You can tell me the truth. I am your own self, remember? I was darkly and passionately thrilled by all this, and I felt those chills again. If we are conscious of what is going on, we can, in however slight a way, influence the direction of the trends. We can then hopefully develop new values which will be relevant to our new cultural predicament. The libido exists in a certain quantity in the individual, that you can deprive yourself, economize emotionally in one way to increase your enjoyment in another, and if you spend your libido in direct sexuality you will not have it for utilization, for example, in artistic creation. The original Puritan movement, in its best representatives and before its general deterioration into the moralistic compartments of Victorianism at the end of the nineteenth century was characterized by admirable qualities of dedication to integrity and truth. Many people in our society, yearning for the nirvana of automatic change in their characters and relief from responsibility that comes from handing over one’s psyche to a technical process, have actually in their values of free expression, changed their clothes and their roles more than their characters. What was omitted was the opening of our senses and imaginations to the enrichment of pleasure and passion and the meaning of love; we relegated these to technical processes. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

In this kind of free love, one does not learn to love; and freedom becomes not a liberation but a new straitjacket. The upshot was that our sexual values were thrown into confusion and contradiction, and sexual love presented the almost insoluble paradoxes we are now observing. It is important not to overstate the case, nor to lose sight at any point of the desirable benefits of the modern fluidity in sexual mores. The confusion being described go hand in hand and hand wit the real possibilities of freedom of the individual. Couples are able to affirm sex as a source of pleasure and delight; no longer hounded by the misconception that sex as a natural act is evil, they can become more sensitive to the actual evils in their relationships such as manipulation of each other. Free to a degree Victorians never were, they can explore ways of making their relationship more enriching. Even the growing frequency of divorce, no matter how sobering the problems it raises, has the beneficial psychological effect of making it harder for couples to rationalize a bad marriage by the dogma that they are stuck with each other. The possibility of finding a new lover makes it more necessary for us to accept the responsibility of choosing the one we do have if we stay with him or her. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

There is the possibility of developing a courage that is midway between—and includes both—biological lust on one hand and on the other the desire for meaningful relationship, a deepening awareness of each other, and the other aspects of what we call human understanding. Courage can be shifted from simply fighting society’s mores to the inward capacity to commit one’s self to another human beings. However, these beneficial benefits, it is now abundantly clear, do not occur automatically. They become possible only as the contradictions which we have been describing are understood and worked through. To share the grief, the joy, the agony, the ecstasy, the fears, and even the guilt of another person require a quality of relating that many do not achieve. It requires that the individuals be comfortable and accepting of their emotions. It also requires them to experience both sympathy and empathy. When you experience sympathy, you are able to feel the feelings of another person in close, but still removed and objective, way. When you experience empathy, you are almost one with that person—you feel what the other person feels. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

Emotional intimacy requires a depth of feeling, an ability to identify with and relate to others. It is also vital that we be able to let these feelings be known, to share and express them. This is not easy for many people, who have been raised to deny, hide, or repress any hint of feeling or emotion. There are six patients who go to bed without ostensible shame or guilt—and generally with different partners. The women—four of the six patients—all state that they do not feel much in the sex act. The motives of two of them women going to bed seem to be to hang on to the man and to live up to the standard that sexual intercourse is “what you do” at a certain stage. The third woman has the particular motive of generosity: she sees going to bed as something nice you give a man—and she makes tremendous demands upon him to take care of her in return. The fourth woman seems the only one who does experience some real sexual lust, beyond which her motives are a combination of generosity to and anger at the man (“I will force him to give me pleasure!”). The two male patients were originally impotent, and now, though able to have intercourse, have intermittent trouble with potency. However, the outstanding fact is they never report getting much of a bang out of their sexual intercourse. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

