind and its achievements would indeed tend, as pointed out before, to counteract the dangers of national and ideological narcissism. However, this was not enough. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
If we are true to our political and religious ideals, the Christian as well as the socialist ideal of unselfishness and brotherhood, the task is to reduce the degree of narcissism in each individual. Although this will take generations, it is now more possible than ever before become humans have the possibility to create the material conditions for a dignified human life for everybody. The development of technique will do away with the need for one group to enslave and to exploit another; it has already made war obsolete as an economically rational action; man will for the first time emerge from one’s half-animal state to a fully human one, and hence not need narcissistic satisfaction to compensate for one’s material and cultural poverty. On the basis of these new conditions man’s attempt to overcome narcissism can be greatly helped by the scientific and the humanist orientation. We must shift our educational effort from teaching primarily a technical orientation to one that is scientific; that is, toward furthering critical thought, objectivity, acceptance of reality, and a concept of truth which is subject to no fiat and is valid for every conceivable group. If the civilized nations can create a scientific orientation as one fundamental attitude in their young, much will have been gained in the struggle against narcissism. The second factor which leads in the same direction is the teaching of humanist philosophy and anthropology. We could not even want this, since the establishment of one system claiming to be the “orthodox” one might lead to another source of narcissistic regression. However, even allowing for all existing differences, there is a common humanist creed and experience. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
The creed is that each individual carries all of humanity within oneself, that the “human condition” is one and the same for all human, in spite of unavoidable differences in intelligence, talents, height, and colour. This humanist experience consists in feeling that nothing human is alien to one, that “I am you,” that one can understand another human being because both share the same elements of human existence. Only if we enlarge our sphere of awareness is this humanist experience is fully possible. Our own awareness is usually confined to what the society of which we are members permits us to be aware. Those human experiences which do not fit into this picture are repressed. Hence our consciousness represents mainly our own society and culture, while our unconscious represents the universal man in each of us. The broadening of self-awareness, transcending consciousness and illuminating the spheres of the social unconscious, will enable man to experience in himself all of humanity; he will experience that fact he is a sinner and a saint, a child and an adult, a sane and insane person, a man of the past and one of the future—that he carries within oneself that which mankind has been and that which it will be. A true renaissance of our humanist tradition undertaken by all religious, political, and philosophical systems claiming to represent humanism would result in considerable progress toward the most important “new frontier” that exists today—man’s development into a completely human being. Teaching alone can be the decisive step for the realization of humanism, as the Renaissance humanists believed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
If essential social, economic, and political conditions change; a change from bureaucratic industrialism to humanist-socialist industrialism; from centralization to decentralization; from the organization man to a responsible and participating citizen; subordination of national sovereignties to the sovereignty of the human race and its chosen organs; common efforts of the “have” nations in corporation with the “have-not” nations to build up the economic systems of the latter; universal disarmament and availability of the existing material resources for constructive takes, only then will all these teachings have an impact. Universal disarmament is also necessary for another reason: if one sector of humankind lives in fear of total destruction by another bloc, and the rest live in fear of destruction by both blocs, then, indeed, group narcissism cannot be diminished. Man can be human only in a climate in which he can expect that he and his children will live to see the next year, and many more years to come. A knowledge of the neurotic trends and their implications gives a rough conception of what has to be worked through in analysis. It is also desirable, however, to know something about the sequence in which the work must be done. Are problems tackled in a helter-skelter fashion? Does one obtain a piecemeal insight here and there until at last the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are put together into an understandable picture? Or are there principles that may serve as a guide in the maze of material ordering itself? Dr. Freud declared that a person will first present in the analysis the same front that one presents to the World in general, and that then one’s repressed striving will gradually appear, in succession from the less repressed to the more repressed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
If we were to take a bird’s-eye view of the analytical procedure this answer would still hold true. And even if the findings to be made lay around a single vertical line along which we would have to wind our way into the depths, as a guide for action, the general principle involved would be good enough. However, if we should assume that this is the case, if we should assume that is we only continue to analyze whatever material shows up we shall penetrate step by step into the repressed area, we may easily find ourselves in a state of confusion—which indeed happens not infrequently. The theory of neuroses developed in pervious reports gives us more specific leads. It holds that there are several focal points in the neurotic personality given by the neurotic trends and the structure built around each of them. The inference to be drawn for the therapeutic procedure is, briefly, that we must discover each trend and each time descend into the depths. More concretely, the implications of each neurotic trend are repressed in various degrees. Those that are less deeply repressed are the first to become accessible; those that are more deeply repressed will emerge later. The same principle applies to the order in which the neurotic trends themselves can be tackled. One patient will start by presenting the implications of one’s need for absolute independence and superiority, and only much later can one discover and tackle indications of one’s compliance or of one’s need for affection. The next patient will start with an open display of one’s need to be loved and approved of, and one’s tendencies to control over, if one has any, could possibly be approached at the beginning; but a third one will from the beginning display a highly developer power drive. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The fact that a trend appears at the beginning indicates nothing about its comparative importance or unimportance: the neurotic trend that appears first is not necessarily the strongest one in the sense of having the greatest influence on the personality. We could rather say that that trend is the first to crystalize which jibes vest with the person’s conscious or semiconscious image of oneself. If secondary defenses—the means of self-justification—are highly developed they may entirely dominate the picture at the beginning. In that case the neurotic trends become visible and accessible only later one. To further high light this illustration, consider Clare whose childhood history was briefly outlined in past reports. When the analysis is reported for this purpose it must, of course, be grossly simplified and schematized. Clare came for analytic treatment at the age of fifteen for various reasons. She was easily overcome by a paralyzing fatigue that interfered with her work and her social life. Also, she complained about having remarkably little self-confidence. She was the editor of a magazine, and though her professional career and her present position were satisfactory her ambition to write plays and stories was checked by insurmountable inhibitions. She could do her routine work but was unable to do productive work, though she was inclined to account for this latter inability by point out her probable lack of talent. She had been married at the age of sixteen, but the husband had died after three years. After the marriage she had had a relationship with another man which continued during the analysis. According to her initial presentation both relationships were completely satisfactory. