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The Earthquakelike Sense of Bewilderment and Confusion that Occurs as a Result!
Do not despise hypocrites too much. See them through. They are sometimes a sign of what we should like to be. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the World. Incidentally, while a person’s conscious experience may be whole-object experience, a split may be maintained at less conscious and more primitive levels. Original individuality has been lost through a process called “identification,” a process which does indeed exist. However, what we must allow for is that there are people whose individuality and selfhood have never been established. False Selves present an appearance of individuality, with those who have an individual self but on occasion regress back to a state of mind in which they are still merged with another being, under their guidance, control, and influence. This is because people have an original wholeness which is split into parts—also known as ego-splitting. They are seeking to merge with another being, physically and mentally, not necessarily sexually, and take on characteristics of those they bond with. The excitement, the frustration, the hostility, the lack of hope are there, so is the bad self-imagery and the bad object-imagery. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
The individual may well feel self-reproach on one day, blame the World on another occasion, and just feel mopey or angry at yet another times. Many people live in a life in which self, other, and relationship have not been tidily separated. To distinguish between them is hard work. The reason is that originally the experiences come in basic units, basic units in which self and other have not yet differentiated. We, the observers, see something of the excited individual and the exciting but frustrating World around one, but the individual’s experience is one of alternating excitement and disappointment, in which there is as yet little or no consciousness, let alone self-consciousness and perception of the other person in a mutual relationship. We are not nearly as good at keeping self, other, and situation conceptually and verbally distinct as we like to think. At a more primitive level, we may entertain the possibility that such frustrating, exciting relationships come about when separation-anxiety has gone past some critical point of tolerance, when the attachment figure was needed and not available. This makes a person experience a black hole, an agonizing place where an attachment should have been. And the individual can make no distinction about where the distress is coming from. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
One is thinking with a state of mind which is not yet sufficiently structure or has been damaged by injury or substance abuse to the point the individual is not capable of the questions “Is this me or is it another?” “Am I wrong to expect help or is one wrong to withhold?” “From whom does this excitement come, me or the other?” This is why some people fall prey to manipulative individuals, cults, and group think or pack mentality. Whereas normal adults would be able to see that a person is clearly not a good leader or is in some way deranged, people with a false sense of self are looking to bond, be loved, be accepted, and be coddled by someone. The feeling is in the basic unit, in self and other relationship. That self and others should be so easily confused, and so hard to tell apart, may seem amazing at first glance. An important source of defensive aggression is aggression as a reaction to any attempt to being repressed strivings and phantasies into awareness. This type of reaction is one of the aspects of what Dr. Freud called “resistance,” and it has been explored systematically by the psychoanalytic method. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Dr. Freud found if the analyst touched upon repressed material that individual would “resist” one’s therapeutic approach. This is not a matter of conscious unwillingness on the part of the individual or of dishonesty or of secretiveness; one is defending oneself against the discovery of the unconscious material without being away either of the material or of one’s resistance. There are many reasons why a person may repress certain strivings, often throughout one’s life. If one’s repressed impulses were known to others (or to oneself, in so far as self-respect and self-love are concerned), one might be afraid of being punished, of not being loved, or of being humiliated. Psychoanalytic therapy has shown the many different reactions resistance can generate. The individual can turn away from the sensitive topic and talk about something else; one can feel sleepy and tired; one can find a reason not to come to the interview—or one can become very angry against the analyst and find some reason to quite the analysis. Here is a brief example: a writer I was analyzing, who was proud of his lack of opportunism, told me during a session that he had changed a manuscript because he thought by this change, he would make a better case for his message. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
He thought he had made the right decision and was surprised that afterwards he felt somewhat depressed and had a headache. I suggested that his real motive probably was that he expected the changed version to be more popular and to result in more fame and money for him than the original one; furthermore, that his depressed mod and his headache probably had something to do with this act of self-betrayal. I hard hardly finished saying this when he jumped up shouting at me with intense rage that I was a sadist trying to cook his brain, that I enjoyed spoiling his anticipated pleasures, an envious man begrudging his future success, an ignorant man who knew nothing about his field of writing, and many more invectives. (It mut be noted that the individual was normally a very courteous man who, both before and after this outburst, treated me with respect.) He could hardly have done more to confirm my interpretation. The mention of his unconscious motivation was to him a threat to his self-image and to his sense of identity. He reacted to this threat with intense aggression, as if it were a threat to his body or property. The aggression in such cases has one aim: to destroy the witness who has the evidence. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
In psychoanalytic therapy one can observe with great regularity that resistance is being built up when repressed martial is touched. However, we are by no means restricted to the psychoanalytic situation in order to observe this phenomenon. Examples from daily life abound. Who has not seen the mother who reacts with fury when someone tells her she wants to keep her children close to her because she wants to possess and control them—and not because she loves them so much? Or a certain type of patriot who is reminded of the profit interest behind one’s political convictions? Or a certain type of revolutionary who is reminded of the personal destructive impulses being one’s ideology? In fact, questioning another’s motivation violates one of the most respected taboos of courtesy—and a very necessary one, inasmuch as courtesy has the function of minimizing arousal of aggression. Historically, the same thing happens. Those who told the truth about a particular regime have been exiled, jailed, or killed by those in power whose fury had been aroused. To be sure, the obvious explanation is that they were dangerous to their respective establishments, and that killing them seemed the best way to protect the status quo. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
This is true enough, but it does not explain the fact that the truth-sayers are so deeply hated even when they do not constitute a real threat to the established order. The reason lies, I believe, in that by speaking the truth they mobilize the resistance of those who repress it. To the latter, the truth is dangerous not only because it can threaten their power but because it shakes their whole conscious system of orientation, deprives them of their rationalizations, and might even force them to act differently. Only those who have experienced the process of becoming aware of important impulses that were repressed know the earthquakelike sense of bewilderment and confusion that occurs as a result. Not all people are willing to risk this adventure, least of all those who profit, at least for the moment, from being blind. The problem of paternalism deserves some discussion here, since it has been mentioned in the argument for equal liberty, and concerns a lesser freedom. In the original position (guarantees each citizens a robust package of liberal rights to such things as freedom of conscience, freedom to vote, and stand in elections, and rights to due process, and also ensures fair equality of economic opportunity as well as shares of income and wealth that are maximally beneficial to people with the least amount of income and wealth) the parties assume that in a free society they are rational and able to manage their own affairs. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Therefore they do not acknowledge any duties to self, since this is unnecessary to further their good. However, once the ideal conception is chosen, they will want to insure themselves against the possibility that their powers are undeveloped and they cannot rationally advance their interests, as in the case of children; or that through some misfortune or accident they are unable to make decisions for their good, as in the cause of those seriously injured or mentally disturbed. It is also rational for them to protect themselves against their own irrational inclinations by consenting to a scheme of penalties that may give them a sufficient motive to avoid foolish actions and by accepting certain impositions designed to undo the unfortunate consequences of their imprudent behaviour. For these cases the parties adopt principles stipulating when others are authorized to act in their behalf and to override their present wishes if necessary; and this they do recognizing that sometimes their capacity to act rationally for their good may fail, or be lacking altogether. Thus the principles of paternalism are those that the parties would acknowledge in the original position to protect themselves against the weakness and infirmities of their reason and will in society. Others are authorized and sometimes required to act on our behalf and to do what we would do for ourselves if we were not rational, this authorization coming into effect only when we cannot look after our own good. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Paternalistic decisions are to be guided by the individual’s own settled preferences and interests insofar as they are not irrational, or failing a knowledge of these, by the theory or primary goods. The theory of primary goods are goods that are supposed to be desirable for every human being, just as they are also useful for them. Natural primary goods: this category includes intelligence, imagination, health, speed, et cetera. Social primary goods: this category includes rights (civil rights and political rights), liberties, income and wealth, the social basis of self-respect, et cetera. As we know less and less about a person, we act for one as we would act for ourselves from the standpoint of the original position. We try to get for one the things ne presumably wants whatever else one wants. We must be able to argue that with the development or the recovery of one’s rational powers the individual in question will accept our decision on one’s behalf and agree with us that we did the best thing for one. The requirement that the other person in due course accepts one’s condition is not, however, by any means sufficient, even if this condition is not one to rational criticism. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Thus imagine two persons in full possession of their reason and will who affirm different religious or philosophical beliefs; and suppose that there is some psychological process that will convert each to the other’s view, despite the fact that the process is imposed on them against their wishes In due course, let us suppose, both will come to accept conscientiously their new beliefs. We are still not permitted to submit them to this treatment. Two further stipulations are necessary: paternalistic intervention must be the fact that the process is imposed on them against their wishes. In due course, let us suppose, both will come to accept conscientiously their new beliefs. We are still not permitted to submit them to this treatment. Two further stipulations are necessary: paternalistic intervention must be justified by the evident failure or absence of reason and will; and it must be guided by the principles of justice and what is known about the subject’s more permanent aims and preferences, or by the account of primary goods. These restrictions on the initiation and direction of paternalistic measures follow from the assumptions of the original position. The parties want to guarantee the integrity of their person and their final ends and beliefs whatever these are. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Paternalistic principles are a protection against our own irrationality, and must not be interpreted to license assaults on one’s convictions and character by any means so long as these offer the prospect of securing consent later on. More generally, methods of education must likewise honour these constraints. The force of justice as fairness would appear to arise from two things: the requirement that all inequalities be justified to the least advantaged, and the priority of liberty. This pair of constraints distinguishes it from intuitionism and teleological theories. Taking the preceding discussion into account, we can reformulate the first principle of justice and conjoin to it the appropriate priority rule. The changes and additions are, I believe, self-explanatory. The principle now reads as follow. First Principle—each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all. Priority Rule—the principles of justice are to be ranked in lexical order and therefore liberty can be restricted only for the sake of liberty. These are two cases: (a) a less extensive liberty must strengthen the total system of liberty shared by all, and (b) a less than equal liberty must be accepted to those citizens with the lesser liberty. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
It perhaps bears repeating that I have yet to give a systematic argument for the priority rule, although I have checked it out in a number of important cases. It appears to fit our considered convictions fairly well. However, an argument from the standpoint of the original position I postpone until the full force of the contract doctrine can be brought into play. Now, you have only to think for a moment to glance and see the behaviour of professing Christians currently to realize the practical outcome of holding the law and obedience to the law to be irrelevant to the life of faith in Christ. The basic practice in the New World of Christianity today is, I fear, strongly antinomian. Here is a true story from the current Christian scene. Test our theology on it: A human—a long-tie, faith church member—comes to his pastor and says, “I am going to divorce my wide and marry someone else.” The pastor, aghast, says, “You cannot do that! You are a devoted Christian, and so is your wife. Divorce in these circumstances is clearly wrong.” “Yes,” the man replies, “I know that, but I am going to do it anyway. I just cannot stand her any longer. I know it is wrong, but after it is all over I will ask God for forgiveness and he will forgive me. He must, because I believe that Christ died for me. That is what you teach.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
You can extend this to imaginary cases: murdering someone who “deserves it,” a once-in-a-lifetime, career-making, crooked deal, and so forth. How, precisely, does our version of salvation rule out a judicious use of sin? And, if one can hold such a use in reverse, what does growth in Christlikeness mean? Just something to think about. The cognitive faculty does not move except through the medium of the appetitive: and just as in ourselves the universal reason moves through the medium of the particular reason, so in ourselves the intellectual appetite, or the will as it is called, moves through the medium of the sensitive appetite. Hence, in us the sensitive appetite is the proximate motive-force of our bodies. Some bodily change therefore always accompanies an act of the sensitive appetite, and this change affects especially the heart, which is the first principle of movement in terrestrial beings. Therefore acts of the sensitive appetite, inasmuch as they have annexed to them some bodily change, are called passions; whereas acts of the will are not so called. Love, therefore, and joy delight are passions; in so far as they denote acts of the intellective appetite, they are not passions. It is in this latter sense that they are in God. Hence, God rejoices by an operation that is one simple and for the same reason He loves without passions. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
In the passions of the sensitive appetite there may be distinguished a certain material element—namely, the bodily change—and a certain formal element, which is on the part of the appetite. Thus in anger, the material element is the kindling of blood about the heart; but the formal, the appetite for revenge. Again, as regards the formal element of certain passions a certain imperfection is implied, as in desire, which is of the good we have not, and in sorrow, which is about the evil we have. This applies also to anger, which supposes sorrow. Certain other passions, however, as love and joy, imply no imperfection. Since therefore none of these can be attributed to God on their material side, as have been said; neither can those that even on their formal side imply imperfection be attributed to God; except metaphorically, and likeness of effect, as already show. Whereas, those that do not imply imperfection, such as love and joy, can be properly predicated of God, though without attributing passion to Him, as said before. An act of love always tends towards two things; to the good that one will and to the person for whom one wills it: since to love a person is to wish that person good. Hence, inasmuch as we love ourselves, we wish ourselves good; and, so far as possible, union with that good. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
So love is called the unitive force, even in God, yet without implying composition; for the good that God wills for Himself, is no other than Himself, Who is good by His essence, as above shown. And by the fact that anyone loves another, one wills good to that other. This one puts the other, as it were, in the place of oneself; and regards the good done to one as done to oneself. So far love is a binding force, since it aggregates another to ourselves, and refers one’s good to our own. And then again the divine love is a binding force, inasmuch as God wills good to others; yet it implies no composition in God. God loves all existing things. For all existing things, in so far as they exist, are good, since the existence of a thing is itself a good; and likewise, whatever perfection it possesses. Now it has been shown above that God’s will is the cause of all things. It must needs be, therefore, that a thing has existence, or any kind of good, only inasmuch as it is willed by God. To every existing thing, then, God will some good. Hence since to love anything is nothing else than to will good to that thing, it is manifest that God loves everything that exists. Yet not as we love. Because since our will is not the cause of the goodness of things, but is moved by it as by its object, our love, whereby we will goo to anything, is not the cause of its goodness. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
However, conversely its goodness, whether real or imaginary, calls forth our love, by which we will that it should preserve the good it has, and receive besides the good it has not, and to this end we direct our actions: whereas the love of God infuses and creates goodness. We are not to believe that the World-Mind deliberately directs the Universe consciously attends to every detail of its operation. That would be to turn it into a Big Human—and to minimize the powers of Mind. According to the simpler unintellectual religious views, the universe requires a Being to create it, then to maintain it, and lastly to guide it along a certain orderly way. This is the mistake all too often made by those who ask the age-old questions: they see that every creature’s life has a beginning, so they assume God must have had one to. However, the Life-Force which appears anew in every babe comes from God, its source, has always been and never began. Any other assumptions make Him like the creatures—finite—and is a false one that contradicts the very idea of God—the Infinite. Humans get no such treatment from life that one could believe it takes heed of one’s personal feelings. It treats one quite impersonally, as if it were itself quite impersonal. Thus the test of experience contradicts the belief in a person governor of the Universe. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
If you discuss the concept of God as a creator, you discuss a personality. However, such must have a beginning and an end. If you discuss the concept of God as Impersonal, however, these limitations are n longer necessary part of it. We arrogantly superimpose our merely human ideas upon the Universal Mind and impertinently expect it to display anthropomorphic attributes, under the delusion that they are divine ones merely because they are displayed on a gigantic scale. It is inevitable that we believe that the Infinite Power works as we humans work but it is also fallacious. To think of God as a person is to think of a finite and imperfect being. God is a principle being. The Deity cannot be limited like a finite human being, using a personal will to achieve a particular end, or thinking a series of successive ideas that move through time. A less erroneous picture is that of the electronic computing machine, which performs millions of different operations in a single second. It is impossible for a rational mind to believe that the Infinite and Eternal Deity is subject to momentary changes of mind or suffers occasional lapses from continuance of the cosmic laws. The Greek conception of the World being directed by Intelligence is surely higher than the Hebrew belief in a capricious, jealous, and angry despot of a personal God. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
God is Love and Justice, Wisdom and Truth and Law, attributes which have been worshipped by humans from ancient times. The God who magically creates and personally manages the Word, as separate from one, is the first simple concept of humans. The God of out of whose being the World beginningly and endlessly comes into birth is the next developed concept of more cultured humans. The notions of Deity which popular religion provides for its followers are well suited to the early stages of mental development but not to the more advanced ones. A child needs the comfort of living with its father and mother, but an adult becomes self-reliant enough to live on one’s own. The popular notions of God as a Father or as a Mother belong to the early stage and objectify God as some kind of glorified human being. They are human ideas picturing a human Deity. To this stage, too, belong not only the notions of a jealous, wrathful, or capricious God, but even those of a sentimental, kindly, emotional, elderly gentleman who is constantly hovering around listening to the prayers of his devotees—and then running off to fulfill their wishes or, according to his mood, refusing to do so. The maturer notion provided by philosophy will naturally seem cold, and cheerless to those who need the popular one. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Dear Lord in Heaven, to you I pray, to you I call, as you sit between this World and the next: God of the in-between, to you my words go out. I ask for your help. Please grant me the courage to do what I must do. Please grant me the wisdom to understand its necessity. Please grant me the peace that you have found, the peace that is found in the land between the Worlds. One generation shall laud Thy works to another, and shall declare Thy might acts. On the majestic glory of Thy splendor, and on Thy wonderous deeds will I meditate. And humans shall proclaim the might of Thy tremendous acts; and I will recount Thy greatness. They shall make known the fame of Thy great goodness, and shall exult in Thy righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, long forbearing, and abundant in kindness. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. All Thy works shall praise Thee, O Lord, and Thy faithful ones hall bless Thee. They shall declare the glory of Thy kingdom, and talk of Thy might; to make known to the sons of humans His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
The eyes of all look hopefully to Thee, and thou gives them their food in due season. Thou opens Thy hand, and satisfies every living thing with favour. Salvation in its true and full meaning is synonymous with exaltation or eternal life and consists in gaining an inheritance in the highest of the three Heavens within the celestial kingdom. With few exceptions this is the salvation of which the scriptures speak. It is the salvation which the saints seek. “For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do,” reports 2 Nephi 25.25. Justice demands that a penalty be paid for ever violation of the Lord’s laws. If these punsihments and rewards were not consistent throughout the Universe and in all of eternity, justice would be violated. Briefly stated, then, the law of justice is that for every violation of the law there is a punishment (ultimately suffering and misery), and for every obedience to the law there is a reward (ultimately joy and peace). Also embodies in the concept of justice is the idea that humans are punished only for those things of which they themselves are guilty. This would make it unjust to punish one human for another’s sin; likewise, if though ignorance or lack of accountability there is no guilt, it would be unjust to mete out punishment. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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I am a Member of the Most Wonderful Group in the World!