Their chief motive for engaging in sex seems to be to demonstrate their masculinity. The specific purpose of one of the men, indeed, seems more to tell his analyst about his previous night’s adventure, fair or poor as it may have been, in a kind of backstage interchange of confidence between men, than to enjoy the love-making itself. Let us now pursue our inquiry on a deeper level by asking: What are the underlying motives in these patterns? What drives people toward the contemporary compulsive preoccupation with sex in place of their previous compulsive denial of it? The struggle to prove one’s identity is obviously a central motive—an aim present in women as well as men. There is an egalitarianism of the sexes and the interchangeability of the sexual roles. Egalitarianism is clung to at the price of denying not only biological differences—which are basic, to say the least—between men and women, but emotional differences from which come much of the delight of the sexual act. The self-contradiction here is that the compulsive need to prove you are identical with your partner means that you repress your own unique sensibilities—and this is exactly what undermines your own sense of identity. This contradiction contributes to the tendency in our society for us to become machines even in bed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Another motive is the individual’s hope to overcome his own solitariness. Allied with this is the desperate endeavor to escape feelings of emptiness and the threat of apathy: partners pant and quiver hoping to find an answering quiver in someone else’s body just to prove that their own is not dead; they seek a responding, a longing in the other to prove their own feelings are alive. Out of an ancient conceit, this is called love. One often gets the impression, amid the male’s flexing of sexual prowess, that men are in training to become sexual athletes. However, what is the great of the game? Not only men, but women struggle to prove their sexual power—they too must keep up to the timetable, must show passion, and have the vaunted orgasm. Now it is well accepted in psychotherapeutic circles that, dynamically, the overconcern with potency is generally a compensation for feelings of impotence. The use of sex to prove potency in all these different realms has led to the increasing emphasis on technical performance. And here we observe another curiously self-defeating pattern. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

The excessive concern with technical performance in sex is actually correlated with the reduction of sexual feeling. The techniques of achieving this approach the ludicrous: one is that an anesthetic ointment is applied to the penis before intercourse. Thus feeling less, the man is able to postpone his orgasm longer. I have learned from colleagues that the prescribing of this anesthetic remedy for premature ejaculation is not unusual. One male patient was so desperate about his premature ejaculations, even though these ejaculations took place after periods of penetration of ten minutes or more. A neighbor who was a urologist recommended an anesthetic ointment to be used prior to intercourse. This patient expressed complete satisfaction with the solution and was very grateful to the urologist. Entirely willing to give up any pleasure on his own, he sought only to prove himself a competent male. A patient of mine reported that he had gone to a physician with the problem of premature ejaculation, and that such an anesthetic ointment had been prescribed. My surprise was particularly over the fact that the patient has accepted this solution with no questions and no conflict. Did not they remedy fit the necessary bill, did not it help him turn in a better performance? #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

However, by the time that young man got to me, he was impotent in every way imaginable, even to the point of being unable to handle such scarcely ladylike behavior on the part of his wife as taking off her shoe while they were driving and beating hum over the head with it. By all means the man was impotent in this hideous caricature of a marriage. And his penis, before it was drugged senseless, seemed to be the only character with enough sense to have the appropriate intention, namely to get out as quickly as possible. Making one’s self feel less in order to perform better! This is a symbol, as macabre as it is vivid, of the vicious circle in which so much of our culture is caught. The more one must demonstrate his potency, the more he treats sexual intercourse—this most intimate and personal of all acts—as a performance to be judged by exterior requirements, the more he then views himself as a machine to be turned on, adjusted, and steered, and the less feeling e has for either himself or his partner; and the less feeling, the more he loses genuine sexual appetite and ability. The upshot of this self-defeating pattern is that, in the long run, the lover who is most efficient will also be the one who is impotent. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Therefore, transpersonal intimacy is difficult for many people to comprehend. It is called transpersonal because it seems to be experiences between, or above and beyond, the persons involved. It is very difficult to define this dimension. Transcendence (from the Latin, trans, meaning beyond, and scandere, meaning to climb) refers to that which is above personal or private experience, highly abstract, beyond human knowledge. It is the intimacy of inner experiences, of nonmaterial, inexpressible feelings. It is based in the concept of transcendence. Transpersonal intimacy between two persons may be expressed as an intuitive sharing, as communication that does not require (or cannot have) words. Transpersonal intimacy can also define the relationship people feel with their God or whatever higher consciousness guides their spiritual life. As one can see, intimacy represents differing faces of closeness. They are different ways of experiencing another person. Only people who have a wide range of experience and who are really aware of themselves can fully experience all of these forms of intimacy. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Most people can only experience and express closeness in one or two dimensions, except perhaps during times of crises. Most of us do not have the full repertoire or experiences necessary to know another person in such full and deep ways. The full expression of intimacy is an ideal, perhaps—something only a few people experience. The fact that it does not occur easily or readily in most people should not be a source of discouragement, however, nor should it convince you that only very special people are able to experience many dimensions of closeness. It is more likely that the number of people who are able (or willing) to devote enough time to the study and perfection of the art of loving is very small. It is not that these people are any more favored than the rest of us. It is simply that they put the ability to experience and express closeness further up on their list of priorities than others do. Some people who could once relate to others closely have lost this skill or have given it up because of the risks involved. Having once been hurt or taken advantage of, some people steadfastly refuse to ever again become intimate with another person. These people find that they become too vulnerable, too open to exploitation or threat, if they allow others too close. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