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The analysis stretched over a period of four and a half years. She was analyzed for one year and a half. This time was followed by an interruption of two years, in which she did a good deal of self-analysis, afterward retuning to analysis for another year at irregular intervals. Clare’s analysis could be roughly divided into three phases: the discovery of her compulsive modesty; the discovery of her compulsive dependence on a partner; and finally, the discovery of her compulsive need to force others to recognize her superiority. None of these trends was apparent to herself or to others. In the first period the data that suggested compulsive elements were as follows. She tended to minimize her own value and capacities: not only was she insecure about her assets but she tenaciously denied their existence, insisting that she was not intelligent, attractive, or gifted and tending to discard evidence to the contrary. Also, she tended to regard others as superior to herself. If there was a dissension of opinion, she automatically believed that the others were right. She recalled that when her husband had started an affair with another woman she did nothing to remonstrate against it, though the experience was extremely painful to her; she managed to consider him justified in preferring the other on the grounds that the latter was more attractive and more loving. Moreover, it was almost impossible for her to spend money on herself: when she traveled with others she could enjoy living in expensive places, even though she contributed her share in the expenses, but as soon as she was on her own she could not bring herself to spend money on such things as trips, dresses, plays, books. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Finally, though she was in an executive position, it was impossible for her to give orders: if orders were unavoidable, she would do so in an apologetic way. The data showed that Clare had developed a compulsive modesty, that she felt compelled to constrict her life within narrow boundaries and to take always a second or third place. When this trend was once recognized, and its origin in childhood discussed, we began to search systematically for its manifestations and its consequences. What role did this trend actually play in her life? She could not assert herself in any way. In discussions she was easily swayed by the opinions of others. Despite a good faculty for judging people she was incapable of taking any critical stand toward anyone or anything except in editing, when a critical stand was expected of her. She had encountered serious difficulties, for instance, by failing to realize that a fellow worker was trying to undermine her position; when this situation was fully apparent to others, she still regarded the other as her friend. Her compulsion to take second place appeared clearly in games: in tennis, for instance, she was usually too inhibited to play well, but occasionally she was able to play a good game and then, as soon as she became aware that she might win, she would begin to play badly. The wishes of others were more important than her own: she would be contented to take her holidays during the time that was least wanted by others, and she would do more work than she needed to if others were dissatisfied with the amount of work to be done. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Most important was a general suppression of her feelings and wishes. Her inhibitions concerning expansive plans she regarded as particular “realistic”—evidence that she never wanted things that were beyond reach. Actually she was as little “realistic” as someone with excessive expectations of life; she merely kept her wishes beneath the level of the attainable. She was unrealistic in living in every way beneath her means—socially, economically, professionally, spiritually. It was attainable for her, as her later life showed, to be liked by many people, to look attractive, to write something that was valuable and original. The most general consequence of this trend were progressive lowering of self-confidence and a diffuse discontentment with life. Of the latter she had not been in the least aware, and could not be aware as long as everything was “good enough” for her and she was not clearly conscious of having wishes or of their not being fulfilled. The only way this general discontentment with life had shown itself was in trivial matters and in sudden spells of crying which had occurred from time to time and which had been quite beyond her understanding. For quite a while she recognized only fragmentarily the truth of these findings; in important matters she made the silent reservation that I either overrated her or felt it to be good therapy to encourage her. Finally, however, she recognized in a rather dramatic fashion that real, intense anxiety lurked behind this façade of modesty. It was at a time when she was about to suggest an improvement in the magazine. She knew that her plan was good, that it would not meet with too much opposition, that everyone would be appreciative in the end. Before suggesting it, however, she had an intense panic which could not be rationalized in any way. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
At the beginning of the discussion, she still felt panicky and had to leave the room because she was unwell. However, as the discussion turned increasingly in her favour the panic subsided. The plan was finally accepted and she received considerable recognition. She went home with a feeling of elation and was still in good spirits when she came to the next analytical hour. I dropped a casual remark to the effect that this was quite a triumph for her, which she rejected with a slight annoyance. Naturally she had enjoyed the recognition but her prevailing feeling was one of having escaped from a great danger. It was only after more than two years had elapsed that she could tackle the other elements involved in this experience, which were along the lines of ambition, dread of failure, triumph. At that time her feelings, as expressed in her associations, were all concentrated on the problem of modesty. She felt that she had been presumptuous to propound a new plan. Who was she to know better! However, gradually she realized that this attitude was based on the fact that for her the suggesting of a different course of action meant a venturing out of the narrow artificial precincts that she had anxiously preserved. Only when she recognized the truth of this observation did she become fully convinced that her modesty was a façade to be maintained for the sake of safety. The result of this first phase of work was a beginning of faith in herself and a beginning of courage to feel and assert her wishes and opinions. The second period was dedicated prevailingly to work on her dependency on a “partner.” The majority of the problems involved she worked through by herself. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
