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Memories of a Lifetime–I Stumbled on this Photograph
The heart is initially no more than an enlarged blood vessel, and eventually becomes the four-chambered structure found in human beings. Every great discovery is just like perception, an operation of the understanding, an immediate intuition, and as such the work of an instant, a flash of insight. They are not the result of a process of abstract reasoning, which only serves to make the immediate knowledge of the understanding permanent for thought by bringing it under abstract concepts, i.e, it makes knowledge distinct, it puts us in a position to impart it and explain it to others. The experience we undergo is the result of the interaction between reality and the particular human organism, but even though we are required to acknowledge the existence of the external stimulant, we can never know exactly what it is like it our own right. This is a unique case in that, although we can investigate the effects of the stimulant, the cause is inherently unknowable. The keenness of the understanding in apprehending the casual relations of objects which are known indirectly, does not find its only application in the sphere of natural sciences (though all the discoveries in that sphere are due to it), but it also appears in practical life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
Since we cannot know the nature of reality apart from its effects, we are led to a belief in some Unknowable; this does not mean, however, that we are committed to a belief in the existence of God. First of all, our complete dependence on sensory data for knowledge makes it impossible for us to tell whether this Unknowable is at all comparable to any kind of divine substance. We are never in the position to test whether our idea of what the Absolute is, corresponds to what it actually is. Second, reasoning, which is no more than an advanced physical ability by which an organism can meet environmental problems, cannot cope with data that are not reducible to observables. When such an endeavor is made, reasoning, like any machine whose function is abused, breaks down. Consider what occurs when we attempt to analyze a concept whose reference is take to be necessarily outside of the domain of experience—the concept of God. All questions are either unanswerable or productive paradoxes. If there is a God, then how did he come into existence? If he created himself out of nothing, then how can something come out of nothing? #RandolphHarris 2 of 14
The fact that God is treated as an immanent, existing or operating within; inherent, permanently pervading and sustaining the Universe, rather than an external power, does not eliminate the questions that are raised with theism. It is still impossible to imagine the Universe arising uncaused out of nothing. This is why I believe that the Universe is like a sea-walnut, which produces its own light to sustain life and ward off predators, but is contained in the ocean. It is only logical that we would think of the Universe as existent in some potential form prior to its becoming actual; and even if it were meaningful to speak of the potential Universe, the question would still remain how a potential Universe could have been created. Are we then necessarily led to atheism? No. The fact that we do not know whether a God exists does not mean that therefore no God exists. The rejection of theism and pantheism entails only that we can have no knowledge about the Unknowable, not that the Unknowable does not exists. At most we can simply say that we do not know whether there is a God. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14
Many religions still cling to beliefs that arose because primitive people could not account for natural phenomena. Thus, the notion of a soul, or of a ghost, arose because primitive people could not account for dreams, shadows, and reflections. All such phenomena led to the belief that people were dual personalities, one of which remains unchanged regardless of changes in the visible human. From this conception there gradually developed the theory that there were eternal, unchanging, omnipotent personalities. In this way, people came to believe in gods; and, for similar reason, the Judaeo-Christin God has many strictly human traits. This religious anthropomorphism which depicted God as filled with hatreds and desires that were appropriate only to human beings. Nevertheless, religion can serve as a means of fostering friendships and cooperation among human beings and also of guaranteeing the retention of the most worthwhile values of the past. Furthermore, religion can be useful as a way of developing interest in the various enigmas that are found in the Universe, a means of motivating people to initiate scientific inquiries. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14
The fact that we can never know what the Unknowable is in itself does not imply that we cannot have any genuine knowledge. Good sense or prudence signifies exclusively understanding at the command of the will. However, the limits of these conceptions must not be too sharply defined, for it is always that one function of the understanding by means of which all animals perceive objects in space, which, in its keenest form, appears now in the phenomena of nature, correctly inferring the unknown causes from the given effects, and providing the material from which the reason frames general rules as laws of natural now inventing complicated and ingenious machines by adapting known causes to desired effects; now in the sphere of motives, seeing though and frustrating intrigues and machinations, or fitly disposing the motives and the people who are susceptible to them, setting them in motion, as machines are moved by levers and wheels, and directing them at will to the accomplishment of the ends. Deficiency of understanding is called an intellectual disability. It is dullness in applying the law of causality, incapacity for the immediate apprehension of the concatenations of causes and effect, motives and actions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14
A stupid person has no insight into the connection of natural phenomena, either when they follow their own course, or when they are intentionally combined, i.e., are applied to machinery. A stupid person does not observe that persons, who apparently act independently of each other, are really in collusion; that person is therefore easily mystified; and outwitted; one does not discern the hidden motives of proffered advice or expressions of opinion. But it is always just one thing that the individual lacks—keenness, rapidity, ease in applying the law of causality, i.e., the power of understanding. The domain of phenomena of the Unknowable is characterized by features which are not controllable by our desires or even by our manipulations. Certain relationship consistently appear in spite of our objections or antagonistic attitudes. Also, in all objectsions, including ourselves, there are many varying degrees of energy—or force. These aspects of reality are manifestations of the Unknowable, and information about them is the only kind of knowledge human beings can obtain or ought to see. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14
It is clear that knowledge, for human beings, is not a study of the Unknowable but rather of the manifestations of the Unknowable among phenomena. There are beginnings, middles (or periods of equilibrium), and ends; but all these processes take place in a finite space and a finite time. A person is born; one matures; one passes on, generally. Similarly, a society begins, reaches a stage of equilibrium, and is destroyed by something internal or external. All around us we can see the workings of the law of evolution and dissolution, but we can never know whether the Universe as a whole is undergoing this process. Feelings, too, arise through evolution. Life seeks to survive, and feelings of pleasure are necessary to sustain this urge. If the organism experiences no rewards for maintaining its own life and reproducing its kind, if there were no sense of accomplishment, then the urge to survive might easily be extinguished. Therefore, behavior that contributes to survival is accompanied by the feeling of pleasure, and behavior that endangers survival is accompanied by the feeling of pain. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14
Similarly, feelings of sociality and sympathy developed in human beings because in the struggle for survival people came to recognize that human cooperation is necessary, and the pleasures that accrue to the feeling of sociality were the rewards that guaranteed the continuation of such cooperation. The development of the feelings of sociality and sympathy led to the emergence of a new kind of entity, society, which is the subject of sociology and ethics. Here, too, the principle of evolution holds. Society, like other organisms, has its period of infancy, of maturity, and death. Therefore, strive to possess yourself of what you have inherited from your ancestors. The problem would appear more difficult if we could admit that they leave no traces whatsoever behind them. However, our memories are colored by emotions, judgments, and quirks of personality. What we remember depends on what we pay attention to, what we regard as meaningful or important, and what we feel strongly about. Memory structure is that pattern of associations among items of information stored in the memory. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14
I stumbled on this photograph, it kind of made me laugh, it took me way back, back down memory lane. I see the happiness, I see the pain where I am. I see us standing there, such a happy pair. Love beyond compare. The way you held me. No one could tell me that love would die. Why, oh why did I have to find this photograph? Gaps in memory, which are common, may be filled in by logic, guessing, or new information. Indeed, it is possible to have memories for things that never happened (such as remembering broken glass at an accident when there was none). People with pseudo memories (false memories) are often quite upset to learn they have given false testimony. A filmed automobile accident was showed to people. Afterwards, some participants were asked to estimate how fast the cars were going when they smashed into each other. For others the words bumped, contacted, or hit replaces smashed. One week later, each person was asked, “Did you see any broken glass?” Those asked earlier about the cars that smashed into each other were more likely to say yes. (No broken glass was shown in the film.) The new information (smashed) was included in memories and altered them. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14
The updating of long-term memories is a common problem in police work. For example, a witness may select a photo of a suspect from police files or see a photo in the news. Later, the witness identifies the suspect in person (in a lineup or in court). Did the witness really remember the suspect from the scene of the crime? Or was it from the more recently seen photograph? Even an innocent person may be remembered as the criminal. It is quite possible for a photo to update or blend with the original memory. Many tragic cases of mistaken identity occur this way. Indeed, the fading of memories and the weak affect of impressions which are no longer recent, which we are apt to take as self-evident, and to explain as a primary effect of time on our psychic memory-residues, are in reality secondary changes brought about by laborious work. It is the preconscious that accomplishes this work. Networks of associated memories may help explain a common experience: Imagine finding a picture taken on your sixth birthday or tenth Christmas. As you look at the photo, one memory leads to another, which leads to another, and another. Soon you have unleashed a flood of seemingly forgotten details. This process is called redintegration. Redintegrative memories seem to spread through the branches of memory networks. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14
Many people find that such memories are also touched off by distinctive events from past—like a visit to Grandma’s kitchen, pleasant scents, going to the farm, the seashore, a doctor’s office, the perfume or after-shave of a former lover, and so on. The key idea in redintegration is that one memory serves as a cue to trigger another. As a result, an entire past experience may be reconstructed from one small recollection. Personally, I have had no real anxiety-dreams for a few months, but I do recall one. The dream was very vivid, and showed me my beloved mother, with a peculiarly calm, sleeping countenance, carried into the room and laid on the bed by two (or three) persons with birds’ beaks. I awoke crying and screaming, and disturbed my parents’ sleep. The peculiarly draped, excessively tall figures with beaks I had taken from the illustrations of the Philippson’s Bible. I believe they represented deities with the heads of sparrowhawks from an Egyptian tomb-relief. The analysis yielded, however, also the recollection of a house-porter’s boy, who used to play with us children on a meadow in front of the house; I might add that his name was Philip. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14
It seemed to me then that I first heard from this boy the vulgar word signifying sexual intercourse, which is replaced among educated persons by the Latin word coitus, but which the dream plainly enough indicates by the choice of the birds’ heads. I must have guessed the sexual significance of the word from the look of my Worldly-wise teacher. My mother’s expression in the dream was copied from the countenance of my grandfather, whom I had seen a few days before his death snoring in a state of coma. The interpretation of the secondary elaboration in the dream must therefore have been that my mother was dying; the tomb-relief, too, agrees with this. I awoke with this anxiety, and could not calm myself until I had waked my parents. I remember that I suddenly became calm when I saw my mother; it was as though I had needed the assurance: then she is not dead. However, this secondary interpretation of the dream had only taken place when the influence of the developed anxiety was ready at work. I was not in a state of anxiety because I had dreamt that my mother was dying; I interpreted the dream in this manner in the preconscious elaboration because I was already under the domination of anxiety. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14
The latter, however, could be traced back, through the repression to a dark, plainly disturbing period I had in my life, which had found appropriate expression in the visual content of the dream. It was a time when I felt like savage humans were trying to break up my family, and take the only people who cared about me in the World away, and then do away with me. As I grow up, and I think most adults are the same, they fear losing their parents and siblings because you have known them all of your life and that is all you have in this World. And while after you lose a parent, you can still feel their presence and sense them looking over you, but that sense of communication in the physical World is gone and that means so much. People spend so much time on social media, but think about it this way. What if someone took away everyone you care about in your life and replaced them with social media profiles and pictures and videos was your new community and social circle, but never actually see them in person. You would feel isloated, incomplete, and alone. Do not let social media rob you of reality and life. We are only here on this planet for so long and once you lose someone you care about chances are you can never talk to them again. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14