Mind is like an ocean. The surface layers of the mind function actively while the deeper levels remain silent. When, in group narcissism, the object is not the individual but the group to which one belongs, the individual can be fully aware of it, and express it without any restrictions. The assertion that “my country” (or nation, or religion) is the most wonderful, the most cultured, the most powerful, the most cultured, the most powerful, the most peace-loving, et cetera, does not sound crazy at all; on the contrary, it sounds like the expression of patriotism, faith, and loyalty. It also appears to be a realistic and rational value judgment because it is shared by many members of the same group. This consensus succeeds in transforming the phantasy into reality, since for most people reality is constituted by general consensus and not based on reason or critical examination. Sometimes the consensus even of a small group suffices to create reality—in the most extreme cases even the consensus of two (folie a deux). Group narcissism has important functions. In the first place, it furthers the solidarity and cohesion of the group, and makes manipulation easier by appealing to narcissistic prejudices. Secondly, it is extremely important as an element giving satisfaction to the members of the group and particularly to those who have few other reasons to feel proud and worthwhile. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Even if one is the most miserable, the least affluent, the least respected member of a group, there is compensation for one’s miserable condition in feeling “I am a part of the most wonderful group in the World. I, who in reality am a worm, become a giant through belonging to the group.” Consequently, the degree of group narcissism is commensurate with the lack of real satisfaction in life. Those social classes which enjoy life more are less fanatical (fanaticism is a characteristic quality of group narcissism) than those which, like the lower middle classes, suffer from scarcity in all material and cultural areas and lead a life of unmitigated boredom. At the same time, fostering group narcissism is very inexpensive from the standpoint of the social budget; in fact, it costs practically nothing compared with the social expense required to raise the standard of living. Society has only to pay ideologists who formulate the slogans that generate social narcissism; indeed, many social functionaries, like school teachers, journalists, ministers, and professors, participate even without being paid, at least with money. They receive their reward from feeling proud and satisfied to be serving such a worthy cause—and through enhanced prestige and promotion. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Those whose narcissism refers to their group rather than to themselves as individuals are as sensitive as the individual narcissists, and they react with rage to any wound, real or imaginary, inflicted upon their group. If anything, they react more intensely and certainly more consciously. An individual, unless one is mentally very sick, may have at least some doubts about one’s personal narcissistic image. The member of the group has none, since one’s narcissism is shared by the majority. In case of conflict between groups that challenge each other’s collective narcissism, this very challenge arouses intense hostility in each of them. The narcissistic image of one’s own group is raised to its highest point, while the devaluation of the opposing group sinks to the lowest. One’s own group becomes a defender of human dignity, decency, morality, and right. Devilish qualities are ascribed to the other group; it is treacherous, ruthless, cruel, and basically inhuman. The violation of one of the symbols of group narcissism—such as the flag, or the person of the emperor, the president, or an ambassador—is reacted to with intense fury and aggression by the people that they are even willing to support their leaders in a policy of war. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Group narcissism is one of the most important sources of human aggression, and yet this, like all other forms of defensive aggression, is a reaction to an attack on vital interests. It differs from other forms of defensive aggression in that intense narcissism in itself is a semipathological phenomenon. In considering the causes and the functions of Moslems at the time of the partition of India or recently between Bengali Moslems and their Pakistani rulers, group narcissism certainly plays a considerable role; if we appreciate the fact that we are dealing here with virtually the most least affluent and most miserable populations anywhere in the World, this is not surprising. However, certainly narcissism is not the only cause of these phenomena. Aristotle remarks that it is a peculiarity of humans that they possess a sense of the just and the unjust and that their sharing a common understand of justice makes a polis. Analogously one might say, in view of our discussion, that a common understanding of justice as fairness makes a constitutional democracy. The basic liberties of a democratic regime, the idea that citizens are free and equal and that society should be fair, are most firmly secured by this conception of justice. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
The principles of justice, the moral obligation to act on the basis of fair adjudication between competing claims, which are linked to fairness, entitlement and equality, fit our considered judgments and they also provide the strongest arguments for freedom. By contrast teleological principles permit at best uncertain grounds for liberty, or at least for equal liberty. And liberty of conscience and freedom of thought should not be founded on philosophical or ethical skepticism, nor on indifference to religious and moral interests. And since the theory of justice relies upon weak and widely held presumptions, it may win quite general acceptance. If they can agree to anything at all, surely our liberties are most firmly based when they are derived from principles that persons fairly situated with respect to one another can agree to. Yet, there are several priorities to be distinguished. By the priority of liberty, I mean the precedence of the principle of equal liberty over the second principle of justice. The principle of equal liberty states that each person has a congruent right to the most extensive freedoms compatible with similar authorizations for all. The second principle of justice states that social and economic positions are to be to everyone’s advantage and open to all. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
The two principles are in lexical order, and therefore the claims of liberty are to be satisfied first. Until this is achieved no other principle comes into play. The priority of the right over the good, or of fair opportunity over the difference principle, is not presently our concern. As all the previous examples illustrate, the precedence of liberty means that liberty can be restricted only for the sake of liberty itself. These are two sorts of cases. The basic liberties may either be less extensive though still equal, or they may be unequal. If liberty is less extensive, the representative citizen must find this a gain for one’s freedom on balance; and if liberty is unequal, the freedom of those with the lesser liberty must be better secured. In both instances the justification proceeds by reference to the whole system of the equal liberties. These priority rules have already been noted on a number of occasions. There is, however, a further distinction that must be made between two kinds of circumstances that justify or excuse a restriction of liberty. First a restriction can derive from the natural limitations and accidents of human life, or from historical and social contingences. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
The question of the justice of these constraints does no raise. For example, even in a well-ordered society under favourable circumstances, liberty of thought and conscience is subject to reasonable regulations and the principle of participation is restricted in extent. These constraints issue from the more or less permanent conditions of political life; others are adjustments to the natural features of the human situation, as with the lesser liberty of children. In these cases, the problem is to discover the just way to meet certain given limitations. In the second kind of case, injustice already exists, either in social arrangements or in the conduct of individuals. The question here is what is the just way to answer injustice. This injustice may, of course, have many explanations, and those who act unjustly often do so with the conviction that they purse a higher cause. The examples of intolerant and of rival sects illustrate this possibility. However, human’s propensity to injustice is not a permanent aspect of community life; it is greater or less depending in large part on social institutions, and in particular on whether these are just or unjust. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
A well-ordered society tends to eliminate or at least to control human’s inclinations to injustice, and therefore warring and intolerant sects, say, are must less likely to exist, or to be a danger, once such a society is established. How justice requires us to meet injustice is a very different problem from how best to cope with the inevitable limitations and contingencies of human life. These two cases, the case of basic liberties and the case of injustice, raise several questions It will be recalled that strict compliance is one of the stipulations of the original position (that guarantees each citizen a robust package of liberal rights to such things as freedom of conscience, freedom to vote and stand in elections, and rights to due process in law, and the original position ensures fair equality of economic opportunity as well as shares of income and wealth that are maximally beneficial to people with the least amount of income and wealth); the principals of justice (the moral obligation to act on the basis of fair adjudication between competing claims, which is linked to fairness, entitlement, and equality) are chosen on the supposition that they will be generally complied with. Any failures are discounted as exceptions. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
By putting these principles in lexical order, the parties are choosing a conception of justice suitable for favourable conditions and assuming that a just society can in due course be achieved. Arranged in this order, the principles define then a perfectly just scheme; they belong to ideal theory and set up an aim to guide the course of social reform. However, even granting the soundness of these principles for this purpose, we must still ask how well they apply to institutions under less than favourable conditions, and whether they provide any guidance for instances of justice. The principles and their lexical order were not acknowledged with these situations in mind and so it is possible that they no longer hold. The intuitive idea is to split the theory of justice into two parts. The first or ideal part assumes strict compliance and works out the principles that characterize a well-ordered society under favourable circumstances. It develops the conception of a perfectly just basic structure and the corresponding duties and obligations of persons under the fixed constraints of human life. My main concern is with this part of the theory. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
Nonideal theory, the second part, is worked out after an ideal conception of justice has been chosen; only then do the parties ask which principles to adopt under less happy conditions. This division of theory has, as I have indicated, two rather different subparts. One consists of the principles for governing adjustments to natural limitations and historical contingencies, and the other of principles for meeting injustice. If we can, viewing the theory of justice as a whole, the ideal part presents a conception of a just society that we are to achieve. Existing institutions are to be judged in the light of this conception and held to be unjust to the extent that they depart from it without sufficient reason. The lexical ranking of the principles specifies which elements ordering suggest are to be applied to nonideal cases as well. Thus as far as circumstances permit, we have a natural duty to remove any injustices, beginning with the most grievous as identified by the extent of the deviation from perfect justice. Of course, this idea is left importantly to institution. Still our judgement is guided by the priority indicated by the lexical ordering where the principle of equal liberty over the second principle of justice. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
As you recall, the principle of equal liberty states that each person has a congruent right to the most extensive freedoms compatible with similar authorizations for all. The second principle of justice states that social and economic positions are to be to everyone’s advantage and open to all. And so that is the lexical ordering we want to follow. If we have a reasonably clear picture of what is just, our considered convictions of justice may fall more closely into line even though we cannot formulate precisely how this greater convergence comes about. Thus while the principles of justice belong to the theory of an ideal state of affairs, they are generally relevant. The several parts of the nonideal theory may be illustrated by various examples, some of which we have discussed. One type of situation is that involving a less extensive liberty. Since there are no inequalities, but all are to have a narrower rather than a wider freedom, the question can be assessed from the perspective of the representative equal to each citizen. To appeal to the interests of the representative human in applying the principles of justice is to invoke the principle of the common interest. (The common good I think of as certain general conditions that are in an appropriate sense equally to everyone’s advantage.) #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
Several of the preceding examples involve a less extensive liberty: the regulation of liberty of conscience and freedom of thought in ways consistent with public order, and the limitation on the scope of majority rule belong to this category. These constraints arise from the permanent conditions of human life and therefore these cases belong to that part of nonideal theory which deals with natural limitations. The two examples of curbing the liberties of the intolerant and of restraining the violence of contending sects, since they involve injustice, belong to the partial compliance part of nonideal theory. In each of these four cases, however, the argument proceeds from the viewpoint of the representative citizen. Following the idea of the lexical ordering, the limitations upon the extent of liberty are for the sake of liberty itself and result in a lesser but still equal freedom. The second kind of case is that of an unequal liberty. If some have more votes than others, political liberty is unequal; and if the votes of some are weighted much more heavily, or if a segment of society is without the franchise altogether, the same is true. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
Edmund Burke’s account for representation states that political representation is the representation of interest, and interest has an objective, impersonal, unattached relation, and that the entire nation should be represented by Parliament, or derivatively by each member of Parliament, and members are an elite group, discovering and enacting what is best for the nation; that activity is what representation means. Dr. Burke also hold that inequalities are natural and unavoidable in any society, that some descriptions of citizens must always be uppermost because in a well ordered society, a ruling elite group, which is a natural aristocracy is an essential integral part of any large body rightly constituted, as the mass of people are incapable of governing themselves, and were not made to think or act without guidance and direction. Furthermore, he thought that power in the bans of the multitude admits of no control, no regulation, no steady direction whatsoever. Edmund Burke’s account of representation had an element of validity in the context of eighteenth-century society. If so, it reflects that fact that the various liberties are not all on par, for while at that time unequal political liberty might conceivably have been a permissible adjustment to historical limitations, serfdom and slavery, and religious intolerance, certainly were not. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
These constraints do not justify the loss of liberty of conscience and the rights defining the integrity of the person. The case for certain political liberties and the rights of fair equality of opportunity is less compelling. When the long-run benefits are great enough to transform a less fortunate society into one where the equal liberties can be fully enjoyed, it may be reasonable to forgo part of these freedoms. When circumstances are not conducive to the exercise of thee rights in any case, this is especially true. Under certain conditions that cannot be at present removed, the value of some liberties may not be so high as to rule out the possibility of compensation to those less fortunate. To accept the lexical ordering of the two principles we are not required to deny that the value of liberty depends upon circumstance. However, it does have to be shown that as the general conception of justice is followed social conditions are eventually brought about under which a lesser than equal liberty would no longer be accepted. Unequal liberty is then no longer justified. The lexical order is, so to speak, the inherent long-run equilibrium of a just system. If not long before, once the tendency to equality has worked itself out, the two principles are to be serially ranked. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
Just for reference, here are the principals again. The principle of equal liberty states that each person has a congruent right to the most extensive freedoms compatible with similar authorizations for all. The second principle of justice states that social and economic positions are to be to everyone’s advantage and open to all. In these remarks I have assumed that it is always those with the lesser liberty who must be compensated. We are always to appraise the situation from their point of view (as seen from the constitutional convention or the legislature). Now it is this restriction that makes it practically certain that slavery and serfdom, in their familiar forms anyway, are tolerable only when they relieve even worse injustices. There may be transition cases where enslavement is better than current practice. For example, suppose that city-states that previously have not take prisoners of war but have always put captives to death agree by treaty to hold prisoners as slaves instead. Although we cannot allow the institution of slavery on the grounds that the greater gains of some outweigh the losses to others, it may be that under these conditions, since all run the risk of capture in war, this form of slavery is less unjust than present custom. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
At least the servitude envisaged is not hereditary (let us suppose) and it is accepted by the free citizens of more or less equal city-states. If slaves are not treated too severely, the arrangement seems defensible as an advance on established institutions. In time it will presumably be abandoned altogether since the exchange of prisoners of war is still a more desirable arrangement, the return of the captured members of the community being preferable to the services of slaves. But none of these considerations, however fanciful, tend in any way to justify hereditary slavery or serfdom by citing natural or historical limitations. Moreover, one cannot at this point appeal to the necessity or at least to the great advantage of these servile arrangements for the higher forms of culture. And on this point, we are in the greatest of dangers today. There are many who in effect, if not in intent, do just what Jesus said not to do. They annul the law and teach others to do the same. That ends all prospects of spiritual formation. “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of Heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of Heaven,” reports 5.19. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
We in the New World live today in an antinomian culture. This culture in part derives from our religious and secular history, but it in turn reinforces antinomianism among professing Christians. “Antinomian” means “against the law.” It was a term coined by Martin Luther to designate some in his day (Johann Agricola and his followers) who held that God’s law was not a factor in conversation to Christ. However, the antinomian tendency is much older than Luther and possibly as old as some reactions to Paul’s gospel. It is based upon the mistaken conclusion—strongly rejected by Paul—that because we are not justified by keeping the law, but through our personal relationship of confidence in Jesus, in his death and his life, we have no essential use for the law and can simply disregard it. Does not faith in the saving merits of Christ abolish any obligation to keep the moral law, including the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ in the Gospels? We are free to hate the law, or “oppressor,” ore despise it, or regard it as at best a good thing that failed. These are common attitudes among professing Christians today—more often that not, one must admit, based on simple ignorance of Scriptures rather than on a carefully worked out understanding. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Detail vary from group to group down through history, but the essential point of antinomianism is that sinning or not sinning—obeying or not obeying the law—has nothing to do with being “saved” or not. Some groups have advocated extreme license, others not. God’s law is irrelevant to one’s standing before God in either case. During the Commonwealth period in England (1649-1660), antinomianism was present among high Calvinists who maintained that an elect person, being predestined to salvation, need not keep the moral law and does not even need to repent. No one should be urged to repent, therefore. Others have said “that good works hinger salvation, and that a child of God cannot sin; that the moral law is altogether abrogated as a rule of life; that no Christian believes or works any good, but that Christ only believes and works good.” Is it so unimportant to form an idea of God which shall be as near the truth as possible through containing so little error as possible? The Spirit which inspired and instructed Moses did not think so. “Thou shalt have no other God before me,” it said. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
That is, we must not label the wrong thing with the name of God, or hold the wrong idea about Him as if it were the correct one. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images” was the next commandment. However, an idol does not necessarily have to be made of stone or metal. It can be made of an idea. If anyone wished to call World-Mind the Lord of the Universe, one will not be wrong; but then if someone else wishes to asset that the World-Mind cannot be a Personal God, neither will ne be wrong. Is there any possible reconciliation of these two views? Yes, for both cases these are only mental formulations, and it is impossible to describe God absolutely, accurately in intellectual terms. All mental concepts of God have to be discarded in the end. No strict and rigid doctrines can hold the truth as it is: we merely get from the statement something to satisfy the intellect. For the Real is ineffable, that is, undescribable and untouchable by the ordinary finite capacity of humans. However, because there is something Godlike, somewhere, in humans, intuition may reveal it. We must differentiate between the invented God of religion and the imagined God of mysticism, on the one hand, and the real God of philosophical truth, on the other. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
The creator-God of religion is a more erroneous conception than the immanent God of mysticism, but both are alien to truth. Both have failed to fathom the Unconditioned, Nondual, and Illimitable God. There is a Universal principle of Eternal Intelligence behind all existence. If the follies of superstition and the bigotries of religion caricature it, the verities of philosophy and the insights of wisdom restore a true picture. We are not atheists. We do hold that a reality higher than the crudely material one exists. If the name of God is given to this reality, then we accept God; but we do not and will not accept the erroneous and degrading notion of Gd which most humans have. This higher concept of Gd is much more respectful and much more reverential than the old traditional one. Most of the current ideas about God are hazy, uncertain, unsettled, and even absurd. If by God you mean something higher than mere material existence, then we do not deny God. It is the false notion of God that we deny, the grotesque caricatures that appear in churches and temples and sermons and books. We look on this higher Reality as something not afar off from the essence of our own selves. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
We have discovered that the common everyday life does not exhaust the alphabet of existence, that there is something sublime beyond it and yet akin to us. If you wish to call It such, we do honour and revere such a God, because we believe It t be the true God. God—a term which signifies a certain mathematical formula to some moderns and a certain mental figure to some primitives—exist all the same. We must assert that in God there is love: because love is the first movement of the will and of every appetitive faculty. For since the acts of the will and every appetitive faculty tend towards good and evil, as to their proper objects: and since good is essentially and especially the object of the will and the appetite, whereas evil is only the object secondarily and indirectly, as opposed to good; it follows that the acts of the will and appetite that regard good must naturally be prior to what is less so. Hence the intellect is first directed to universal truths; and in the second place to particular and special truth. Now there are certain acts of the will and appetite that regard good under some special condition, as joy and delight regard good present and possessed; whereas desire and hope regard good not as yet possessed. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
Love, however, regards good universally, whether possessed or not. Hence love naturally the first act of the will and appetite; for which reason all the other appetite movements presuppose love, as their root and origin. For nobody desires anything nor rejoices in anything, except as a good that is loved: nor is anything an object of hate except as opposed to the object of love. Similarly, it is clear that sorrow, and other things like it, must be referred to love as heir first principle. Hence, in whomsoever there is will and appetite, there must also be love: since if the first is wanting, all that follows is also wanting. Now it has been shown that the will is in God and hence we must attribute love to Him. “The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. Humans gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent for what they had done,” reports Revelation 16.10-11. Humans of inferior intelligence quite naturally want a God who will be attentive to their requirements, interested in their personal lives, and helpful during times of distress. That is to say, they want a human God. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
Humans of superior intelligence come in time to consider God as an impersonal essence that is everywhere present, and consequently embodied in themselves and to be communed with interiorly too. That is to say, they recognize only a mystical God. Humans of the highest intelligence perceive that the “I” is illusory, that it is only ignorance of this fac that causes humans to regard themselves as a separate embodiment of the divine essence, and that in reality there is only this nondual nameless being. How impossible it is to get humans of inferior intelligence to worship or even to credit such an Existence which has no shape, no individuality, no thinking even! Hence such humans are given a figure after the own image a God, a deity that is a personal, human, five-sensed being. World-Mind, Lord and Creator, Maker and Ruler of all things, is not glorified aggrandized human being. Lord, when I see your face, may it be without fear, may it be without terror, may it be without panic. God, when I see your face, may it be with understanding, may it be with courage, may it be with peace. Almighty, when I see your face, may I be brought to wisdom through your loving kindness. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
For the Lord will not cast off His people nor will He forsake His inheritance. However, God, being full of compassion, forgives iniquity, and destroys not; yea, often God turns His anger away, and does not stir up all Hi wrath. Please save us, O Lord; O King please answer us on the day that we call. Happy are they that dwell in Thy house; they will ever praise Thee. Happy is the people who thus fare; yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord. I will extol Thee, my God, O King, and I will bless Thy name for ever and ever. Every day will I bless Thee, and I will praise Thy name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised; His greatness is unsearchable. Sometimes the starlight mist of tapestry interlaced with silver glow is nothing more than tinsel hung upon the arms of passing stars that glimmer as they god. Sometimes the wind-blown bands of emerald light that grace the northern sky are nothing more than sun-filled clouds left to linger in the night. However, when I see the diamonds of the arctic night, I know God granted me a peek through Heaven’s parted veil to a glimpse of Worlds to be. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Freedom is the Condition for the Full Growth of a Person, for One’s Mental Health and Well-Being!
Life is an unanswered question, but let us believe in the dignity and importance of the question. At the highest level, the level of ego-identity, the personality is organized by an overall organization of introjections and identifications under the guiding principle of the systematic function of the ego. The ego is a controlling and evaluating system. This controlling and evaluating system is integrated with other psychic structures to a greater or a lesser extent. It is by this that people steer themselves; it constitutes their sense of themselves in relation to the World and other people and things as they have learnt to experience them. Culture influences are important on personality development, and the formation of the ego-identity is a lifelong process. A self or a personality can be imagined, in a continuous development which began with clusters and networks of neural connections. The island is beginning to cohere from smaller clusters, integrating and differentiating into larger landmasses and developing specific flora and funa. Yet, it is easy when we think in terms of each person born already endowed with a soul which was highly individual from the start. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
When we understand that the infant is born into a relationship and develops in the context of that relationship, we realize that its developmental problems have to do with the differentiation of itself from others and with the relationship of self to others; one’s understanding that impulses are normally not isolated processes to which a person is somehow subject, but an expression of one’s personality; one’s understanding of dynamic structures, which are best thought of as structures of experiences, makes it clear that organizations of the memory-traces of the experiences in which a person is involved psychologically, neurologically, and psychologically creates actions and reactions and sensations and feelings, maps and models that motivates people to seek gratification, and this gratification is pleasurable. Pleasure is the signpost to the object: people seek people and take pleasure in them. There are people who live for the satisfaction of their drives; even when analysed in depth they seek others. And naturally, there are people who in some circumstances show more of one kind of interest, and in other circumstances show more of the other. #RandolphHarris 2 of 24
Even though the neurophysiology basis for defensive aggression is not identical with that of the animal, it is similar enough to permit the statement that this same neurophysiological equipment leads to an incidence of defensive aggression many times greater in humans than in animals. The reason for this phenomenon lies in specific conditions of human existence. The animal perceives as a threat only clear and present danger. To be sure, its instinctive equipment and its individually acquired and genetically inherited memories induce the awareness of dangers and threats often more accurately than they are perceived by humans. However, humans being endowed with a capacity for foresight and imagination, reacts not only to present dangers and threats or to memories of dangers and threats or to memories of danger and threats but to the dangers and threats one can imagine as possibly happening in the future. One may conclude, for instance, that because one’s tribe is richer than a neighbouring tribe that is well trained in warfare, the other will attack one’s own sometime from now. Or one may reason that a neighbour whom one has harmed will take revenge when the time is favourable. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
In the political field the calculation of future threats is one of the central preoccupations of politicians and generals. If an individual or a group feels threatened, the mechanism of defensive aggression is mobilized even though the threat is not immediate; hence human’s capacity to foresee future threats enhances the frequency of one’s aggressive reactions. Humans are capable not only of foreseeing real dangers in the future; they are also capable of being persuaded and brainwashed by one’s leaders to see dangers when in reality they do not exist. Most modern wars, for instance, have been prepared by systematic propaganda of this type; the population was persuaded by its leaders that it was in danger of being attacked and destroyed, and thus reactions of hate and against the threatening nations have been provoked. Often no threat existed. Especially since the French Revolution, with the appearance of large citizens’ armies rather than relatively small armies consisting of professional soldiers, it is not easy for a nation’s leader to tell the people to kill and be killed because industry wants cheaper raw materials, cheaper labours, or new markets. If it were justified by declaring such aims, only a minority would be willing to participate in the war. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
If, on the other hand, a government can make the population believe that it is being threatened, the normal biological reaction against threat is mobilized. In addition, these predictions of threat from the outside are often self-fulfilling: the aggressor state, by preparing for war, forces the state that is it about to be attacked to prepare also, thereby providing the “proof” of the alleged threat. The arousal of defensive aggression by means of brainwashing can occur only in humans. In order to persuade people that they are threatened, one needs, above all, the medium of language; without this, most suggestion would be impossible. In addition, one needs a social structure that provides a sufficient basis for brainwashing. It is hard to imagine, for example, that this kind of suggestion would work among the Mbutu, the African pygmy hunters living contentedly in the forest and having no permanent authorities. In their society there is no human with sufficient power to make the incredible credible. On the other hand, in a society that has figures carrying great authority—such as sorcerers or political and religious leaders—the basis for such suggestion is present. The distinction between defensive and malignant aggression is not innate, and hence not ineradicable. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
However, malignant aggression is a human potential and more than a learned pattern of behavior that readily disappears when new patterns are introduced. By and large, the power of suggestion exercised by a ruling group is in proportion to the group’s power over the ruled and/or the capacity of the rulers to use an elaborate ideological system to reduce the faculty of critical and independent thinking. Another specifically human condition of existence contributes to a further increase of humans’ defensive aggressiveness compared with animal aggressiveness. Humans, like animals, defend themselves against threat to their vital interests. However, the range of human vital interests is much wider than that of the animal. Humans must survive not only physically but also psychically. One needs to maintain a certain psychic equilibrium lest one lose the capacity to function; for humans everything necessary for the maintenance of one’s psychic equilibrium is of the same vital interest as that which serves one’s physical equilibrium. First of all, human beings have a vital interest in retaining their frame of orientation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
The human capacity to act depends on them remaining stable, and their sense of identity. If others threaten one with ideas that question one’s own frame of orientation, one will react to these ideas as to a vital threat. One may rationalize this reaction in many ways. One will say that the new ideas are inherently “immoral,” “uncivilized,” “crazy,” or whatever else one can think of to express one’s repugnance, but this antagonism is in fact aroused because “one” feels threatened. Humans need not only a frame of orientation but also objects of devotion, which become a vital necessity for one’s emotional equilibrium. Whatever they are—values, ideals, ancestors, father, mother, the soil, country, class, religion, and hundreds of other phenomena—they are perceived as sacred. Even customs can become sacred because they symbolize the existing values. It is characteristic for this phenomenon that the Greek word ethos—meaning literally behaviour—has assumed the meaning of the “ethical,” just as “norm” (originally the word for a carpenter’s tool) was used in the double sense of what is “normal” and what is “normative.” The individual—or the group—reacts to an attack against the “sacred” with the same rage and aggressiveness as to an attack against life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
What has been said about reactions to threat to vital interests can be expressed also in a different and more generalized way by stating that fright tends to mobilize either aggression or the tendency to flight. The latter is often the case when a person still has a way out that saves a modicum of “face,” but if one is driven into a corner and no possibility of evasion is left, the aggressive reaction is more likely to occur. Fright, like pain, is a most uncomfortable feeling, and humans will do almost anything to get rid of it. There are many ways to get rid of fright and anxiety, such as substance abuse, pleasures of the flesh, sleep, and the company of other. One of the most effective ways of getting rid of anxiety is to become aggressive. When a person can get out of the passive state of fright and begin to attack, the painful nature of fright disappears. Among all threat to human’s vital interest, the threat to their freedom is of extraordinary importance, individually and socially. In contrast to the widely held opinion that this desire for freedom is a product of culture and more specifically of learning-condition, there is able evidence to suggest that the desire for freedom is a biological reaction of the human organism. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
One phenomenon that supports this view is that throughout history nations and classes have fought their oppressors if there was any possibility of victory, and often even if there was none. The history of humankind is, indeed, a history of the fight for freedom, a history or revolutions, from the war of liberation of the Hebrews against the Egyptians, the national uprising against the Roman Empire, the German peasant rebellions in the sixteenth center, to the American, French, Herman, Russian, Chinese, Algerian, and Vietnamese revolutions. And the start of a revolution that is breaking out on American soil today. The revolutions that have occurred in history must not obscure the fact that infants and children also make revolutions, but since they are powerless, they have to use their own methods, those of guerrilla warfare, as it were. They fight against suppression of their freedom by various individual methods, such as stubborn negativism, refusal to eat, refusal to be toilet trained, bet-wetting, up and on the more drastic methods of autistic withdrawal and pseudomental debility. The adults behave like any elite whose power is challenged. As a result, most children surrender and prefer submission to constant torment. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
No mercy is shown in this war until victory is achieved, and our hospitals are filled with its casualties. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable fact that all human beings—the children of the powerful as well as those of the powerless—share the common experience of once having been powerless and having fought for their freedom. That is why one may assume that every human being—aside from one’s biological equipment—has acquired in one’s childhood a revolutionary potential that, though dormant for a long time, might be mobilized under special circumstances. Leaders have all to frequently used the slogan that they are leading their people in a battle of freedom, when in reality their aim has been to enslave them. That no promise appeals more powerfully to the great of humans are evidenced by the phenomenon that even those leaders who want to suppress freedom find it necessary to promise it. Much like in the lockdowns that many Americans are subjected today, unable to work, leave their homes, visit their families, or attend church and school. Another reason for assuming there is an inherent impulse in humans to fight for freedom lies in the fact that freedom is the condition for the full growth of a person, for one’s mental health and well-being; its absence cripples a person and is unhealthy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