This dependency, despite its overwhelming strength, was still more deeply repressed than the previous trend. It had never occurred to her that anything was wrong in her relationships with men. On the contrary, she had believed them to be particularly good. The analysis gradually changed this picture. There were three main factors that suggested compulsive dependence. The first was that she felt completely lost, like a small child in a strange wood, when a relationship ended or when she was temporarily separated from a person who was important to her. The first experience of this kind occurred after she left home at the age of twenty. She then felt like a feather blown around in the Universe, and her wrote desperate letters to her mother, declaring that she could not live without her. This homesickness stopped when he developed a kind of crush on an older man, a successful writer who was interested in her work, and furthered her in a patronizing way. Of course, this first experience of feeling lost when alone could be understood on the basis of her youth and the sheltered life she had lived. However, later reactions were intrinsically the same, and formed a strange contrast to the rather successful professional career that she was achieving despite the difficulties mentioned before. The second striking fact was that in any of these relationships the whole World around her became submerged and only the beloved had any importance. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Thought and feelings centered around a call or a letter or a visit from him; hours that he spent without him were empty, filled only with waiting for him, with a pondering about his attitude to her, and above all with feeling utterly miserable about incidents which she felt as utter neglect or humiliating rejection. At these times other human relationships, her work, and other interests lost almost every value for her. The third factor was a fantasy of a great and masterful man whose willing slave she was and who in turn gave her everything she wanted, from an abundance of material things to an abundance of mental stimulation, and made her a famous writer. As the implications of these factors were gradually recognized the compulsive need to lean on a “partner” appeared and was worked through in its characteristics and its consequences. Its main feature was an entirely repressed parasitic attitude, an unconscious wish to feed on the partner, to expect him to supply the content of her life, to take responsibility for her, to solve all her difficulties and to make her a great person without her having to make efforts of her own. This trend had alienated her not only from other people but also from the partner himself, because the unavoidable disappointments she felt when her secret expectations of him remained unfulfilled gave rise to a deep inner irritation; most of this irritation was repressed for fear of losing the partner, but some of it emerged in occasional explosions. Another consequence was that she could not enjoy anything except when she shared it with the partner. The most general consequences of this trend were that her relationships served only to make her more insecure and more passive. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
In speaking and writing, if the self-actualized is conscious of difficulties, obstacles, or interference in what one is doing, one should at once refuse all ideas, thoughts, suggestions, visions (id est, pictures to the mind), words, impressions, that the spirits of psychopathological offenders may be seeking to insert or press upon one, so that one may be able to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and have a clarified mind for the carrying out of God’s will. The self-actualized, by one’s refusal and resistance against supernatural attempts to interfere with one’s outer human, will be actively resisting the powers of darkness, while one seeks to co-work with the Holy Spirit within one’s spirit. At first this means much conflict, but as one maintains active resistance and increasingly closes one’s whole being to the influence of psychopathological offenders, and is on the alert to recognize and refuse their workings, one’s union with the Risen Lord deepens, one’s spirit grows strong, one’s vision becomes pure, one’s mental faculties are clear enough to realize a perpetual victory over the foes who once had one in their oppressive power. One must then be especially on guard against what may be described as the “double counterfeits” of the deceiving psychopathological offenders. That I, the counterfeits offered by the enemy in connection with attack upon oneself. For example, the ultimate negative attacks one manifestly and openly, so that one clearly knows it to be an onslaught of the spirit-beings of psychopathological offenders. One prays, resists, gets through to victory in one’s will and spirit. If one is not on guard, then comes a “great feeling” of peace and rest, which may be as much an attack as the original onslaught, but more subtle and liable to mislead the believer. The enemy, by suddenly retreating and ceasing the furious attack, hopes by this stratagem to gain the advantage which one failed to obtain at the first. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Judgement—the belief that “this and that is so.” Thus, judgment contains the avowal that an “identical case” has been encountered: it thus presupposed comparison, with the aid of recollection. Judgement does not create the appearance of an identical case. Rather, it believes it perceives one; it works under the presupposition that there are in general identical cases. What is that function, which must be much older, operative much earlier, which levels off and stimulates? Stimulating” is probably the bet adjective of our interpretation of history. The sweep and vigour of our thought offers a richly developed theology of history to those who accept it, and a formidable challenge to those who criticize it. Perhaps one’s most original contribution is the concept of Kairos. Erich Przywara sees in it the key to our thought, for the Kairos Christi is the supreme conflict between the divine and the demonic in which the Kingdom of God overcomes and takes up into itself the Kingdom of Satan. The Kairos idea lies behind the idea that there is a time in which certain things are true and other times in which they do not apply. This accounts for the changing norms of theology. Theimplications of the Kairos concept probably can be expanded to accommodate these viewpoints, but ambitious claims for its importance should not obscure its primary role in the interpretation of history. The Kairos concept, the subject-object structure of history, the group as opposed to the individual or mankind as the bearer of history, the creation of the new as one of the marks of historical time, the inner-historical and transcendent nature of the Kingdom of God—there is still a certain incompleteness about it. One is more puzzled about what one does not say than about what one actually says. There are several major instances where one’s reticence is disappointing. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
If a kind of equalization had not first been exercised within the sensations: recollection is only possible with a constant underscoring of what is already accustomed, experienced, otherwise there could be no judgments at all. Before anything is judged, the process of assimilation must already be completed: thus, here, too, there is an intellectual activity that does not enter into consciousness, like pain following from an injury. An inner event probably corresponds to all organic functions, hence an assimilating, eliminating, growing, et cetera. Essential: to begin with the body and use it as a guiding thread. It is the much richer phenomenon and affords clearer observation. Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind. However strongly something may be believed, that is no criterion of truth. However, what is truth? Perhaps a kind of belief that has become a condition of life? Then, of course, strength would be a criterion, exempli gratia with regard to causality. Remove far from me falsehood and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me with mine allotted bread, lest I become arrogant and defiant, saying, “Who is the Lord?” Or lest I become poor and be tempted to steal, thus profaning the name of my God. Better is a little with righteousness, than great wealth with injustice. 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. That I am the Lord who doeth mercy, justice, and righteousness on Earth, for in these do I delight. The Sacramento Fire Department is a nonprofit organization that helps families build and improve places to call home. They believe that everyone should live in a community that is not threatened by the destruction of fire, which could lead to the loss of lives. Please take time to donate for they are not receiving all of their resources. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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For Every Change there is an Instigator