Make more time for your family and spend time with the people you love. Ask your grandparents to recall vivid and important autobiographical memories and what do you get out of it? Up to a point, the results are like the memories of people at any age: Most recollections come from the 2 or 3 most recent years. Fewer and fewer autobiographical memories come from earlier years, tapering off back to childhood. However, something interesting occurs for older adults as they scan over a lifetime. If you tally their memories, you will find a bulge or bump in the curve between the ages of 10 and 30. In other words, many more memories come from this period than would be expected. Why do memories from this period of life stand out for older adults? Because memories formed during this time are encoded in ways that make them easier to retrieve later in life. Just why these years are so memorable is not known. However, if you are between the ages of 10 and 30, take note: These are the days, my friend. You know me. Every time you try to forget who I am, I will be right there to remind you again, you know me. Answer me when I call, God, defender of my cause; you set me free when I am hard-pressed; have mercy on me and hear my prayer. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14
Seek Not to Mystify the Mystery
A spirit of reform is a salutary temper of the times; because there is at all times need for reformation. Some believe that people only emerged from savagery with the help of the civil state and penal laws, as well as through the deliberate invention of gods in order to inspire fear in the evildoer. The belief that virtue can be taught is universal among many philosophers, so much so that some have regarded it as their sole distinguishing feature. The effect of this doctrine upon society was revolutionary, since it implied that anyone, after instruction, might become qualified for the exercise of power, and it leaves no special place for privilege by birth or the inheritance of a special family or class tradition. The greatest object in the Universe, is a good person struggling with adversity; yet there is still a greater, which is the good person that comes to relieve it. The idea of a personal God who is the creator of the natural World with its casual connections as well as the supreme source and bearer of values can be satisfy all the facts of experience. God who would regenerate society must first regenerate himself, and then his virtues must act as a contagion acts, by contact of human with human. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
A great voice is an ocean. You cannot drain it. It is something found—an addition to the wealth of this life. This God sufficiently unifies the scheme of things to overcome the disjunction between fact and value, and yet, since he is less than an all-inclusive absolute, he allows for that relative independence and diversity that seem to be a presupposition of genuinely personal and individual experiences. Our manners and customs go for more in life than our qualities. Time, patience, and fortitude often conquer fate. The presence of evil in the World creates difficulties for any theistic solution, but the fact of evil is not fatal, if we bear in mind that the solution offered is not a rigid monism. God limits himself by his creation, for moral values can be realized only by being free beings, and the gift of freedom makes possible evil as well as good. In spite of the evil that may, and does, arise, such a World is not only better than any World that lacked freedom but alone can be setting of the creation of value. What caused Satan to be cast from Heaven? Perhaps the reason Lucifer and the other angels fell from Heaven is because they were forced to be good. They were not given freedom like humans to choose to be good or evil. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14
Chance and change love to deal with one’s settled plan, not with their idle vagaries. Incidents little in speculation are great in the eye of fortune. Satan supposedly fell from Heaven because of pride that originated from his desire. While Satan was the highest of all the angels, he was not happy. Little did he know of his life to come, he was not very sure, for one thing, that the good he aimed at would not be obtained. Satan wanted to be God instead of a servant of God. He desired to rule the Universe. Therefore, God cast Satan out of Heaven as a fallen angel. Supposedly, Satan acted as leader of the fallen angels. These demons, existing in the invisible spirit realm yet affecting our physical World, rebelled against God, but are ultimately under God’s control. There is an ongoing spiritual war between God and Satan, good and evil. However, Satan masquerades as an angel of light deceiving humans. We should not fear Satan’s limited power. We ought to be wise, however, in resisting his tactics. Every prohibition conceals a desire. An unconscious impulse need not have originated where we find it expressed; it can spring from an entirely different place and may originally have referred to other persons and relations, but through the mechanism of displacement, it reached the point where it comes to our notice. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14
Though angels and demons live in the World, they do not wage war as the World does. The weapons the good angels fight with are not weapons of the World. They have divine power to demolish strongholds. They demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and they take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. The intellect is a nobler power than the will. Both civil and ecclesiastical power derive ultimately from God, but the civil power proceeds through the medium of society; the people concertize authority received from God in the person whom they designate as rulers. Observational learning is achieved by watching and imitating the actions of another person or by noting the consequences of a person’s actions. In other words, information is imparted by example, before direct practice is allowed. The value of learning by observation is obvious: Imagine trying to tell someone how to tie a shoe, do a dance step, crochet, preach, or play a piano. Anything that can be learned from direct experience can be learned by observation. Often, this allows a person to skip the tedious effects of attempting to accomplish something by trying various means until the correct one is found. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14
Witches are believed to be able to exercise a malign influence even after death unless they are buried with their toes downwards. Culmstock is a village and civil parish in Mid Devon, England, about 12 miles from Tiverton. Not very long ago, a woman suspected of being a witch, was buried in this way within twenty miles of Tiverton. In no part of the country is witchcraft more believed than in the Culm Valley. There is a local saying that there are enough witches in the valley to roll a hogshead of cider up the Beacon Hill, at Culmstock, and old people living there are not ashamed to say that they believe in witchcraft. The witches are two kinds—black and white. The former profess to have the power to condemn those on whom they are asked to cast a spell, to kinds of misfortunes: the latter impose on credulous clients by making them believe that they can remove evil spells and bring good fortune—for consideration, of course. For obvious reasons visits to witches are generally kept dark, but every now and again particulars leak out. In Culmstock district, not so very long ago, a young girl went with her mother to a witch, in order to get a spell cast over an errant swain, who was suspected of bestowing his affections on another. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14
The witch professed to be able to bring the young man back to this young lady, or to condemn him to all kinds of torture, but her price was prohibitive, and so the young man was left to marry whom he would. Farmers are the witches’ most profitable clients, and it is a noteworthy fact that they generally contrive to visit the wise woman when they are away from the house, at market. A few years ago, farmers used to go to Exeter for many mils round to consult a witch whenever they had any misfortune, and it is commonly reported that they can get the same sort of advice in the city at present day. At many farmhouses Bibles are kept in the dairies to prevent witches from retarding the butter-making operations. “I am witched,” or “I must have been witched,” are expressions heard in Devon every day in the week. Generally speaking, it is animals that are supposed to sustain the most harm from being overlooked. The loss of cattle that have died has been put down to the power of evil spirits, and according to many superstitious people, witches have a peculiar power over pigs. These are only hints, but a careful elaboration of them would show how important they may become for understanding of the development of civilization. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14
In the analytical consideration of taboo phenomena we have hitherto allowed ourselves to be guided by their demonstrable agreements with compulsion neurosis; but as taboo is not a neurosis but a social creation we are also confronted with the task of showing wherein lies the essential difference between neurosis and product of culture like taboo. A young man who believed his pigs had been bewitched was told, not so long ago, to take the heart of a pig, stick it full of pins and needles, and roast it at the fire. He did this believing this would check the mortality among his swine. The power of truth; its conquest is slow and laborious, but if once the victory be gained it can never be wrested back again. Besides the ideas we have as yet considered, which, according to their construction, could be referred to time, space, and matter, if we consider the, with reference to the object, or to pure sensibility and understanding (i.e. knowledge of causality), if we consider them with reference to the object, another faculty of knowledge has appeared in humans alone of all Earthly creatures, an entirely new consciousness, which, with very appropriate and significant exactness, is called reflection. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14
From the knowledge of perception, we derive that a reflected appearance is on it. For primitive people believe in an animation of human individuals. Human beings have souls which can leave their habitation and enter into other beings; these souls are the bearers of spiritual activities and are, to a certain extent, independent of the bodies. Originally souls were thought of as being very similar to individual; only in the course of a long evolution did they lose their material character and attain a high degree of spiritualization. The soul conceptions are the original nucleus of the animistic system, that spirits merely correspond to souls that have become independent, and the souls of animals, plants, and there were formed after the analogy of human souls. How did primitive people come to the peculiarly dualistic fundamental conceptions on which this animistic system rests? Through the observation, it is thought, of the phenomena of sleep (with dreams) and death, which resembles sleep, and through the effort to explain these conditions, which affect each individual so intimately. Above all, the problem of death must have become the starting point of the formation of the theory. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14
To primitive humans the continuation of life—immortality—would be self-evident. The conception of death is something accepted later, and only with hesitation, for even to us it is still devoid of content and unrealizable. Very likely discussion have taken place over the part which may have been played by other observations and experiences in the formation of the fundamental animistic conception such as dream imagery, shadows and reflection, but these have led to no conclusion. If the primitive human reacted to the phenomena that stimulated one’s reflection with the formation of conceptions of the soul, and then transferred these objects to the outer World, one’s attitude will be judged to be quite natural and in no way mysterious. All are the necessary psychological product of the myth-forming consciousness, and primitive animism may be looked upon as the spiritual expression of human’s natural state in so far as this is at all accessible to our observation. There is a universal tendency among humankind to conceive all beings like themselves and to transfer to every object those qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted and which they are intimately conscious. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14
Sailing with sealed orders, we ourselves are the repositories of the secret packet, whose mysterious contents we long to learn There are not mysteries out of our selves. Animism, witchcraft, and such is a system of thought, it gives not only the explanation of a single phenomenon, but makes it possible to comprehend the totality of the World from one point, as a continuity. This behavior can still be demonstrated in the life of today, either as worthless survival in the form of superstition, or in living form as the foundation of our language, our belief, and our philosophy. Myths are based upon animistic foundations, but the detailed relation of myths to animism seem unexplained in some essential points. What is a country village without its mysterious personage? 2010 January 13, Pagan worshippers are suspected of weaving horses’ manes to cast spells on the animals after police investigated a series of bizarre incidents. Almost 20 animals were targeted over a period of three months. Residents in Hemyock, Culmstock, and Clayhidon, Devon, Exeter as well as parts of Dorset and Somerset started a horse watching scheme after incidents were reported. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14
Police initially believed the horses were being marked for theft by organized criminals until it was discovered that none had been stolen. Officers now suspect white witches who practice knot magic are using the horses to help them cast spells. It is thought that Pagan gods have a close connection with horses, which adds strength to spells that incorporate the animals. To surround anything, however monstrous or ridiculous, with an air of mystery, is to invest it with a secret charm, and power of attraction which to the crowd is irresistible. We can easily guess that magic is the earlier and more important part of animistic technique, for among the means with which spirit are to be treated there are also found the magic kind, to frighten away a ghost with noise and cries is a form of pure sorcery; to force him to do something by taking his name is to employ magic against him, and magic is also applied where spiritualization of nature has not yet, as it seems to us, been accomplished. Magic must never serve the most varied purposes. It must subject the process of nature to the will of man, protect the individual against enemies and dangers, and give him the power to injure his enemies. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14