Freedom does not imply lack of constraint, since any growth occurs only within a structure, and any structure requires constraint. What matter is whether the constraint functions primarily for the sake of another person or institution, or whether it is autonomous—id est, that it results from the necessities of growth inherent in the structure of the person. As a condition for the unstunted development of the human organism, freedom is a vital biological interest of humans, but not only on humans. The deteriorating effect on the animal life in the zoo has been mentioned before and seems to outweigh the contrary views of even as great an authority as Dr. Hediger. And threats to humans freedom arouse defensive aggression as do all other threats to vital interests. Is it surprising then that aggression and violence continue to be generated in a World in which the majority are deprived from freedom, especially the people in the so-called underdeveloped countries? Those in power—id est, the dominant political party, culture, and race—would perhaps be less surprised and indignant if they were not accustomed to considering the underrepresented groups as nonpersons and, hence, not expected to react humanly. Only if combined with powerlessness, skin colour has this effect. The possession of advanced technology has become the criterion of being human. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
However, there is an additional reason for blindness. Even the dominant culture, powerful as they are, have surrendered their freedom because their own system had forced them to do so, although in a less drastic and overt way. Perhaps they hate those who fight for it today all the more because they are reminded of their own surrender. The fact that genuine revolutionary aggression, like all aggression generated by the impulse to defend one’s life, freedom, or dignity, is biologically rational and part of normal human functioning must not deceive one into forgetting that destruction of life always remains destruction, even when it is biologically justified; it is a matter of one’s religious, moral, or political principles whether one believes that it is humanly justified or not. However, whatever one’s principles in this respect are, it is important to be aware how easily purely defensive aggression is blended with (nondefensive) destructiveness and with the sadistic wish to reverse the situation by controlling other instead of being controlled. If and when this happens, revolutionary aggression is vitiated and tends to renew the conditions it was seeking to abolish. The conception of formal justice, the regular and impartial administration of public rules, becomes the rule of law when applied to the legal system. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
One kind of unjust action is the failure of judges and others in authority to apply the appropriate rule or to interpret it correctly. It is more illuminating in this connection to think not of gross violations exemplified by bribery and corruption, or the abuse of the legal system to punish political enemies, but rather of the subtle distortions of prejudice and bias as these effectively discriminate against certain groups in the judicial process. The regular and impartial, and in this sense fair, administration of law we may call “justice as regularity.” This is a more suggestive phrase than “formal justice.” Now the rule of law is obviously closely related to liberty. We can see this by considering the notion of a legal system and its intimate connection with the precepts definitive of justice as regularity. A legal system is a coercive order of public rules addressed to rational persons for the purpose of regulating their conduct and providing the framework for social cooperation. When these rules are just they establish a basis for legitimate expectations. They constitute grounds upon which persons can rely on one another and rightly object when their expectations are not fulfilled. If the bases of these claims are unsure, so are the boundaries of human’s liberties. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
Of course, other rules share many of these features. Rules of games and of private associations are likewise addressed to rational persons in order to give shape to their activities. Given that these rules are fair or just, then once humans have entered into these arrangements and accepted the benefits that result, the obligations which thereby arise constitute a basis for legitimate expectations. What distinguishes a legal system is its comprehensive scope and its regulative powers with respect to other associations. The constitutional agencies that it defines generally have the exclusive legal right to at least the more extreme forms of coercion. The kinds of duress that private associations can employ are strictly limited. Moreover, the legal order exercises a final authority over a certain well-defined territory. It is also marked by the wide range of the activities it regulates and the fundamental nature of the interests it is designed to secure. These features simply reflect the fact that the law defines the basic structure within which the pursuit of all other activities takes place. The actions which rules of law require and forbid should be of a kind which humans can reasonably be expected to do and to avoid. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
A system of rules addresses to rational persons to organize their conduct concerns itself with what they can and cannot do. It should not impose a duty to do what cannot be done. Also, the notion that ought implies can conveys the idea that those who enact laws and give orders do so in good faith. Legislators and judges, and other officials of the system, must believe that the laws can be obeyed; and they are to assume that any orders given can be carried out. Moreover, not only must the authorities act in good faith, but their good faith must be recognized by those subject to their enactments. Only if it is generally believed that they can be obeyed and executed, are laws and commands are accepted as laws and commands. If this is in question, the actions of authorities presumably have some other purpose than to organize conduct. Furthermore, this percent expresses the requirement that a legal system should recognize impossibility of performance as a defense, or at least as a mitigating circumstance. In enforcing rules a legal system cannot regard the inability to perform as irrelevant. If the liability to penalties was not normally limited to actions within our power to do or not to do, it would be an intolerable burden on liberty. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
The precept that like decisions be given in likes cases significantly limits the discretion of judges and other in authority. The precept forces them to justify the distinctions that they make between persons by reference to the relevant rules and principles. In any particular case, if the rules are at all complicated and call for interpretation, it may be easy to justify an arbitrary decision. However, as the number of cases increases, plausible justifications for biased judgments become more difficult to construct. The requirement for consistency holds of course for the interpretation of all rules and for justifications at all levels. Eventually reasoned arguments for discriminatory judgments become harder to formulate and the attempt to do so less persuasive. This precept holds also in cases of equity, that is, when an exception is to be made when the established rule works an unexpected hardship. However, this proviso: since there is no clear line separating these exceptional cases, there comes a point, as in matters of interpretation, at which nearly any difference will make a difference. In these instances, the principle of authoritative decision applies, and the weight of precedent or of the announced verdict suffices. #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
The Lord has said that “there is a law, irrevocably decreed in Heaven before the foundations of this World, upon which all blessings are predicated—and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 130.20-21. It would seem from this declaration that there is no permanent progress made in any field or in any place except it be through obedience to the governing law. “And again, verily I say unto you, that which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same law. That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment. Therefore, they must remain filthy still. For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom recieveth wisdom truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of one who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things. And again, verily I say unto you, one hath given a law unto all things, by which they move in their times and their seasons. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
“And their courses are fixed, even the courses of the Heaven and the Earth, which comprehend the Earth and all the planets,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 88.34-35, 40, 42-43. The written law that God gave to the Israelites is one of the greatest gifts of grace that God has ever conveyed to the human race. It is a part of the blessings that God promised would come to all the families or nations of the Earth through Abraham and his seed. Of course there is much more to the law than just rules or commandments. It provides a picture of reality: of how things are with God and his creation. The Prophets and the Gospels share with “the Law” this vital function of enabling humans beings to know God, what God is doing, and what we are to do—wherein our true well-being lies. Thus Moses challenges his people: “For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statues and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?” reports Deuteronomy. The law of the Lord gratefully received, studied, and internalized to the point of obedience as “perfect,” as Psalm 19.7 says. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
There is nothing lacking in it for its intended purpose. It therefore converts or restores the soul of those who seek it and receive it. It is a spiritual power in its own right, as is the Word of God generally. It is a living and powerful being capable of distinguishing soul from spirit in humans and dealing with them appropriately and redemptively. “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any doubled-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of hi to whom we must give account,” reports Hebrews 4.12-13. There is nothing in all of the glory of the law according to the Old Testament that suggests for a moment that what the law does in the human heart is a human accomplishment. Rather, all benefit is ascribed to the law would be, simply, a loss. For in attempting to use it, we would have thrown ourselves back into the position of self-idolatry, utilizing the written law as our tool for managing ourselves and God. This mistake is what led to the horrible degradation of “the Law” at the time of Jesus and Paul, turning it from a pathway of grace to an instrument of cultural self-righteousness and human oppression. #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
What is the use, ask many questioners, of first, an evolution of the human soul which merely brings it back to the same point where is started and second, of developing a selfhood through the long cycles of evolution only to have it merged or dissolved in the end into the unselfed Absolute? Is not the whole scheme absurdly useless? “Woe to you lawyers!” Jesus said, “For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered,” reports Luke 11.52. The unit of life emanated from God and begins with the merest glimmer of consciousness, appearing on our plane as a protozoic cell. It evolves eventually into the fullest human consciousness, including the intellectual and spiritual. It does not finish as it began; on the contrary, there is a grand purpose behind all its travail. There is thus a wide gulf between its original state and its final one. Human’s individuality survives even in the divinest state accessible to them. There it becomes the same in quality but not identical in essence. The most intimate mental and physical experiences of human love cast a little light for our comprehension of this mystery. The misunderstanding which leads to these questions arises chiefly because of the error which believes that it is the divine soul which goes through all this pilgrimage by reincarnating in a series of Earthly forms. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
The true teaching about reincarnating is not that the divine soul enters into the captivity and ignorance of the flesh again and again but that something emanated from the soul, that is, a unit of life that eventually develops into the personal ego, does do. God contains this reincarnating ego within itself but does not itself reincarnate. It is the parent; the ego is only its offspring. The long and tremendous evolution through which the unit of life passes from its primate cellular existence to its matured human one is a genuine evolution of its consciousness. Whoever believes that the process first plunges a soul down from the heights into a body or forces Spirit to lose itself in Matter, and then leaves it no alternative but to climb all the way back to the lost summit again, believes wrongly. God never descends or climbs, never loses His own sublime consciousness. What really does this is something that emanates from it and that consequently holds its capacity and power in latency, something which is finited out of God’s infinitude and becomes first, the simple unit of life and later, the complex human ego. It is not God that suffers and struggles during this long unfoldment but His child, the ego. It is not God that slowly expands His intelligence and consciousness, but the ego. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
It is not God that gets deluded by ignorance and passion, by selfishness and extroversion, but the ego. “Then I saw another beast, coming out of the Earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but be spoke like a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the Earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And her performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from Heaven to Earth in full view of humans. Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the Earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honour of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given the power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive the mark on their right hand or on one’s forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless one had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let one calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666,” reports Revelation 12.11-18. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
Notice everywhere you go there are a lot of 6s on the floor, telling you to stay six feet away from others? It is just kind of fascinating. We would not know the end of days if we were living in them, but it is possible that is what is going on. May the blessings of all the World descend on this mansion: the blessings of Earth, the blessings of sky, the blessings of the moving ocean and of the never still wind. From the people of stone, blessings: the blessings of plants and the blessings of animals; of two-legged and four, of six and of eight; and the blessings of the spirits. From all those who dwell on the Earth and in it and above it, may blessings flow. I pray to you, God of happiness, who for so long presided over this mansion We call to you again; awake, come to us, and once more shower blessings on this mansion and those who come before you. May the foundation and the structure be as strong as you, lasting through all ages. This mansion was formed in love. And with newly opened eyes, clear with sight the architectures knew its fate was to reveal a story. And with her heart’s own true wisdom, she has passed expectations. Mrs. Winchester loved it, she loves it, they love it. Blessings on love and on all who love. Blessings from the God of love. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
God does raise us to high honour. Our eyes have seen the defeat of our foes, our ears have heard the doom of evil doers that rise up against us. The righteous shall flourish like a redwood tree and grow might like cypress tree. Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God. Even in old age they shall bring forth fruit, they shall be full of vigour and strength, declaring that the Lord is just, my Rock in whom there is no unrighteousness. The Lord reigneth; He is robed in majesty; the Lord is robbed, He hath girded Himself with strength Now is the Earth firmly established; it shall not be moved. Thy throne established of old; Thou art from everlasting. The waters life up their voices, O Lord, the waters lift up their roaring; yet above the voices of many waters, above the breakers of the sea, Thou, O Lord, art mighty. The law is true and unfailing; holiness is becoming Thy house, O Lord, forevermore. May the glory of the Lord endure forever; let the Lord rejoice in His works. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forever. From the rising of the sun unto its setting, the Lord’s name be praised. The Lord is high above all nations. His glory is above the Heavens; O Lord, Thy name endures forever; Thou art Lord for all generations. #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
Winchester Mystery House
WINCHESTER HOUSE BUILT BY SARAH WINCHESTER. WIDOW OF RIFLE MANUFACTURER WILLIAM WINCHESTER. THIS UNIQUE STRUTUE MANY OUTSTANDING ELEMENTS OF VICTORIAN ARCHITECTURE AND FINE CRAFTSMANSHIP. CONSTRUCTION BEGAN 1884 AND CONTINUED WITHOUT INTERRUPTION UNTIL MRS WINCHESTER’S DEATH 1922. THE CONTINUAL BUILDING AND REMODELING CREATED A 160 ROOM HOUSE COVERING AN AREA OF SIX ACRES CALIFORNIA REGISTERED HISTORICAL LANDMARK NO 868 PLAQUE PLACED BY THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION INCOOPERATION WITH THE WINCHESTER MYSTERY HOUSE MAY 3.1974.
What do you think inspired Sarah Winchester to continuously build such a beautiful and bizarre home composed of 160 rooms, once standing seven stories tall? winchestermysteryhouse.com
Arrogant Wrongdoing is the Deepest Possible Wound People Can Inflict on their Soul!
Life experiences become acting experiences, which in turn become life experiences. If there is anything to learn from the history of movies, it is that corruption leads to further corruption, not to innocence. We are told that in certain happy regions of the Earth, where nature provides in abundance everything that humans require, there are races whose life is passed in tranquility, and who know neither coercion nor aggression. I can scarcely believe it and I should be glad to hear more of these fortunate beings. The Manus are an illustration for a system which is clearly distinguished from system A, which is Life-Affirmative Societies. Where as in system A, which are Life-Affirmative Societies, the main emphasis of ideals, customs and institutions is that they serve the preservation and growth of life in all its forms. There is a minimum of hostility, violence, or cruelty among people, no harsh punishment, hardly any crime, and the institution of war is absent or plays an exceedingly small role. Children are treated with kindness, there is no severe corporal punishment; women are in general considered equal to men, or at least not exploited or humiliated; there is a generally permissive and affirmative attitude toward pleasures of the flesh. There is little envy, covetousness, greed and exploitativeness. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
In system A there is also little competition and individualism and a great deal of cooperation; personal property is only in things that are used. There is a general attitude of trust and confidence, not only in others but particularly in nature; a general prevalence of good humour, and a relative absence of depressive moods. In it are societies with relatively abundant food supply and others characterized by a good deal of scarcity. However, in system B, which are Nondestructive-Aggressive Societies, this system shared with the first the basic element of not being destructive, but differs in that aggressiveness and war, although not central, are normal occurrences, and in that competition, hierarchy, and individualism are present. These societies are by no means permeated by destructiveness or cruelty of by exaggerated suspiciousness, but they do not have the kind of gentleness and trust which is characteristic of the system A societies. System B could perhaps be best characterized by stating that it is imbued with a spirit of male aggressiveness, individualism, the desire to get things and to accomplish tasks. On the other hand, the system of the Manus is very different from system which. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
System C, which characterizes Destructive Societies, is very distinct structure. It is marked by much interpersonal violence, destructiveness, aggression, and cruelty both within the tribe and against others, a pleasure in war, maliciousness, and treachery. The whole atmosphere of life is one of hostility, tension, and fear. Usually there is a great deal of competition, great emphasis on private property (if not in material things then in symbols), strict hierarchies, and a considerable amount of war-making. The main contrast lies between systems A and B on the one hand, which are both life affirming, and system C, which is basically cruel or destructive, id est, sadistic or necrophilous. The Manus are sea-dwelling, fish people living in villages built in the lagoons along the south coast of the Great Admiralty Islands in a system A structure. They trade their surplus catch with nearby agricultural land dwellers and obtain from them manufactured articles from more distant sections of the Archipelago. All their energy is completely dedicated to material success, and they drive themselves so hard that many men die in their early middle age. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
In fact, it is rare for a man to live to see his first grandchild. This obsession for relentless work is upheld not only because of the fact that success is the main value, but because of the shame related to failure. Not to be able to pay back one’s debts is a matter which leads to humiliation of the afflicted individual; not to have any economic success which promotes a certain amount of capital accumulation puts one in the category of a man without any social prestige. However, whatever social prestige a man has won by hard work is lost when he is no longer economically active. The main emphasis in the training of the young is laid upon the respect for property, shame, and physical efficiency. Individualism is enhanced by the fact that relatives compete with each other for the child’s allegiance, and the child learns to consider itself valuable. Their marriage code is a strict one, resembling nineteenth-century middle-class morality. The main vices are intimate partner offenses, scandalmongering, obscenity failure to pay debts, failure to help relatives, and failure to keep one’s house in repair. The training for hard work and competition seems to be contradicted by one phase in the life of young men before their marriage. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
The young unmarried men form a kind of community, living in a common clubhouse, sharing a common mistress (usually a war prisoner) and their tobacco and betel nut. They lie in a rather marry, roistering life on the borders of society. Perhaps this interval is necessary to produce a modicum of pleasure and contentment during one period of a male’s life. However, this idyllic life is interrupted for a good by the act of marriage. In order to marry, the young man has to borrow money, and for the first few years of his marriage there is only one goal for him, to repay the debt incurred to his financial backer. He must not even enjoy his wife too much as long as he owes part of her to his sponsor. Energy is so completely devoted to the overriding aim of success that personal motives of affection, loyalty, preference, dislike, and hatred are all barred. It is of crucial importance for the understanding of this system that while there is little love and affection, there is also little destructiveness or cruelty. Even within the fierce competition which dominates the whole picture, the interest is not to humiliate others but only to maintain one’s own position. Cruelty is relatively absent. In fact, those who do not succeed at all, who are failures, are left alone, not made the butt of aggression. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
In the system C, while they have no chiefs, they are a well-organized group arranged in concentric circles, within each of which specified traditional forms of hostility are allowed. Aside from a matrilineal grouping, the susu (“mother’s milk”), where one finds a certain amount of cooperation and trust, the Dobuans’ interpersonal relations, inhabitants of the Dobu Islands, have the principle of distrusting everybody as a possible enemy. Even marries does not lessen the hostility between the two families. A certain degree of peace is established by the fact that the couple live during alternate years in the village of the husband and in the village of the wife. The relationship between husband and wife is full of suspiciousness and hostility. Faithfulness is not expected, and n Dobuan will admit that a man and woman are every together even for the shortest period expect for purposes of pleasures of the flesh. Two features are the main characteristics of this system; the importance of private ownership and of malignant sorcery. The exclusiveness of ownership among them is characterized by its fierceness and ruthlessness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Ownership of a garden and its privacy is respected to such a degree that by custom, man and wife have intercourse within it. Nobody must know the amount of property anyone has. It is as secret as if it had been stolen. The same sense of ownership exists with regard to the ownership of incantations and charms. The Dobus have “disease-charms” which produce and cure illnesses and each illness has a special charm. Illness is explained exclusively as a result of malevolent use of a charm. Illness is explained exclusively as a result of malevolent use of a charm. Some individuals own a charm which completely controls the production and cure of a certain illness. This disease-and-cure monopoly for one illness naturally gives them considerable power. Their whole life is governed by magic since no result in any field is possible without it, and magical formulae quite aside from those connected with illness are among the most important items of private property. All existence is cutthroat competition and every advantage is gained at the expense f the defeated rival. However, competition is not as in other systems, open and frank, but secret and treacherous. The ideal of a good and successful man is one who has cheated another of his place. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
The most admired virtue and the greatest achievement is “wabuwabu,” a system of sharp practices which stresses one’s own gains at the expense of another’s loss. The art is to reap personal advantage in a situation in which others are victims. (This is a system quite different from that of the market which, in principle at least, is based on a fair exchange by which both sides are supposed to profit.) Even more characteristic of the spirit in this system is their treachery. In ordinary relations the Dobuan is suave and unctuously polite. As one man puts if: “If we wish to kill a man we approach him, we eat, drink, sleep, work and rest with him it may be for several moons. We bide our time. We call him a friend.” As a result, in the not infrequent case of murder, suspicion falls on those who have tried to be friends with the victim. There is also an obsessional emphasis on pleasures of the flesh by otherwise joyless people can be observed in present-day Western society among the “swingers” who practice group sex and are extremely bored, unhappy, and conventional people clinging to sexual satisfaction as the only relief from continuous boredom and loneliness. The Dobu fosters and lives out without repression of man’s worst nightmares of the ill-will of the Universe. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
It may not be too different from those sectors of the consumer society, including also many members of the younger generation, from whom sexual consumption has been freed from restrictions, and for whom sex (like drugs) is the only relief in an otherwise bored and depressed mental state. According to their view of life, virtue consists in selecting a victim upon whom one can vent the malignancy one attributes alike to human society and to the powers of nature. All existence appears to one as a cut-throat struggle in which deadly antagonists are pitted against one another in a contest for each one of the goods of life. Suspicious and cruelty are one’s trusted weapons in the strife and one gives no mercy, as one asks none. However, the fact that destructiveness and cruelty are not part of human nature does not imply that they are not widespread and intense. This fact does not have to be proven, not only can it be seen in modern life, but also in primitive society. Unfortunately, we ourselves have been and still are witnesses of such extraordinary acts of destruction and cruelty that we need not even look at the historical record. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Humans, during most of their history, have lived in a zoo and not “in the wild”—id est, under the condition of liberty conducive to human growth and well-being. Human’s often act cruelly and destructively even in situations that do not include crowding. Destructiveness and cruelty can cause one to feel intense satisfaction; masses of humans can suddenly be seized by lust for blood. Individuals and groups may have a character structure that makes them eagerly wait for—or create—situations that permit the expression of destructiveness. Animals, and even hunters, on the other hand, do not enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on other animals or their prey, nor do they kill “for nothing.” Sometimes an animal seems to exhibit sadistic behaviour—for instance, a cat playing with a rodent; but it is an anthropomorphic interpretation to assume that the cat enjoys the suffering of the rodent; any fast-moving object can serve as a plaything, whether it is a rodent or a ball of wool. The wish to destroy for the sake of destruction is different. Only some types of humans take pleasure in destroying life without any reason or purpose other than that of destroying. To put in more generally, only humans appear to be destructive beyond the aim of defense or of attaining what one needs. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Human’s destructiveness and cruelty cannot be explained in terms of animal heredity or in terms of a destructive instinct, but must be understood on the basis of those factors by which humans differ from their animal ancestors. The problem is to examine in what manner and to what degree the specific conditions of human existence are responsible for the quality and intensity of human’s lust for killing and torturing. There is no doubt about the presence of aggressiveness and destructive tendencies in the human psyche which are of the nature of biological drives. However, the most pernicious phenomena of aggression, transcending self-preservation and self-destruction, are based upon a characteristic feature of humans above the biological level, namely one’s capability of creating symbolic Universe in thought, language and behaviour. Biologically, nonadaptive, malignant aggression, id est, destructiveness and cruelty, is not a defense against a threat; it is not phylogenetically programmed; it is characteristic only of humans; it is biologically harmful because it is socially disruptive; its main manifestations—killing and cruelty—are pleasureful without needing any other purposes; it is harmful not only to the person who is attacked but also to the attacker. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Malignant aggression, though not an instinct, is a human potential rooted in the very conditions of human existence. Malignant parts of human’s aggression is not innate, and hence not ineradicable, but it admits that malignant aggression is a human potential and more than a learned pattern of behaviour that readily disappears when new patterns are introduced. A number of experiments have shown that male hormones tend to generate aggressive behaviour. For an answer to the question why this should be so, we must consider that one of the most basic differences between male and female is the difference in function during the act of pleasures of the flesh. The anatomic and physiological conditions of male pleasures of the flesh functioning require that the male be capable of piercing the hymen of the virgin, that he should not be deterred by the fear, hesitation, or even resistance she might manifest; in animals, the female in position during the act of mounting. Since the male capacity to function in pleasures of the flesh is a basic requirement for the survival of the species, one might expect that nature has endowed the male with some special aggressive potential. The expectation appears to be borne out by a number of data. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Of course, some aggression is needed in life. Mostly self-assertive aggression. A general lack in aggressiveness in this sense will be a hesitant and poor officer; an attacking soldier who lacks it will easily retreat. However, one must differentiate between aggression with the aim to damage and the self-assertive aggression that only facilitates the pursuit of a goal, whether it is to damage or to create. The connection between self-assertion, aggression, male hormones, and—possibly—Y chromosomes suggests the possibility that men may be equipped with more self-assertive aggression than women and may make them better general, surgeons, or hunters, while women may be more protective and caring and make better physicians and teachers. Yet, many men lack self-assertive aggressiveness, and many women perform excellently those tasks that require it. Obviously, there is not a simple relationship between maleness and the self-assertive aggressiveness, but a highly complex one about whose details we know almost nothing. This is no surprise to the geneticist who knows that a genetic disposition can be translated into a certain type of behaviour, but can be understood only in terms of its interconnection with other genetic dispositions and with the total life situation into which a person is born and has to live. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
The person with unimpeded self-assertive aggression feels less easily threatened and, hence, is less readily in a position of having to react with aggression. The sadistic person is sadistic because one is suffering from an impotence of the heart, from the incapacity to move the other, to make one respond, to make oneself a loved person. One compensates for that impotence with the passion to have power over others. Since self-assertive aggression enhances the person’s capacity for achieving one’s aims, its possession greatly diminishes the need for sadistic control. The shy our inhibited person, as well as the one with compulsive obsessional tendencies, suffers from an impediment of this type of aggression. The therapeutic task is, first, to help the person to become aware of this impediment, then, to understand how it developed, and most importantly, to understand by what other factors in one’s character system and in one’s environment it is supported and supplied with energy. Perhaps the most important factor that leads to the weakening of self-assertive aggression is an authoritarian atmosphere in family and society, where self-assertion is equated with disobedience, attack, sin. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
For all irrational and exploitative forms of authority, self-assertion—the pursuit by another of one’s real goals—is the arch sin because it is a threat to the power of the authority; the person subject to it is indoctrinated to believe that the aims of the authority are also one’s, and that obedience offers the optimal chance for fulfilling oneself. The divine soul having somehow lost is consciousness is now seeking to become self-conscious again. It is supposed that the ego originates and ends on the same level—divinity—and therefore the question is often asked why it should go forth on such a long and unnecessary journey. This question is a misconceived one. It is not the ego itself which ever was consciously divine, but its source, God. The ego’s divine character lies in its essential but hidden being, but it has never known that. The purpose of gathering experience (the evolutionary process) is precisely to bring it to such awareness. The ego comes to slow birth in finite consciousness out of utter unconsciousness and, later, to recognition and union with its infinite source. That source, whence it has emanated, remains untouched, unaffected, ever knowing and serenely witnessing. The purpose in this evolution is the ego’s own advancement. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
When the Quest is reached, God revels its presence fitfully and brokenly at first but later the hide-and-seek game ends in loving union. On the other hand, sin or disobedience to what we know to be right distances us from God and forces us to live on our own. That means it makes soul rest impossible and is very destructive to the soul. “He who is partner with a thief hates one’s own soul,” Psalm 29.24. Those are surely right who have recognized in pride the root of all disobedience. We think we are “big enough” to take our life into our own hands and disobey, instead of “humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God.” If we do not take things into our own hands, we will not get what we want—another blow to our pride, and this will certainly be driven by the thought. Our attitude should be, to the contrary, that there is no particular reason why I should get what I want, because I am not in charge of the Universe. The understanding of all this no doubt lies back of the warning already from Saint Peter: “abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul,” reports 1 Peter 2.11. How do fleshy lusts war against the soul? Very simply, by enticing us to uproot our dependent life, pulling it away from God, which will deprive our soul of what it needs to function correctly in the enlivening and regulation of our whole being. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
To allow lust (or strong desire) to govern our life is to exalt our will over God’s That is why Saint Paul calls covetousness “idolatry” (Ephesians 5.5; Colossians 3.5). We are the idol, in that case, prepared to sacrifice the well-being and possessions of others to ourself. One also speaks of those whose God is their belly—that is, their desire center (Romans 16.18; Philippians 3.19). James also assigns the origin of sin to our strong desires or lusts (1.14), and now, perhaps, we see clearly how that works. So sin, through desire and pride, alienates the life in us (the soul) from the life that is in God and leaves us in the turmoil of a soul struggling with life on its own. Those who go so far as to abandon themselves to evil—consciously choosing evil as their goal (the “wicked” of Proverbs 21.10)—will be totally abandoned by God. Arrogant wrongdoing is the deepest possible wound people can inflict on their soul. Efforts at spiritual formation in Christlikeness obviously must reverse this process of distancing the soul from God and bring it back to union with Him. What can help us to do that? The Law of God. At this time of great change, I tell you the hard truth: you are the one who must undergo this task. I cannot do it for you, nor can any others do it for you. You magic lies within. You know what to do. Look deeply and you will see. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
A hard time lies before you, but you go under the protection of the Holy Ones and you go guarded by love. God of clear sight, God of the fierce change, please help your children in what they must do. Be beside them, be with them, be their unfailing assistant. Help them to do what they must. Let all the Earth revere the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the World stand in awe of Him. For God spoke, and the World came into being; He commanded, and it stood firm. The Lord brings the design of the heathens to naught; He makes their thoughts to be of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations. Happy is the people whose God is the Lord; the people whom He hath chosen for His possession. The Lord looks down from Heaven; He beholds all the children of humans. From the place of His habitation, He gazes upon all the inhabitants of the Earth; He that fashions the hearts of them all, gives heed to all their doings. A king is not saved by the greatness of power; a mighty human is not delivered by sheer strength. A horse is a vain thing for safety; neither does it afford escape by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that revere Him, upon the that hope in His mercy, to deliver them from death, and to keep them alive in famine. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Our soul still waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For in God does our heart rejoice, for we trust in His holy name. Let Thy loving kindness, O Lord, be upon us, for our hope is in Thee. Expressions of will are called divine wills, not as being signs that God wills anything; but because what in us is the usual expression of our will, is called the divine will in God. Thu punishment is not a sign that there is anger in God; but it is called anger in Him, from the fact that it is an expression of anger in ourselves. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O Most High; to declare Thy loving kindness each morning, and Thy faithfulness every night, with an instrument of ten strings and the lute, with sacred music upon the harp. For Thou, O Lord, hast made me rejoice in Thy work; I will glory in the works of Thy hands. How great are Thy deeds, O Lord! Thy thoughts are very deep. The ignorant human does not know, nor does the fool understand this—the wicked may spring up as the grass, and the workers of iniquity may flourish, only to be destroyed forever. However, Thou, O Lord, shalt be exalted forever. Thine enemies, O Lord, Thine enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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So Ended Saturn and the God of the Sea—The Heavens and the Earth were Manifest!