Intimacy is risky indeed because it involves letting others into the innermost parts of your being. The risk is just as great on the other extreme, however. You can lose touch and become so protected and invulnerable that nobody gets in. Then your experience closeness with no one. You are safe and secure, but all alone. In the center of the Protestant courage of confidence stands the courage to accept acceptance is spite of the consciousness of guilt. Martin Luther, and in fact the whole period, experienced the anxiety of guilt and condemnation as the main form of their anxiety. The courage to affirm oneself in spite of this anxiety is the courage which we have called the courage of confidence. It is rooted in the personal, total, and immediate certainty of divine forgiveness. There is belief in forgiveness in all forms of mortal’s courage to be, even in neocollctivism. However, there is no interpretation of human existence in which it is so predominant as in genuine Protestantism. And there is no movement in history in which it is equally profound and equally paradoxical. In the Lutheran formula that “one who is unjust is just” (in the view of the divine forgiveness) or in the more modern phrasing that “one who is unacceptable is accepted” the victory over the anxiety of guilt and condemnation is sharply expressed. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

One could say that the courage to be is he courage to accept oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable. One does not need to remind the theologians for the fact that this is the genuine meaning of the Pauline-Lutheran doctrine of “justification by faith” (a doctrine which in its original phrasing has become incomprehensible even for students of theology). However, one must remind theologians and ministers that in the fight against the anxiety of guilt by psychotherapy the idea of acceptance has received the attention and gained the significance which in the Reformation period was to be seen in phrases like “forgiveness of sins” or “justification through faith.” Accepting acceptance though being unacceptable if the basis for the courage of confidence. Decisive for this self-affirmation is its being independent of any moral, intellectual, or religious precondition: it is not the good or the wise of the pious who are entitled to the courage to accept acceptance but those who are lacking in all these qualities and are not aware of being unacceptable. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

This, however, does not mean acceptance by oneself as oneself. It is not a justification of one’s accidental individuality. It is not the Existentialist courage to be as oneself. It is the paradoxical act in which one is accepted by that which infinitely transcends one’s individual self. It is in the experience of the Reformers the acceptance of the unacceptable sinner into judging and transforming communion with God. The courage to be in this respect is the courage to accept the forgiveness of sins, not as an abstract assertion but as the fundamental experience in the encounter with God. Self-affirmation in spite of the anxiety of guilt and condemnation presupposes participation in something which transcends the self. In the communion of healing, for example the psychoanalytic situation, the patient participations in the healing power of the helper by whom one is accepted although one feels oneself unacceptable. The healer, in this relationship, does not stand for oneself as an individual but represents the objective power of acceptance and self-affirmation. This objective power works through the healer in the patient. Of course, it must be embodied in a person who can realize guilt, who can judge, and who can accept in spite of the judgment. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

Acceptance by something which is less than personal could never overcome personal self-rejection. A wall to which I confess cannot forgive me. No self-acceptance is possible is one is not accepted in a person-to-person relation. However, even if one is personally accepted it needs a self-transcending courage to accept this acceptance, it needs the courage of confidence. For being accepted does not mean that guilt is denied. The healing helper who tried convince his patient that he was not really guilty would do him a great disservice. He would prevent him from taking his guilt into his self-affirmation. He may help him to transform displaced, neurotic guilt feelings into genuine ones who are, so to speak, put on the right place, but he cannot tell him that there is no guilt in him. He accepts the patient into his communion without condemning anything and without covering anything up. Here, however, is the point where the religious acceptance as being accepted transcends medical healing. Religion asks for the ultimate source of the power which heals by accepting the unacceptable, it asks for God. The acceptance by God, his forgiving or justifying act, is the only and ultimate source of courage to be which is able to take the anxiety of guilt and condemnation into itself. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