Magic is used to assist the gods against evil demons. Every night when the Sun God Ra in ancient Egypt sank to his house in the glowing west he was assailed by hosts of demons under the leadership of the archfiend Apepi. All night long he fought them, and sometimes by day the powers of darkness sent up clouds even into the blue Egyptian sky to obscure his light and weaken his power. To aid the Sun-god in this daily struggle, a ceremony was daily performed in his temple at Thebes. A figure of his foe Apepi, represented as a crocodile with a hideous face or a serpent with many coils, was made of wax, and on it the demon’s name was written in green ink. Wrapt in a papyrus case, on which another likeness of Apepi had been drawn in green ink, the figure was then tied up with black hair, spat upon, hacked with a stone knife and cast on the ground. There the priest trod on it with a stone knife and cast on the ground. There the priest trod on it with his left foot again and again, and then burned it in a fire made of a certain plant grass. When Apepi himself had thus been effectively disposed of, waxen effigies of each of his principal demons, and of their fathers, and mothers, and children, were made and burnt the same way. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14
The service accompanied by the recitation of certain prescribed spells, was repeated not merely morning, noon, and night, but whenever a storm was raging or a heavy rain had set in, or black clouds were stealing across the sky to hide the Sun’s bright disk. The fiends of darkness, clouds and rain felt the injury inflected in their images as if it had been done to themselves; they passed away, at least for a time and the beneficent Sun-god shone out triumphant once more. The Biblical prohibition against making an image of anything living hardly sprang from any fundamental rejection of plastic art, but was probably meant to deprive magic, which the Hebraic religion proscribed, of one of its instruments. Modeling as a powerful effect on behavior. In a classic experiment, rain is produced by magic means, by imitating it, and perhaps also by imitating the clouds and storm which produces it. It looks as if they wanted to play with rain. The Ainos of Japan, for instance, make rain by pouring out water through a big sieve, while others fit out a big bowl with sails and oars as if it were a ship, which is then dragged about the village and gardens. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14
However, the fruitfulness of the soil was assured by magic means by showing it the spectacle of human sexual intercourse. To cite one out of many examples; in some parts of Java, the peasants used to go out into the field at night for sexual intercourse when the rice was about to blossom in order to stimulate the rice to fruitfulness through their example. At the same time, it was feared that proscribed incestuous relationships would stimulate the soil to grow weeds and render it unfruitful. After looking at magic and rituals and superstitions, it seems to me that being a good person and believing in God and having faith seems to be the easier thing to do. Everything else takes all the rituals and potions and spells and probably drives some people mad. Almighty God, our Heavenly Father: We have sinned against you, through our own fault, in thought, and word, and deed, and in what we have left undone. For the sake o your Son our Lord Jesus Christ, forgive us all our offenses; and grant that we may serve you in newness of life, to the glory of your name. May the Almighty God grant us the forgiveness of all our sins, and the grace and comfort of the Holy Spirit. Amen. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14
A Charm against Yielding to Temptation
Things perceived as real are real in their effects. As from the direct light of the Sun to the borrowed light of the moon, we pass from the immediate idea of perception, which stands by itself and is its own warrant, to reflection, to the abstract, discursive concepts of the reason, which obtain their whole content from knowledge of perception, and in relation to it. As long as we continue simply to perceive, all is clear, firm, and certain. There are neither questions nor doubts nor errors; we desire to go no further, can go no further; we find rest in perceiving, and satisfaction in the present. Perception suffices for itself, and therefore what springs purely from it, and remains true to it, for example, a genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be discredited through a lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself. However, with abstract knowledge, with reason, doubt and error appearing in the theoretical, care and sorrow in the practical, illusion may at moments take the place of the real. Chance actions differ from erroneously carried-out actions only in that they disdain the support of a conscious intention and really need no pretext. They appear independently and are accepted because one does not credit them with any aim or purpose. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
In the sphere of abstract thought, error may reign for a thousand years, impose its yoke upon whole nations, extend to the noblest impulses of humanity, and, by the help of its slaves and its dupes, may chain and fetter those whom it cannot deceive. We execute them without thinking anything of them, by mere chance, just to keep the hands busy, and we feel confident that such information will be quite sufficient should one inquire as to their significance. In order to enjoy the advantage of this exception position, these actions which no longer claim awkwardness as an excuse must fulfill certain conditions: they must not be striking, and their effects must be insignificant. It is the enemy against which the wisest people of all times have waged unequal war, and only what they have won from it has become the possession of humankind. Culture is constantly threatened by a relapse into barbarism and disorder that would make history sheer meaningless succession. Against perpetual decadence people struggles heroically to establish limited zones of law, order, and cultural significance. To succeed is this for a time, they must do violence to their own natures by imposing on themselves a hard discipline and accepting moral isolation amid their mediocre fellows. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
This means living in conformity to the ethic of the producers and seeing the good life to be a cooperative creative enterprise carried on in a self-reliant spirit. Against the good things to be obtained rather than a way of acting. In the consumers’ view typical goods are welfare, prosperity, distributive justice, and the classless society, things to be aimed at for the future and enjoyed if secured. Enterprises undertaken in that spirit were based on envy and inevitably fell under the control of adventure (usually intellectuals) who duped the masses. Such instances are citizens revolting, peasant wars, anti-Semitism, and contemporary welfare-state socialism. It has often been said that we ought to follow the truth even although no utility can be seen in it, because it may have indirect utility which may appear when it is least expected; and I would add to this, that we ought to be just as anxious to discover and to root out all error even when no harm is anticipated from it, because its mischief may be very indirect, and may suddenly appear when we do not expect it, for all error has poison at its heart. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
The symbolism in the infantile life of the normal plays a greater role than was expected psychoanalytic experiences. A doctor, on rearranging his furniture in a new house, came across a straight, wooden stethoscope, and, after pausing to decide where he should put it, was impelled to place it on the side of his writing-desk in such a position that it stood exactly between his chair and the one reserved for his patients. This act in itself was certainly odd, for in the place, the straight stethoscope served no purpose as he invariably used a binaural one; and in the second place, all his medical apparatus and instruments were always kept in drawers, with the sole exception of this one. However, he gave no thought to the matter until one day, it was brought to his notice by a patient who had never seen a wooden stethoscope, asking him what it was. On being told, she asked him why he kept it there. He answered in an offhand way that that place was good as any other. This, however, started him thinking, and he wondered whether there had been an unconscious motive in this action. Being interested in the psychanalytic method, he asked me to investigate the matter. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
The first memory that occurred to him was the fact when a medical student, he has been struck by the habit his hospital interne had of always carrying a wooden stethoscope in his hand on his ward visits, although he never used it. He greatly admired this interne, and was much attached to him. Later on, when he himself became an interne, he contracted the same habit, and would feel very uncomfortable if by mistake he left the room without having the instrument to swing in his hand. The aimless of the habit was shown, not only by the fact that the only stethoscope he every used was a binaural one, which he carried in his pocket, but also in that it was continued when he was a surgical interne and never needed the stethoscope at all. From this, it was evident that the idea of the instrument in question had in some way or other become invested with a greater psychic significance than normally belonged to it—in other words, that to the subject it stood for more than it does for other people. The idea must have become unconsciously associated with some other one which it symbolized, and from which it derived its additional fullness of meaning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
I will forestall the rest of the analysis by saying what this secondary idea was—namely, a phallic one; the way in which this curious association had been formed will presently be related. The discomfort he experienced in hospital on missing the instrument, and the relief and assurance the presence of it gave him, was related to what is known as a castration complex—namely, a childhood fear, often continued in a disguise form into adult life, lest a private part of his body should be taken away from him, just as playthings so often were. The fear was due to paternal threats that it would be cut off if he were not a good boy, particularly in a certain direction. This is a very common complex, and accounts for a great deal of general nervousness ad lack of confidence in later years. The stethoscope association was formed through many connections. In the first place, the physical appearance of the instrument—a straight, rigid, hollow tube, having a small bulbous summit at one extremity and a broad base at the other—and the fact of its being the essential part of the medical paraphernalia, the instrument with which the doctor performed his magical and interesting feats, were matters that attached his boyish attention. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
He had had his chest repeatedly examined by the doctor at the age of six, and distinctly recollected the voluptuous sensation of feeling the latter’s head near him pressing the wooden stethoscope into his hat; he found it interesting that the doctor should carry his chief instrument concealed about his person, always handy when he went to see patients, and that he only had to take off his hat (i.e., a part of his clothing) and pull it out. At the age of eight, he was impressed by being told by an older boy that it was the doctor, who was young and handsome, was extremely popular among the women of the neighborhood, including the subject’s own mother. The doctor and his instrument were therefore the objects of great interest throughout his boyhood. Probably because the boy also wanted to be popular as an adult. It is probable that, as in many other cases, unconscious identification with the family doctor had been a main motive in determining the subject’s choice of profession. It was here doubly conditioned by the superiority on certain interesting occasions of the doctor to the father, of whom the subject was very jealous, and by the doctor’s knowledge of forbidden topics and his opportunity for illicit indulgence. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
The subject admitted that he had on several occasions experienced erotic temptations in regard to his women patients; he had twice fallen in love with one, and finally had married one. This shows that the way a lot of adults act and the things they do, are behaviors they learned in their childhood, which appear to be enjoyable or pleasurable to them and they want to do these things to others when adults. For me as a boy, when I would visit my doctor, Dr. Ezekiel, would have Gold Dial soap in his office and when I would wash my hands I remembered how good it smelled, and if a doctor used it, it must be good stuff. So, that Gold Dial is the only hand and bath soap I used because I want to smell good like Dr. Ezekiel. Also, as a child growing up, we lived in a nice suburban community where everything was new and clean and nice and quiet, and everyone had jobs, and so that is what kind of life style I want for my adult life. When people ask me about what I like most about being a son, I always reply, “Everything.” And even when talking to my parents now I try to conceal my true feelings at times and say something pleasant. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
Like, if I do not like someone and do not want to go to their party and my parents ask me about it, I will say something like, “I am very excited about the party, but I am busy that day. I am sure they will have good company and food as always.” Sometimes, however, I feel like I try too hard to be nice and pleasant and it really takes a lot of energy. I am more of a person who likes to be quiet, mind my own business and keep to myself, but when living in a city and not the suburbs, it requires one to be more social. Now back to the subject, the next memory he has was of a dream, plainly of a homosexual-masochistic nature; in it a man, who proved to be a replacement figure of the family doctor, attacked the subject with a sword. The idea of a sword, as is so frequently the case in dreams, represented the same idea as mentioned above to be associated with that of a wooden stethoscope. The thought of a sword reminded the subject of the passage in the Nibelung Saga, where Sigurd sleeps with his naked sword (Gram) between him and Brunilda, an incident that had always greatly struck his imagination. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
The meaning of the symptomatic act now at last become clear. The subject had placed his wooden stethoscope between him and his patients, just as Sigurd had placed his sword (an equivalent symbol) between him and the maiden he was not to touch. The great act was a compromise-formation; it served both to gratify in his imagination the repressed wish to enter into nearer relations with an attractive patient (interposition of phallus), and at the same time, to remind him that this wish was not to become a reality (interposition of sword). It was, so to speak, a charm against yielding to temptation. I might add that the following passage from Lord Lytton’s Richelieu made a great impression on the boy: “Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword. I wear my pen as others do their sword,” and that he became a prolific writer and uses an unusually large fountain pen. When I asked him what need he had of this pen, he replied in a characteristic manner, “I have so much to express.” We all live in different psychological Worlds, there is no correct view of a life situation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