The more people have studied different methods of brining up children, the more they have come to the conclusions that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is the best after all. My logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter, so that one’s science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things. If humans are to enhance their powers of creativity, one has to try to control conditions of creative thought. Wonder is the child of rarity. Of course, nature and reliability of knowledge could not be divorced from the method of acquiring it. Acquisition can be managed only through the powers of the human being; hence, any improvement in knowledge must mean better control over human’s faculties of knowing. If humans were to uncover nature’s secrets, if one were to acquire new knowledge of the physical World, one must abandon old ways of search and inquiry and must devise new ways of querying nature directly. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
The will is the immediate and effective cause of voluntary behaviour. Appetite or desire is the immediate and effective cause of involuntary movement and action of the body. Appetite triggers physiological activity. Human desire reveals habits and patterns of conduct that have been learned under the guidance of the senses and affections. Will marks moments of deliberate choice. It is always associated with those forms of conduct that have both their origin and sanction in reason. An educated person in the days of Elizabeth and James never doubted that the origin of action—its efficient, not its final cause—is choice. The will governs, moderates, and overrules all of human’s behaviour. It is the imperium of conduct. It rules except when the passions engulf it. In its proper function, the will is responsive to two sources of influence: the “seeds” of God’s good in the Nature of humans to which the will is sensitive directly; and information supplied by the understanding. This faculty, playing the role of minister or councillor, supplies the will with right ends in keeping with right desires, and with right means conducible to the ends desired. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
The liberty, or choice of means is grounded on the Direction of the Judgment. So all the Acts in the Understanding, whereby they are proportioned to the Rules of right Reason. This I think evident—that we find ourselves a power to begin or forbear, continue or end several thoughts of our minds, and motions of our bodies, barely by the choice or preference of the mind. This power which the mind has to prefer the consideration of any idea, or the forbearing to consider it; or to prefer the motion of any part of the body to its rest is that which we call the Will. The actual preferring one to another that which we call volition or willing. The forbearance of that action, consequence to order or command of the mind, is called voluntary. And whatsoever action is performed without such a thought of the mind, is called involuntary. The will has power to control and direct thought. The will can demand, as it is, that the understanding supply all desires information prior to the act of choice. Confronted with a practical problem, the will can ask the understanding to think about, to reason, to judge the matter at hand, drawing upon the accumulated experience stored in memory. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
The power of will over mind will seem less strange to us when we reflect upon the implications of such modern expressions as “I am trying to remember,” “Try to think,” and “You can at least try to work out the problem.” The power of will over body movement is much more evident than the effect of will on mental activity. The idea of the beginning of motion we have from reflection of what passes in ourselves; where we find by experience, that, barely by willing it, barely by a thought of mind, we can move the parts of our bodies, which were before at rest. The detailed description of the life of primitive hunters and food gatherers has shown that humans—at least since they fully emerged fifty thousand years ago—was most likely not the brutal, destructive, cruel being and hence not the prototype of “man the killer” that we find in more-developed stages of their evolution. However, we cannot stop here. In order to understand the gradual development of humans the exploiter and the destroyer, it is necessary to deal with the development of humans during the period of early agriculture and, eventually, with their transformation into a builder of cities, a warrior, and a trader. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
From the emergence of humans, approximately half a million years ago to about 9000 B.C., humans did not change in one respect: humans lived from what they gathered or hunted, but did not produce anything new. Humans were completely dependent on nature and did not themselves influence or transform it. This relationship to nature changed radically with the invention of agriculture (and animal husbandry) which occurs roughly with the beginning of the Neolithic period, more precisely, the “Protoneolitihc” period as archeologist call it today—from 9000 to 7000 B.C.—in an area stretching over one thousand miles from western Iran to Greece, including parts of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the Anatolian Plateau in Turkey. (It started later in Central and Northern Europe.) For the first time humans made themselves, within certain limits, independent of nature by using one’s inventiveness and skill to produce something beyond that which nature had thus far yielded to one. It was now possible to plant more seed, to till more land, and to breed more animals, as the population increased. Surplus food could be slowly accumulated to support craftsmen who devoted most of their time to the manufacture of tools, pottery, and clothing. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
The first great discovery made in this period was the cultivation of wheat and barley, which had been growing wild in this area. It was discovered that by putting seed of these grasses into the Earth, new plants would grow; that one could select the best seed for sowing, and eventually the accidental crossing of varieties was observed, which produced grains very much larger than the seeds of the wild grasses. The process of development from wild grasses to high-yielding modern wheat is not yet fully known. In involved gene mutations, hybridization, and chromosome doubling, and it has taken thousands of years to achieve the artificial selection by humans on the level of present-day agriculture. For humans in the industrial age, accustomed to looking down on nonindustrialized agriculture as a primitive and rather obvious form of production, the Neolithic discoveries may not seem comparable to the great technical discoveries of our day, of which they are so proud. Yet the fact that the expectation that seed would grow was proved correct by results gave rise to an entirely new concept: humans recognized that they could use this will and intention to make this happen, instead of things just “happening.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
It would not be exaggerated to say that the discovery of agriculture was the foundation for all scientific thinking and later technological development. After 5000 B.C. Catal Huyuk could afford luxuries such as obsidian mirrors, ceremonial daggers, and trinkets of metal beyond the reach of most of its known contemporaries. Cooper and lead were smelted and worked into beads, tubes and possibly small tools, thus taking the beginnings of metallurgy back int the seventh millennium. Its stone industry in local obsidian and imported flint is the most elegant of the period; its wooden vessels are varied and sophisticated, its woollen textile industry fully developed. Make-up sets for women and very attractive bracelets for men and women were found in the burial sites. They knew the art of smelting copper and lead. The use of a great variety of rocks and minerals shows that prospecting and trade formed a most important item of city’s economy. In spite of this developed civilization, the social structure seems to have lacked certain elements characteristic of much larger stages of evolution. Apparently there was little class distinction between rich and poor. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
Although the sizes of buildings, equipment, and burial gifts suggest social inequality, this is not a glaring observation. Furthermore, even more impressive evidence for the absence of violence, among the many hundred of skeletons unearthed, not a single one has been found that showed signs of violent death. The Earth’s and woman’s capacity to give birth—a capacity that men lack—quite naturally gave the mother a supreme place in the World of the early agriculturalist. (Only when men could create material things by intellect, id est, magically and technically—could they claim superiority.) The mother, as goddess (often identified with mother Earth), became the supreme goddess of the religious World, while the Earthly mother became the center of family and social life. The mother-goddess is often found to be accompanied by a leopard, clothed with a leopard skin, or symbolically represented by leopards, at the time the most ferocious and deadly animal of the region (or tiger). This would make her the mistress of wild animals, and it also indicated her double role as the goddess of life and death, like so many other goddesses. “Mother Earth,” who gives birth to her children and receives them again after their individual life cycle has ended is not necessarily a destroying mother. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
The relationship which stands at the origin of all culture, of every virtue, of every nobler aspect of existence, is that between mother and child; it operates in a World of violence as the divine principle of love, of union, of peace. Raising her young, the woman learns earlier than the man to extend her loving care beyond the limits of the ego to another creature, and to direct whatever gift of invention she possesses to the preservation and improvement of the other’s existence. Woman at this stage is the repository of all culture, of all benevolence, of all devotion, of all concern for the living and grief for the dead. Yet of the love that arises from motherhood is not only more intense, but also more universal. Whereas the paternal principle is inherently restrictive, the maternal principle is universal; the paternal principle implies limitation to definite groups, but the maternal principle, like the life of nature, knows no barriers. The idea of motherhood produces a sense of universal maternity among all men, which dies with the development of paternity. The family based on father right is a closed individual organism, whereas the matriarchal family bears the typically universal character that stands at the beginning of all development and distinguishes material life from higher spiritual life. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
Every woman’s womb, the mortal image of the Earth mother Demeter, will give brothers and sisters to the children of every other woman; the homeland will know only brother and sisters until the day when the development of the paternal system dissolves the undifferentiated unity of the mass and introduces a principle of articulation. Matriarchal states were particularly famed for their freedom from internecine strife and conflict. The matriarchal peoples—and this is no less characteristic—assigned special culpability to the physical injury of one’s fellow humans or even of animals. This picture of the mode of production and social organization of hunters and Neolithic agriculturalists is quite suggestive in regard to certain psychical traits that are generally supposed to be an intrinsic part of human nature. Prehistoric hunters and agriculturalist had no opportunity to develop a passionate striving for property or envy of the “haves,” because there was no private property to hold on to and no important economic differences to cause envy. On the contrary, their way of life was conducive to the development of cooperation and peaceful living. There was no basis for the formation of the desire to exploit other human beings. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
The idea of exploiting another person’s physical or psychical energy for one’s own purposes is absurd in a society where economically and socially there is no basis for exploitation. The impulses to control others also had little chance to develop. The primitive band society and probably prehistoric hunters since about fifty thousand years ago were fundamentally different from civilized society precisely because human relations were not governed by the principles of control and power; their functioning depended on mutuality. An individual endowed with the passion for control would have been a social failure and without influence. Finally there was little incentive for the development of greed, since production and consumption were stabilized at a certain level. In many highly developed societies, such as the feudal society in the Middle Ages, the members of one occupational group—such as the guilds—did not strive for increasing material profit, but for enough to satisfy the traditional standard of living. Even the knowledge that the members of social classes above them had more luxuries to consume did not generate greed for this surplus consumption. The process of living was satisfying, and hence, no greater consumption appeared desirable. The same holds true for the peasants. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
The rebellions of the peasants in the sixteenth century were not because they wanted to consume as much as the class above them, but they wanted the basis for a dignified human existence and fulfillment of the traditional obligations the land owners had towards them. Do the data on hunter-gatherers and early agriculturalists suggest that the passion of possessiveness, exploitation, greed, envy did not yet exist and are exclusively products of civilization? We cannot make such a sweeping statement, but there is a great difference between cultures which foster and encourage greed, envy, and exploitativeness by their social structure, and cultures which do the opposite. Within a short period, historically speaking, humans learned to harness the physical energy of oxen and the energy of the winds. They invented the plough, the wheeled cart, the sailing boat, and one discovered the chemical processes involved in the smelting of copper ores (to some extent know earlier), and the physical properties of metals, and one began to work out a solar calendar. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
As a consequence, the way was prepared for the art of writing and standards and measures. In no period of history till the days of Galileo was progress in knowledge do rapid or far-reaching discoveries so frequent. But social change was not less revolutionary. The small villages of self-sufficient farmers were transformed into populous cities nourished by secondary industries and foreign trade, and these new cities were organized as city states. Human literally created new land. The great cities of Babylonia rose on a sort of platform of reeds, laid crisscross upon the alluvial mud. They dug channels to water the fields and drain the marshes, they built dykes and mounds to protect humans and cattle from the waters and raise them above the flood. This creation of tillable land required a great deal of labour and this capital in the form of human labour was being sunk in the land. Another result of this process was that a specialized labour force had to be used for this kind of work, and for cultivating the land necessary to grow food for those others who were specialized in crafts, public works, and trade. They had to be organized by the community and directed by an elite which did the planning, protecting, and controlling. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
This means that a much greater accumulation of surplus was needed than in the earlier Neolithic villages, and that this surplus was not just used as food reserve for times of need or growing population, but as capital to be used for an expanding production. The beginning of Neolithic agriculture humans had already developed made it possible for them to produce a small surplus, but this surplus only helped to stabilize their life. When, however, it grew, it could be used for an entirely new purpose; it became possible to feed people who did not directly produce food, but cleared the marshes, built houses and cities and pyramids, or served as soldiers. Of course, such use could only take place when technique and division of labour had reached a degree which made it possible for human labour to be so employed. At this point the surplus grew immensely. The more fields were ploughed, the more marshes were drained, the more surplus could be produced. This new possibility led to one of the most fundamental changes in human history. It was discovered that humans could be used as economic instruments, that they could be exploited, that they could be made a slave. War as an institution was a new invention, like kingdom or bureaucracy, made around 3000 B.C. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Then as now, war was not caused by psychological factors, such as human aggression, but, aside from the wishes for power and glory of the kinds and their bureaucracy, was the result of objective conditions that made war useful and which, as a consequence, tended to generate and increase human destructiveness and cruelty. One of the most significant features of the new urban society was that it was based on the principle of patriarchal rule, in which the principle of control is inherent: control of nature, control of slaves, women and children. The new patriarchal man literally “makes” the Earth. His technique is not simply modification of the natural processes, but their domination and control by man, resulting in new products which are not found in nature. Humans themselves came under the control of those who organized the work of the community, and hence the leaders had to have power over those they control. In order to achieve the aims of this new society, everything, nature and humans, had to be controlled and had to either exercise—of fear—power. Humans were aware of their faculties through their behaviour. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
God gave humans revelations so the use their will to discover God, but some people use religion to control other people. In order to become controllable, humans had to learn to obey and submit, and in order to submit they have to believe in the superior power—physical and/or magic—of their rulers. The new patriarchal system was one based on force and power; it was exploitative and mediated by the psychical mechanism of fear, “awe,” and submission. It was “irrational authority.” To exert power in every form was the essence of civilization; the city found a score of ways of expressing struggle, aggression, domination, conquest—and servitude. The new ways of the cities were rigorous, efficient, often harsh, eve sadistic, and the Egyptian monarchs and their Mesopotamian counterparts boasted on their monuments and tablets of their personal feats in mutilating, torturing, and killing with their own hands their chief captives. In addition to sadism, the passion to destroy life and the attraction to all that is dead (necrophilia) seem to develop in the new urban civilization. There was a destructive, death-oriented myth to be found in the new social order. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
Each historic civilization begins with a living, urban core, the polis, and ends in a common graveyard of dust and bones, a Necropolis, or city of the dead: fire-scorched ruins, shattered buildings, empty workshops, heaps of meaningless refuse, the population massacred or driven int slavery. Whether we read the story of the Hebrews’ conquest of Canaan or the story of the Babylonians’ wars, the same spirit of unlimited and inhuman destructiveness is shown. A good example is Dr. Sennacherib’s stone inscription on the total annihilation of Babylon: “The city and its houses from its foundation to its top, I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire. The wall and the outer wall, temples and gods, temple towers of brick and Earth, as many as they were, I razed and dumped them int the Arakhut Canal. Through the midst of that city I dug canals, I flooded its site with water, and the very foundations thereof I destroyed. I made its destruction more complete than that by a flood.” Nonaggressive societies are not as rare or puny as Dr. Freeman and other exponents of the Freudian theory indicate. Aggressiveness is not just one trait, but part of a syndrome; we find aggression regularly together with other traits in the system, such as strict hierarchy, dominance, class division, ex cetera. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
In other words, aggression is to be understood as part of the social character, not as an isolated behaviour trait. Societies are not simply differentiated in terms of more or less aggression, or more or less nonaggression, but in terms of different character systems distinguished from each other by a number of traits that form the system, some of which do not have any obvious connection with aggression. What we most learn in God’s yoke, beyond acting with him, is to abandon outcomes to God, accepting that we do not have in ourselves—in our own “heart, soul, mind, and strength”—the wherewithal to make this come out right, whatever “this” is. Even if we “suffer according to the will of God,” we simply “entrust our souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right,” report 1 Peter 4.19. Now, this is a major part of that meekness and lowliness of heart that we also learn in his yoke. And what rest comes with it! Humility if the framework within which all virtue lives. Our Lord did not say: Learn of Me to despise the World and live in poverty…but only this: Learn of Me for I am gentle and lowly of heart. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
And one of the signs by which a human may know that one is in a state of grace is this—that one is never puffed up. Accordingly, we are to “clothe ourselves with humility,” reports 1 Peter 5.5, which certainly means loss of self-sufficiency. “God gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you,” reports 1 Peter 5.5-7. Humility is a great secret of rest of soul because it does not presume to secure outcomes. Here is a simple fact: We live in a World where, by God’s appointment, “the race is not to the swift, and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise, nor wealth to the discerning, nor favour to humans of ability; for time and chance overtake them all,” reports Ecclesiastes 9.11. The Lord “does not delight in the strength of the horse; He does not take pleasure in the legs of a man,” reports Psalm 147.10. He has a plan for our life that goes far beyond anything we can work out and secure by means of strong horses and good legs. We simply have to rest in His life as he gives it to us. Knowledge, from Christ, that He is good and great enables us to cast outcomes on Him. We find this knowledge in the yoke of Christ. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
Resting in God, we can be free from all anxiety, which means deep soul rest. Whatever our circumstance, taught by Christ we are enabled to “rest [be still] in the LORD and wait patiently [or longingly] for Him,” reports Psalm 37.7. We do not fret or get angry because others seem to be doing better than we are, even though they are less deserving than we. However, the Holy Spirit divided unto each one as He will, namely, according to the free choice of the will, not in obedience to necessity. We have free-will with respect to what we will not of necessity, nor be natural instinct. For our will to be happy does not appertain to free-will, but not natural instinct. Hence other animals, that are moved to act by natural instinct, are not said to be moved by free-will. Since then God necessarily wills His own goodness, but other things not necessarily. God has free will with respect to what He does not necessarily will. Since the evil of sin consists in turning away from the divine goodness, by which God wills all things, it is manifestly impossible for Him to will the evil of sin; yet He can make choice of one of two opposites, inasmuch as He can will a thing to be, or not to be. In the same way we ourselves, without sin, can will to sit down, and not will to sit down. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
In life, be there, do not panic in the face of the pathology; and hold out an optimistic vision of what can come from the pain. To become aware means to perceive one’s wholeness as a person defined by spirit; to perceive the dynamic center that stamps on all utterances, actions, and attitudes the recognizable sign of uniqueness. Such an awareness is impossible if, and as long, the other is for me the detached object of my observation, for that person will not thus yield one’s wholeness and its center. It is possible only when one become present in genuine dialogue. Individuals naturally seek equilibrium because disequilibrium, which is a mismatch between one’s way of thinking and one’s environment, is inherently dissatisfying. When individuals encounter new discrepant information, they enter into a state of disequilibrium. Spiritual experience is the encounter with one’s ground being. It is the moment of one’s life, one’s place in the Universe, and the values that characterize how one lives. Because these issues are central to the self-reflective life and because they are realized in moments of extraordinary clarity with an urgency and authority all their own, they demand attention in the articulation of any definitive psychological system. #RanndolphHarris 21 of 22
God of learning, please guide me in my intellectual quests today. Please keep my mind open and fill it with learning. Land of Spirits, please show yourself to me and teach me to love nature. God, please be true. Be strong. Please keep your promises. I seek wisdom. Please love your children. Please be at peace. Please bless your children. This is my request of you. May all the Holy One help you to make it true. God has given our lard a heritage, for his loving kindness endures forever. God has redeemed us from our foes, for His loving kindness endures forever. God gives food to all creatures, for His loving kindness endures forever. O please give thanks unto God of Heaven, for His loving kindness endures forever. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, it is befitting for the upright to praise Him. Give thanks unto the Lord with the harp, sing praises unto Him with the ten stringed psaltery. Sing unto Him a new song; play skillfully amid songs of joy, for the word of the Lord is just, and all His work is truth. God loves righteousness and justice; the Earth is full of loving kindness of the Lord. By the word of the Lord were the Heavens made, and all the host of them by His command. God gathered the waters of the sea as a heap; He lay up the deeps in the store-houses. God is Almighty. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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Persons with Greater Intelligence and Education Should Have Extra Votes and More Influence?