For the ultimate power of self-affirmation can only be the power of being-itself. Everything less than this, one’s own or anybody else’s finite power of being, cannot overcome the radical, infinite threat of nonbeing which is experienced in the despair of self-condemnation. This is why the courage of confidence, as it is expressed in the mortal like Martin Luther, emphasizes unceasingly exclusive trust in God and rejects any other foundation for his courage to be, not only as insufficient but as driving one into more guilt and deeper anxiety. The immense liberation brought to the people of the 16^th century by the message of the Reformers and the creation of their indomitable courage to accept acceptance was due to the solafide doctrine, namely to the message that the courage of confidence is conditioned not by anything finite but solely by that which is unconditional itself and which we experience as unconditional in a person-to-person encounter. Many people desiring this Larger Experience have avoided traditional religious involvements and have found vehicles in movements or programs that are somewhat like cults. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

The word “cult” has to be rescued from traditional usage, in which it was given a status somewhere below church, similar to a superstition, more radical than a sect, and usually populated by oddballs. The redefined concept means that activity become cultic when it is raised to a high enough level of seriousness and fervor to center the life interest of participants and make them devotees rather than just workers or players. A cult is more than a place or situation through which one gains kicks or expression of freedom. It is intimately involved with the search for identity, and usually, with a search for personal significance. Many people, young and old, have felt a need for more identity-experiencing than the traditional religions have been able to offer. To many people, the Gothic structure, the stained glass and pipe organ, the formalism and ritual are all too fixed, too rigid, too cold, and do not invite them to participate in a religious experience. They feel that religions is such a setting is a spectator activity, a spectacle. And, for others, to gain membership in fundamentalist sects means to give up much freedom and to take on a feeling of total worthlessness. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

So, the religious cults grow up. Many full-scale denominations of today began as cults, became sects, and are now respectable religious bodies: Quakers, Amish, Methodists, Assembly of God, and so forth. However, in their beginnings they shared with today’s religious cults the same kinds of qualities: personal involvement through rituals, emotional activity and feeling, promises of inner peace (or salvation), a leader with whom to identify, and a definite feeling of belonging, which is the identity sought for by most of the members. There are so many religious cults we hardly know where to begin. We will mention only a few—Self-Realization Fellowship, Father Divine’s followers, the Temple of Krishna Consciousness, and many others that have connections with various Eastern Philosophies. The word esoteric comes to mind when you see or hear of the belief systems and practices of these groups. However, esoteric, or even the word exotic fails to describe them fully. Of course, like anything else, a person cannot fully know a cultic activity from the outside; one must become a fully participating and believing member. One does what the ritual demands, not just to be a member, but because one believes in the rituals and what they mean. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

While a few of these groups offer salvation, in the traditional sense of glorious with-God life after death, any of them only talk about a present-day, contemporary form of salvation. It may be the nirvana of the classical Buddhism or the satori (enlightenment) of Zen, or it may be a total cosmic awakening and Oneness that comes from mediation and/or chanting. Whatever the terms, the salvation often consists in some form of Larger awareness of who you are and of what your beings consists. I have tried to give a general picture of the alienation of modern mortals from themselves and from their follow mortals in the process of producing, consuming and leisure activities. Now, we should deal with some specific aspects of the contemporary social character which are closely related to the phenomenon of alienation, the treatment of which, however, is facilitated by dealing with them separately rather than as subheadings of alienation. The first such aspect to be dealt with is modern mortals’ attitude towards authority. #RandolphHarris 18 of  19

We have discussed the between rational and irrational, furthering and inhibiting authority, and stated that Western society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was characterized by the mixture of both kinds of authority. What is common to both rational and irrational authority is that overt authority. You know who orders and forbids: the father, the teacher, the boss, the king, the officer, the priest, God, the law, the moral conscience. The demands or prohibitions may be reasonable or not, strict or lenient, I may obey or rebel; I always know that there is an authority, who it is, what it wants, and what results from my compliance or my rebellion. Authority in the twenty-first century has changed its character; it is not overt authority, but anonymous, invisible, alienated authority. Nobody makes a demand, neither a person, nor an idea, nor a moral law. Yet we all conform as much or more than people in an intensely authoritarian society would. Indeed, nobody is an authority expect “It.” What is It? Profit, economic necessities, the market, common sense, public opinion, what “one” does, thinks, feels. The laws of the market—and just as unassailable. Who can attack the invisible? Who can rebel against Nobody? #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