A person who feels that his or her view of a life situation has been understood feels freer to examine it objectively and to question it. (Accepting and understanding the perspective of another person can be especially difficult when cultural differences exist.) Heavenly Father, you have filled the World with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hands in all your works; that rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the sake of the one through whom all things were made. May we commend to your fatherly goodness all those who are in any ways afflicted or distressed, in mind, body, or estate; [especially those whom our prayers are desired]; that it may please you to comfort and relieve them according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of their afflictions. God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus Christ, your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the ignorance and arrogance and hatred which infects our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purpose on Earth. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
In Every Heart May there be True Love of Peace and Wisdom
When I was younger and my father would send me to my room, I would make believe the glass door knobs were diamonds and would day I would sell them and become as rich as William Randolph Hearst. Long ago, a friend of mine told me that suicide is a crime because it reflects badly on the community. If such rage against one’s own integrity and one’s own life can be hidden being apparently accidental awkwardness and motor insufficient, then it is not a big step forward to grasp the possibility of transferring the same conception to mistakes which seriously endanger the life and health of others. Think of the impression that would be made upon you by the news that someone you know had committed the crimes, say, of murder or theft, or been guilty of some act of cruelty or deception; and compare it with your feelings when you hear that he or she has met a voluntary death. While in the one case a lively sense of indignation and extreme resentment will be aroused, and you will call loudly for punishment or revenge, in the other you will be moved to grief and sympathy, rather than the moral disapproval which follows upon a wicked action. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
The terrors of life for some reach a point at which they outweigh the terrors of death, and an individual will put an end to their life. Who has not had acquaintances, friends, relations, who of their own free will have left this World; and of these to be thought with horror as criminals? There was once a man, who was very intelligent, but he was not tenderly attached to his young wife. He continually occupied himself with the thought of a separation, which he repeatedly rejected because he dearly loved his two small children. In spite of this, he always returned to that resolution and sought no means to make the situation bearable to himself. Such an unsettlement of a conflict served to prove to me that there was unconscious and repressed motives which enforced the conflicting conscious thoughts. One day, the man related to me a slight occurrence which had extremely frightened him. He was sporting with the older child, by far his favorite. He tossed it high in the air and repeated this tossing till finally he thrust it so high that its head almost struck the massive gas chandelier. Almost, but not quite, or say just about! Nothing happened to the child except that it became dizzy from fright. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
The father stood transfixed with the child in his arms, while the mother merged into an hysterical attack. The particular facility of this careless movement, with the violent reaction in the parents, suggested to me to look upon this accident as a symbolic action which gave expression to an evil intention toward the beloved child. Speech, as an object of outer experience, is obviously nothing more than a very complete telegraph, which communicates arbitrary signs with the greatest rapidity and the finest distinctions of difference. However, what do these signs mean? How are they interpreted? I could remove the contradiction to the actual tenderness of this father for his child by referring the impulse to injure it to the time when it was the only one, and so small, that as yet, the father had no occasion for the tender interest in it. Then it was easy to assume that this man, so little pleased with his wife at that time, might have thought: “If this small being for whom I have no regard whatever should die, I would be free and could separate from my wife.” What penalty can frighten a person who is not afraid of death itself? #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
When someone speaks, do we at once translate his or her words into pictures of the fancy, which instantaneously flash upon us, arrange and link themselves together, and assume form and colour according to the words that are poured forth, and their grammatical inflections? What a tumult there would be in our brains while we listened to a speech, or to the reading of a book? But what actually happens is not this at all. The meaning of a speech is, as a rule, immediately grasped, and accurately and distinctly taken in, without the imagination being brought into play. It is reason which speaks to reason, keeping within its own province. The wish for the death of this much loved being must therefore have continued unconsciously. From here, it was easy to find the way to the unconscious fixation with the wish. There was indeed a powerful determinant in a memory from the patient’s childhood: it referred to the death of a little brother, which the mother laid to his father’s negligence, and which led to serious quarrels with threats of separation between the parents. The continued course of my patient’s life, as well as the therapeutic success, confirmed my analysis. And so, that is why suicide is thought of as an offence against the State, although not against the person, because depending on the state of mind of the individual, one may transfer the rage. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
The thought is that if one is willing to take their own life they may not value the lives of others. The actions described so far, in which we recognize the execution of an unconscious intention, appeared as disturbances of other unintended actions, and hid themselves under the pretext of awkwardness. If a good person should flee life when one’s misfortunes become too great; should the bad person, also, when that individual is too prosperous? When a person destroys their existence as an individual, sometimes that individual is not trying to destroy their will to live. On the contrary, some would like to live if they could do so with satisfaction to oneself; if that individual could assert his or her will against the power of circumstance; but the circumstance is too strong for that individual to bear. The problem arises when more so when someone sees taking the life of an innocent as a means to avoid their own self murder or as a way to escape an unbearable situation. However, suicide for some people is easy because they are in great pain and if the pain lasts a long time, and they think of it as a pause to the pain, for those who are tortured, it might seem like an escape. However, think about what change will death produce in one’s existence and insights into the nature of things? You never know what awaits you. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
If people are completely unconscious, they take no account of time. So, when you are dead, it is all the same to your whether three months pass in the World of consciousness, or ten thousand years. In the one case as in the other, it is simply a matter of believing what is told to you when you awake. So far, then, you can afford to be indifferent whether it is three months or ten thousand years that pass before you recover your individuality? And if by chance, after those ten thousand years have gone by, no one ever thinks of awakening you, would it be no great misfortune? You will have become quite accustomed to non-existence after so long a spell of it—following upon such a very few years of life. At any rate you may be sure you would be perfectly ignorant of the whole thing. Further, if you knew that the mysterious power which keeps you in your present state of life had never once ceased in those ten thousand years to bring forth other phenomena like yourself, and to endow them with life, it would fully console you. Think what you are doing. It is the Will to Live which is the real and direct aspirant. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
The effect of this is to make the individual careful to maintain one’s own existence. What will you be after your death? When death comes, you are annihilated as an individual and no one knows, for a fact, what happens next. We would like to believe we go to Heaven, and maybe it is true, but I think everyone should try and make the best of this life. We are finite, but filled with a desire for the infinite. The World in which we find ourselves is fragmented. Grasping splinters of reality, common understanding operates in terms of polarities—concrete and universal, appearance and concept, body and soul, individual and nature. We must escape from its rule if we are to recognize the infinite Idea. God made a sacrifice himself and the phenomenal to return to the infinite. In this annihilation the Godhead reveals itself. The reconciliation of the finite and the infinite is the goal of the philosopher when one tries to capture truth in this one’s systems; it is the duty of the moral being who confronts it as a task; it is achieved by the artist who, in creating the beautiful, reveals the Ideal in the phenomenal. Push away the veil that is hiding the Ideal life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
Philosophy is fundamentally conversation. It is a joint struggle for something that is dimly apprehended and yet escapes adequate articulation. Truth is never a possession; it only reveals itself in the process of striving for it. Thus, the most adequate vehicle for the expression of philosophical thought is dialogue. In pure consciousness, there is no distinction between the seeming and the real. However, when the reflection that accompanies consciousness takes this absolute self-validating character of subjective immediacy as an indication of an external reality, then there arise those errors of judgement which since ancient times have given cause for skepticism. If truth were a fact of immediate consciousness it need not and could not be sought, and hence there could be no philosophy. However, to the distress of some and the delight of others, there is philosophy. There is consciousness of fact and there is an aspiration for cognition of truth. Father, your truth is made known in your word. Guide us to seek the truth of the human person. Teach us the way to love because you are love. God, you embody love and truth. Help us to recognize your face. Enable us to live out our vocation to bring love and justice to your people. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
Holy spirit, you inspire us to transform our World. Empower us to seek the common good for all persons. Give us a spirit of solidarity and make us one human family. We long only to speak out and to hear the truth. Dear God, give us strength to live another day; let none of us turn coward before its difficulties or prove recreant to its duties. Let us not lose faith in other people; keep us sweet and sound of heart, in spite of ingratitude, treachery, or meanness. Help us keep our hearts clean, and to live so honestly and fearlessly that no outward failure can dishearten us or take away the joy of conscious integrity; open wide the eyes of our souls that we may see good in all things; grant us this day some new vision of thy truth; inspire us with the spirit of joy and gladness; and make us the cup of strength to suffering souls. Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and forever, in the name of the strong deliverer, our only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
The World is My Idea—I Gave My Heart to Thee
The World is my idea—this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though human beings alone can bring into reflective and abstract consciousness. A useful approach is to let the love for God replace the willfulness that is driving the seeking. One can release all desire to seek and realize that the thought that there is anything else but God is a baseless vanity. It can be seen that both the body and the mind are the result of the innumerable conditions of the Universe and that one is at best the witness of this concordance. Out of an unrestricted love for God arises the willingness to surrender all motives, and expect to serve God completely. If one really does this, he or she has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to that individual that what one knows is not a Sun and an Earth, but only eyes that sees a Sun, hands that feels an Earth; that the World which surrounds us is there only as an idea, i.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is oneself. If any truth can be asserted a priori, it is this: for it is the expression of the most general form of all possible and thinkable experience: a form which is more general than time, or space, or causality, for they all presuppose it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
Time, space, and causality, which we have seen to be just so many modes of the principle of sufficient reason, is valid only for a particular class of ideas; whereas the antithesis of object and subject is the common form of all these classes, is that form under which alone any idea of whatever kind it may be, abstract or intuitive, pure or empirical, is possible and thinkable. No truth therefore is more certain, more independent of all others, and less in need of proof than this, that all that exists for knowledge, and therefore this World, is only object in relation to subject, perception of a perceiver, in a word, idea. This is obviously true of the past and the future, as well as of the present, of what is farthest off, as of what is near; for it is true of time and space themselves, in which alone these distinctions arise. All that in any way belongs or can belong to the World is inevitably thus conditioned through the subject. The World is idea. I have noticed in the course of our psychoanalytical work that the psychological state of an individual in attitude of reflection is entirely different from that of a person who is observing the psychic processes. Light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is a great friend to enthusiasm. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14
It is curious to imagine people of the World, busy in thought, turning their eyes towards the countless sphere that shine above us, and making them reflect only images their minds contain. In reflection, there is a greater play of psychic activity than in the most attentive self-observation; this is shown even by the tense attitude and the wrinkled brow of the individual in a state of reflection, as opposed to the mimic tranquility of the person observing. In both cases, there must be concentrated attention, but the reflective person makes use of their critical faculties, with the result that one rejects some of the thoughts which rise into consciousness after one has become aware of them, and abruptly interrupts others, so that one does not follow the lines of thought which they would have otherwise open up for the individual; while in respect of yet other thoughts one is able to behave in such a manner that they do not become conscious at all—that is to say, they are suppressed before they are perceived. In self-observation, on the other hand, one has but one task—that of suppressing criticism; if one succeeds in doing this, an unlimited number of thoughts enter one’s consciousness which would otherwise have eluded one’s grasp. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14