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. The United States of America’s Constitution was the first written constitution in the World. It has served Americans well, enhancing freedom and prosperity during the changed conditions of nearly three hundred years. Frequently copied, it has become the United States’ most important export. After two centuries, every nation in the World except about six have adopted written constitutions, and the United States Constitution was a model for all of them. No wonder modern revelation says that God established the United States Constitution and that is “should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 101.77. The most desirable condition of maximum freedom and responsibility is our God-given moral agency. In this condition humans are accountable for their own sins and cannot blame their political conditions on their bondage to a king or a tyrant. This condition is achieved when the people are sovereign, as they are under the Constitution God established in the United States of America. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
We know that the cosmos manifest itself out of the divine Mind, and within it, too. However, why there should be such a manifestation at all, we do not know. Many students raise this query and are dissatisfied at the failure to obtain a good answer. However, the fact is that such questions cannot be adequately answered on the same plane as that on which they arise. If we could shift our consciousness to a higher one, we would find that they simply do not exist there. However, although complete adequacy may be unattainable, some sort of working answer can be formulated and used for and by those who are unable to effect such a shift. If the human entity has no other purpose to fulfill on this Earth than to return to the sphere of its origin, then it has no business to leave that sphere. If the Universe has any sense in it at all, there must be something to be gained by its Earthly journey. The human destination is also their origin. However, to say that one was born in the eternal Spirit starts the question, “How can time, which is placed outside eternity, bring on to eternity?” The answer is that it does not being one there; it only educated one to look for, and prepares one to pass through, the opening through which one can escape. Need it be said that this lies at the point where ego surrender wholly to God? #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
The Goal towards which humans are slowly travelling by successive steps is a threefold one: the fully developed environment, the fully developed intelligence, and the realized soul. The last is the best and the other two are but servants of it, for here one comes first to a comprehension and then to a realization of oneself. Yes, one is on one’s way to the grand awakening into the full self-consciousness. All this vast evolution of environments and their entities has but one ultimate aim from a human’s point of view and so far as one is concerned. It is to bring one into a miniature likeness to one’s divine Parent, to make one into an image of Godlike beauty, power, wisdom, and being. “We the people are superior to the government and should remain master over it, not the other way around. An unrighteous king doth pervert the ways of all righteousness. Therefore, chose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws. Now it is not coming that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your busines by the voice of the people,” reports Mosiah 29.23-26. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Yes, the Earth has been, through this long travail of countless ages, brining forth the mineral, the plant, the animal, and the human kingdoms. In humans, the Earth has given birth to a child who is destined to rule with her when one’s Intelligence becomes perfected and consequently when one is able to rule oneself. The process of human evolution serves a twofold purpose. The first is to develop the physical, emotional, and intellectual characteristics. The second is to lead the individual to enquire into, and become fully conscious of, one’s divine origin. The journey of life is both an adventure and a pilgrimage. We pass from body to body to collect experience. The fruit of experience is Enlightenment: the knowledge of God, established awareness of His presence; and knowledge of the Unseen Power behind the Universe, established connection with it. We are here in this World for a higher purpose than the obvious physical one of self-preservation, for even that is contributory to it. We are here to evolve into the consciousness of God. Every physical experience is only a means toward such spiritual development. Popular sovereignty necessarily implies popular responsibility. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Instead of blaming their troubles on a king or other sovereign, all citizens must share the burdens and responsibilities of governing. “The burden should come upon all the people, that every human might bear one’s part,” reports Mosiah 29.34. When power comes from the people, there is no legitimacy in legal castes or classes or in failing to provide all citizens the equal protection of the laws. Without some government stability against an outraged majority, government could not protect minority rights. The Constitution was framed in order to protect minorities. That is the purpose of written constitutions. In order that the minorities might be protected in the matter of amendments under our Constitution, the Lord required that the amendments should be made only through the operation of very large majorities—two-thirds for action in the Senate, and three-fourths as among the states. This is the inspired, prescribed order. Participation is the active involvement of a group of individuals in a collective process on actual or intended actions of administrative authorities. Participation can refer to taking part in preliminary arrangements, influencing decision-makers, or taking part in actual decision-making process. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
However, participation can also be justified from the point of view of a sensible government finding out potential flaws and realizing ownership. The term “public participation” presumes that the initiative and procedures are in the hands of citizens, the participation process is generally managed by public entities. The participation principle can be also about participation as a right, and the question of what consequences are there for the direct and guiding function of the administration. Participation is important under the democratic rule of law as well. Public participation can be motivated by democratic, constitutional, corporatist, or administrative motives. While the distinction between these motives for participation is not always unequivocal, these do offer an indication of the various perspectives—and consequently motives—of the parties involved in public participation. With regards to participation, a distinction can be made between the type and the level of participation achieved, id est form and degree of participation. Forms of participation are popular initiatives, the citizen’s panel, the referendum, and the community level forms. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
The degree of participation is quantified by using indicators, including the number of individuals, the time invested in and the frequency of participation, the involvement of individuals, the extent of influence on the process with respect to the issues addressed by the public authority and the level of participation that citizens are entitled to. Citizens could play different roles, for example one of co-decision-making, co-producing, counselling, consultation, or of distribution information. It is evident from the account of the principle of participation that there are three ways to limit its application. The constitution may define a more or a less extensive freedom of participation; it may allow inequalities in political liberties; and greater or smaller social resources may be devoted to insuring the worth of these freedoms to the representative citizens. The extent of the principle of participation is defined as the degree to which the procedure of (bare) majority rule is restricted by the mechanisms of constitutionalism. These devices serve to limit the scope of majority rule, the kinds of matters on which majorities have final authority, and the speed with which the aims of the majority are put into effect. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
A bill of rights may remove certain liberties from majority regulation altogether, and the separation of powers with judicial review may slow down the pace of legislative change. The question, then, is how these mechanisms might be justified consistent with the two principles of justice. We are not to ask whether these devices are in fact justified, but what kind of an argument for them is required. To begin with, however, we should observe that the limits on the extent of the principle of participation are assumed to fall equally upon everyone. For this reason these restrictions are easier to justify than unequal political liberties. If all could have a greater liberty, at least each loses equally, other things the same; and if this lesser liberty is unnecessary and not imposed by some human agency, the scheme of liberty is to this degree irrational rather than unjust. Unequal liberty, as when the precept one human one vote is violated, is another matter and immediately raises a question of justice. Supposing for the time being that the constraints on majority rule bear equally on all citizens, the justification for the devices of constitutionalism is that they presumably protect the other freedoms. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
The best arrangement is found by noting the consequences for the complete system of liberty. The intuitive idea here is straightforward. We have said that the political process is a case of imperfect procedural justice. A constitution that restricts majority rule by the various traditional devices is thought to lead to a more just body of legislation. Since the majority principle must as a practical necessity be relied upon to some degree, the problem is to find which constraints work best in given circumstances to further the ends of liberty. Of course, these matters lie outside the theory of justice. If any of the constitutional mechanisms is effective in achieving its aim, or how far its successful working presupposes certain underlying social conditions, we need not consider which. The relevant point is that to justify these restrictions one must maintain that from the perspective of the representative citizen in the constitutional convention the less extensive freedom of participation is sufficiently outweighed by the greater security and extent of the other liberties. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Unlimited majority rule is often thought to be hostile to these liberties. Constitutional arrangements compel a majority to delay putting its will into effect and force it to make a more considered and deliberate decision. In this and other ways procedural constraints are said to mitigate the defects of the majority principle. The justification appeals to a greater equal liberty. At no point is there a reference to compensating economic and social benefits. One of the tenets of classical liberalism is that the political liberties are of less intrinsic importance than liberty of conscience and freedom of person. Should one be forced to choose between the political liberties and all the others, the governance of a good sovereign who recognized the latter and who upheld the rule of law would be far preferable. On this view, the chief merit of the principle of participation is to insure that the government respects the rights and welfare of the governed. Fortunately however, we do not often have access to the relative total importance of the different liberties. Usually the way to proceed is to apply the principle of equal advantage in adjusting the complete system of freedom. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
We are not called upon to abandon the principle of participation entirely or to allow it unlimited sway. Instead, we should narrow or widen its extent up to the point where the danger to liberty from the marginal loss in control over those holding political power just balances the security of liberty gained by the greater use of constitutional devices. The decision is not an all or nothing affair. It is a question of weighing against one another small variations in the extent and definition of the different liberties. The priority of liberty does not exclude marginal exchanges within the system of freedom. Moreover, it allows although it des not require that some liberties, say those covered by the principle of participation, are less essential in that their main role is to protect the remaining freedoms. Different opinions about the value of the liberties will, of course, affect how different persons think the full scheme of freedom should be arranged. Those who place a higher worth on the principle of participation will be prepared to take greater risks with the freedoms of the person, say, in order to give political liberty a larger place. Ideally these conflicts will not occur and it should be possible, under favourable conditions anyway, to find a constitutional procedure that allows a sufficient scope for the values of participation without jeopardizing the other liberties. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
It is sometime objected to majority rule that, however circumscribed, it fails to take account of the intensity of desire, since the larger part may override the strong feelings of a minority. This criticism rests up the mistake view that the intensity of desire is a relevant consideration in enacting legislation. To the contrary, whenever questions of justice are raised, we are not to go by the strength of feeling but must aim instead for the greater justice of the legal order. The fundamental criterion for judging any procedure is the justice of its likely results. When the vote is rather evenly divided, a similar replay may be given to the propriety of majority rule. Everything depends on the probable justice of the outcome. If the various sectors of society have reasonable confidence in one another and share a common conception of justice, the rule by bare majorities may succeed fairly well. To the extent that this underlying agreement is lacking, the majority principle becomes more difficult to justify because it is less probably that just policies will be followed. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
There may, however, be no procedures that can be relied upon once distrust and enmity pervade society. I do not wish to pursue these matters further. I mention these familiar points about majority rule only to emphasize that the test of constitutional arrangement is always the overall balance of justice. Where issues of justice are involved, the intensity of desires should not be taken into account. Of course, as things are, legislator must reckon with strong public feelings. Human’s sense of outrage however irrational will set boundaries upon what is politically attainable; and popular views will affect the strategies of enforcement within these limits. However, questions of strategy are not to be confused with those of justice. If a bill of right guaranteeing liberty of conscience and freedom of though and assembly would be effective, then it should be adopted. Whatever the depth of feeling against them, these rights should if possible be made to stand. The force of opposing attitudes has no bearing on the question of right but only on the feasibility of arrangements of liberty. The justification of unequal political liberty proceeds in much the same way. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
One takes up the point of view of the representative citizen in the constitutional convention and assesses the total system of freedom as it looks to one. However, in this case, there is an important difference. We must now reason from the perspective of those who have the lesser political liberty. An inequality in the basic structure must always be justified to those in the disadvantaged position. This holds whatever the primary social good and especially for liberty. Therefore the priority rule requires us to show that the inequality of right would be accepted by the less favoured in return for the greater protection of their other liberties that results from this restriction. Perhaps the most obvious political inequality is the violation of the precept one person one vote. Yet until recent times most writers rejected equal universal suffrage. Indeed, persons were not regarded as the proper subjects of representation at all. Often it was interests that were to be represented, with Whig and Tory differing as to whether the interest of the rising middle class should be given a place alongside the landed and ecclesiastical interest. For others it is regions that are to be represented, or forms of culture, as when one speaks of the representation of the agricultural elements of society. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
At the first sight, these kinds of representations appear unjust. How far they depart from the precept one person one vote is a measure of their abstract injustice, and indicates the strength of the countervailing reasons that must be forthcoming. Now it frequently turns out that those who oppose equal political liberty put forward justifications of the required form. They are at least prepared to argue that political inequality is to the benefit of those with the lesser liberty. Consider as an illustration Dr. Mill’s view that persons with greater intelligence and education should have extra votes in order that their opinions may have greater influence. This is a serious concern with the TV news media and social media having so much power that they can control investigations, sway elections, and ban the president of the United States of America and limit his time on television. Other concerns are the growing numbers of people with intellectual disabilities and criminals may not fully understand the impact of their votes or the consequences. That they are just voting because the think it is the right thing to do. Should people do something just because everyone else is doing it? #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Dr. Mill believed that in this case plural voting accords with natural order of human life, for whenever persons conduct a common enterprise in which they have a joint interest, they recognize that while all should have a voice, the say of everyone need not be equal. The judgment of the wiser and more knowledgeable should have superior weight. Such an arrangement is in the interest of each and conforms to human’s sentiment of justice. National affairs are precisely such a joint concern. Although all should indeed have the vote, those with a greater capacity for the management of the public interest should have a larger say. Their influence should be great enough to protect them from the class legislation of the undereducated, but not so large as to allow them to enact class legislation in their own behalf. Ideally, those will superior wisdom and judgment should act as a constant force on the side of justice and the common good, a force that, although always weak by itself, can often tip the scale in the right direction if the larger forces cancel out. Dr. Mill was persuaded that everyone would gain from this arrangement, including those whose votes count for less. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Of course, as it stands, this argument does not go beyond the general conception of justice as fairness. Dr. Mill does not state explicitly that the gain to the uneducated is to be estimated in the first instance by the larger security of their other liberties, although his reasoning suggests that he thought this to be the case. In any event, if Dr. Mill’s view is to satisfy the restrictions imposed by the priority of liberty, this is how the argument must go. His view enables one to see why political equality is sometimes regarded as less essential than equal liberty of conscience or liberty of the person. Government is assumed to aim at the common good, that is, at maintaining conditions and achieving objectives that are similarly to everyone’s advantage. To the extent that this presumption holds, and some humans can be identified as having superior wisdom and judgment, other are willing to trust them and to concede to their opinion a greater weight. The passengers of a ship are willing to let the captain steer the course, since they believe that he or she is more knowledgeable and wishes to arrive safely as much as they do. There is both an identity of interests and a noticeably greater skill and judgment in realizing it. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Now the ship of state is in some ways analogous to a ship at sea; and to the extent that this is so, the political liberties are indeed subordinate to the other freedoms that, so to say, define the intrinsic good of the passengers. Admitting these assumptions, plural voting may be perfectly just. Of course, the grounds for self-government are not solely instrumental. When assured its fair value, equal political liberty is bound to have a profound effect on the moral quality of civic life. Citizens’ relations to one another are given a secure basis in the manifest constitution of society. The medieval maxim that what touches all concerns all is seen to be taken seriously and declared as the public intention. Political liberty so understood is not designed to satisfy the individual’s desire for self-mastery, much less one’s quest for power. Taking part in political life does not make the individual master of oneself, but rather gives one an equal voice along with others in settling how basic social conditions are to be arranged. Nor does it answer to the ambition to dictate others, since each is now required to moderate one’s claims by what everyone is able to recognize as just. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
The public will to consult and to take everyone’s beliefs and interests into account lays the foundations for civic friendship and shapes the ethos of political culture. Moreover, the effect of self-government where equal political rights have their fair value is to enhance the self-esteem and the sense of political competence of the average citizen. One’s awareness of one’s own worth developed in the smaller associations of one’s community is confirmed in the constitution of the whole society. Since one is expected to vote, one is expected to have political opinions. The time and thought that one devotes to forming one’s views is not governed by the likely material return of one’s political influence. Rather it is an activity enjoyable in itself that leads to a larger conception of society and to the development of one’s intellectual and more facilities. As Dr. Mill observed, one is called upon to weigh interests other than one’s own, and t be guided by some conception of justice and the public good rather than by one’s own inclinations. Having to explain and justify one’s views to others, one must appeal to principles that others can accept. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Moreover, Dr. Mill adds, if citizens are to acquire an affirmative sense of political duty and obligation, that is, one that goes beyond the mere willingness to submit to law and government, this education to public spirit is necessary. Without these more inclusive sentiments humans become estranged and isolated in their smaller associations, and affective ties may outside the family or a narrow circle of friends. Citizens no longer regard one another as associated with him one can cooperate to advance some interpretation of public good; instead, they view themselves as rivals, or else as obstacles to one another’s ends. All of these considerations Dr. Mill and others have made familiar. They show that equal political liberty is not solely a means. These freedoms strengthen human’s sense of their own worth, enlarge their intellectual and more sensibilities, and ay the basis for a sense of duty and obligation upon which the stability of just institutions depends. All of Heavenly Father’s children are accountable for their effort and progress in developing their divine potential by improving performance, acquiring knowledge, perfecting attitude, and building character. Understanding the great plan of happiness helps individuals develop their divine potential and promotes professional growth. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
An understanding of the worth and divine potential of each soul helps leaders and teachers guide others to Jesus Christ. As I grow and learn, please help me O Father, to know what is right and to do only that. To God that spread forth the Earth above the water, for His loving kindness endures forever; to God that made the great lights, for His living kindness endures forever; the sun to rule by day, for His living kindness endures forever; the moon and stars to rule by night, for His loving kindness ensures forever; to Hum that smote Egypt through their first-born, for His loving kindness endures forever; with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, for His loving kindness endure forever; to Him who divided the Red Sea, for His loving kindness endures forever; and made Israel to pass through it, for His loving kindness endures forever; but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, for His loving kindness endures forever; to Him who led His people through the wilderness, for His loving kindness endures forever; and struck down mighty kings, for His loving kindness endures forever; and Og, king of Bashan, for His loving kindness endures forever. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Upon Your Skirts Have Fallen Tears of Mine–Genuine Joy and Creativity Come Out of Paradox!