Alone—cut off from all the World and all things—I stand there. I want to lie on the floor face down in the manner of a priest at his ordination. I want to be a priest. I want to consecrate the host! I want this so badly that I ache for it. I do not want to do evil. However, the fact is, my fantasy of being a saint is dissolving. I know it for what it is and I cannot sustain it. God thinks of all these things, does he not? Once people first began to communicate, they began to form beliefs about the World around them. What sort of beliefs might they have had? Many primitive peoples probably believed that everything was controlled by some sort of spirit. If there was a store, the reason must be that the gods were angry. If crops were bad, then the first-born son must be sacrificed to appease the gods. A child born deformed was thought to be possessed by an evil spirit, and had to be killed. A person who was emotionally or physically ill must be possessed by a demon. People also assumed that forces or spirits controlled all their behavior. One could buy a witch’s services to invoke the spirits and increase sexual prowess, capture a lover, or bring misfortune to an enemy. Assumptions are ideas which one holds to be true without any proof that they are true—things that are taken for granted. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

In most primitive cultures even today, people assume that they have little choice in their own destiny, because it is controlled by good and evil spirits and by fate. In some cultures these assumptions are so strongly held that they can literally result in death. How? Anthropologist have reported observing such events in tribes where members were taught that if they violated certain taboos they would die. Taboos are negative rules, the thou shall nots of a society (from a Tongan word that means sacred, prohibited, inviolable). When an individual broke a taboo, the other members of the tribe assumed that the taboo-breaker would die as a result. In fact, they began to act as though the person were already dead. Imagine how you would feel if, even for a week, everyone acted as through you were about to die. Taboo-breakers assumed that they would die. Everyone around them thought so, too. And, in time, the taboo-breaker did die. If you were a member of that tribe, you might reach the seemingly logical conclusion that some external force or spirit had killed the taboo-breaker. One important way in which primitive people tried to understand their World was through their own experiences. However, many times their observations were based upon a limited awareness of themselves and the nature of their World. (“Spirits control me and everything around me.”) #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

By changing what mortals know about the World, mortals change the World they know; and by changing the World in which one lives, mortals change themselves. Although few of us believe in a taboo strongly enough to cause our own death, our personal beliefs can influence us in ways almost that important. People have always assumed a casual World. For centuries, people believed they and their World were controlled by spirits and demons. However, as they expanded their knowledge, they began to question the demon-spirit model of causality. Individuals began to exert control over their own environment—to predict when to plant crops, what seeds to use, the location of the best soil, and the best time to harvest. When crops failed, instead of sacrificing a first-born child to appease the gods who had been assumed to cause the failure, people sought better seeds or richer soil or an increased water supply and tried again. Many of our ideas about the World come from personal observation. We check these conclusions out with other people, and if most people agree with us, we assume our ideas are true. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Good sense is the most evenly shared thing in the World, for each of us think he or she is so well endowed with it that even those who are the hardest to please in all other respects are not in the habit of wanting more than they have.  When people are in consensus about their assumptions, agreements become our common sense. Common sense can be a good source of information for making day-to-day decisions. However, sometimes it is based upon little evidence, limited information, and personal bias. When this happens, it can hinder our perception of reality. Psychologist base their theories on objective and systematic investigation, not just common sense. Their findings may often agree with our commonsense notions about behavior, but psychologists attempt to eliminate theories based on insufficient evidence or personal bias and accept only those theories that seem to have a basis in fact. Psychotherapy is one of the ways in which people can experience themselves authentically, more fully, as individual selves, and as selves-in-interaction. The word “psychotherapy” comes from two words: psyche, which is the self, soul, or behaving being, and therapeia, which means healing or treatment. Psychotherapy can be done by a wide variety of people, as indeed it is being done. Not only physicians, but nurses and technicians are being used in many hospitals as therapists or co-therapists in psychotherapy situations. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Psychologist have been doing psychotherapy for decades. Clergy people of all religious persuasions have been doing counseling for years. In the past eighty years, most seminaries have begun to include courses in pastoral counseling in the requirements for graduation. In addition, social workers have been coming into their own as psychotherapist over the past sixty-five or seventy years. More and more, ordinary people with training in psychotherapy are being used, not just to fill the shortages in psychiatrically or psychologically trained roles, but because they are found to be very effective therapeutic agents. Psychotherapy, in general, is the process of relationship in which a person in conflict or with a problem in living discloses oneself to a person who is relatively healthy. Clients can be treated individually or in groups. In the process of self-disclosure, many aspects of the client’s conflict or self-alienation come to light. More specially, those who come for psychotherapy are usually people in conflict. Something, either within their conscious awareness or beneath it, is interfering with their fullest functioning. Their self-actualization is blocked or limited by conflicting needs or emotions. When they come to therapy, whether voluntarily or at the urging of friends, loved ones, or the court, they enter a relationship that involves self-disclosure and self-awareness. Many of the times the client is unprepared for what is expected of one. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Often, though, one knows what one must do when going to therapy, even if one is unsure of what to expect. There are all kinds of relationships, some therapeutic and others that are merely congenial or transactional. Psychotherapy, if it is to be effective, must be a work-project, but one that foes in a context of acceptance, understanding, insight, and caring. We who are professionally concerned with the happiness, growth, and well-being of our clients may be regarded as professional lovers. In the process of psychotherapy, the therapist must be a person who knows and loves and respects himself or herself, and who can let that self-love overflow into one’s relationships with clients. Acceptance, trust, respect, and concern are very important parts of any real and effective therapy relationship. They are also characteristics of a love relationship. So, we have a clue: those who love may be capable of growth-promoting relationship and self-actualizing relationships with others. Psychotherapy, then, is a relationship which involves the more subtle, softer-focus aspects that go into the making of a love and friendship relationship. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