We cannot deny the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending that is has no essence independent of mental perception; that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms. These words adequately express the compatibility of empirical reality and transcendental ideality. With the assistance of the material thus obtained—material which is new to the self-observer—it is possible to achieve the interpretation of pathological ideas, and also that of dream-formations. As will be seen, the point is to induce a psychic state which is in some degree analogous, as regards the distribution of psychic energy (mobile attention), to the state of the mind before falling asleep—and also, of course, to the hypnotic state. On falling asleep, the undesired ideas emerge, owing to the slackening of certain arbitrary (and, of course, also critical) action, which is allowed to influence the trend of our ideas; we are accustomed to speak of fatigue as the reason of this slackening; the emerging undesired ideas are changed into visual and auditory images. The inward reluctance with which any one accepts the World as merely one’s idea, warns one that this view of it, however true it may be, is nevertheless one-sided, adopted in consequence of some arbitrary abstractions. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14
In the condition which it utilized for the analysis of dreams and pathological ideas, this activity is purposely and deliberately renounced, and the psychic energy thus saved (or some part of it) is employed in attentively tracking the undesired thoughts which now come to the surface—thoughts which retain their identity as ideas (in which the condition differs from the state of falling asleep). Undesired ideas are thus changed into desired ones. And yet, it is a conception from which one cannot free oneself. There are many people who do not seem to find it easy to adopt the required attitude toward the apparently freely rising ideas, and to renounce the criticism which is otherwise applied to them. The undesired ideas habitually evoke the most violent resistance, which seems to prevent them from coming to the surface. However, the essential condition of poetical creation includes a very similar attitude. If you complain of a lack of creative power, the reason for your complaint lies, it seems to me in the constraint which your intellect imposes upon your imagination. Apparently, it is not good—and indeed it hinders the creative work of the mind—if the intellect examines too closely the ideas already pouring in, as it were, at the gates. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14
Regarded in isolation, an idea may be quite insignificant, and venturesome in the extreme, but it may acquire importance from an idea which follows it; perhaps, in a certain collocation with other ideas, which may seem equally absurd, it may be capable of furnishing a very serviceable link. The intellect cannot judge all these ideas unless it can retain them until it has considered them in connection with these other ideas. In the case of a creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude. You worthy critics, or whatever you may call yourselves, are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and passing madness which is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer. Hence your complaints are of unacomplished aspirations, for you reject too soon and discriminate too severely. And yet, such a withdrawal of the watchers from the gates of the intellect, such a translation into the condition of uncritical self-observation is by no means difficult. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14
Most of my patients accomplish it after my first instruction. I myself can do so very completely, if I assist the process by writing down the ideas that can flash through my mind. The quantum of psychic energy by which the critical activity is thus reduced, and by which the intensity of self-observation may be increased, varies considerably according to the subject-matter upon which the attention is to be fixed. The theme to which these point is, of course, always the history of the malady that is responsible for the neurosis. Pay attention to what occurs to you in connection to your dream, and interpret the details, not the mass; like this, it conceives the dream, for the outset, as something built up, as a conglomerate of psychic formations. While overcrowding and pollution rank high on the list of environmental stresses, they are only two of the many challenges that press for attention. Let us sample some of the solutions that psychologist have provided for environmental problems. Many problems that we are seeing arise is urban fears. The way people think about the environment greatly affect their behavior. Mental maps of various areas, for instance, often guide actions and alter decisions. A case in point is a study done in Sacramento, California USA. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14
In Sacramento, California USA, researchers found that an existing school bus route contributed to truancy. The problem was that many of its stops were where children where afraid of being attacked and beaten. The solution was that by doing an environmental assessment, psychologist developed a picture of environments as they are perceived by the people using them. An assessment often includes such things as charting areas of highest use in buildings, using attitude scales to measure reactions to various settings (such as school, businesses, and parks) and even having people draw a version of their cognitive map of a building, campus, or city. In the case of the school children, residents of the neighborhood were asked to rate how much stress they felt when walking in various areas. The result was a contour map (somewhat like a high- and low-pressure weather map) that showed the areas of highest perceived stress. This stress map was then used to reroute school buses to low-pressure areas. Cause and effect thus constitute the whole nature of matter; its true being is this action. This relation is no conclusion in abstract conceptions; it does not arise from reflection, nor is it arbitrary, but immediate, necessary, and certain. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14
When the children had been tested, prior to rerouting the school buses, the test showed that the noise they were facing was quite damaging. Children from the noisy schools were compared with similar students attending schools farther from the disturbances. These comparison students were from families of comparable social and economic makeup. Testing showed that children attending noisy schools had higher blood pressure than those from quieter schools. They were more likely to give up attempts to solve a difficult puzzles. And they were poorer at proofreading a printed paragraph—a task that requires close attention and concentration. A recent study of children living near a fairly new airport in Munich, Germany, found similar damaging effects. The greater tendency of the noisy-school children to give up or become distracted creates a serious and unnatural intellectual disability, which can be corrected by a reduction of external threats and noise pollution. This situation may even reveal a state of learned helplessness caused by daily, uncontrollable blasts of sound. Even if such damage proves to be temporary, it is clear that noise pollution (annoying and intrusive noise) is a major source of environmental stress for children, adults, nature, and pets. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14
Researchers have linked noise with impaired learning ability, less tolerance for frustration, and a reduced willingness to help others. A major finding of environmental research is that much of our behavior is controlled, in part, by specific types of environments. Society is an aggregate of interacting individuals whose relations are governed by role-confronting rules and practices which give their actions their characteristic significance. Moreover, communities seem to have a lifespan greater than that of any generation of individual members, which cannot be explained, as might that of a corporation, by the continuities of constitutional procedures. It is, rather, that from generation to generation there passes an attachment to a common set of symbols and a common history, a participation in a collective representation in a collective consciousness—a common culture, in short—which enables members to identify one another where other criteria are uncertain, which gives the society its cohesion, and which provides the standards by which its members’ actions are regulated and assessed. Boundary maintenance is a necessity for every society. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14
To possess an identity, a society must furnish criteria whereby its members can identity one another, since their actions and attitudes toward one another will be different from those toward outsiders. Society’s existences depend so crucially on commitment to common values and collective components that the political boundary tends to settle automatically the limits of the society. People have talked of the society to which they belong, they have thought primarily of the social order contained within the boundaries of a state and sustained by its organized power. Our notion of a society as the most inclusive framework of social interaction depends on the political not only for its boundary maintenance but also for its very identity. There may be a danger that pressing the antitotalitarian, pluralistic account so far that it dissolves the state, it will lose thereby its capacity to define the society. We cannot tax our way out of problems either. So many people are worried about their retirements because the rents are going up so high, cities becoming overpopulated and democrats spent all the Social Security money, so we had to sell the post office to pay the rent on the White House. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14
The California bag ban, which requires stores to stop including the price of bags with the food, but to charge the consumers an extra fee per bag, was a tax disguised as an environmental protection project, and has killed more than 2,000 manufacturing jobs, slowed down lines at grocery stories, which reduced productivity, and it has also eliminated the jobs of the people who bag your food and help you push your cart out to your car. Not only that, but the bags are thicker, and more harmful to the environment and wildlife. And many people get back to the house and find they have squashed their bread, broken their eggs, or spilled shampoo all over the meat by trying to force more than they should into into a bag. People who are trained to package your food know how to properly distribute the amount and types of food per bag, and have it down to a science, where consumers do not. Also because bags are an option, people are now going into stores a wheeling out carts loaded with goods and not being immediately detected, which is causing store to reduce hours, services, and cut back on jobs to offset cost, and charging consumers more for items to make up for lost revenue. In addition, people who buy food on credit cards, at the end of the year, end up possibly spending hundreds of dollars on plastic bags for their food. Then the cigarette tax in California, comes at a time when the state makes the cultivation, sale and distribution of marijuana legal, in hopes that people will not spend $10.00 on a pack of cigarettes, but instead buy some weed, get high, and forget that they are going broke. Just puff on a joint all day long. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14
We do not want people smoking marijuana, and I cannot even believe the state of California would make it legal for recreational use. People walk down the streets getting high and you and your kids are stuck behind them and getting contact high. Marijuana alters your state of mind and is a dangerous controlled substance, which the federal government still deems as illegal. Then, it was pretty much a law that all liquor had to be carried out the stores in bags, so that kids would not see it and be influenced to drink. However, with the bag ban, people are now walking around sucking on cans of Colt 45, pints of vodka, and jugs of Carlos Rossi. The concept of community in California is getting lost, and being replaced by a model of conflicting pressure groups operating within a very nebulously defined area. A civil society has social organization including the market economy and the forces of civil order, and realizes the ethical ideas and ethical spirit. Under leadership of Governor Jerry Brown, the rifts developed in the social fabric are an effort to keep people in ignorance. Idols and sources of delusions set forth in California, and as rationalists, we need to unmask these ideologies. The reality would offer a different face in society. Under Jerry Brown, no one has stopped to see how these circumstances have influenced social forces on the human mind. We need a superstructure, which is the starting point in the development of the modern society of knowledge. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14
It is not our consciousness which determines our existence, but on the contrary our social existence which determines our consciousness. Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they out to rip you off some way or another. Do not be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or finances. People who are insincere are not good and will be punished by God. Infinitely merciful God, most tender Father of souls, and in a particular way, you carry with special tenderness between your divine arms, I come to you and ask you, through love and merits of your sacred heart the grace to comprehend and to do always your holy will, the grace to confide in you, the grace to rest securely through time and eternity in your loving divine arms. If life be harder, love makes it also stronger, and only this love can be blessed a thousand times. I believe in you Lord, and strengthen my faith. I give my heart to thee and I so enclose it in thee that it may never be separated from thee. I am all thine, and take care of my promise. It is time to restore sanity, justice, and to do your fair share, obey the laws and practice righteousness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14
Beauty Must Not be Destroyed by Character
Beauty must not be destroyed by character, nor character by beauty. The magic of the soul is essential to the life of a culture, and is constituted by the religious consciousness and serves not to meet immediate external goals, but to augment the powers of the person. The true peace of God begins at any spot a thousand miles from the nearest land. Nothing but vast wisdom and unlimited power should dare to sweep off people in multitudes; for it is only the one that can know the necessity of the judgment; and what is there, short of the other, that can replace the creatures of the Lord? With the rising of the Sun the visible World appears, so at one stroke, the understanding, by means of its one simple function, changes the dull, meaningless sensation into perception. What the eye, the ear, or the hand feels, is not perception; it is merely its data. By the understanding passing from the effect to the cause, the World first appears as perception extended in space, varying in respect of form, persistent through all time in respect of matter; for the understanding unites space and time in the idea of matter, this is, casual action. As the World as idea exists only through understanding, so also it exists only for the realization. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