The World is so full of a number of things, I am sure we should all be as happy as kings. Perhaps narcissism is what keeps country so full of misery. Concerning the pathology of group narcissism, the most obvious and frequent symptom, as in the case of individual narcissism, is a lack of objectivity and rational judgment. If one examines the judgment the less affluent in America face and compare it with the way the physically disabled are regarded, one can easily recognize the distorted character the criticism they face. Little straws of truth are put together, but the whole which is thus formed consists of falsehoods and fabrications. If political actions are based on narcissistic self-glorifications, the lack of objectivity often leads to disastrous consequences. We have witnessed during the first quarter of this century two outstanding examples of the consequences of national narcissism. Many years before the immigration crisis, it was the unofficial strategic doctrine to claim that the United Stares of America wanted the poor and huddled masses from around the World; immigrants, regardless of their legal or illegal status, became endowed with special privileges and benefits and financial incentives and a spirit of entitlement that they needed to only come to America and the nation would provide for them. And that American taxpayers would pay the bill because their presence is worthy them having a sense of entitlement. Then democratic cities became sanctuary cities, which means that law enforcement was no longer allowed to deport people who immigrated illegally. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Instead, the people who migrated illegally could be bussed to wherever they pleased in the United States of America, be given cash aid and a food allowance, while they stand in posh hotels. Meanwhile, record of Americans are becoming homeless and cities are so flooded with millions of people who migrated illegal that they are now making it a crime to bus people who illegally immigrated into their cities without notification. While some states are making illegal immigration a state crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The problem is that over 12 million unidentified people have bombarded the nation, they are from all over the World, and some are extremely dangerous criminals. The public is concern that after 9/11 happened, that something much bigger and more widespread could happen again. Former President Obama, a man of extreme personal narcissism, who stimulated the group narcissism of millions of immigrations, overestimated the strength of the American government as a population building nation and financial source of support and underestimated the negative impact this would have on the nation and her people during an economic crisis and hyperinflation—as have other narcissistic politicians as well. In spite of his cleverness, Mr. Obama was not capable of seeing reality objectively, because his wish for democrats to win and rule weighed more heavily for him than the realities of national security and the economic health of the nation. And now, China, India, and America, in that order are expected to be the most powerful nations by 2050. Although, some say America lost her status as World power a long time ago from borrowing so much money from China. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
Group narcissism needs satisfaction just as individual narcissism does. On one level of this satisfaction is provided by the common ideology of the superiority of one’s group, and the inferiority of all others. In religious groups this satisfaction is easily provided by the assumption that my group is the only one which believes in the true God, and hence since my God is the only true one, all other groups are made up of misguided unbelievers. However, even without reference to God as a witness for one’s superiority, group narcissism can arrive at similar conclusions on a secular level. The narcissistic conviction of the superiority of Democrats over Republicans in part of the United States of America demonstrates that there is no restraint to the sense of self-superiority or of the inferiority of another group. However, the satisfaction of these narcissistic self-images of a group requires also a certain degree of confirmation in reality. As long as Democrats have the power to demonstrate their superiority over the Republicans through federal judges, the media, social, economic, and other political acts of discrimination, their narcissistic beliefs have some element of reality, and thus bolsters up the entire narcissistic thought-system. The same held true for the Nazis; there the physical destruction of all the Jewish people had to sever as proof of the superiority of the Aryans (for a sadist the fact that one can kill a man or woman proves that the killer is superior). #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
If, however, the narcissistically inflated group does not have available a minority which is sufficiently helpless and to lend itself as an object for narcissistic satisfaction, the group’s narcissism will easily lead to the wish for military conquests; this was the path of pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism before 1914. In both cases the respective nations were endowed with the role of being the “chosen nation,” superior to all others, and hence justified in attacking those who did not accept their superiority. I do not mean to imply that “the” cause for illegal immigration was the narcissism of the Democrats and rights for people who immigrated illegally, but their fanaticism was certainly one factor which contributed to the outbreak of the invasion. Beyond this, however, one must not forget that once an invasion has started, the various governments try to arouse national narcissism as a necessary psychological condition for the successful waging of the war. There are already talks in the States and in Congress of deploying the national guard into Mexico and dismantling the drug cartels. Most people believe that America conquering Mexico would be a great idea because America could implement law and order, which is supposedly why so many people illegally immigrate to America. If the narcissism of a group is wounded, then we find the same reaction of rage which we have discussed in connection with individual narcissism. There are many historical examples for fact that disparagement of the symbols of group narcissism has often produced rage verging on insanity. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
Violation of the flag; insults against one’s own God, emperor, leader; the loss of a way and of territory—these have often led to violent mass feelings of vengeance which in turn led to new wars. If the offender is crushed and thus the insult to one’s narcissism is undone, the wounded narcissism can be healed only then. Revenge, individual and national, is often based on wounded narcissism and on the need to “cure” the wound by the annihilation of the offender. The highly narcissistic group is eager to have a leader with whom it can identify itself. The leader is then admired by the group which projects its narcissism on to one. In the very act of submission to the powerful leader, which is in depth an act of symbiosis and identification, the narcissism of the individual is transferred onto the leader. The greater the leader, the greater the follower. Personalities who as individuals are particularly narcissistic are the most qualitied to fulfill this function. The narcissism of the leader who is convinced of one’s greatness, and who has no doubts, is precisely what attracts the narcissism of those who submit to one. The half-insane leader is often the most successful one until one’s lack of objective judgment, one’s range reactions in consequence of any set-back, one’s need to keep up the image of omnipotence may provoke one to make mistakes which lead to one’s destruction. However, there are always gifted half-psychotics at hand to satisfy the demands of a narcissistic mass. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Narcissism is a necessary and valuable orientation, provided it is benign and does not transcend a certain threshold. However, our picture is incomplete. Man is not only concerned with biological and social survival, he is also concerned with values, with the development of that by virtue of which he is human. If essential control over the immediate physical environment and a degree of civilization sufficient to free man for self-preoccupation and worry about possible future threats to his security or presently imagined threats to his integrity is a basic requirement for the generation of neurotic anxiety, then man has had these prerequisites for a very long time. And the basic psychophysiological equipment required for the overlearning of danger signals and the anxiety response to stress seems not to be a very recent biological development. In this perspective, the presumed greater prevalence of neurotic breakdown in present-day man must be attributed to the greater stresses under which one lives. However, is modern man in fact subjected to greater stress than one’s historical predecessors? Contemporary Western Civilization is complex and the tempo of life seems ever faster. We are subjected to a wide variety of pressing demands (largely of our own creation), but we have an increasing armamentarium of efficient tools with which easily to provide much of our daily demands. It is not probably that a thoughtful and penetrating numeration of the pressures, problems, and uncertainties that confronted people 100 (or 1,000) years ago and that confront one’s modern counterpart would reveal chiefly a difference in content, not a difference in number and seriousness? #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