The self, cut off from participation in its World, is an empty shell, a mere possibility. It must act because it lives, but it must redo every action because acting involves one who acts in that upon which one acts It gives content and for this reason it restricts one’s freedom to make of oneself what one wants. In classical theology, both Catholic and Protestant, only God has this prerogative: He is a se (from himself) or absolute freedom. Nothing is in him which is not by him. Existentialism, on the basis of the message that God is dead, give mortals the divine “a-se-ity.” Nothing shall be in mortal which is not by mortal. However, mortals are finite, one is given to oneself as what one is. One has received one’s being and with it the structure of one’s being, including the structure of finite freedom. And finite from is not aseity. Mortals can affirm themselves only if they affirms not an empty shell, a mere possibility, but the structure of being in which one finds oneself before action and nonaction. Finite freedom has a definite stricture, and if the self tries to trespass on this structure it ends in the loss of itself. The nonparticipating hero is caught in a net of contingencies, coming partly from the subconscious levels of one’s own self, partly from the environment from which one cannot withdraw. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

The assuredly empty self is filled with contents which enslave it just because it does not know or accept them as contents. This is true too of the cynic, as was said before. One cannot escape the forces of oneself which may drive one into complete loss of the freedom that one wants to preserve. This dialectical self-destruction of the radical forms of the courage to be as oneself has happened on a World-wide scale in the totalitarian reaction of the 20^th century against the revolutionary Existentialism of the 19^th century. The Existentialist protest against dehumanization and objectivation, together with its courage to be as oneself, have turned into the most elaborate and oppressive forms of collectivism that have appeared in history. It is the great tragedy of our time that Marxism, which had been conceived as a movement for the liberation of everyone, has been transformed into a system of enslavement for everyone, even those who enslave the others. It is hard to imagine the immensity of this tragedy in terms of psychological destruction, especially within the intelligentsia. The courage to be was undermined in innumerable people because it was the courage to be in the sense of the revolutionary movements of the 19^th century. When it broke down, these people turned either to the neocollectivist system, in a frantic-neurotic reaction against the cause of their tragic disappointment, or to a cynical—neurotic indifference to all systems and every content. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

It is obvious that similar observations can be made on the transformation of the Nietzschean type of the courage to be as oneself into the Fascist-Nazi forms of neocollectivism.  The totalitarian machines which these movements produced embodied almost everything against which the courage to be as oneself stands. They used all possible means in order to make such courage impossible. Although, in distinction to communism, this system fell down, its aftermath is confusion, indifference, cynicism. And this is the soil on which the longing for authority and for a new collectivism grows. To a large extent the development of Capitalism as proven that this principle works; and it is indeed a miracle that antagonistic co-operation of self-contained economic entities should result in a blossoming and ever-expanding society. It is true that the capitalistic mode of production is conducive to political freedom, while any centrally planned social order is in danger of leading to political regimentation and eventually dictatorship. While this is not the place to discuss the question of whether there are other alternatives than the choice between free enterprise and political regimentation, it needs to be said in this context that the very fact that we are governed by laws which we do not control, and do not even want to control, is one of the most outstanding manifestations of alienation. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