In sculpture, beauty and grace are the principal concern. The special character of the mind, appearing in emotion, passion, alterations of knowing and willing, which can only be represented by the expression of the countenance and the gestures, is the peculiar sphere of painting. For although eyes and colour, which lie outside the province of sculpture, contribute much to beauty, they are yet far more essential to character. Further, beauty unfolds itself more completely when it is contemplated from various points of view; but the expression, the character, can only be completely comprehended from one point of view. Because beauty is obviously the chief aim of sculpture, some believe that crying out is incompatible with beauty. Laocoon, in Greek legend is a seer and priest of the god Apollo; he was the son of Agenor of Troy or, according to some, the brother of Anchises (the father of the hero Aeneas). Laocoon offended Apollo by breaking his oath of celibacy and begetting children or by having the sexual intercourse with his wife in Apollo’s sanctuary. Thus, while preparing to sacrifice a bull on the altar of the god Poseidon (a task that had fallen to him by lot), Lacoon and his twin sons, Antiphas and Thymbraeus were crushed to death. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
In the afterlife, it is thought that Laocoon does not cry out, and the universal and every-renewed surprise at this must be occasioned by the fact that any of us would cry out if we were in his place. And nature demands that is should be so; for in the case of the acutest physical pain, and the sudden seizure by the greatest bodily fear, all reflection, that might have inculcated silent endurance, is entirely expelled from consciousness, and nature relieves itself by crying out, thus expressing both the pain and the fear, summoning the deliverer and terrifying the assailer. As a work of art, the expression of crying out is missed, and Laocoon is turned into a Stoic, who considered it beneath his dignity to cry out secundum naturam. It is also added to his pain the useless constraint of suppressing all utterance of it. Therefore, many people see Laocoon as the tried spirit of a great man, who writhes in agony, and yet seeks to suppress the utterance of his feelings, and to lock it up inside himself. He does not break forth into loud cries, but only anxious sighs escape him. In the place of the psychology, the purely aesthetic reason that beauty, the principle of ancient art, does not admit of the expression of crying out. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
The essence of Laocoon can be applied to the family structure of suburban middle-class life in a form of a metaphor. The American Dream is to have a picture-perfect family, beautiful house, successful career, and a peaceful life. So, in middle-class families from the suburbs, people are taught to behave well and always express that they are happy and life is personal and to never go into much detail about anything. Their houses are supposed to be crystal clean, well-maintained, and their yards are immaculate. And much like Laocoon, no matter how much pain you are in, you smile and keep it to yourself and only express it in confidence, behind closed doors. The goal is, not only do people want to look normal, but they want to be normal and be considered to have good mental hygiene. The purpose of having good mental hygiene is it leads to better social acceptance, more career options, and better opportunities for reproduction. What is not pink is not a flamingo. What is not just is not to be done. Come you lost Atoms to your centre draw, and be the eternal mirror that you saw; rays that have wandered into darkness wide return, and back into your Sun subside. The relegation of spirits to Heaven or Hell from the intervening spiritual World depends on the spirits themselves, since their utmost desire (amor regnans) leads them into suitable company. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
It is clear that God is a specific deity humans have devised, and is a controlling force or intellect within the Universe, and it is clear that God, like the Universe and everything within the Universe, is in a continuous state of change and evolution. God, like matter, energy, or consciousness, is dynamic, not static. It is certainly true that actions speak louder than words, but words become as monuments to thoughts. May God the Father bless us, may Christ take care of us, the Holy Ghost enlighten us all the days of our life. The Lord be our defender and keeper of body and soul, both now and forever, to the ages of ages. Alone with none but thee, my God, I journey on my way. What need I fear when thou art near, oh King of night and day? More safe am I within thy hand than if a host did round me stand. We live in a society that puts a premium on competition and individual effort. One problem with that competing with others fosters desires to demean, defeat, and vanquish them. When we cooperate with others we tend to share their joys and suffer when they are in distress. If you feel you have nothing in common with people whose backgrounds are very different from your own, remember this: if we do not find ways to cooperate and live in greater harmony, everyone will suffer. That, if nothing else, is one thing that we all have in common. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
Everyone knows what it feels like to be different. Greater tolerance comes from remembering those times. Over-population is major World problem, often reflected at an individual level in crowding. The Earth’s population is expected to reach 12 billion by 2040. Further population increases at the present rate could be disastrous. How many more people can the forests, oceans, croplands, and atmosphere support? The most pessimistic experts believe we have already exceeded the number of people the Earth can sustain indefinitely. Nowhere are the effects of over-population more evident than in the teeming cities of many under-developed nations. Closer to home, the jammed buses, subways, and living quarters of our own large cities are ample testimony to the stresses of crowding. Is there any way to assess the effect crowding has on people? One approach is to study the effects of overcrowding among animals. Although the results of animal experiments cannot be considered conclusive for humans, they point to some disturbing effects. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
In an interesting experiment, John Calhoun let a group of laboratory rats breed without limit in a confined space. John Calhoun provided plenty of food, water, and nesting material for the rats. All they lacked was space. At its peak, the colony numbered 80 rats. Yet, it was houses in a cage designed to comfortably hold about 50. Overcrowding in the cage was heightened by the actions of the two most dominant males. These rascals staked out private territories at opposite ends of the cage, gathered harems of 8 to 10 females, and prospered. Their actions forced the remaining rats into a small, severely crowded middle area. What effect did crowding have on the animals? A high rate of pathological behavior developed in both males and females. Females gave up nest building and caring for their young. Pregnancies decreased, and infant mortality ran extremely high. Many of the animals became indiscriminately aggressive and went on rampaging attacks against others. Abnormal sexual behavior was rampant, with some animals displaying hyper-sexuality and others total sexual passivity. Many of the animals died, apparently from stress-caused diseases. The link between these problems and overcrowding is unmistakable. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
However, how does this example apply to humans? Many of the same pathological behaviors can be observed in crowded inner-city ghettos. It is therefore tempting to assume that violence, social disorganization, and declining birthrates as seen in these areas are directly related to crowding. However, the connection has not been so clearly demonstrated with humans. People living in the inner city suffer disadvantages in nutrition, education, income, and health care. These, more than crowding, may deserve the blame. Nevertheless, the laboratory studies using human subjects have produced similar finds with the animals who were crowded in small areas. Crowding is when people feel overstimulated by social inputs or a loss of privacy. Whether high density is experienced as crowding may depend on relationships among those involved. In an elevator, subway, or prison, high densities may be uncomfortable. In contrasts, a musical concert, party, or reunion may be most pleasant at high density levels. Thus, physical crowding may interact with situations to intensify existing stresses or pleasures. When crowding causes a loss of control over one’s immediate social environment, however, stress is likely to result. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
Stress probably explains why death rates increase among prison inmates and mental hospital patients who live in crowded conditions. Even milder instances of crowding can have a negative impact. People who live in crowded conditions often become guarded and withdrawn from others. Overload is unmistakable. It is the result of high densities and crowding is a state that is called attentional overload. This stressful condition occurs when sensory stimulation, information, and social contacts make excessive demands on attention. Large cities, in particular, tend to bombard residents with continuous input. The resulting sensory and cognitive overload can be quite stressful. City dwellers learn to prevent attentional overload by engaging only in brief, superficial social contacts, by ignoring non-essential events, and by fending off others with cold, unfriendly expressions. Basically, many city dwellers find that a degree of callousness is essential for survival. Simplicity is very frequently said to be a desirable characteristic of the concepts, laws, and theories of natural science. Some people do not even like being asked questions about their personal life at all. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
Dear God, we give thanks for places of simplicity and peace. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of refuge and beauty. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of nature’s truth and freedom, of joy, inspiration, and renewal, places where all creatures may find acceptance and belonging. Let us search for these places in the World, in ourselves, and in others. Let us restore them. Let us strengthen and protect them, and let us create them. May we mend this outer World according to the truth of our inner life and may our souls be shaped and nourished by nature’s eternal wisdom. Pray with simplicity. And when you come before God, do not turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? Find a quiet, secluded place so you will not be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God and you will begin to sense his grace and the rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
Our father in Heaven, reveal who you are. Set the World right; do what is best as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You are in charge! You can do anything you want! You are ablaze in beauty! God, please bless me and enlarge my house and land. Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain. Heavenly Father, thank you for your guidance. Forgive me for getting ahead of your plans, and help me know when to stop and listen to your direction. Your ways are perfect, Lord. Thank you for offering gentle grace. Lord, I pray you would move the Spirit more boldly in my life, and I pray against temptation. Help me crave your presence more than anything else. Help me grow in the accomplishments of the Spirit and so walk closer with yourself. I pray for guidance from your Spirit—let your will and promises always be a meditation of my heart. As I face tough choices and hard situations, help me remember that I am your child and your representative around the World. Help me live today in a way that brings honor to your holy name. In Jesus Christ’s name, Amen. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
But Why do You Want an Ornament for the Nursery?—You Who had Your Child Killed!
Concerning self-inflicted injuries of my own experience, I cannot report anything in clam times, but under extraordinary conditions, I do not believe myself incapable of such acts. When a member of my family complains that he or she has bitten his tongue, bruised her finger, and so on, instead of the expected sympathy, I put the question, “Why did you do that?” However, I have most painfully squeezed my thumb, after a youthful patient acquainted me during the treatment with his intention (naturally not to be taken seriously) of marrying my eldest daughter, while I knew that she was then in a private hospital in extreme danger of losing her life. One of my boys, whose vivacious temperament was wont to put difficulties in the management of nursing him in his illness, had a fit of anger and threatened to kill himself: a way out suggested to him by the newspapers. In the evening, he showed me a swelling on the side of his chest which was supposedly the result of bumping against the doorknob. To my ironical question why he did it, and what he meant by it, the twelve-year-old child explained, “That was my attempt at suicide which I threatened this morning.” However, I do not believe that my views on self-inflicted wounds were accessible to my children at that time. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
My son had been behaving different, ever since he went to the mall with one of his friends from work, and would not tell me why. He had also recently fallen out with the love of his life and they ended their relationship. He locked himself up in his room and was sad, and I could feel his pain. Whoever believes in the occurrence of semi-intentional self-inflicted suicide, there also exists semi-intentional annihilation—with unconscious intention—which is capable of aptly utilizing a threat against life and masking it as a casual mishap. Such mechanisms are by no means rare. For the tendency to self-destruction exists to a certain degree in many more persons than in those who bring it to completion. Self-inflicted injuries are, as a rule, a compromise between this impulse and the forces working against it, and even where it really comes to suicide, the inclination has existed for a long time with less strength or as an unconscious and repressed tendency. Even suicide consciously committed chooses its time, means, and opportunity; it is quite natural that unconscious suicide should wait for a motive to take upon itself one part of the causation and thus free it from its oppression by taking up the defensive forces of the person. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Some argue that the only rationally acceptable philosophy is that there is no ethical value in living just any sort of life; the only life that is worth living is the good life. We may define the good differently, but no matter what or conception of the good life is, it presupposes a physical basis—a certain indispensable minimum of physical and social well-being—necessary for even a limited realization of that good life. Where that minimum is failing together with all rational probability of attaining it, to avoid a life that at its best can be only vegetative and at its worst run the entire gamut of degradation and obloquy, what high-minded person would refuse the call of the poet mourir entre les bras du sommeil? We must recognize no categorical imperative to live, but to live well. A common thought is that is life ceases to be a pleasure, the remedy for a free person is to end it because it is regarded as part of human freedom that an individual should only continue to live by one’s own consent. Some philosophers believe that the most excusable incitements to suicide are pain, and the fear of suffering a worse death. In 1644, it was expressed that the prohibition of suicide was merely a part of the economic enslavement of laborers, who could not be allowed to escape from the tasks expected of them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