The run-of-the-mill have a truer capacity for love than intellectuals, who should know better. I have always worked with the temperamental conviction that at bottom there are no insoluble problems, and experience justifies me in so far as I have often seen patients simply outgrow a problem that destroyed others. This “outgrowing,” as I called it, proves on further investigation to be a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appears on the patient’s horizon, and through this broadening of one’s outlook the insoluble problem loses its urgency. It is not solved logically in its own terms, but fades out when confronted with a new and stronger life urge. It is not repressed and made unconscious, but merely appears in a different light, and so really does become different. What, on a lower level, leads to the wildest conflicts and to panicky outbursts of emotion, from the higher level of personality now looks like a storm in the valley seen from the mountain top. This does not mean that the storm is robbed of its reality, but instead of being in it one is above it. However, since, in a psychic sense, we are both valley and mountain, it might seem a vain illusion to deem oneself beyond what is human. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
One certainly does feel the affect and is shaken and tormented by the storm, yet at the same time one is aware of a higher consciousness looking on which prevents one from becoming identical with the affect, a consciousness which regards the affect as an object, and can say, “I know that I suffer.” What our text says of indolence, “Indolence of which a human is conscious, and indolence of which one is unconscious, are a thousand miles apart,” hold true in the highest degree of affect. Now and then it happens in my practice that a patient grows beyond oneself because of unknow potentialities, and this becomes an experience of prime importance to me. In the meantime, I have learned that all the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble. They must be so, for they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. I therefore asked myself whether this outgrowing, this possibility of further psychic development, is not the normal thing, and whether getting stuck in conflict is pathological. Everyone must possess that higher level, at least in embryonic form, and must under favourable circumstances be able to develop this potentiality. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
When I examine the course of development in patients who quietly, and as if unconsciously, outgrow themselves, I see that their fates have been something in common. The new thing comes to them from obscure possibilities either outside or inside themselves; they accept it and grow with its help. It seems to me typical that some take the new thing from outside themselves, others from inside; or rather, that it grows int some persons from without, and into others from within. However, the new thing never comes exclusively either form within or from without. If it comes from outside, it becomes a profound inner experience; if it comes from inside, it becomes an outer happening. In no case is it conjured into existence intentionally or by conscious willing, but rather seems to be borne along on the stream of time. The goal toward which the individuation process is ending is “Wholeness” or “Integration”: a condition in which all the different elements of the psyche, both conscious and unconscious, are welded together. The person who achieves this goal possess an attitude that is beyond the reach of emotional entanglements and violent shocks—a consciousness detached from the World. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Individuation is a spiritual journey; and the person embarking upon it, although one might not subscribe to any recognized creed, is nonetheless pursuing a religious quest. By paying careful attention to the unconscious, as manifested in dream and fantasy, the individual comes to change one’s attitude from one in which ego and will are paramount to one in in which one acknowledges that one is guided by an integrating factor which is not of one’s own making. This integrating factor, expressed by the emergence of quaternity or mandala symbols, is named the Self; and archetype which not only signifies union between the opposites within the psyche, but is a God-image, or at least cannot be distinguished from one. Unity and totality stand at the highest point on the scale of objective values because their symbols can no longer be distinguished from the imago Dei. Imago Dei (The Image of God) is a concept and theological doctrine in Judaism, Christianity, and Sufism of Islam, which asserts that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Hence all statements about the God-image apply to the empirical symbols of totality. Ironically, facing death can being the courage to live and create. By the creative act, we are able to reach beyond our own death. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Because we are able to reach beyond our own death when we are creative, this is why creativity is so important, and why we need to confront the problem of the relationship between creativity and death. One needs to devote one’s aesthetic and sensibilities as an artist and their fantasy to the outside World and harness it for the task of creating a real life in relationship with others. The role of the artist is the greatest kind of courage. Many people struggle to create life through symbol and imagination, they demonstrate the essential task of creating in the face of death. It they create themselves and their own lives, however, it may be asked what “self” they are creating. Are they creating false selves and role expectations or authentic selves and authentic lives? Mandalas are cryptograms concerning the state of the self which is presented to the individual creating them. In them, some people see the self—that is, their whole being—actively at work. To be sure, at first one may only simply understand them; but they seem to the individual highly significant, and one guards the like precious pearls. One has the distinct feeling that they are something central, and in time one may acquire through them a living conception of the self. The self, one may think, is like the monad which one is, and which is their World. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
The mandala represents his monad, and corresponds to the microcosmic nature of the psyche. Now, for clarity, the mandala is an art form that one usually creates, like a painting of patterns or a sketch, and it represents one’s mind. It makes it easier for one to concentrate on, transform, and internalize unconscious things in oneself. Monads are one of the ultimate indivisible units of existence. Monads are independent of one another and innately have the power of action and direction toward some end. Although no monad in reality acts on any other, they work in a divinely preestablished harmony so that an appearance of causal connection is maintained. The concept of the monad is intended, in part, to address the mind-body problem arising from Cartesian dualism. While working on mandalas, there may be a great many and some questions may arise repeatedly: What is this process leading to? Where is its goal? From one’s own experience, one may know that one cannot presume to choose a goal which would seem trustworthy to oneself. It may be necessary to abandon the idea of the superordinate position of the ego. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
It may be a good idea to go with the scientific analysis of myths which are Symbols of Transformation. This may be an unconscious process. Therefore, let oneself be carried along by the current without a notion of where it will lead one. When one begins drawing the mandalas, however, one will see that everything, all the paths one has been following, all the steps one has been taking, are leading back to a single point—namely, to the mid-point. It may become increasingly plain to one that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the paths to the center, to individuation. Some people have seen these artworks on the exterior of Victorian houses, or in the pattern of stained-glass windows, like the stained-glass window Mrs. Winchester created with the spider web and thirteen orbs. The goal of psychic development is the self. Uniform development exists, at most, only at the beginning; later, everything points toward the center. This insight gives one stability, and gradually one’s inner peace will return. One will know that finding the mandala as an expression of the self, one has attained for one the ultimate. And perhaps one will learn more. There is great importance of authenticity and subjectivity in the creation of the self in the World. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Our subjectivity is our true home, our natural state, and our necessary place of refuge and renewal. It is the font of creativity, the stage for imagination, the drafting table for planning, and the ultimate heart of our fears and hopes, our sorrows and satisfactions. To the extent that some are struggling to create, not just any selves, but experientially coherent authentic selves, subjectivity is a necessary aspect of one’s creativity. The confrontation between life and death, the courage to create in the face of death, and the authenticity of a subjective self can be organized into a paradoxical model. Genuine joy and creativity come out of paradox. The human psyche is a continuum of constrictive and expansive possibilities. The dread of constriction and expansion promotes dysfunctional extremism or polarization, whereas confrontation with or integration of the poles promotes optimal living. Some people oscillate between the poles of expansion out into life and withdrawal into depression and a fantasy World (light and dark imagery, pleasures of the flesh and spirituality), these extremes can be understood as resting on a continuum, with the therapeutic task being to name and integrate the poles. However, the solitary journey toward independence may be molded after the heroic journey towards consciousness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
The pull toward unconsciousness and the need for nurturance and interdependence is part of one’s journey. In Victorian women, hysteria often was a form personality of the vamp and the little girl. The mental hospital is a metaphorical space in which to articulate the crazy-making pressures of middle-class life, particularly for women. The home, the mental hospital, the body: these are woman’s places in the social order that apportion different roles to the genders; and woman herself is the very sense of mutilation. Some women, especially young women experience death by suicide or have a lust for it because they may want to die perfect, certainly not mutilated. To lose your virginity is to be mutilated; virginity is unopen, not yet spoiled. Sleeping Beauty remained perfect. Being Sleeping Beauty also expresses one’s desire to remain a child, and object of fantasy, dependent, and this beauty in their lives makes them want to die as Sleeping Beauty rather than risk imperfection. Some are seeking to balance freedom and security, meaning and emptiness, loneliness and relationship. Death may be seen as warm arms, as a release from the struggle of living. Perhaps it is a good idea to let them know it is acceptable to live and remain pure. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
When pain becomes too great, contain it with humour and with writing. Presence is critical. Having someone listen to one’s silence, to one’s presence (dasein), and give one immediate, kinesthetic, and profound attention is absolutely necessary. When in a suicidal depression, one needs someone to hold one’s hand. One needs someone to help them see life as a composition, to bring one’s extremes more integrated whole, and to apply one’s creativity to one’s actual life. An essential part of healing is to see one’s individual story in a larger cultural perspective. The balance tbween nurturance and work, and the themes of sacrifice, homelessness, and the closeness between death and rebirth, are especially close to the psyche and psychotherapy of women. Sacrifice is the basis of the early primordial fertility rites and is a necessary part of the spring rebirth. Feeling sacrificed to the dominant patriarchal culture and experiencing the plight of insecurity in the living environment through the dispossession of an archetypal place in the World bring some people together in a bond of empathy and shard humanity. This bond can also unite individuals in an empathy of an intense, preverbal sibling type relationship. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
When people have someone to groan with in sympathy, it implies a way of being that does not distance but noncognitively feels with one one’s experience and allows one to descend into the underworld, transform the pain unto image and symbol, and re-emerge stronger. As one has someone to work with them through the process and changing imagery, those who have faith and the word of God deep in their hearts will be able to absorb and overcome the fiery darts that the adversary will surely send to destroy us. Otherwise, our faith, hope, and conviction may not endure, and we could become a casualty. I have learned that having the word of God deep in my soul, coupled with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His Atonement, allows me to draw upon the power of God to overcome the adversary and anything he may throw at me. As we face challenges, we can rely upon the promise of the Lord taught by Saint Paul: “For God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” We know that as a child the Saviour grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him. We know that as He grew older, Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and humans. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
And we know that by the time God’s ministry commenced, those who heard Him were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power. Through preparation, the Saviour grew in power and was able to resist all of Satan’s temptations. As we follow the Saviour’s example and prepare through studying the word of God and deepening our faith, we also can draw upon the power of God to resist temptations. Clear the space for change to happen. Let go of the vestiges of your old life, and of illusions that others provide a home for and that your Ghostly Love can provide a relationship. The second phase has to do with descent. These entails one’s experiencing one’s aloneness, one’s vulnerability, tracking the images in one’s dreams and journals, and experiencing one’s images of fire, darkness, crosses, and sacrifice. Remember, there is no expiration date associated with the power God bestows upon those who make and keep temple covenants, nor is there a restriction from accessing that power during a pandemic. However, if we fail to keep our covenants and do not life in a way that allows us to continually qualify to receive His power, the God’s power diminishes in our lives. Focus on your readiness to create your own life, and to meet another person without any baggage or encumbrances from your past. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
When you are free from encumbrances and baggage, when you do meet someone, you will be free and ready to move into a relationship with clear intentions of creating a stable home and a place for yourself. From then on, your images will deal with rebirth, light, and interdependence. Staying with this process means trusting in the Lord and the logic of one’s psyche and helping one to put one’s images and experiences into the context of a meaningful story. Because without working through the healing process, one is faced with total lack of understanding, either not wanting to understand what one is talking about because it is too painful or one is unable to understand because it is too foreign to their experience or because one is totally unable to listen to another person and hear what one is saying. In any event, the World will seem to offer nothing of care or concern for one’s experience or one’s feelings. It will seem unable and unprepared to give one anything to help one in suffering. One will just suffer, and by asking others to listen, and getting no response, one’s suffering will increase. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
However, through it all, our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, love us! They care for us! They and Their holy angels are watching over us. I know this is true. As we seek union of feeling, we will call down the power of God to make our efforts whole. We often think of substance in terms of food or money, but perhaps what we all need more of is mercy. Sometimes when a person witnesses your suffering, it makes a difference. Just being seen and heard by another. And one listening and sharing in your deep mourning. It has an impact on other people. Their eyes fill with tears. This makes some people want to listen quietly and mourn with you. The ability to listen is a rare quality, born of love. The ability to sit in silence is even more rare—a holy moment when two sit as one. Th feeling has no need for explanation. When a person manifests the least kindness and love, oh what a power it has over one’s mind. The nearer we get to our Heavenly Father, the more are we disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls—we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back. If you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on another. Let us not judge each other or let or words bite. Let us keep each other’s names safe and give the gift of mercy. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Differences can be turned to advantage instead of disadvantage. Unity does not magically happen; it takes work. It is messy, sometimes uncomfortable, and happens gradually when we clear away the bad as fast as the good can grow. Each of us is going to have deeply wounding experiences, things that should never happen. Each of us will also, at various times, allow pride and loftiness to corrupt the fruit we bear. However, Jesus Christ is our Saviour in all things. His power reaches to the very bottom and is reliably there for us when we call on Him. We all beg for mercy for our sins and failures. Jesus freely gives it. And Jesus Christ asks us if we can give that same mercy and understanding to each other. That is the meaning of the soul in the Christian understanding, and can be seen from what the Bible says about God’s soul. Many people are surprised to learn that God, too, has a soul, and even translators of the Bible often do not seem to know what to do about it. Referring to the gross wickedness into which Judea had fallen, the prophet Jeremiah gives the Lord’s word: “Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee: and lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited,” reports Jeremiah 6.8. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
However, more recent versions translate this as “or I shall turn from you in disgust,” or “Lest I be alienated from you.” Similarly I Jeremiah 9.9: “Shall not my soul be avenged on a nation as this?”; “Shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?”; and “On a nation such as this I shall not avenge Myself?” In these and other cases the word “nephesh” (or soul) occurs in the Hebrews text with reference to God. That is done in order to indicate the utter depth of the response of God to the wickedness of his people. That depth is not successfully communicated by the alternative language offered. The true meaning is hollowed out and lost. Similar observations must be made about Isaiah 1.14. In speaking of the soul of God, reference is always made to the deepest, most fundamental level of his being. And similarly in the New Testament texts such as, “Behold, My Servant Whom I Have Chosen; My Beloved In Whom My Soul Is Well-Pleased” (Matthew 12.18; see Leviticus 26.11; Psalm 11.5; and numerous other passages referring to God’s soul. The heart of the matter is that to refer to someone’s soul is to say something about the ultimate depths of one’s being and something that cannot be communicated by using terms like “person” or “self” or various available pronouns. (see Matthew 11.29.) #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The human entity has travelled through joy and suffering, experienced birth and death, experimented with good and evil for the very purpose of becoming a fully conscious entity. How then could annihilation—Vendantic or any other kind—be its ultimate fate? Is it for this, that humans should end as a mere speck of dust, that they were born? Consciousness, aspiration insight, and inspirations, artistic creations and scientific revelations, the noblest ethical feeling—all useless because the being hey serve is destined to vanish utterly? If all human’s seeming progress comes to an end with one’s death, one’s own end, how futile it is! It helps little to say that others will benefit by it, for this merely shifts the futility to them, for they too will die. The human situation is unsatisfactory and the Biblical Psalmist succinctly lamented. We have not come from oblivion. All our past is present in our characters, capacities, and tendencies; therefore we shall not go into oblivion. There is no death—only a change of state. We have the power to remove prejudice and build unity while we are here in mortal form. May we draw upon God and walk upright with one another—in perfect peace and harmony. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
We bring before you today one of yours, people of our past, one who will continue what you started in the long-ago time. God your beloved child is one of us, the family that reached so far back, and we will need you to please guide your family until they are ready to assume their full responsibilities. Be with you children and us as we do that; as your children grow, please be at their side to help. Please come to us today and learn who your children are, come and celebrate with us. Whatever the Lord desireth, He performeth, in Heaven and Earth, in the seas, and all deeps; He causeth mists to arise from the ends of the Earth; He maketh lightening for the rain; He being forth the wind out of His store-houses. God smote the first-born of Egypt, both man and beast. He sent signs and wonders into the midst of Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all His servants. God concerned many nations, and struck down might kings; Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of the Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan; and gave their land for a heritage unto Israel His people. “Lord” is Thy name for ever; as Lord art Thou known throughout all generations. For the Lord shall judge His people, and have compassion upon His servants. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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In a World where the Pulse of Time Beats Infinitely Slowly, Birth and Death Count for Little!
Hardships do not build character. They reveal it. Anyone who will tear down Victorian craftsmanship will tear down America. Victorian architecture and religion have made America what it is today. A World without Victorian architecture is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval prison. Just like the unconscious mind, Victorians have a lot of secrets that can take several lifetimes to reveal. Faith and the word of God fills our inner soul and is sufficient to sustain us—and allows us to access His power. The notion that God created this World spectacle for the benefit of the human alone is an absurd and unwarranted anthropolatry, but the notion that life first attains individual self-consciousness in humans is justified in philosophy and by experience. What is it of which one alone is conscious? It is of being oneself, one’s ego. In all earlier stages of evolution, consciousness is entirely veiled in its forms and never becomes self-aware. Only in the human state does individual consciousness of being first dawn. There may exist on other planets creatures infinitely more intelligent and more amiable than human beings. We may not be the only pebbles on the beach of life. Nevertheless the piece of arrogance which places humans highest in the scale of existence contains the dim reverberation of a great truth, for humans bear the divine within their hearts. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Human beings have made too much fuss about themselves, their own importance in the cosmic scale. Why should there not be other forms of life superior t them, conscious intelligent beings higher in mentality, character, and spiritual knowledge, better equipped with powers and techniques? Even a partial awareness of what it means to be a human—as above an animal—capable of thinking abstractly, conscious of the vastness of the Universe and the littleness of the ego, asking the ago-old questions about meaning and purpose in life, sometimes getting a glimpse of a few words of the answer through religion, art, Nature, mysticism, joy, suffering, or intelligence, even this is enough to make one wonder what follows in development after one, higher than oneself, if not here then perhaps on other planets or in a fourth dimension. Such beings must already exist somewhere. Are they the gods of ancient fable and myth, disfigured or miscomprehended in human narratives by passing of time? Were they visitors who helped infant humanity reach its tends and then left it, withdrew, except for rare appearances as avatars, angels, or lawgivers? There are existences for beings on levels and in times and space different from ours. The Level we know and the humans we see only partially manifest the World-Idea. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
The multibirthed nature of human experience fits in with the shimmering galaxies of the multiverse itself. “We are not alone,” could be echoed back by this planet Earth itself. There are beings not subject to the same laws as those governing humankind’s physical existence. They are normally not visible to humans. They are gods. The Gods are both symbols of particular forces and beings dwelling on higher planes. All these figures irrupt autonomously into consciousness as soon as it gets into a pathological state. With regard to the anima, I would particularly like to draw attention to the case described by Nelken. Now the remarkable thing is that these figures show the most striking connections with the poetic, religious, or mythological formulations, though these connections are in no way factual. That is to say, they are spontaneous products of analogy. One such case even led to the charge of plagiarism: the French writer Benoit gave a description of the anima and her classic myth in his book L’Atlantide, which is an exact parallel of Rider Haggard’s She. The lawsuit proved unsuccessful; Benoit and never heard of She. (It might, in the last analysis, have been an instance of cryptomnesic deception, which is often extremely difficult to rule out.) #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
The distinctly “historical” aspect of the anima and Benoit’s condensation with the figures of the sister, wife, mother, and daughter, plus thus associated incest motif, can be found in Goethe (“You were in times gone by my wife of sister”), as well as in the anima figure of the regina and femina alba in alchemy. The English alchemist Eirenaeus Philalethes (“love of truth”), writing about 1645, remarks that the “Queen” was the King’s “sister, mother, or wife.” The same idea can be found, ornately elaborated, in Nelken’s patient and in a whole series of cases observed by me, where I was able to rule out with certainty any possibility of literary influence. For the rest, the anima complex is one of the oldest features of Latin alchemy. When one studies the archetypal personalities and their behaviour with the help of the dreams, fantasies, delusions of patients, one is profoundly impressed by their manifold and unmistakable connections with mythological ideas completely unknown to the layperson. They form a species of singular beings whom one would like to endow with ego-consciousness; indeed, they almost seem capable of it. And yet this idea is not borne out by the facts. There is nothing in their behaviour to suggest that they have an ego-consciousness as we know it. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
The behaviours show, on the contrary, all the marks of fragmentary personalities. They are masklike, wraithlike, without problems, lacking self-reflection, with no conflicts, no doubts no sufferings; like gods, perhaps, who have no philosophy, such as the Brahma-gods of the Samyutta–nikaya, whose erroneous views needed correction by the Buddha. Unlike other contents, they always remain strangers in the World of consciousness, unwelcome intruders saturating the atmosphere with uncanny forebodings or even with the fear of madness. If we examine their content, id est, the fantasy material constituting their phenomenology, we find countless archaic and “historical” associations and images of an archetypal nature. This peculiar fact permits us to draw conclusions about the “localization’ of anima and animus in the psychic structure. They evidently live and function in the deeper layers of the unconscious, especially that phylogenetic substratum which I have called the collective unconscious. This localization explains a good deal of their strangeness: they being into our ephemeral consciousness an unknown psychic life belonging to a remote past. It is the mind of our unknown ancestors, their way of thinking and feeling, their way of experiencing life and the World, gods and humans. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
The existence of these archaic strata is presumable the source of the human’s belief in reincarnations and in memories of “previous existences.” Just as the human body is a museum, so to speak, of its phylogenetic history, so too is the psyche. We have no reason to suppose that the specific structure of the psyche is the only thing in the World that has n history outside its individual manifestations. Even the conscious mind cannot be denied a history reaching back at least five thousand years. It is only our ego-consciousness that has forever a new beginning and an early end. The unconscious psyche is not only immensely old, it is also capable of growing into an equally remote future. It moulds the human species and is just as much a part of its as the human body, which, though ephemeral in the individual, is collectively of immense ago. The anima and animus live in a World quite different from the World outside—in a World where the pulse of time beats infinitely slowly, where the birth and death of individuals count for little. No wonder their nature is strange, so strange that their irruption into consciousness often amounts to a psychosis. They undoubtedly belong to the material that comes to light in schizophrenia. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
What I have said about the collective unconscious may give you give a more or less adequate idea of what I mean by their term. If we now turn back to the problem of individuation, we shall see ourselves faced with a rather extraordinary task: the psyche consists of two incongruous halves which together should form a whole. One is inclined to think that ego-consciousness is capable of assimilating the unconscious, at least one hopes that such a solution is possible. However, unfortunately the unconscious really is unconscious; in other words, it is unknown. And how can you assimilate something unknown? Even if you can form a fairly complete picture of the anima and animus, this does not mean that you have plumbed the depths of the unconscious. One hopes to control the unconscious, but the past masters in the art of self-control, the yogis, attain perfection in samadhi, a state of ecstasy, which so far as we know is equivalent to a state of unconsciousness. It makes no difference whether they call our unconscious a “universal consciousness”; the fact remains that in their case the unconscious has swallowed up ego-consciousness. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
They do not realize that a “universal consciousness” is a contradiction in terms, since exclusion, selection, and discrimination are the root and essence of everything that lays claim to the name “consciousness.” “Universal consciousness” is logically identical with unconsciousness. It is nevertheless true that a correct application of the methods described in the Pali Canon or the Yoga-sutra induces a remarkable extension of consciousness. But, with increasing extension, the contents of consciousness lose in clarity of detail. In the end consciousness becomes all-embracing, but nebulous; and infinite number of things merge into an indefinite whole, a state in which subject and object are almost completely identical. This is all very beautiful, but scarcely to be recommended anywhere north of the Tropic of Cancer. For this reason we must look for a different solution. We believe in ego-consciousness and in what we call reality. The realities of a north climate are somehow so convincing that we feel very much better off when we do not forget them. For us it makes sense to concern ourselves with reality. Our European ego-consciousness is therefore inclined to swallow up the unconscious, and if this should not prove feasible we try to suppress it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
However, if we understand anything of the unconscious, we know that it cannot be swallowed. We also know that it is dangerous to suppress it, because the unconscious is life and this life turns against us if suppressed, as it happens in neurosis. When one of them is suppressed and injured by the other, conscious and unconscious do not make a whole. If they must contend, let it at least be a fair fight with equal rights on both sides. Both are aspects of life. Consciousness should defend its reason and protect itself, and the chaotic life of the unconscious should be given the chance of having its way too—as much of it as we can stand. This means open conflict and open collaboration at once. That, evidently, is the way human life should be. It is the old game of hammer and anvil: between them the patient iron is forged into an indestructible whole, and “individual.” This, roughly, is what I mean by the individuation process. As the same shows, it is a process or course of development arising out of the conflict between the two fundamental psychic facts. The symbol of formation has the closet affinities with alchemical ideas, and especially with the conception of the “uniting symbol,” which yield highly significant parallels. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
Naturally these are processes which have no meaning in the initial stages of psychological treatments. On the other hand, more difficult cases, such as cases of unresolved transference, develop these symbols. Knowledge of them is of inestimable importance in treating cases of this kind, especially when dealing with cultured patients. How the harmonizing of conscious and unconscious data is to be undertaken cannot be indicated in the form of a recipe. It is an irrational life-process which expressed itself in definite symbols. It may be the task of the analyst to stand by this process with all the help one can give. In this case, knowledge of the symbols is indispensable, for it is in them that the union of conscious and unconscious contents is consummated. Out of this union emerge new situations and new conscious attitudes. I have therefore called the union of opposites the “transcendent function.” This rounding out of the personality into a whole may well be the goal of any psychotherapy that claims to be more than a mere cure of symptoms. As experience piles up, self-structures gradually establish themselves and, in doing so, separate out more and more from other structures which have less to do with one’s identity. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
In the course of this process, as the self becomes more distinct, other people and things also gain coherence and individuality. There is a growing sense of “Ah yes, this is me, and that is that, and you are you, and this is what goes on between us.” Gradually, with further experiences, if all goes well, the personality develops a relatively stable sense of itself in its environment and a stable sense of what is not self but other people and things. Our life-experiences are increasingly reorganized and integrated, with more linkages to the more central regions of the self, and/or with more clearly delineated object-imagery. Our experiences can become more closely connected with (or, on the other hand, more distant from) the feelings or excitements which originally accompanied the experiences. This is a process through which our experiences can also become relatively less integrated with the person with whim we first experienced them, and relatively less integrated with the feelings or excitements with which we first experienced them. Thus feelings and excitements can be isolated from the structures in terms of which they were first experienced, isolated from structures of self and/or isolated from object-imagery. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
To give an imaginary illustration of a very complicated process, the experience may be of a child being hugged by the mother and enjoying it. In words: “I like being hugged by mother.” This may be broken up into such substructures as “hugging is lovely” (whoever hugs whom: the “depersonalized” relationship), as well as “I liked being hugged,” “I love mother,” “I like hugging,” “mother loves me,” “mother loves hugging me,” “mother likes hugging,” and so on. This example is also useful in letting us realize just how many structures can emerge out of one experience; it is a mistake to think of an experience being broken up into one self-concept, one object-concept, one relationship, one emotion. “Depersonalizing” is used to describe this process. Depersonalizing is a useful way of coping with distressing feelings, I shall often call it “distancing” or “disowning.” In depersonalizing, emotions and objects differentiate. My first experience of a dog may have been frightening, but “frightening” and “dog” will eventually probably differentiate from each other, so that in due course I can distinguish between the dog which scared me, and dogs in general which have no personal significance for me either frightening or lovable, and so on. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
At that level of abstraction, dogs remain dogs, whatever my experience of them: object-constancy has been achieved. In depersonalizing, the emotions and self differentiate. “I” and “frightened” differentiate. More generally, I learn that I am not wholly (always) good or wholly (always” bad, or wholly (always) happy or wholly (always) unhappy. Later I have to discover that my feeling hat someone or something is good or bad does not mean that it is so. And I have to discover that my feeling that someone or something is good or bad does not mean that other people think so. Subjectivity is thus turned into objectivity. This process of depersonalizing may be patchy or superficial. Underneath what we have learned about dogs which helps us say we know that not all dogs are frightening although we once knew a frightening puppy, there may be unconscious connections very tightly integrated with a feeling of good or bad about dogs. Part of psychotherapy is to being these unconscious connections into consciousness. When thinking about feelings, it is useful sometimes not to think in a “distancing” or depersonalized way of “love,” or “distress,” or “fear.” It can be instructive to think for a while in terms of “love-of,” and “distress-from,” and “fear-of,” and “hate-of,” and “greed-for,” and “bliss-with.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
If we think of feelings apart from who-feels-what-towards-whom, we risk being cut from out roots. Feeling are experienced as relational—once stated, it seems obvious, at least for a healthy functioning organism. Feelings are relational from the start except when something has gone wrong with our biochemistry. When feelings are detached from the experiences in which they were aroused, that is normally due to a later and defensive manoeuver. This component in the object-relation does not therefore separate out in an organized way, as self-structures or object-imagery do in the healthy infant. On the contrary, it looks as though health may consist in keeping feelings attached to the experiences with which they are bound up. Healthy people may have a clear sense of self and of the people and things around them, but they are not much visited by isolated waves of “fear-of” or “bliss-with.” Such feelings would normally be anchored in an experience. Depersonalized feelings are very weird. One of the many contributions made by Dr. Melanie Klein and her associates comes from their intuitive understanding that “I am angry (with a person or thing)” is very close to “Someone or something is very angry with me.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
The feeling “angry-with” may be depersonalized, detached from particular experiences, and associated at random with self or with other. Similarly “I feel torn apart (by something in the course of hunger)” may become “I have torn apart (the breast associated with hunger).” For some people there is no differentiation between self-and-feeling; for others there is none between others-and-feeling. It seems that people vary in this respect. The former are likely to experience “I am fine, sad, content, frightened, furious,” et cetera. The latter are likely to experience “He is nice, she is frightening, that is nasty, this is sweet, the other wicked.” Only people who are very out of touch would be assailed by feelings of fear or well-being or anger or love without any clear connections with anything. Illustrating the extreme, a person mainly organized in terms of self-structures, and distant from the World of people and things, might say, “I was so worried when I did not hear…I wondered what I had done wrong. I felt so guilt and worried, then I remembered that I am always forgetting people’s birthdays. Are I not awful.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
Another kind of person, mainly organized in terms of other people and things, and distant from one’s own feelings, might say, “They sent this letter which said they were closing down. With a cheque. The cheque was an insult. They have no right to send a notice like that through the post. I went to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau round the corner from where I used to live—not last year but the year before. Almost everyone there was new, much younger and two were Asian.” Yet another kind of person hardly experiences either self or other people, but picks up feelings without firmly attaching them to anyone: “It was really eerie, a dangerous atmosphere. There were a lot of booming noises and a lot of talk which I do not remember. It felt very heavy and threatening. It did not mater, though.” People differ in how they are aware, more in some ways, less in others. One wonders at which point thee types begin to become fixed. It is an interesting area to speculate in. Whole cultures or subcultures may be found which prefer one or other type, so that polite conventional speech requires more awareness of some aspect than another. Thus in some circles it is discourteous to talk about oneself, and in others it is band manners to talk about others, and in yet other circles one should not talk about impersonal matters. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Because I cannot deal with the soul here in a thorough and systematic manner that would address main issues (I refer again to the literature noted), my strategy will be twofold: First, I will elaborate a picture or image of the soul, and second, I will look at certain things said about the soul in the Bible. Now the image: Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and His kingdom, including nature: and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream. Therefore we are in harmony with God, reality, and the rest of human nature at large. As is usual in biblical themes, a little child that has been allowed to develop naturally and have been natured in all the aspects of its being gives us the best presentation of that a life flooded with a healthy soul looks like. Now, beyond the image or picture of an inner stream is this reality: Life is self-initiating, self-directing, self-sustaining activity and power. In this full sense, of course, only God has life. That is the biblical view. Moreover, it his “hand is the soul of every living thing,” Job tells us (Job 12.10). #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
Can it be truth that all this cast travail, all this long long ingathering of experience, all this travel to the farthest limit, is only to end in negation, in unlearning all knowledge and returning to where we started? My heart does not believe it, my reason cannot accept it. “The Father has life in Himself,” Jesus taught, and “gave to the Son also to have life in Himself,” reports John 5.26. “He alone possesses undying life,” reports 1 Timothy 6.16, according to Saint Paul, and is the one “who gives and preserves life to all things,” reports 1 Timothy 5.13. The individual living thing receives its relatively “self-initiating, self-directing, self-sustaining power” from the hand of God. This derivative life flows through the living being in the form of its own soul. As for the human, its peculiar form of soul is related to the unique spirit relationship it has to be God (Genesis 2.7). It is its peculiar form of soul that enlivens everything else in the creature, and its overall condition reflects the state of its soul. In the human being, spiritual life in the kingdom of God is central to its soul and its life. This, we seriously suggest, is not an image but a reality, and one that the image of a stream of water can portray with some force. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
When we speak of the human soul, then, we are speaking of the deepest level of life and power in the human being. On this land, please pour blessings, O Lord, pour blessings. On this house please pour blessings, O Lord pour blessings. Spirits of the Ancestors, do you see what has been done? A house has been born to continue your line. Once again, a link is forged in the ancient chain and we are all connected that much tighter. Bless this Victorian Mansion; it carries your memory forward to the future. Because God has set His love upon Sarah Winchester’s Mansion and estate, He will protect it; God will protect it because it knows His name. God will rescue the Winchester and its fine Victorian architecture and bring honour to it. Give will give Mrs. Winchester’s estate abundance of long life, and the Winchester mansion shall witness God’s salvation. Hallelujah. Praise the name of the Lord; give praise, ye servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of God. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; sing praise unto the name of God, for it is pleasant. For the Lord hath chosen this estate as wonder of the World and a treasure for many generations to enjoy. Indeed I know that the Lord is great, that our Lord is above all who are worshipped as gods. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
Winchester Mystery House
Sarah Winchester’s Daisy Bedroom – the room she was trapped in during the 1906 earthquake. Legend says that she had the front of the house boarded up after the earthquake.