We are the producers of our economic and social arrangements, and at the same time we decline responsibility, intentionally and enthusiastically, and await hopefully or anxiously—as the case may be—what the future will bring. Our own actions are embodied in the laws which govern us, but these laws are above us, and we are their slaves. The giant state and economic system are not any more controlled by mortals. They run wild, and their leaders are like a person on a runaway horse, who is proud of managing to keep in the saddle, even though one is powerless to direct the horse. What is modern mortal’s relationship to one’s fellow mortals? It is one between two abstractions, two living machines, who use each other. The employer uses the ones who he or she employs; the sales person uses his or her customers. Everybody is to everybody else a commodity, always to be treated with certain friendliness, because even if one is not of use now, one may be later. There is not much lover nor hate to be found in human relationships of our say. There is, rather, a superficial friendliness, and a more than superficial fairness, but behind that surface is distance and indifference. There is also a good deal of subtle distrust. When one mortal says to another, “You speak to Justin Harris; he is all right,” it is an expression of reassurance against a general distrust. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Even love and the relationship between the genders have assumed distance, indifference, and subtle distrust. The great sexual emancipation, as it occurred after the First World War, was a desperate attempt to substitute mutual sexual pleasure for a deeper feeling of love. Our patients the culture by living out consciously what the masses of people are able to keep unconscious for the time being. The neurotic is cast by destiny into a Cassandra role. In vain does Cassandra, sitting on the steps of the palace at Mycenae when Agamemnon brings her back from Troy, cry, “Oh for the nightingale’s pure song and a fate like hers!” She knows, in her ill-starred life, that the pain flooding the song of sorrow is hers alone, and that she must predict the doom she sees will occur there. The Mycenaeans speak of her as mad, but they also believe she does speak the truth, and that she has a special power to anticipate events. Today, the person with psychological problems bears the burdens of the conflicts of the times in one’s blood, and is fated to predict in one’s actions and struggles the issues which will later erupt on all sides in the society.  The first and clearest demonstration of this thesis is seen in the sexual problems which Freud found in his Victorian patients was actually in the two decades before World War I. These sexual topics—even down to the words—were entirely denied and repressed by the accepted society at the time. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

Sigmund Freud found that his optimistic feelings toward a patient were beneficial, try though as he might to control them. He had the scientist’s dedication to objectivity, to controlling any subjective feeling or bias. However, being first of all human being, Freud found that many times he reacted to his patients as a person, not as a scientist. However, the problems of sexual repression burst violently forth into endemic forms two decades later after World War II. In the 1920’s, everybody was preoccupied with sex and its functions. Not by the furthest stretch of the imagination can anyone argue that Freud cased this emergence. He rather reflected and interpreted, through data revealed by his patients, the underlying conflicts of the society, which the normal members could and did succeed in repressing for the time being. Neurotic problems are the language of the unconscious emerging into social awareness. When this turned out to be a disappointment the erotic polarity between the genders were reduced to a minimum and replaced by a friendly partnership, a small combine which has amalgamated its forces to hold out better in the daily battle of life, and to relieve the feeling of isolation and aloneness which everybody has. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

The alienation between human and human results in the lose of those general and social bonds which characterize medieval as well as most other precapitalist societies. Modern society consists of atoms (if we use the Greek equivalent of individual), little particles estranged from each other but held together by selfish interests and by the necessity to make use of each other. Yet mortals are a social being with a deep need to share, to help, to feel as a member of a group. What has happened to these social strivings in mortals? They manifest themselves in the special sphere of the public realm, which is strictly separated from the private realm. Our private dealings with our fellow beings are governed by the principle of narcissism, each for oneself, God for us all, in flagrant contradiction to Christian teaching. The individual is motivated by narcissistic interest, and not by solidarity with and love for one’s fellow mortals. The later feelings may asset themselves secondarily as private acts of philanthropy or kindness, but they are not part of the basic structure of our social relations. Separated from our private life as individuals is the realm of our social life as citizens. In this realm the state is the embodiment of our social existence; as citizens we are supposed to, and in fact usually do, exhibit a sense of social obligation and duty. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