The most excusable cause seems to be an emaciated body, when a person labours under the torture of an incurable disorder, and seems to live only to be a burden to oneself and one’s friends. And in contrast to the view expressed above, some see death as a necessity for the economy. For instance, in China, the population has been aging rapidly, increasing the stress on an already troubled health care system. There is currently 1.4 billion people living in China, the population is expected to grow 1.45 billion by 2050, and the number of elderly people is expected to reach over 330 million by 2050. The problem is many of the elderly are cared for by family and only 2 percent are institutionalized. China also does not have a system that can accommodate the elderly, and many of their children are investing their money into the care of their own children, leaving the elderly to fend for themselves. To afford medication, some of the elderly are cutting back on the amount of food they eat. If the aged and the sick did not die within no long span after they have ceased to be self-supporting, the burden on society will be disastrous. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
So, therefore, death plays a wholly favourable, indeed, essential part in human economy because the by 2050, China’s dependency ratio for retirees-those aged 65 or older divided by the total working population is expected to be 44 percent. Still, humanitarians, like myself do not believe death is the best option. Euthanasia of humans is indirectly evil, and it leads to the danger of abuse. In America, in 2014, it was ruled that terminally ill patients have the right to have assistance in self-killing, making it legal for a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a terminally ill patient. The problem is with the elderly, disabled, and ill to be looked at as a burden on society is dangers because it can lead to abuse; the risk of an incorrect diagnosis, so someone can conduct research, kill their enemy, harvest organs, or steal someone’s material and non-material assets. Also, the risk of administering euthanasia to a person who could have later been cured by new medical developments; and the wedge argument (condoning euthanasia would lead to general disrespect for the sanctity of human life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
No great mistake, whether acted or endured, in our mortal sphere, is every really set right. Time, the continual vicissitude of circumstances, and the invariable inopportunity of death, render it impossible. Another problem with euthanasia is that the physician, whether or not he or she may rightfully help to shorten life, may rightfully desist from attempting to prolong the life of a patient in great pain and may rightfully supply or administer pain-killing drugs even though one realizes that their effect may be not only to kill the pain, but also to shorten life. Of all the events which constitute a person’s biography, there is scarcely one to which the World so easily reconciles itself, as to one’s death. In addition, some people are also trying to kill American citizens, so they can steal their identities and sell them to illegal immigrants, then swap identities and no one would know. God alone, it is never lawful for one on one’s own authority to kill the innocent directly. When dealing with suicide, the sixth commandment can be invoked, which is regarded as applicable to self-murder. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
The mental agony of approaching death is part of the sacrifice that God demands for the sins and faults of life. Suicide is an error on the ground that it affords an apparent and not a real release from the sufferings of life. Such a release is only apparent because the will as a thing-in-itself is outside of space and time, and the person committing suicide cannot destroy the will itself, but only its manifestation at this place and time. At the same time, some do not believe that suicide should be considered a sin nor a crime. It could be considered preposterous to view suicide as a crime when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the World to which every person has a more unassailable title than to one’s own life and person. Although it is now universally conceded to be useless and harmful to punish those who attempt suicide for any reason, because the punishment of one who attempts suicide can only increase one’s depression and render a renewed attempt more likely, prevailing opinion still holds that it is right and efficacious to punish those who knowingly and willfully assist in suicides (or kill with consent), even though they act from the strongest humanitarian motives. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
There are also cases of apparently accidental misfortune which are now known to me whose surrounding circumstances justified the suspicion of suicide. For example, during an officers’ horse-race one of the riders fell from his horse and was so seriously injured that a few days later he succumbed to his injuries. His behavior after regaining consciousness was remarkable in more than one way, and his conduct previous to the accident was still more remarkable. He had been greatly depressed by the death of his beloved father, had crying spells in the society of his comrades, and to his trusted friend has spoken of the taedium vitae. He had wished to quit the service in order to take part in a war in Africa which had no interest for him. Formerly a keen rider, he had later evaded a riding whenever possible. Finally, before the horse-race, from which he could not withdraw, he expressed a sad foreboding; in the light of our conception that it is quite comprehensible without any further cause that a person in such a state of nervous depression cannot manage a horse as well as on normal days. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
I was quite agreeable that depression could affect the way ability to handle a horse, only I should like to look for the mechanism of this motor inhibition through nervousness in the intention of self-destruction here emphasized. It is evident that the situation of a battlefield is such as to meet the requirement of conscious suicidal intent with, nevertheless, shuns the direct way. “They said he wished to die.” Suicide is probably a problem of psychiatry or social engineering rather than of abstract morals. The rejection of suicide is implicit in the belief that life is worth living. Another analysis of an apparently accidental self-inflicted wound, detailed to me by an observer, recalls the saying, “He who digs a pit for others falls in himself.” Mrs. X, belonging to a good middle-class family, is married and has three children. She is somewhat nervous, but never needed any strenuous treatment, as she could sufficiently adapt herself to life. One day, she sustained a rather striking through transitory disfigurement of her face in the following manner: She stumbled in a street that was in the process of repair and struck her face against the house wall. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The whole face was bruised, the eyelids blue and oedematous, and as she feared that something might happen to her eyes, she sent for the doctor. After she was calmed, I asked her, “But why did you fall in such a manner?” She answered that just before the accident she warned her husband, who had been suffering for some months from a joint affection, to be very careful in the street, and she often had the experience that is some remarkable way those things occurred to her against which she warned others. I was not satisfied with this as the determination of her accident, and asked her whether she had not something else to tell me. Yes, just before the accident, she noticed a picture in a shop on the other side of the street, which she suddenly desired as an ornament for her nursery, and wished to buy it at once. She thereupon walked across to the shop without looking at the street, stumbled over a heap of stones, and fell with her face against the wall without making the slightest effort to shield herself with her hands. The intention to buy the picture was immediately forgotten, and she walked back to the house in haste. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
I asked her why was she not more careful. She told me it was perhaps only a punishment for that episode which she had confided to me. I could not believe that episode was still bothering her. However, she said that she regretted it very much; and considered herself wicked, criminal, and immoral, but at the time, she was almost crazy with nervousness. She was talking about an abortion which was started by a quack and had to with the consent of her husband, as both wished on account of their pecuniary circumstances to be spared from being additionally blessed with children. She said that she often reproached herself with the words, “You really had your child killed,” and she feared that such a crime could not remain unpunished. After I assured her there was nothing seriously wrong with her eyes, she was quite assured that she had already been sufficiently punished. This accident, therefore, was on the one hand a retribution for her sin, but on the other hand it may have served as an escape from a more dire punishment which she had feared for many months. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16In the moment that she ran to the shop to buy the picture, the memory of this whole history, with its fears (already quite active in her unconscious at the time she warned her husband), became overwhelming and could perhaps find expression in words like these: “But why do you want an ornament for the nursery?—you who had your child killed! You are a murderer! The great punishment is surely approaching!” This thought did not become conscious, but instead of it she made sue of the situation—I might say of the psychological moment—to utilize in a commonplace manner the heap of stone to inflict upon herself this punishment. It was for this reason that she did not even attempt to put probably lesser, determinant of her accident was obviously the self-punishment for her unconscious wish to be rid of her husband, who was an accessory to the crime in this affair. This was betrayed by her absolutely superfluous warning to be very careful in the street on account of the stones. For, just because her husband had a weak leg, he was very careful in walking. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
If such a rage against one’s own integrity and one’s own life can be hidden behind apparently accidental awkwardness and motor insufficiency, then it is not a big step forward to grasp the possibility of transferring the same conception to mistakes which seriously endanger the life and health of others. Human life is of no more importance to the Universe than that of an oyster. If the disposal of human life were reserved to the Almighty, almost any action would become an encroachment of his privilege. “If I was attacked by a gang and robbed and suffered a fatal blow to the head, I disturb the course of nature and I invade the peculiar providence of the Almighty by lengthening out my life beyond the period, which, by the general laws of matter and motion, he has assigned it to. However, are we not all guilty of extending our lives beyond their natural capacity with medical care, vaccines, and the like? In considering the true nature of God, one must first consider the nature of human beings and the Universe, for without understanding oneself or the Universe in which one lives, how can we approach an understanding of God? #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
Each human possesses a consciousness independent of any other creature. One is aware of a separation between oneself and the World around one. One experiences images, sounds, scents, tastes, and physical forms through what one perceives as one’s physical body. Each one of us also experience thoughts, emotions, and other phenomena which do not manifest either visibly or audibly but which influence us nonetheless and which we perceive as coming from within or consciousness. From the earliest time, human beings have attempted to reconcile this condition of separation from the Universe. Early humans, in terror of the images and sounds which bombarded them from all directions and of the Earth which seemed ready to swallow these beings once more as if the Universe itself realized that is had made a terrible mistake, scared of this thing called life and yet equally scared of death, began to imagine hideous gods and demons all about them. These monsters appeased or else death could be imminent. As human beings survived fire and flood, disease and famine, the anxiety they felt concerning their condition lessened. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
Humans learned to live and even thrive in a hostile and evil World. Civilizations rose to power and raised animistic deities as gods who now demand worship and sacrifice in return for their beneficence and bleeding. The threat was no longer against an individual human, but against an entire society. To gain the favor of the gods, these deities had to be appeased or else famine, pestilence, or war might come upon a nation and destroy it. Ultimately, the priests of many of these gods decided that their particular deity was the true God, that all other gods were Devils, and that the followers of other gods had to be converted or destroyed. Satan has certainly been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years. On Saturday night, I see men and women at the club lusting after half-naked guys and ladies dancing on the dance floor, talking about “Booty me down.” On Sunday morning, these same people are sitting in the pews with their wives, husbands, lovers, and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday, they are back at the club turning tricks. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
The battle with these demons will either be won or lost. Find out what all of their legal rights are with that person, then get all of them properly taken care of and broken with the Lord, and then the demons will have absolutely nothing else left to be able to hold onto. If those heavier types of sins are being done on some kind of regular basis for quite a long period of time with no intent by the person to try and pull out of it, that means you are committing direct and willful sins against the Lord, and that is a major door opener for demons. Many people believe that God will turn a blind eye to the sin of fornication. However, if by chance you are fornicating with a partner who has demons attached to them, then you will give full legal rights for the demons to be able to come directly after you if God will allow a hole to occur in the protective armor that he has set up on you and your life. Dear Lord in Heaven, you are all our riches, and you suffice for us. God, you are justice and moderation, peace, joy, and gladness. You are our protector and defender, courage, faith, and our great consolation. God, you are our eternal life, Great and Wonderful Lord. God Almighty, Merciful Savior please protect us all, and let people know, young and antiquated that their lives are valuable. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
The Winchester Mystery House
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Murder by Doctor and Suicide by Police Officer?