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A Million Years to Her are Nothing Remarkable—Heaven and Earth Have Faded!
I know what happened there and I am not the only one who knows. There is nothing else that can be said about it. Although defensive aggression, destructiveness, and cruelty are not ordinarily the cause of war, these impulses manifest themselves in warfare. Hence some data on primitive warfare will help to complete the picture of primitive aggression. Among the Walbiri of Australia the characterization of warfare in hunting-gathering societies generally does not emphasize militarism—there is also no class of permanent or professional warriors; there is no hierarchy of military command; and groups rarely engage in wars of conquest. Every human was (and is still) a potential warrior, always armed and ready to defend one’s rights; but one is also an individualist, who prefers to fight independently. In some disputes kinship ties are align humans into opposed camps, and such a group may occasionally have comprised all the humans of a community. However, there are no military leaders, elected of hereditary, to plan tactics and ensure that others adopt the plans. Although some people are respected as capable and courageous fighters and their advice is valued, other humans do not necessarily follow them. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Moreover, the range of circumstances in which fights occur is in effect so limited that humans know and can employ the most effective techniques without hesitation. This is still true today even of young bachelors. There was in any case little reason for all-out warfare between communities. Slavery was unknown; portable goods were few; and the territory seized in a battle was virtually an embarrassment to the victors, whose spiritual ties were wit other localities. Small-scale wars of conquest against other tribes occurred occasionally, but I am sure that they differed only in degree from intratribal and even intracommunity fights. Thus the attack on the Waringari that led to the occupation of the water wholes in the Tanami area involved only Wangeiga men—a few score at most; and I have no evidence that communities ever entered into military alliances, either to oppose other Walbiri communities or other tribes. Technically speaking, this kind of conflict among primitive hunters can be described as war; in this sense one may conclude that “war” has always existed within the human species, and hence, that it is the manifestation of an innate drive to kill. This reasoning, however, ignores the profound differences in the warfare of civilized cultures. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Primitive warfare, particularly that of the lower primitives, was neither centrally organized nor led by permanent chieftains; it was relatively infrequent; it was not war of conquest nor was it bloody war aimed at killing as many of the enemy as possible. Most civilized war, in contrast, is institutionalized, organized by permanent chieftains, and aims at conquest of territory and/or acquisition of slaves and/or booty. In addition, and perhaps most important of all, is the frequently overlooked fact that there is no important economic stimulus among primitive hunter-gatherers to full-scale war. The birth-death ratio in hunting-gather societies is such that it would be rare for population pressure to cause some part of the population to fight others for territorial acquisition. Even if such a circumstance occurred it would not lead to much of a battle. If hunting rights or rights to some gathering spot were demanded, the stronger, more numerus, group would simply prevail, probably even without battle. In the second place there is not much to gain by plunder in hunting-gathering society. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
All bands are poor in material goods and there are no standard items of exchange that serve as capital or as valuables. Finally, at the hunting-gathering level the acquisition of captives to serve as slaves for economic exploitation—a common cause of warfare in more modern times—would be useless, given the low productivity of the economy. Captives and slaves would have a difficult time producing more than enough food to sustain themselves. The overall picture of warfare among primitive hunter-gatherers given by Service is supported and supplemented by a number of other investigators, some of who are quoted in the following paragraphs. Dr. D. Pilbeam stresses the absence of war, in contrast to occasional feuds, together with the role of example rather than power among the leaders in a hunting society, and the principle of reciprocity and generosity and the central role of cooperation. (D. Pilbeam, 1970.) Dr. U. H. Stewart comes to the following conclusion concerning territoriality and warfare: There have been many contentions that primitive bands own territories or resources and fight to protect them. Although I cannot assert that this is never the case, it is probably very uncommon. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
First, if they are too small, the primary groups that comprise the larger maximum bands intermarry. If they are too large, they split off. Second, in the cases reported here, there is no more than a tendency for primary groups to utilize special areas. Third, most so-called “warfare” among such societies is no more than revenge for alleged witchcraft or continued interfamily feuds. Fourth, collecting is the main resource in most areas, but I know of no reported defense of seed areas. Primary bands did not fight one another, and it is difficult to see how a maximum band could assemble its manpower to defend its territory against another band or why it should do so. It is true that durian trees, eagle nests, and a few other specific resources were sometimes individually claimed, but how they were defended by a person miles away has not been made clear. (U. H. Stewart, 1968.) Dr. H.H Turney-High (1971) comes to similar conclusions. He stressed that while the experiences of fear, rage, and frustration are universal, the art of war develops only late in human evolution. Most primitive societies were not capable of war because war requires a sophisticated level of conceptualization. Most primitive societies could not imagine an organization necessary to conquer or defeat a neighbour. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
According to Rapaport, Turney-High’s work did not find a very friendly reception among anthropologist because he stressed that secondary accounts of battles written by professional anthropologists were hopelessly inadequate and sometimes downright misleading; he believed that primary sources were more reliable, even when they were by amateur ethnologist generations ago. (H.H. Turney-High, 1971.) Dr. Quincy Wright’s monumental work (1,637pages including an extensive Bibliography) presents a thorough analysis of warfare among primitive people based on the statistical comparison of the main data to be found among six hundred and fifty-thee primitive peoples. The shortcomings of his analytical in the classification of primitive societies as well as different kinds of warfare. Nevertheless, his conclusions are of considerable interest because they show a statistical trend that corresponds to the result of many other authors: “The collectors, lower hunters and lower agriculturalists are the least warlike. The higher hunters and higher agriculturalists are more warlike, while the highest agriculturalists and the pastors are the most warlike of all.” (Q. Wright, 1965.) #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
This statement confirms the idea that warlikeness is not a function of human’s natural drives that manifest themselves in the most primitive form of society, but of one’s development in civilization. Dr. Wright’s data show that the more division of labour there is in a society, the more warlike it is, and that societies with compulsory classes are the most warlike of all people. Eventually his data show that the greater the equilibrium among groups and between the group and its physical environment, the less warlikeness one finds, while frequent disturbances of the equilibrium results in an increase in warlikeness. Dr. Wright differentiates among four kinds of war—defensive, social, economic, and political. By defensive war, he refers to the practice of people who have no war in their mores and who fight if actually attacked, “in which case they make spontaneous use of available tools and hunting weapons to defend themselves, but regard this necessity as a misfortune.” By social war he refers to people with whom war “is usually not very destructive of life.” (This warfare corresponds to Dr. Service’s description of war among hunters.) #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Economic and political wars refer to people who make war in order to acquire women, slaves, raw materials, and land/or, in addition, for the maintenance of a ruling dynasty or class. Almost every body reasons: if civilized humans are so warlike, how much more warlike must primitive humans have been! However, Dr. Wright’s results confirm the thesis that the most primitive humans are the least warlike and that warlikeness grows in proportion to civilization. If destructiveness were innate in humans, the trend would have to be the opposite. A view similar to Dr. Wright’s has also been expressed by M. Ginsberg, who writes: It would seem that war in this sense grows with the consolidation of groups and economic development. Among the simplest peoples we ought to speak rather of feuds, and these unquestionably occur on grounds of abduction of women, or resentments of trespass or personal injury. It must be conceded that these societies are peaceful by comparison with the more advanced of the primitive peoples. However, violence and fear of violence are there and fight occurs, though that is obviously and necessarily on a small scale. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
The facts are not adequately known, and if they do not support the view of a primitive idyllic peace, they are perhaps compatible with the view of those who think that primary or unprovoked aggressiveness is not an inherent element of human nature. (E. Glover and M. Ginsberg, 1934.) Dr. Ruth Benedict (1959) makes the distinction between “socially lethal” and “non-lethal” wars. In the latter, the aim is not that of subjugating other tribes to the victor as masters and profiteers; although there was much warfare among North American Indian: The idea of conquest never arose in aboriginal North America, and this made it possible for almost all these Indian tribes to do a very extreme thing: to separate war from the state. The state was personified in the Peace Chief, who was a leader of public opinion in all that concerned the in-group and in his council. The Peace Chief was permanent, and though no autocratic ruler he was often a very important personage. However, he had nothing to do with war. He did not even appoint the war chiefs or concern himself with the conduct of war parties. Any human who could attract a following led a war party when and where he would, and in some tribes, he was in complete control for the duration of the expedition. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
However, this lasted only till the return of the war part. The state, according to this interpretation of war, had no conceivable interest in these ventures, which were only highly desirable demonstrations of rugged individualism turned against an out-group where such demonstrations dis not harm the body politic. (R. Benedict, 1959.) Dr. Benedict’s point is important because it touches upon the connection of war, state, and private property. Socially nonlethal war is to a large extent an expression of adventurousness and the wish to have trophies and be admired, but it was not invoked by the impulse to conquer people or territory, to subjugate human beings, or to destroy the basis for their livelihood. Dr. Benedict comes to the conclusion that “elimination of war is not so uncommon as one would think from the writing of political theorists of the prehistory of war…It is a complete misunderstanding to lay this havoc [war] to any biological need of humans to go to war. The havoc is humanmade.” (R. Benedict, 1959.) Another outstanding anthropologist, Dr. E. A. Hoebel (1958) characterizes warfare among early North American Indians in these terms: “They come closer to William James’s Moral Equivalents of War. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
“They release aggressions harmlessly: they provide exercise, sport and amusement without destruction; and only mildly is there any imposition of desires by one part on the other.” (E.A. Hoebel, 1958.) Dr. Hoebel comes to the general conclusion that human’s propensity to war is obviously not an instinct, because it is an elaborate cultural complex. He gives as an interesting example the pacifistic Shoshones and the violent Comanches who in the 1600 were still culturally and racially one. The humans of the old did not till the field, but the fruits of plants and trees were sufficient for food. Nor did the women weave for the furs of birds and animals were enough for clothing. Without working there was enough to live, there were few people and plenty of supplies, and therefore the people did not quarrel. So neither large rewards nor heavy punishments where used, but the people governed themselves. However, nowadays people do not consider a family of five children as large, and each child having again five children, before the death of the grandfather, there may be twenty-five grandchildren. The result is that there are many people and few supplies, that one has to work hard for a meagre return. So the people fall to quarreling and though rewards may be doubled and punishments heaped up, ooooooone does not get away from disorder. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
Now, of all the dimensions of human being that must be dealt with in understanding spiritual formation, the soul is by far the most controversial and inaccessible in today’s World. For various reasons, it was rejected by the field of “psychology”—by very name the “theory of the soul”—as that field tried to develop itself into a “scientific” understanding of humans. The alleged failure to “find” and enduring, nonphysical center that organizes life into a whole has become a part of what is regarded as the outcome of modern thought, as everyone with a high-school education now knows. The issues here certainly run deep, and we do not mean to dismiss them lightly. However, they are not the kind of matters that can be dealt entirely in this scope. Part of soul growth and development involves charity. Charity is act of service, but it is more. It is a condition of the heart. While charity is an essential part of our lives, the ways we develop and exercise it vary as much as each life. “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift,” reports 2 Corinthians 9.6, 8, 16. The Apostle Paul taught that persistence is necessary in serving, as it is in planting and harvesting. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good until all,” report Galatians 6.9-10. We may plant a good seed, but we must then spend long hours cultivating the plant before we can reap the harvest. And in service to others, our harvest is always twofold. First, our service blesses those we serve. Second, we are blessed with divine help as we serve. Cultivation of the soul has expressed itself in a great wave of popular publications and media presentations on the soul. “Soul” has become almost as attention-getting a some of the biggest celebrities, and as widely used as selling the most popular music. People pride themselves on having and knowing and expressing “soul.” The superficial conditions of ordinary life in most Western contexts have brough this forth. It is a natural reaction to a deeply felt need, for indeed the soul—or, more generally, the spiritual side of life—simply cannot be indefinitely suppressed. Fundamental aspects of life such as art, sleep, pleasures of the flesh, ritual, family (“roots”), parenting, community, health, and meaningful work all are in fact soul functions, and they fail and fall apart to the degree that soul diminishes. It is possible that the reason modern intellectuals have failed to find soul is that soul really is no longer present in their individual lives. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
Perhaps something like a soulless life really is possible and not just something to be portrayed in fashionable literary works. That would explain why meaning is such a problem for human beings today. “Meaning” in action is fundamentally a matter of “carry over” or transcendence. Meaningful experience flows. It does not leave you stuck on something you cannot get past-whether a word you do not understand or a pointless social situation. Meaning is one of the greatest needs of human life, one of our deepest hungers—perhaps it is, in the final analysis, the most basic need in the realm of the human experience. If life as a whole is meaningful, almost anything can be born. However, in the absence of meaning, boredom and mere effort or willpower are all that is left. “Dead” religion or a dead job or relationship is one that has to be carried on in “meaningless” human routine. In boredom and carrying on by mere willpower, almost nothing can be endured, and people who are well off by all other physical and social standards find such a life unbearable. They re “dead souls.” By contrast, though in meaningful experience we are very active, the presence of meaning, with its power of “carryover,” relieves the pain of effort and makes even great strain exhilarating. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
It is as if a power beyond us meets our action and carries us. That is always, in some measure, the presence of soul. The human fetus grows through various stages, each of which corresponds to a parallel stage of the whole human race’s own previous evolution. Examine any living organism you choose and you will find that its conception, birth, and growth show an innate evolutionary trend. The process of passing from an embryonic stage to a more evolved one involves considerable differences physically. It is equally true although less apparent, mentally. The nature and functions of humans are reflected in miniature in the cells which compose one’s body, while one oneself reflects those of the Universal Mind in which one is similar to the cell. There is no one cell in the whole organism of a human which does not reflect in miniature the pattern, the proportions, and the functions of the immense cosmos itself. The microorganism has within it all the varied possibilities of becoming a human entity. The body’s physical cells disintegrate into the Earth and become part of the soil until they take new forms in plant and animal life. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
Just as a class in school one day breaks up and all the students go their separate ways, and in its place another class is formed, so the units are fully individualized only when they enter human stage. Until then they very, very slowly approach this release, just as an embryo in the womb approaches the form of a new born baby. The human body is composed of millions of tiny different intelligences, each having its own specialized life, all having developed from a single generalized cell. Some cells die within hours, others within days or even longer after the body’s own death. The fertilized egg contains all the organs of the human being in miniature. They merely grow and become big to produce the adult. It is an astonishing thought that the entire human body, from its head to its feet, is contained in miniature in the cell from which it starts existence. No microscope can see it, for it still is only an idea. However, given time, the idea finds expression is a form. In our bodies, the phagocyte cells follow they very opposite path to all the other cells, scattering and moving restlessly where the others are settling down into groups. There are millions of living cells which, in their totality, compose the human body. Each has its own separate birth, life, and death. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Nature extravagantly spends large fragments of time on outworking her high purpose; a million years to her are nothing remarkable. We poor mortals, however—being helpless prisoners in the captivity of time, whose tyrannous character we have yet to understand—are eager to see improvement and progress before the same day’s sun has set. We need but to consider the enormous duration of the aeons which have straddled the globe since the first Lemurian lived and loved. If they study the World-Idea, those who get discouraged by seeing how slow is humanity’s moral growth, and how few are the signs of its spiritual awakening, may gain fresh hope. The will of Gd is entirely unchangeable. On this point we must consider that to change the will is one thing; to will that certain things should be changed is another. It is possible to will a thing to be done now, and its contrary afterwards; and yet for the will to remain permanently the same: whereas he will would be changed, if one should begin to will what before one had not willed; or cease to will what one had willed before. This cannot happen, unless we presuppose change either in the knowledge or in the disposition of the substance of the willer. For since the will regards good, a human may in two ways begin to will a thing. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
In one way when that thing begins to be good for one, and this does not take place without a change in one. Thus when the cold weather begins, it becomes good to sit by the fire; though it was not so before. In another way when one knows for the firs time that a whing is good for one, though one did not know it before; hence we take counsel in order to know what is good for us. Now it has already been shown that both the substance of God and His knowledge are entirely unchangeable. Many of the words the Lord has spoken are to be understood metaphorically, and according to the likeness of nature. For when we repent, we destroy what we have made; although we may even do so without change of the will; as, when a human wills to make a thing, at the same time intending to destroy it later. Therefore God is said to have repented, by way of comparison with our mode of acting, in so far as by the deluge He destroyed from the face of the Earth humans whom He had made. The will of God, as it is the first and universal cause, does not exclude intermediate causes that have power to produce certain effects. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
Since however all intermediate causes are inferior in power to the first cause, there are many things in the divine power, knowledge and will that are not included in order of inferior causes. Thus in the case of Lazarus, one who looked only on inferior causes might have said: “Lazarus will rise again.” And God wills both: that is, that in the order of the inferior cause a thing shall happen; but that in the order of the higher cause it shall not happen; or He may will conversely. We may say, then, that God sometimes declares that a thing shall happen according as it falls under the order of inferior causes, as of nature, or merit, which yet does not happen as not being in the designs of the divine and higher causes. The He foretold Ezechias: “Take order with thy house, for thou shalt die, and not live,” reports Isaiah 38.1. Yet this did not take place, since from eternity it was otherwise disposed in the divine knowledge and will, which is unchangeable. Hence Gregory says (Moral, xvi, 5): “The sentence of God changes, but not His counsel”—that is to say, the counsel of His will. When therefore God says, “I also will repent,” His words must be understood metaphorically. For when they do not fulfill what they have threatened, humans seem to repent. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
It does not follow from this argument that God has a will that changes, but that He sometimes wills that things should change. Although God’s willing a thing is not by absolute necessity, yet it is necessary by supposition, on account of the unchangeableness of the divine will, as has been said above. There are different stages in the development of people: some stand on the lower, some on the higher ones—and others fill in the space between. There is no equality among human beings, in character or manners, in intelligence or intuitiveness. Those who resent this fact may deny it, thereby revealing their incapacity for understanding truth. Exploitation of the lower types by the higher ones has bred the resentment, and this in turn has blinded the eyes or the mind. By one’s own reactions to the fragments of knowledge of the World-Idea which come to a human, one reveals oneself, one’s kind of character and stage of development. The wise and the foolish, the enlightened and the ignorant, the good, and the bad, dwell on the same Earth outwardly but on different planets inwardly. The human being slowly unfolds its possibilities through the workings of manifold experience. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
It is there, in this manifold of experience, that there are to be seen conscience, guiding it along ever-higher moral paths; capacity, expressing its active power and creative talent; and intelligence, teaching it to discriminate between foolishness and wisdom or to penetrate through appearance to reality. It is significant that animals tend to live in herds. As humans mature, they reach more and more individuality. Slowly, at times pleasurably and at times painfully, the human entity builds up its consciousness and capacities through the ages. If human needs brought us thus far, human curiosity is bringing us into another kind of cycle. Yet this perception of the ultimate goodness behind life, the ultimate triumph of light and love, need not keep us from recognizing that there are evil tendencies in many humans. We may recognize the as motes in the beam, as dust in the sunray, for we must not lose our perspective about them; but we may still regard them as temporary phases of human vicissitude that will be over-passed and left behind as the slow course of evolution carries out its work upon the human race. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as a day that is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest humans away as with a flood; they are like moss; they are like grass that grows in the morning. In the morning it flourishes and grows up; in the evening it is cut down and withers. Truly we perish by reason of Thy displeasure, and are overwhelmed by Thy wrath; for Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy presence. Yea, all our days pass away because of Thy displeasure; we bring our year to an end as a sign. The days of our years are but three-score years and tend, or by reason of strength four-score. Yet is their pride but travail and vanity; for seedily our life is over and we vanish. Who knows the power of Thy wrath? And how fearful is Thine anger! Please teach us, therefore, to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom. Return unto us, O Lord; how long wilt Thou be wroth? O relent Thee concerning Thy servants. Please give us abundantly every morning of Thy lovingkindness, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Gladden us according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us, the years wherein we have seen sorrow. Please let thy work be revealed unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto their children. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
And let Thy graciousness, O Lord our God, be upon us; establish Thou also the work of our hands for us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it. Please watch over our families and protect them during their whole life. May our children, and our children’s children know to worship God. May each moment we experience on this Earth welcome us and bring protection. May God increase all His people and may we rejoice with a new life. May our lives grow and give us strength. Lord, please guide us in the way to grow being us healing and strength. May be learn and know the meaning and purpose of our lives on this Earth. Deep inside, may we learn what we must know and do what we must do. Please go before us an open the gates of opportunity. May our journey in this life be smooth and safe. May we know the right thing with all of us and do it no matter what the pain. A hard road lies before us, shining ones, a road filled with great difficulties, a road filled with great joys. Please guide us alone it. Please be at our side, Lord, and send guardian angels. Father of World, we turn to you in prayer that you might bless us, our Father, who took your role here on Earth and performed it well. May we act the role as artfully. Amen. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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Heaven Holds a Sense of Wonder and I Wanted to Believe—It Keeps Eternal Whisperings Around!