The problems of life have changed in their nature, but not in their number or severity. We suffer an inability to project ourselves empathically into the psychological stresses of older generations. Through inadequate historical perspective (and perhaps out of need to be heroic in our own eyes) we see lives of earlier times as simpler, slower, and less stressful—while we see ourselves as immersed in a morass of economic, ethical, political, moral, and social problems which cannot be solved because there is “too much pressure” and everything moves “too rapidly”—forgetting the tremendous technological advances that have both speeded communication and essentially freed us from concern with the mundane problems of sheer existence, so that we are in fact able, if we will, to concentrate in a way never before possible on the solution of our special problems. Has there been a significant increase in the rate of occurrence of major forms of mental disorders? When the severity of disturbance is such that the total functioning of personality is disrupted and the individual can no longer be safely tolerated in one’s community, when one’s symptoms are sufficiently gross to permit of easy, objective description, and when the sick individual is removed to a hospital, we have a base line that permits of valid historical comparison and that, with careful attention to adequate case histories, permits comparison of clinical diagnoses. Such comparative historical analyses, with attention to refined statistical corrections for population, have rarely been attempted. In one of the best studies so far reported the authors conclude that the rate (frequency of first admission to hospitals per specified age groups of the general public) of the major forms of functional psychoses has been essentially the same since 1870. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
Even though the best available evidence suggests that psychotic breakdown is not increasing in frequency in modern times, it may be argued that the total amount of mental illness is on the increase by virtue of the prevalence of milder, non-hospitalized forms of psychiatric disability, exempli gratia, the neuroses. In this argument we are confronted by a cultural relativity that makes analysis of documentary evidence almost impossible. Today we recognize and have diagnostic labels for varieties of personality defect which were not provided for by the social machinery of pre-1900 cultures. Failure of recognition of an illness and formal provision for its treatment does not, of course, constitute evidence of its absence. Disorders do not begin their phenomenal existence with their first recognition, description, and labeling. Neurosis is not peculiar to modern man. Problems and pressures, the threat of large-scale disaster and the torment of doubt about ultimate values are not special heritage of twenty first-century humans. The biological capacity to experience anxiety is not a particular evolution of the post-1900 generations. If this is the “Age of Anxiety” it is because we have chosen to focus on this phenomenon and to give it meaning and importance which it has never been previously accorded. Anxiety and hope have been experienced in various measures by humans throughout the ages; there are absolutely unavoidable eventualities and insoluble uncertainties that give rise to both. Anxiety in its essential nature is no more pathological than hope—but our present culture has chosen to be anxious about anxiety. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
As we struggle individually with our persona anxieties and as we daily hear the tocsin of nuclear threat it is natural that we think ourselves to be the most psychologically tormented of all generations. Sober meditation upon the fact that all men in all ages have faced danger, deprivation, and the inevitable uncertainties of existence supports the conception that the sum total of mental misery in the World has not grown or diminished greatly over the passage of time. What has changed in man’s relative freedom to think about his condition, to be anxious about his anxiety, and to live in a cultural epoch which entertains the thesis that personal frustration of any sort is abnormal, that avoidance of anxiety should be a primary personal goal, and that society can provide both the knowledge and the experts for the successful prevention of unhappiness. Not only the evaluation of self is inclusively influenced by the neurotic trends, but also the evaluation of others. The person craving for prestige will judge others exclusively according to the prestige they enjoy: one who enjoys greater prestige one will put above oneself, and one with lesser prestige one will look down upon, regardless of the real values involved. The compulsively complaint person is likely to feel indiscriminate adoration of what appears to one as strength, even if this “strength” consists merely in erratic of unscrupulous behaviour. The person who must exploit others may take a certain liking to one who lends oneself to exploitation, but also despises one; one will think of a compulsively modest person as either stupid or hypocritical. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
The compulsively dependent person may look enviously at the compulsively self-sufficient person, thinking one free and uninhibited, though actually the latter is merely in the grip of a different neurotic trend. Consequently, there are inhibitions resulting from neurotic trends. Inhibitions may be circumscribed, that is, concern a concrete action, sensation, or emotion, taking the form, for example, of impotence or an inhibition toward telephoning. Or they may be diffuse and concern whole areas of life, such as self-assertion, spontaneity, making demands, coming close to people. As a rule specific inhibitions are at the level of awareness. If they become very strong the person may be generally aware of being inhibited, without, however, recognizing in what specific direction. They may be so subtle and hidden, on the other hand, that they person is not aware of their existence and efficacy. Awareness of inhibitions may be befogged in various ways, of which one of the commonest is rationalization: a person who has inhibitions about speaking to others in social gatherings may be aware of being inhibited on this score, but also one may simply believe that one dislikes parties and considers them boring, and find many good reasons for refusing invitations. The inhibitions produced by neurotic trends are primarily of the diffuse kind. Let us for the sake of clarity compare the person obsessed by a neurotic trend with a rope dancer. The latter, in order to reach the other end of the rope without falling down, must avoid any glance to right or to left and must keep one’s attention fixed on the rope. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Here we would not speak of an inhibition to glancing aside, because the rope dancer has a clear recognition of the danger involved and consciously avoids that danger. A person in the clutches of a neurotic trend must equally anxiously avoid any deviation from the prescribed course, but in one’s case there is an important difference, for with one the process is unconscious: strong inhibitions prevent one from wavering in the course laid down for one. Thus a person who makes oneself dependent on a partner will be inhibited from making independent moves of one’s own; a person trending toward a constriction of life will be inhibited from having, and still more from asserting, any expansive wishes; a person with a neurotic need to control self and others by reason will be inhibited from feeling any strong emotion; and a person with a compulsive craving for prestige will be inhibited from dancing or speaking in public or from any other activity that might be jeopardize one’s prestige, and in fact one’s whole learning faculty may be paralyzed because it is intolerable for one to appear awkward during the beginning period. Different as they are, all these inhibitions have an attribute in common: all of them represent a check on any spontaneity of feeling, thought, and action. One can have no more than a studied spontaneity when dancing on a rope. And if something leads one to trespass one’s determined