We pay taxes, we vote, we respect the laws, and in the case of war we are willing to sacrifice our lives. What clearer example could there be of the separation between private and public existence than the fact that the same person who would think of spending one thousand dollars to relieve the need of a stranger does not hesitate to risk one’s life to save this same stranger when in war they both happen to be soldiers in uniform? The uniform is the embodiment of our social nature—civilian garb, of our narcissistic nature. The vast majority of people mentioned they worry most about personal, economic, healthy or other issues; 52 percent are worried about the World population problems including wars—and 37 percent about the danger of Communism or the threat to civil liberties. However, on the other hand, almost half the population thinks that Communism is a serious danger, and that war is likely to occur within the next two years. These social concerns, however, are not felt to be a personal reality, hence are no cause for worry, although for a good deal of intolerance. It is also interesting to note that in spite of the fact that almost the whole population believes in God, there seems to be hardly anyone who is worried about their soul, salvation, their spiritual development. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

God is as alienated as the World as a whole. What causes concern and worry is the private, separate sector of life, not the social, universal one which connect us with our fellow mortals. This may have something to do with anxiety. Some therapists are impressed by the fact that in many of our patients anxiety is appearing not merely as a symptom of repression or pathology, but as a generalized character state. The problem of identity is also becoming a concern on every sophisticated person’s lips. The cultural values by which people have gotten their sense of identity have been wiped away. Our patients are aware of this before society at large was, and they do not have the defenses to protect themselves from its disturbing and traumatic consequences. All of these problems, to be sure, carry a certain momentum related to the ups and downs of fashion. However, it would fail entirely to do justice to the dynamic historical emergence of psychological problems and of social change to dismiss them as mere fashions. Psychological problems are a product of the sociohistorical changes in culture. There is no human nature but only a changing nature of mortals depending on the changes in the society, and we should call the conflicts of our patients not neurosis but sociosis. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

We need not go all the way because it is still apparent that psychological problems are also produced by a three-cornered dialectical interplay of biological and individual and historical-social factors. Nevertheless, it is clear what a gross and destructive oversimplification it is to assume that psychological problems emerge out of the blue or simply because society is now aware of the problem, or to assume that the problems exist merely because we have found new words to diagnose them. We find new words because something of importance is happening on unconscious, unarticulated levels and is pushing for expression; and our task is to do our best to understand and express these emergent developments. Freud’s patients were mostly hysterics who, by definition, carried repressed energy which could be released by the therapist’s naming of the unconscious. Today, however, when practically all our patients are compulsive-obsessional neurotics (or character problems, which is a more general and less intense form of the same thing), we find that the chief block to therapy is the incapacity of the patient to feel. These patients are persons who can talk from now till doomsday about their problems, and are generally well-practiced intellectuals; but they cannot experience genuine feelings. This compulsive character has turned humans into living machines. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

Wounds of the soul are not unique to the rich or the poor, to one culture, one nation, or one generation. They come to all and are part of the learning we receive from this mortal experience. Psychoanalysis is the best known (though least understood) of the psychotherapies. Research and other human experiences have promoted growth out of the classical methods. Though they are not necessarily the best or the most important, the insight that Freud have us concerning the unconscious, defensiveness and resistance, transference and working-through have all assisted us in developing a more humanistic and reality-oriented form of psychotherapy. We each understand that difficulties are a part of life, but when they come to us personally, they can take our breathe away. Without being alarmed, we need to be ready. Never give up—however deep the wounds of your soul, whatever their source, wherever or whenever they happen, and however short or long they persist, you are not mean to perish spiritually. You are meant to survive spiritually and blossom in your faith and trust in God. God did not create our spirits to be independent of him. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, through the incalculable gift of his Atonement, not only saves us from death and offers us, through repentance, forgiveness for our sins, but he also stands ready to save us from sorrows and pains of our wounded souls. Pray with all your heart. Strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ, in his reality, in his grace. His grace is sufficient for us. Remember, repentance is powerful spiritual medicine. Keep the commandments and be worthy of the Comforter remembering that the Savior promised he will not leave us. “And the fire will never leave us. Though the path divides between us, you always had the strength to walk alone. And the quiet hour would haunt you and the wilder winds, they called you. I almost had the strength to let you go. Why were you falling? Far, far away. I still remember you and those days could not get better. I keep it all, this will not fade, I will never let it. I know you gave it all so good, I cannot forget it. Still lost in you, on that day we will stay forever. Stay forever. And I know that time is speeding, experiences fleeting, I would give them all away to bring you home,” reports Emma Hewitt (Still Remember You). #RandolphHarris 18 of 18