American journalists today have been forced and lured out of their normal and proper role in our society. Many of them have become not just the critics in the aisles but the actors in the play. It is not possible, and it is not necessary, for any human mind to learn all the higher laws governing life. However, it is possible to learn some of them and also the archetypal ways in which the World-Ideas manifests. With them, one has something of a key to the unknown laws. It must be remembered that these higher laws are established throughout the cosmos, not merely in our part of it; that this higher truth can never undergo any alteration in itself, whatever way different humans of insight may speak about it; that we human being can have the privilege, when purified, of partaking in the real holy communion which alone fulfills our highest prayers. Those who seek to do God’s will must first seek to discern it not only within themselves but also in their environment outside. For this a study of the pattern of the World-Idea is necessary. Heaven holds a sense of wonder and many of us want to believe we will get caught up when the rage in one subsides. #RandolphHarris 1 of 24
Passion chokes the flower till she cries no more, possessing all the beauty, hungry still for more. Heaven holds a sense of wonder. Dr. Spinoza saw that the whole Universe conformed to a World-order under what he named “laws of necessity.” However, the source of these laws is God. Dr. Spinoza saw too that Man, in the effort to understand all this, and drawn by an intellectual love of God, would unfold intuition and come closer to God. Learning what these cosmic laws are and trying t live in obedience to them is the only way whereby humanity can do what is best for itself. It will have to come to such obedience through the lessons of experience and cannot escape it. The more a human learns what laws move this Universe in which one exists, the better will one find the Universe to be and the happier will one’s existence be. In the long slow course of development, as it stretches out with time, humans will come to understand the true nature of the Universe around them and the correct nature of their relationship to it. It will be a logical corollary that as they come thereafter to understand also the harm they do themselves by every violation of the higher laws they will begin to change their thoughts and amend their conduct. #RandolphHarrus 2 of 24
It is not possible to know what lies at the heart of the great mystery, but it is possible to know what it is not. The intellect, bound by the forms of logic and conditioned by the linkage between cause and effect, here enters a realm where these hold no sway. The discoveries of Germany’s leading nuclear physicist, Professors Heisenberg, were formulated in his law of indeterminacy. The ancient Egyptians sages symbolize this inscrutability under the figure of the Veil of Isis. The ancient Hindu sages called it Maya, that is, the inexplicable. Argument and debate, ferreting and probing among all available facts, searching and sifting of records are futile here. This is the real truth behind the doctrine of agnosticism. Every human, no matter who one be, from the most knowledgeable scientist to the profoundest philosopher, must bow one’s head in acknowledgment of this human limitation. One is still a human being, one is not a god. Yet there is something godlike within one and this one must find and cling to for one’s true salvation, one’s only redemption. If one does this one will fulfill one’s purpose on Earth and then only one finds true peace of mind and an end to all this restless, agitated, uncertain mental condition. #RandolphHarris 3 of 24
Study what this planet’s best humans have given us. It is no truer message than this: “Seek for the divine within yourself, return to it every day, learn how to continue in it and finally be it.” Groups are an important part of treatment for people in any kind of recovery. Some will find that they like living with people. What turns many things around is having healthy people who care around. When people find a group of people they enjoy, they will usually never want to be along again. One will enjoy the attention and being able to experience oneself as part of humanity. One will find with true friendships, there is no need for the “Ghostly Lover,” and ending their relationship with that individual will be something one inherently senses is necessary, in order to be able to be available for real humans and to live. Just make sure your next move is not one into the call of the forbidden, to mystery, and danger. This is the call to the underworld, and the object of your romantic passions may be your guide in this morbid realm. They may play the part in you hitting the bottom. Your task is, no matter what decision you make, do not remain in the underworld but disintegrate and reintegrate into real life in community and creativity. #RandolphHarris 4 of 24
It often happens, but should not come to this, that it takes a near-death experience to give one life. In China, they say that helps to rid one of bad omens. It is like being reborn, starting from scratch. Many people report that it feels rather amazing to come back to life, that it wonderful to just feel. Individuals often do not know that they are cut off from their feelings. In some cases, the only access people have to their feelings is in dreams. When one is cut off from one’s feelings, one often feels like they are growing old and dying. This process often goes on for a long time. There are no intimate relationships. Once people see this being cut off as a problem, it makes one want to dare to connect. Instead of just reading about it, they would rather be out experiencing freedom. Because of this desire to reconnect, some individuals will forgo watching TV. They want to be active and realize that life is more important than watching TV. You will notice when some people reconnect to life they will start to look better. A woman might buy a gold dress, and pair it with gold earrings, and show off their glimmer suntan. One may express a new interest in diet and health, one will notice the transition from lunar to solar imagery. #RandolphHarris 5 of 24
This new solar energy is related to the day World, to sunshine and overtness. As this adventure progresses, some will feel that their journey is leading to somewhere hopeful. One will marvel at the turn their life has taken for the better. It will feel like something that they could not plan got rolling. Other will detect an expression of new innocence in one’s voice. This is usually due to a long period of celibacy and spiritual reflection. Some say that God is able to communicate more when an individual is celibate because their focus on life is not geared to pleasures of the flesh, but on the true purpose of why we are on Earth. This is an opportunity to get to know oneself, one’s own body and oneself as a human being. After a person feels who they are, they will be ready to venture out in the World again, and hopefully no one is obstructing their path from being with someone and living a life they feel safe with. A new found courage is discovered because one has a choice to live or die. It may be a leap of faith to journey in a new liberating direction. You have to be able to go across the pond (metaphorically speaking) and see what is there. It is risky, but the choice to live is one everyone has to make. #RandolphHarris 6 of 24
Some people will find that after spending time alone, they no longer want to be “free.” They may enjoy being in a relationship and helping taking care of someone else and making that individual happy. The opportunity to care for others, clean, and shopping for someone else is enjoyable for some people. It seems this healthy relationship just manifest for some after they spend time working of themselves instead of chasing love. However, it is important to still keep a strong identity and balance the needs for work and nurturance. Some women and men are thrown out into the World in their teenage years and they need a lot still, they are still babies. That may cause them to stay in that youth neediness. Once they get what they need, they will grow life a tree, sprout leaves and branches and roots, and grow up and have a life. Some may still be an adolescent. Staying virginal is a way of staying attached to family values and pleasing the Lord. Negative habits like drinking to bound with others may occur. However, the journey to break away from home and individuate one’ self often parallels with the hero’s journey. The hero must confront challenges, learn to be alone, overcome darkness, and bring one’s new found wisdom back to one’s home and community. #RandolphHarris 7 of 24
The day you can wake up and say that you are grateful for that day is a blessing. When one can say that they are grateful for their lives they know they are happy. That is a big thing to say, and one will really feel it. When life is going nowhere, some adults may experience suicide attempts, and that is often the beginning of a return All the parts, in ritual sacrifices, sacrificed over and over again, until the sacrifice is complete. Going through these motions can make one see that God has something more planned for their lives, and one will get to the essence of the spark of life, to find one’s own voice, one’s own spirituality. When in a relationship, a new sense of spirituality takes over. Couples find that they say grace together before meals and “gratefuls” before bed. It is good to share. One will experience a sense of clam, serenity, grace. People will be able to help each other with soul losses they experience. Celibacy is like a period of hibernation or dormancy. For some it is like they just go to sleep, Sleeping Beauty, or Prince Eric, a soul waiting to be awakened or saved. For many people, the ideal arrangement of life under God will be only partially realized, at best. For many, it remains an impossible dream, for their soul is running amuck and their life is in chaos. #RandolphHarris 8 of 24
They are “dead in trespasses and sins,” living off of incoherent dreams and illusions. Enslaved to their desires or their bodily habits or blinded by false ideas, distorted images, and misinformation, their soul cannot find its way into a life of consistent truth and harmonious pursuit of what is good. It is locked in a self-destructive struggle with itself and with all around it. Naturally, unfulfilled desires and poisonous relationships are the most prominent features of such lives. I confess that as a sometimes counselor of those in trouble, I am often stunned with the reasons people give for not doing the only things that could possibly be of help to themselves. The individual soul’s specific formation—the character it has taken on through its life course—is seen in the details of how thoughts, feelings, social relations, bodily behaviours, and choices unfold, and especially how they interact with each other. In most actual cases, the individuals are not at harmony with themselves, much less with truth and with God. Their habitual condition is one of conflict, and one of acting other than how they themselves intend or regard as wise. #RandolphHarris 9 of 24
Their intentions of good are, precisely, not effectively related to the other components of their person—the thoughts and feelings, the bodily habits, the social dynamics, the relationship to God’s kingdom—in a way that would bring the good o pass. The failure of good intentions is the outcome of the underlying disconnects or “wrong connects” between thoughts, feelings, and actions, permitted or enforced by their disordered soul. The dimensions of the self are not coherently drawn together by the soul to form a whole life devoted to God and to what is acknowledged as good. Such a person cannot “get it all together” or “get one’s act together,” as we say now. That language is not metaphorical, but expresses the reality of one’s life. Extreme cases of this are found in people for whom everything in personal and social life is painful or unmanageable. They cannot find a place in human affairs. This can take many forms, but their inner condition makes it impossible for them to deal with life. Often this comes from early experiences. Severe deprivation or suffering in the early years will invariably distort the soul and leave it receptive to malfunction and evil in many forms, or simply stunted. #RandolphHarris 10 of 24
The protective forcefield of the soul seems to have been broken down by pain and evil, leaving the person at the mercy of everything that happens. There is a developmental order in the soul, such that if it does not receive what it needs to receive within appropriate periods of time as it grows, its further progression toward wholeness is permanently hindered. It will never be what it might have been. Sometimes horrible events of later life, such as being tortured or cruelly betrayed, have similar effects, from which the soul may never recover. However, one must not overgeneralize on such matters. And one must not underestimate the powers of recovery of the soul under grace. Reconnecting to the Spirit of God allows lost souls to discover that they have power and capacity beyond anything they could have dreamed. The restoration of the soul is more than a recovery of connectedness. Significant strength, ability to achieve, guidance, and awareness are imparted. Truly we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” reports Psalm 139.14. The human soul is a vas spiritual (nonphysical) landscape, with resources and relationships that exceed human comprehension; and it also exists within an infinite environment of which, as our best, we have little knowledge. #RandolphHarris 11 of 24
The forces which move humans and bring about events are not always to be found by rational analysis. There is another factor present which eludes such analysis. We only know if it can only acknowledge its wounded condition, and understand that God is over it all the soul, when it finds its home in God and receives His grace, the soul manifests amazing capacities for recovery. It may be called the evolutionary intent of the World-Mind. All things and beings flow forth from the illimitable Power, all derive their consciousness from It. Nor may we stop with this acknowledgement. For they derive whatsoever they have of intelligence from It, too. Is it not a grand thought, full of promise and hope, that in the gradual progression of this intelligence from minute cells to celestial beings, it passes upward through humans, enabling one in time to attain and know one’s own Divinity? After the pattern of its own infinite perfection, the World-Idea is drawing us little by little. To say that humans are unconsciously seeking God, or rather our Higher Self, is the truth. To ay that God is seeking humans is an error based upon a truth. #RandolphHarris 12 of 24
This truth is that in the divine idea of the Universe, the evolutionary development of life-cells will bring them slowly up to an awareness of the diviner level; but the Higher Self, having no desire and no emotions, cannot be said to be seeking anything. Indeed, the evolutionary pattern being what it is, there is no need for it to seek, as the development of all beings from primitive amoeba to perfect spiritual consciousness is assured. If we wish, we may call it evolutionary. However, the actuality is not quite the same. The Universe is being guided to follow the World-Idea—that is the essence of what is happening. The pattern of evolution is an endless one. The meaning of the pattern could not but be a wise one. Because mind is the basal reality, all this majestic progression is nothing else than an evolution from lower to higher forms of intelligence and consciousness. Within the Overself, the infinite absolute principle of mind, there arises the idea of the cosmos, and from this original idea proceeds all other mental constructions that constitute a Universe. Because the Overself (God) is formless and unindividuated, we have to picture Him under the glyph darkness. #RandolphHarris 13 of 24
The cosmic idea will then appear as a primordial germ of light, called by the Hindus Hiranyagarbha (the golden embryo). The entire panoply of suns and stars and creations are contained latently within this point of light. This first-born God is the primal Idea. World-Mind, concerned only with Its own larger purposes, which are hidden from us, directs us in that light. We must begin by recognizing that this planet exists for a specific purpose and that the evolution of all creatures upon it is part of that purpose. This Earth, with the varied experiences of good and evil joy and suffering, peace and peril which it offers us, is a school of initiation leading primitive terrestrial humans into the development of awareness until one reaches the first discovery of God. The World exists for the training of ever-ascending living things—form their early start as protoplasmic cells to their later development as human beings. “He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake,” Psalms 23.2-3. The comfort and sense of well-being we feel on special mornings comes not only from the external influence of beauty of the landscape and the sea, lovely as they are, but also from the inner peace, strength, and security of knowing that God lives and from a testimony of the divinity of His work upon the Earth. #RandolphHarris 14 of 24
It is not where but who and how. God restores out souls. The replenishing of our inner selves occurs as we come to know the Saviour through keeping his commandments and serving Him. “While I was labouring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one say reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let one ask of God, that giveth to all humans liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given one,’” reports Joseph Smith—History 1.11. Joseph Smith was driven to the scriptures to seek guidance, which he found. The young Joseph Smith said, “At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I do as James directs, that is, ask God,” reports Joseph Smith—History 1.13. Joseph no doubt also read the following words given by James: “But let one ask in faith, nothing wavering. For one that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed,” reports James 1.6. Joseph knelt to offer up the desire of his heart. Then came a wrestling with darkness. #RandolphHarris 15 of 24
This was followed by the light of the divine message. The answer and the instruction were complete and full. It not this the instruction, the how-to we need to obtain divine answers to the confusion and to the vexatious problems in our lives? First, when possible, study the scripture daily, with an emphasis upon the Book of Mormon and the modern scripture. Pray daily. Listen for divine answer. Be obedient to it. Some people are literally twice born, with energy, conviction, and a desire to tell all their acquaintances and others of the healing and sanctifying message of the gospel. It is possible for all of us, through the power of the Holy Ghost, to have a personal witness. It is a personal source for information and revelation. There seems to be a great need for a restoration of goodness and decency in the souls of many throughout the World. Could not much goodness be brought about in our societies by members of the Church individually, humbly, wisely, and persuasively adhering to their convictions at all times and under all circumstances? It could be brought about by the young lawyer who has the courage to let one’s voice be heard as a voice of reason to remind others that there are no “victimless crimes.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 24
Restoration of goodness can also be brought about by physicians, acting individually, but each refusing to allow someone one to terminate their lives. Could it not be encouraged by teachers sharing the examples of individual moral and civil responsibility with young people as they teach history, woodshop, auto shop, English, geometry, chemistry, and trigonometry? Could restoration of goodness also be fostered by business people refusing to compromise or to be compromised? Restoration of goodness—could it not be exemplified by those who hold positions of honour and trust in government, to function always from a position of personal honour and integrity? This would be the beginning of a different kind of revolution. It would be a revolution of thought and purpose. It would be a quiet revolution, which each individual acting independently and courageously in one’s own peace of conscience. This kind of moral courage does not destroy one’s credibility. It enhances it. Acting in harmony with our own conscience and beliefs is fundamental to our own inner peace and security. May all who are seeking to act in harmony with their conscience enjoy an inner peace. #RandolphHarris 17 of 24
Gd will have all human be saved. God wills all human to be saved that are saved, not because there is no human whom God does not wish saved, but because there is no human saved whose salvation He does not will. God wills some humans of every class and condition to be saved, men, women, Jews and Gentiles, great and small, but not all of every condition. They are understood of the antecedent will of God; not of the consequent will. This distinction must not be taken as applying to the divine will itself, in which there is nothing antecedent nor consequent, but to the things willed. To understand this we must consider that everything, in so far as it is good, is willed by God. A think taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed int the contrary. Thus a human should live is good; and that a human should be killed is evil, absolutely considered. God antecedently wills all humans to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned, as His justice exacts. Nor do we will simply, what we will antecedently, but rather we will it in a qualified manner; for the will is directed to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications. #RandolphHarris 18 of 24
Hence we will a thing simply inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills takes place; although what He wills antecedently may not take place. An act of the cognitive faculty is according as the thing known is in the knower; while an act of the appetite faculty is directed to things as they exist in themselves. However, all that can have the nature of being and truth virtually exist in God, though it does not all exist in created things. Therefore God knows all truth; but does not will all good, except in so far as He wills Himself, in Whom all good virtually exists. A first cause can be hindered in its effect by deficiency in the secondary cause, when it is not the universal first cause, including within itself all cases; for then the effect could in no way escape its order. And thus it is wit the will of God, as said above. Despite the pious assertions of our New World theologians, the World does not exist solely for the benefit of the human species. It is a means of development and expression for all kinds of creatures, a development in which the humans share so largely. Who can calculate the number of years which shaped the primal atom into its latest form—the modern human? #RandolphHarris 19 of 24
The differences in consciousness between an amoeba, an insect, an animal, and a human represent a line of growth. Because evolution is not merely a physical matter of size and shape, because it is primarily a mental matter of intelligence and consciousness, philosophy finds the ant nearer to humans than is the panther. Animal life climbs ever higher in the scale of evolution, reappears in forms of a more developed type. That is one compensation for the manner of its death, which is so often to be devoured by other forms. Everything that has feeling or awareness, however sim, is capable of developing to higher and higher forms of existence. However, only when it is individuated and attains the human form does it fulfill its possibilities. With longer shadows, I sit down to my supper. Before me are the products of Winter, the Moon’s light become food. Listen, food and Moon: I thank you. Hunting is a source of some controversy among people. Our respect for life has led some of us to reject hunting. I doubt that any would approve of hunting simply for trophies. And yet, what about hunting for food? If we are to eat meant, we owe it to the animals who die for us to make their deaths a sacred act. It is doubtful that a worker in a slaughterhouse will do this for us. #RandolphHarris 20 of 24
Those who hunt, however, have a chance to take part in the dance of life and death. A properly prayerful attitude makes hunting a sacred act. Through prayer a hunter is reminded that what they hunt is sacred, and that the God was Himself the victim of a hunt. (This is a myth that is implicit in carious forms of the myth of the year.) The hunter then puts themselves and their actions under the control of the God. In essence, it is the God who will be hunting. In this way the hunter takes the part of God as hunter, but in the back of their mind is the thought that, as they are the God, so are they the hunted as well. In American, hunting is richer, deeper, and more rewarding than the old trophy-mount stereotypes. Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA) serve dishes such as lovingly prepared squirrel, grouse, barnacles, oyster mushrooms, bowhead whale. Some of the cuisines are dishes like venison pasties with a cherry and morel sauce, served alongside trout and wild rice. Antelope jackrabbit tacos alongside elote-style cholla cactus, bacon-wrapped rattlesnake. #RandolphHarris 21 of 24
Some people like game meat because it is low on fat, and because animals eat a wild diet, and it often tastes like the ecosystem from which it came. BHA also has a long-held spiritual connection to wild places because there is not a dinner on the planet, regardless of price, that has any more authenticity and labour involved. The meat from game animals is considered a delicacy to BHA. It is good. It is exquisite. It is not a compromise. These people hunt to eat and do not let the meat go to waste. There are an estimated 12 million hunters in the United States of America. Hunting builds culture and kinship ties that sustain people during a time when Americans feel more isolated than ever. There is something very civilized about retuning to a hunting-gathering society. Hunters feel an intimate, personal connection to their food during a time when we are largely disconnected from food production systems. They like feeling an immediate relationship to the ecosystems that support you at a time when we spend less and less time outside. Hunting motivates one’s desire to source one’s own food and deepens one’s relationship to the wildlands they love to explore. They are following in the footsteps of every hunter who ever came before them. #RandolphHarris 22 of 24
This culture into which new millennial hunters, seeking out sustainable meat for the table, are entering—one which meat is ethically sourced represents a place, labour, time, and community. Hunting is work, especially for those who pack into the backcountry to challenge themselves and to take time to observe and admire wild animals: Meat represents hours, days, sometime weeks spent in the field and processing the meat is n easy task, it can take a couple of days. It also build friendships because hunters share their meat with their friends who may have been unsuccessful that day so they have food to put in their freezer. The taste of that deer meet is perfect: savory, tender, flavourful. And there is not much to gain by plundering in hunting-gathering societies. Ground game meat mac and cheese, carne asada bison covered fries, Texas Spicey wild boar pork belly burn ends, Elk shank and pepper medley tacos, classic backyard smoked venison brats, sting ray stakes, black bear barbeque ribs, and black pepper venison burgers with cheddar and remoulade are a few favourites. The flame on the trees burns away the green of summer. Summer’s last heat is put to good use. Run with the prey as hunting time starts, race through the forest with the deer, god of stages. #RandolphHarris 23 of 24
The blood on the ground, as red as the leaves that fall on it, flows from your sacrifice as this season is born. In autumn, the hunting time, you come into your own; the day comes round for your greatest of gifts. Lord of flame and blood, Lord of deer and sacrifice, Lord of autumn and gifts, please bless your people with a feast the winter. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as are of a contrite spirit. Ay are the misfortunes of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth one out of them all. One protecteth all one’s limbs; not one of them is broken. Evil shall destroy the wicked; and they that hate the righteous shall suffer punishment. The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants; and none shall be condemned who trust in Him. “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything,” reports Genesis 9.3. Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the Earth and the World, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. But as for humans, Thou turnest one back unto dust, and sayest: “Return, ye children of men.” #RandolphHarris 24 of 24
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 