boundaries, the panic that seizes a neurotic person is no less acute than that experienced by the rope dancer who loses one’s footing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Thus each neurotic trend generates not only a specific anxiety but also specific types of behaviour, a specific image of self and others, a specific pride, a specific kind of vulnerability and specific inhibitions. It has also been pointed out that a trend toward relegating one’s life to a partner is often combined with a general need for affection and with a trend toward constricting one’s life within narrow limits; that a craving for power so frequently goes with a craving for prestige that the two may appear as two aspects of the same trend; that an insistence on absolute independence and self-sufficiency is often intertwined with a belief that life can be mastered through reason and foresight. In these instances, the coexistence of various trends does not essentially complicate the picture, because while the different trends may collide at times—the need to be admired, for instance, may collide with a need to dominate—their objectives are nevertheless not too far apart. This does not mean that there are no conflicts: each neurotic trends carries within itself the germ of conflicts. However, when the trends are kindred the conflicts are manageable by way of repressions, avoidances, and the like, though at great expense to the individual. When a person has developed several neurotic trends that are incompatible in nature, the situation changes essentially. One’s position then is comparable to that of a servant who is dependent on two masters who give contradictory commands, both expecting blind obedience. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
If compliance is just as compulsive for one as absolute independence one feel caught in a conflict which does not permit of any permanent solution. One will grope for compromise solutions, but clashes will be inevitable; one pursuit is bound to interfere constantly with its opposite. The same impasse occurs when a compulsive need to dominate others in a dictatorial fashion is combined with a striving to lean on another person, or when a need to exploit others, which precludes the person’s productivity, is of equal intensity with a need to be admired as the superior, productive genius. It occurs, in fact, whenever contradictory trends exist together. The neurotic “symptoms,” such as phobias, depressions, alcoholism, ultimately result from these conflicts. The more thoroughly we recognize this fact the less will we be tempted to interpret the symptoms directly. If they result conflicting trends, it is as good as useless to try to understand them without having previously gained an understanding of the underlying structure. It should now be clear that the essence of a “neurosis” is the neurotic character structure, the focal points of which are the neurotic trends. Each of them is the nucleus of a structure is interrelated in many ways with other substructures. It is not only of theoretical interest but of eminent practical importance to realize the nature and complexity of this character structure. Even psychiatrists, not to speak of laymen, tend to underrate the intricacies of the nature of modern man. The neurotic character structure is more or less rigid, but it is also precarious and vulnerable because of its many weak spots—its pretenses, self-deceptions, and illusions. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
At innumerable points, the nature of which varies in each individual, its failure to function is noticeable. The person oneself senses deeply that something is fundamentally wrong, though one does not know what it is. One may vigorously assert that everything is all right, apart from one’s headaches or one’s eating sprees, but one registers deep down that something is wrong. Not only is one ignorant of the sources of the trouble, because, as emphasized above, one’s neurotic trends have a definite subjective value for one. In this situation there are two courses one may take: one may, despite the subjective value of one’s neurotic trends, examines the nature and causes of the deficiencies they produce; or one may deny that anything is wrong or can be changed. In analysis both courses are followed, one or the other prevailing at different times. The more indispensable the neurotic trends are for a person, and the more questionable their actual value, the more vigorously rigidly must one defend and justify them. This situation is comparable to the need of a government to defend and justify its activities. The more debatable the government, the less can it tolerate criticism and the more must it assert its rights. These self-justifications constitute secondary defenses. Their purpose is not only to defend one or another questionable factor but to safeguard the maintenance of the whole neurotic structure. They are like a minefield laid out around the neurosis for its protection. Different though they appear in detail, their common denominator is a persuasion that in essence everything is right, good, or unalterable. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
It is in accord with the comprehensive function of the secondary defenses that the attitudes they entail tend to be generalized in order not to leave open any loophole. Thus, for example, a person who has surrounded oneself with an armor of self-righteousness will not only defend one’s power drive as right, rational, and warranted, but will be unable to admit that anything one does, trivial though it may be, is wrong or questionable. The secondary defenses maybe so hidden that they can be detected only during analytical work, or they may constitute a prominent feature of the observable picture of the personality; they are easily recognized, for instance, in the person who must always be right. They must not necessarily appear as a character trait but may take the form of moral or scientific convictions; thus an overemphasis on constitutional factors often represent a person’s conviction that one is as one is “by nature,” and that hence everything is unalterable. Also the intensity and rigidity of these defenses vary considerably. In Clare, for instance, whose analysis we have followed through these reports, they played hardly any role. In others they may be so strong as to render any attempt at analysis impossible. The more a person is intent upon maintaining the status quo the more impenetrable are one’s defenses. However, while there are variations of the neurotic character structure itself, show a monotonous repetition of the themes “good,” “right,” “unalterable,” in one or another combination. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Neurotic trends are in the center of psychic disturbances. This does not mean, of course, that the neurotic trends are what the individual feels most keenly as disturbances: one is usually unaware that they are the driving forces in one’s life. Nor does it mean that the neurotic trends are the ultimate source of all psychic troubles: the trends themselves are a product of previous disturbances, conflicts that have occurred in human relationships. The neurotic structure provides a way out of the initial calamities, offering a promise that life can be coped with despite disturbed relationships to self and others. However, they also produce a great variety of new disturbances: illusions about the World and about the self, vulnerabilities, inhibitions, conflicts. They are at the same time a solution of initial difficulties and a source of further ones. When the forces of darkness are pressing upon the self-actualized, in the hour of conflict, the expression of one’s active refusal becomes an aggressive act of warfare against them, as well as a defensive weapon. It is then that, instead of sinking down in fear and despair when the enemy assaults the city, the will at the center of “Mansoul” issues forth in aggressive resistance against the foe, by declaring its attitude against one. The battle turns upon the choice of the will in the citadel being maintained, in unshaken refusal to yield to or admit any one of the attacking psychopathological offenders. The whole power of God, by the Holy Spirit, will be at the back of the active resistance of the human in one’s attitude of refusal toward the enemy. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
It is important to understand the effectiveness of this refusal of the will on the part of the undeceived self-actualized. It is a barrier against the foe. We must recognize that our outer man, in both its “feelings” and nervous system, still bears scars long after its deliverance from the pit of deception into which it has been beguiled. When once the wall of the outer man has been broken into by supernatural forces of evil, it is not quickly rebuilt. Self-actualized who are emerging from deception should therefore know that there is power in aggressively turning upon the enemy at the moment of one’s attacking them—actively expressing their choice and will in regard to one. This aggressive action also becomes a defensive one. The Kairos Christi is the supreme conflict between the divine and the demonic in which the Kingdom of God overcomes and takes up into itself the Kingdom of Satan. The Kairos idea lies behind the concept is the idea that there is a time in which certain things are true and other times in which they do not apply. This accounts for the changing norms of theology. Kairos is the carefully prepared “timing” of the manifestation of the New Being either in the original great Kairos in Jesus as the Christ or in secondary kairoi throughout history. Kairos is “situational sppositeness” in the words of Przywara, and it lends dignity and meaning to those historical periods which are not immediately implicated, but which prepare of it. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Every age takes on a Kairos quality insofar as it creates anew the meaning of all ages. Furthermore, Kairos is the call to that personal commitment to historical activity which alone enables one to experience at first hand the currents of history, and thus to interpret their direction. The principles of logic, the principle of identity and the law of noncontradiction, are pure forms of knowledge, since they precede all experience. They are not forms of knowledge, however, but regulative articles of faith! To establish the apriority (the pure rationality) of mathematical judgments, space must be grasped as a form of pure reason. There are no synthetic a priori judgments except those of mathematics! And so, if there are such judgments, there is perhaps also metaphysics, a knowledge of things by means of pure reason! Mathematic is possible under conditions under which metaphysics is never possible. All human knowledge is either experience or mathematics. A judgment is synthetic: id est, it combines different representations. It is a priori: id est, the combination is a universally valid and necessary one, which can never be given by sense experience but only by pure reason. If there are to be synthetic a priori judgements, then reason must be capable of combing: combining is a form. Reason must exhibit a form-giving capacity. Judging is our oldest faith, our mist accustomed holding-true or -untrue, asserting or denying, a certainty that something is so and not otherwise, a faith that here we have really “known”-what is believed in all judgements? #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
What are predicates? We have viewed change in us not as change in us but as something “in itself,” something foreign to us, something we only “perceive”; and we have posited it not as a happening but as a being, as a “property”—and have moreover invented an entity to which it adheres, id est, we have regarded the effect as effective and the effecting as being. Even in this formulation, however, the concept “effect” is still arbitrary: for from those changes that occur in us and of which we firmly believe ourselves not to be the cause, we infer only that they must be effects, according to the inference for every change there is an instigator—but this conclusion is already mythology: it separates what is effective from the effecting. If I say, “the lightning flashes,” I have posited the flashing once as activity and then again as subject and thus added to the event a being, which is not identical with the event but rather remains, is, and does not “become.” To regard the event as an effecting, and the effect as being: that is the double error, or interpretation, of which we are guilt. Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger’s lips, not yours. When you see a man wise in his own eyes, know that there is more hope for a fool than for him. Boast not yourself of tomorrow; for you cannot know what a day may bring. Pride goes before a fall, as a haughty spirit precedes a downfall. 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. Be not wise in your own eyes; love the Lord and depart from evil; for that will mean healthy to your body, and marrow to your bones. The Sacramento Fire Department value donations from our community, and these resources help provide life-changing programs and services to the community. They need help from generous people like you. Happy is the one who has acquired a good name, and retains it when one departs this World. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
A caretaker was in The Winchester Mystery House working in one of the rooms that are not open to the public, which is used as an office when he heard the voice of a woman apparently singing plainchant. The music was then succeeded by the sound of a man’s footsteps, heavy ones, proceeding along rear wall. By the time the caretaker had entered the body of the house, the noises had stopped. The following day, the caretaker was surprised to find two guests crouched down looking through the keyhole of the east door. When he walked over to them, they asked him to put his ear up to the door and listen. He could plainly hear the sound of plainchant, apparently in French, being sung in the empty room. One of the guests declared that it was of that a singer should have locked the door, whereupon the caretaker informed him that the room was empty. Both gusts professed disbelief, so the caretaker opened the door, they were overwhelmed by the scent of roses. The three men searched the room thoroughly. No one was found. Two guest who had been in the garden had heard the singing also.
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This is Not the Devil’s Work, this is Your Invitation to Paradise!
Nobody had visited my home for a while—but there were a few explorers who came here every winter, usually imagining they had stumbled on something darkly marvelous. After a silent evening, then—silent, not sullen—I retired to rest. Judge of my terror, when, not yet in bed, I heard what I can only describe as a distant bellow, and knew it for the butler’s voice, though never in my hearing so exerted before. His sleeping-room is at the father extremity of this large house, and to gain access to it one must traverse an antique hall some eighty feet long, a lofty panelled chamber, and twenty unoccupied bedrooms. There was a secret feeling, as I moved with great trepidation along these hidden halls. Deeper and deeper I went into my mysterious home. I felt as though phantom pursuers were almost upon me. Tiptoeing from room to room, ready to run at a moment’s notice. A voice sounded out of nowhere. It spoke in whispers and then not at all. Lightning flashed in the sky, silent, without thunder, and the trees shook their leaves and shivered down all their branches. In the last of these twenty rooms, the door stood in open in the darkness of the hall. Lightning flashed again, bright this time, like light on copper. I found the butler, his candle lying smashed on the floor. As I ran in, bearing a light, he clasped me in the arms and trembled for the first time since I have known him, thanked God, and hurried me out of the room. He would say nothing of what had alarmed him. “Tomorrow, tomorrow,” was all I could get from him. I doubt if his night more restful than mine. It was then that I came up to my room with a heavy foreboding of evil oppressing me, and went with a hesitation and reluctance I could not explain to my chest of drawers. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
A cold feeling came over me as I opened the top drawer, in which was nothing but ribbons and handkerchiefs, and then the second, where was as little to alarm, and then, O Heavens, the third and last: and there was a mass of linen neatly folded: upon which, as I looked with curiosity that began to be tinged with horror, I perceived a movement in it, and a pink hand was thrust out of the fold and began to grope feebly in the air. I could bear it no more, and rushed from the room, clapping the door after me, and strove with all my force to lock it. However, they key would not turn in the wards, and from within the room came a sound of rustling and bumping, drawing nearer and nearer to the door. Why I did not flee down the stairs I know not. I continued grasping the handle, and mercifully, as the door was plucked from my hand with an irresistible force. I looked on in horror and in horror grasped. In the moment, a demon sprang from the room, his talons and teeth and eyes burned against the stars. He took to the air like an arow, unhindered, as if gravity did not any more exist, and crashed through the skylight. Now he was in the sky above me, a black star which had not been put out. At breakfast the next morning, the butler was very uncommunicative. However, afterward, he inquired of me if Mr. Hansen would be able to repair the skylight before the next storm rolled in. After throwing out a good many short remarks on indifferent topics, “It should be done by noon,” I said. He bowed to my acknowledgements. The trouble with Llanada Villa was that it was haunted, and what was worse, ghost did not merely appear and disappear, they would remain for hours. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The following evening, a ghost appeared promptly, and frighted Astrid out of the guest room quite out of her senses by sitting down beside her, and gazing with his cavernous blue eyes into her. In his long, bony finger bits of dripping seaweed were entwined, the ends hanging down, and these ends he drew across her forehead until she fainted away. Astrid was found unconscious in her bed the next morning, simply saturated with seawater and fright. As I stepped out of my study into the great hall that is next to it, and shut the door, my candle went out. I supposed I had clapped the door behind me too quick, and made a draught, and I was annoyed, for I had no tinder-box neater than my bedroom. However, I knew my way well enough, and went on. The next thing was that my book was stuck out f my hand in the dark: if I said twitched out of my hand it would better express the sensation. It fell on the floor. I picked it up, and went on, more annoyed than before, and a little startled. However, that hall has many windows and I know where the furniture is. So I went on through the audit chamber next to it, which also has very big windows, and then into the bedrooms which lead to my own, where the curtains were drawn. It was in the Daisy Bedroom that I nearly got my quietus. The moment I opened the door of it I felt there was something wrong. I thought twice, I confess, whether I should not turn back and find another chamber. At about 3 A.M. the whole house was aroused by cries coming from the butler’s room. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
I rushed through the mansion and knocked at the door and asked if anything was wrong. The butler called out that he was sick. He would not open the door. I went back to my chamber and did not think much about. Then, this morning, I knocked to see how he was. The butler’s voice sounded strange. “Where is your roommate at this time?” I asked. “Mrs. Winchester, he’s away. His father died and he went home for the funeral.” When he would not open the door, I became quite concerned and told him I was going for help. He opened it—then I saw Dorian stretched dead on the blood-stained carpet, beaten, scratched, and mauled. I learned long ago the uselessness of weeping, I did not shed tears, though my heart began to break. Only an open window told what had become of our assailant, and many wondered how he himself had fared after the terrific leap from the second story to the law which he must have made. There were some strange garments in the room, but the butler said they did not belong to the stranger. That same night saw the beginning of the second horror—the horror to me eclipsed the plague itself. Llanada Villa was the scene of another terrible killing; a watchman had been clawed to death in a manner not only too hideous for description, but raising a doubt as to the human agency of the deed. The victim had been seen alive considerably after midnight—the dawn revealed the unutterable thing. I knew the demon must have returned. Those who found the body noted a trail of blood leading to the door-to-nowhere, where a small pool of red lay on the ground just below. A fainter trail led away toward the fruit orchards, but it soon gave out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The next night devils danced in the Grand Ball Room, and unnatural madness howled in the wind. Through my mansion had crept a curse which some said was greater than the Black Death, and which some whispered was the embodied demon-soul of the plague itself. Thirteen rooms were entered by a nameless thing which strewed red death in its wake—in all, thirteen maimed and shapeless remnants of bodies were left behind by the voiceless, sadistic monster that crept through the twisting halls of my labyrinth. A few persons had half seen in the night, and said it was dark as night. It had not left behind quite all that it had attacked, for sometimes it had been hungry. The number it had killed was twenty-six. I went downstairs. Outside the air was fresh and crisp as I strolled through the garden. Something seemed to rush at me, and there was—I do not know how to put it—a sensation of long strong arms about my shoulders. The dagger had been taken from my waist. It fell to the ground. Then I heard a female voice, somewhere behind me. “You are a cruel man,” she said. Then there was no one visible. I do not think I was ever more horrified in all my life, that I could remember. However, frantic farmers captured it in the Observational Tower. A housemaid had reported hearing a scratching at a shuttered window, the net was quickly spread. On account of the general alarm and precautions, there were only three more victims, and the capture was effected without major causalities. After that, I could only get sleep in the small hours, when daylight was already strong, and then my dreams were of the grimmest—particularly one which stamped itself on my brain. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mystery House
Life in the 1830s and ‘40s was limited in scope for everyone. Individuals were known by all their neighbours and restricted by the mores of the culture. Men and women were very unequal under law but were more alike in real life. Society was not under great pressure; men and women had a much more even balance of power than they were to have fifty years later. The 1830s saw Watt’s improvement of the steam engine which made the railroads and steamboats possible. The completion of the Erie canal in the 1820s opened the near Midwest and the Great Lakes to commerce and settlement. The 1850 saw the discovery of coal and iron together in Pennsylvania, which permitted the cast-iron and steel industries to produce factories in cities and to produce railroads to ship their raw materials and manufactured goods. The Civil War caused the railroads to boom and heavy industry to flourish.
As a result, everything changed in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. American became urbanized. The 1870 census revealed that, for the first time, most Americans lived in cities. In small town or a farm village, everyone knew each other, and behaviour was controlled by the neighbours. In a big city each person was anonymous, and standards for behaviour had to be internalized and enforced by the individual. For most of history right and wrong were external rules; now personal morality had to prevail. The ideal of “self-control” for modern people became widespread in the late nineteenth century. At the same time, the family as an economic unit, a “little commonwealth,” disappeared. It was replaced by the modern cash economy where each person is an individual. By the turn of the century in America, most people worked in manufacturing or in offices. The new middle class worked in skyscrapers and took a commuter railroad or “el” (elevated railroad) or trolley to work.
Unlike Mrs. Winchester “home” for most people was an apartment or flat or row house. This was a new class of people. They were not the gentry of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century who made their living from owning land that others farmed or from shipping. They were not the “yeoman farmers” who grew their food with their own hands. They were clerks and office workers whose work was not manual and who saw themselves as newly arrived gentry. They Irish potato famine of the 1840s drove millions of immigrants to America while revolutions and repressions pushed millions out of Eastern Europe in the 1850 through the ‘80s. This labour was inexpensive. Even clerical, white-collar workers could have several servants, either live-in maids or daily cleaning ladies who returned to their (newly invented) tenements at night.
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/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 