Some believe that death plays a wholly favourable, indeed an essential, part in human economy. A great majority of so-called attempted suicides are not in fact single-minded efforts at self-destruction, but have a hidden appeal character; in others words, the suicide seemed to gamble with one’s life, consciously or subconsciously hoping that either the attempt would succeed or, if it failed, one’s life would be improved as a consequence of the attempt. Attempted suicide ceased to be punishable during the nineteenth century in Europe, either as a matter of law of in the practical application of law. Religious and ethical difference still affect the treatment of those who assist the suicide, particularly in the case of the doctor who assists his suffering patient to commit suicide. (Closely analogous is the case of the doctor who himself kills his patient, perhaps without the patient’s consent, for humanitarian reason; in law, this is murder on the part of the doctor, not suicide on the part of the patient, but from the ethical point of view there is little difference. Both are forms of what is commonly called euthanasia. God knows how much each person needs. Suffering for the Christian is not absolute evil, but has redeeming features. It may be occasion for spiritual growth and an opportunity to make amends for sin. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The prohibition suicide, or self-killing, can be looked upon as a matter of natural aversion, primitive superstition, religious belief, or philosophical argument; but there has always been a current of libertarian opinion which has succeeded in removing most of the penal sanction against suicide. Suicide differs from euthanasia in that the latter is either assisted suicide or a killing by another for humanitarian reasons and by merciful means, generally with the consent of the person killed, in which case it is referred to specifically as voluntary euthanasia. Suicide by police officers occurs when people want to die, but do not want to kill themselves, so the individual puts him or herself in a position where a police officer is forced to shoot them. Voluntary euthanasia by police officer could be for political and financial gains. In 2016, police killed 1,091 people, and more than 250 of them were Black. With so much attention being placed on the number of Black men killed by police, some may seek to be voluntarily euthanized because they do not see their lives as valuable, to become famous, to provide a hearty settlement to their families in a wrongful death civil suit, and also to exacerbate the explosive situation of racial tension in the United States of America, in hopes of starting an all-out revolution. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
In Saint Paul, Minnesota USA, the officer who shot and killed Philando Castile (age 32) was acquitted in the killing, meaning he was found not guilty. The killing happened in 2016, when Officer Yanez, pulled Mr. Castile over, because the two people in the car looked suspicious. As the car was pulled over, Mr. Castile’s girlfriend Diamond Reynolds was recording the event, as if they knew something was going to go wrong. When officer Yanez approached the car, they told him that Mr. Castile had a gun, the officer told him not to reach for the gun, but supposedly Mr. Castile was reaching for his identification to give to the officer, when the officer felt his life was in danger and shot Mr. Castile. The shooting set off large marches across Minnesota, and blocked off major highways as the public was enraged that another Black man had been killed by an officer. And the sitting President, Barack Obama asked, “Would this have happened if the driver were White, if the passenger were White?” However, the fact of the matter is Mr. Castile admitted to having a gun, officer Yanez told Mr. Castile not to reach for his gun, and he should have let the officer guide him out of the car and remove the gun off of his person, then furnished officer Yanez with his documents. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
It is possible that some people do not want to live anymore, and want to provide a way for their families and go down in history and by being voluntarily euthanized is a way to do that people these cases involving police create a lot of media attention and there is usually a high settlement paid out to the families that lose a loved one. I watched the footage and think it is possible that the two adults made a suicide pact with each other, and in this pact Mr. Castile knew that his actions would cause him to get shot, while the girlfriend videotaped the event and the little girl in the car was there to heighten tensions and make it look like a vicious murder. Mrs. Reynolds was being calm the entire time, and if I had seen someone’s brains blown out in front of me, I would probably be frozen in fear, so it is possible that this was a premeditated situation. Suicide by officer occurs more frequently than most people would imagine. Sometimes people want someone else to kill them because they fear the wrath of God, experience deep shame and extreme distress of poverty, or affliction by any extraordinary sorrow or inevitable turn of fortune. Some people also view suicide as an act of cowardice and an offense against the state. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
The soul is a depositum received from God, so a person is seen to be acting wickedly in casting it from his or her body, unless it was done through force or coercion. In subjective matters, like suspected suicide by police officers, one cannot definitively say that was the case, all one can do is speculate. Only God truly knows for sure. Furthermore, some Christians commit suicide to avoid the sins of the Word, and the only logical answer from the church is that suicide is itself a greater sin than any that could be avoided by it. Yet, we are not here to judge people and that is God’s job, and none of us would ever want to be in the position that we felt taking our own life was the only answer. I am sure some of these people are forgiven by God because their circumstances are beyond our understanding. Only God can judge you. However, one thing about suicide is that it deprives people of the opportunity for penitence and by trying to escape the ills of life, some may be acting ignobly. Suicide, generally speaking, acts contrary to natural inclination, natural law, and the charity a person owes to oneself; these individuals deprive society of their activity, and usurped the function of God. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
When the soul is separated from the body, there is no less order and regularity in the Universe. On the other hand, a being is compounded of two parts, body and soul, and the necessity of preserving their union is the greatest mark of submission to the decrees of the Creator. Some people have also been involved in situation where they knew they could die, from let us say a loss of blood or something, and have been in so much pain and could foresee a dark future, so they made up their minds to go ahead and die. However, maybe someone convinced them to get a few blood transfusions or whatever. And I think that is the right thing to do, in some cases, because by extending your life, even if you were to die at a young age, you have more time to make things right in this life and humble yourself to God, and learn about the love of God and how beautiful the World is. It would be nice if no one died and we had enough resources to make sure everyone lived comfortably and was mentally sound and peaceful and someday, God promised that will be a reality. So, give everyone the liberty of finishing his or her part on the stage of the World, in what scene God has placed you in. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Will Spaceship Earth Endure?
In the course of a person’s life, there are moments of clarity and there are instances of darkness. There are many behavioral challenges that accompany life in restricted environments. At optimal mental operations, one experiences great clarity of thought and profound realization of all the opportunities in the World. At the low, people experience depression, anger, or sadness. What will it take to sustain emotional well-being and efficient performance? Drugs, chemicals, foods, and lifestyle changes may affect an individual’s thought process in various way. Provisions must be made for regular exercise and full-body showers. As trivial as it might seem, a lack of showers has been a major complaint among people in confined living spaces, like high rises. Ideally, there should be some flexibility in the use of living and work areas inside a house or apartment. Behavior patterns change over time, and being able to control one’s environment helps lower stress. At the same time, people need stability. Psychologist have found, for instance, that eating becomes an important high point in monotonous environments. Eating at least one meal together each day can help keep people working as a social unit. #RandolphHarrs 1 of 13
Sleep cycles must be carefully control to avoid disrupting bodily rhythms. In many communities, people have found they could not sleep while other community members continued to work and talk. Problems with sleep will be worsened by the constant noise in any community. At first, such noise is annoying. After weeks or months, it can become a serious stressor. Researchers are experimenting with various earmuffs, eyeshades, and sleeping arrangements to alleviate such difficulties. Disregarding for the moment the objective existence of spirits or demons, ritual magic is a way to control the mind. Without the use of drugs or chemicals, one who practices the occult controls directly his or her level of conscious awareness. An individual experiences being awake mentally, a state which the mundane only experiences after large amounts of coffee or other stimulants. The spirits or demons one calls upon exist within the subjective mind and respond to that individual’s invocation. As the person practices the occult, one gains control over one’s emotions and experiences more peaks of optimal performance than lows and disability. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Psychologists are helping engineers design habitats so they meet human needs for privacy. However, privacy must be based mainly on temporarily blocking out visual and auditory contact with others. Forced togetherness is stressful mainly because temporary retreat from others is difficult or impossible. Thus, control over the amount of group contact is more important than actually having a private residence or room. Designers do recognize, however, the need to define private territories. It is important to identify small areas that can be personalized and owned by each individual. Desks, lofts, offices, bed rooms, and the like, could fill this need if they are not shared with others. Sensory monotony will be a problem in any community, even with the magnificent vistas of Earth. (How many times would you have to see a garden, park, or statue before you lose interest?) Researchers are developing stimulus environments that will use music, videotapes, and other diversions to combat monotony and boredom. Again, they are trying to provide choice and control for people. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Studies of confined living make it clear that one person’s symphony is another’s grating noise. Where music is concerned, individual earphones may be all that is required to avoid problems. Most people in restricted environments find that they prefer non-interactive pastimes such as reading, listening to music, looking out windows, writing, and watching films or television. As such as anything, this preference may show again the need for privacy. Reading or listening to music is a good way to psychologically withdraw from the group or community. A variety of passive entertainment looks like a must for any community. Russian community members, who make much use of music, have also reacted with delight to grab bags containing unexpected toys or novelties. I am quite ready to postpone the gratification, but how do I know whether I shall still be alive tomorrow? I am quite willing to give up all the paths to gratification interdicted by society, but I am sure that society will reward me for this renunciation by opening for me—even after a certain delay—one of the permitted paths? #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
One can plainly tell what these witticisms whisper, namely, that the wishes and desires of human beings have a right to make themselves perceptible next to our pretentious and inconsiderate morality. And in our times, it has been said in empathic and striking terms that this morality is merely the selfish precept of the few rich and mighty who can gratify their desires at any time without deferment. As long as the art of healing has not succeeded in safeguarding our lives, and as long as the social organizations do not do more towards making conditions more agreeable, just so long cannot the voice within us which is striving against the demands of morality, be stifled. Every honest person finally makes this admission—at least to oneself. The decision in this conflict is possible only through the roundabout way of a new understanding. One must be able to knit one’s lift so closely to that of others, and to form such an intimate identification with others, that the shortening of one’s own term of life becomes surmountable. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
One should not unlawfully fulfill the demands of one’s needs, but should leave them unfulfilled, because only the continuance of so many unfulfilled demands can develop the power to recast the social order. However, not all personal needs allow themselves to be displaced in such a manner and transferred to others, nor is there a universal and definite solution of the conflict. The objective existence of spirits or demons does not need to be proven in order to show the effectiveness of the occult. Parapsychologists have shown, through years of research and investigation which only the most cynical will deny, the definite existence of telepathy or mental communication. The human brain operates like a radio, receiving the brain waves broadcast by others of similar frequency. For this reason, telepathy is most common among twins, close friends or family members. One who practices the occult may be seen, then, as someone who has converted the receiver of one’s brain into a transmitter. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
At first, one may only be able to influence those who are on a similar frequency to his or her own will, but to learn how to change frequency in order to influence those on different frequency, which takes intense control over your own thoughts and emotions. The more powerful one’s transmitter becomes, the more people one will be able to influence directly. The quickest and most direct route to the brain is through the optic nerve. Mental transmissions from the brain are sent through the optic nerve to the eyes and out through the eye cavities. This is the origin of the evil eye and fascination, as well as the expression the eyes are the window to the soul. In the Middle Ages, witch-hunters used to remove the eyes of witches so that they would not be able to look upon them and curse them. Once a person who has tapped into the occult has acquired control of one’s own mental states (through ritual magic), and has converted the receiver in one’s brain into a transmitter, one is able to influence rather than be influenced. One may feel contempt for those who are led around upon rash emotional whim without the slightest balance or direction. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Many people carry around with them subconscious masochistic tendencies, causing them to do thing which will bring pain or misery upon themselves. This is called a curse. In its most severe form, the human mind becomes unbalanced, resulting in mental illness, paranoia, psychosis, or schizophrenia. Many people have cursed themselves or have been cured by others, either intentionally or unintentionally. Wishing to place a cure on one’s enemy, an accomplished individual may enter into a ritual chamber (in a waking state in which one’s mind is fully active), invoke a spirt of destruction (create the mental image of the spirit within one’s subjective mind), and command the spirit to go forth and destroy one’s enemy (send out the mental transmission of hate.) Love is one of the most intense feelings felt by people; another is hate. Forcing yourself to feel indiscriminate love is very unnatural. If you try to love everyone you only lessen your feelings for those who deserve your love. Repressed hatred can lead to many physical and emotional aliments. By learning to release your hatred towards those who deserve it, you cleanse yourself of these malignant emotions and need not take your pent-up hatred out on your loved ones. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and they in turn, treat you badly, it goes against human nature to continue to treat them with consideration. You should do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but if your courtesy is not returned, they should be treated with the wrath they deserve. The person who takes every opportunity to pick on others is often mistakenly called sadistic. In reality, this person is a misdirected masochist who is working towards his or her own destruction. The reason a person viciously strikes out against you is because they are afraid of you or what you represent, or are resentful of your happiness. They are weak, insecure, and on extremely shaky ground when you throw your curse, and they deserve it. I believe that our God is a God of perfect order and reasoning. And if demons are able to get inside of a person’s body, then there has to be come kind of specific reason that has allowed this to occur within them. Otherwise, we would all be having demons living inside of us. Bottom line—demons cannot enter into a person’s body without having some kind of legal permission and legal right to be able to do so. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
They need some kind of entry, and it matters not whether spirits exist objectively or not. They are real to the occult member who invokes them and to the victim who suffers the force of the mental transmission. If spirits or demons exists objectively, as actual intelligent beings, then one might think that they would have more important things to do than appear before a magic circle and serve the whims of mere mortals. Many spirits are accredited with giving knowledge of arts and sciences. The Lesser Key of Solomon, a book of goetic sorcery, list 72 demons which Solomon allegedly bound inside a brazen vessel. The word demon comes from the Greek daemon, an influencing spirit of intelligence. Djin (or genie) is also the foundation of the word genius. Although the word genius is often used by the mundane, one who is called a genius is said to be under the influence of an intelligence, daemon, or genie. If demons do not exist objectively (only subjectively), then the question arises: how can we explain sudden knowledge acquired through contact with a spirit? #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Parapsychologists, in the study of telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, have only been able to prove the existence of telepathy. The reason for this is that, while there is a great deal of evidence concerning the precognition of future events, it can always be attributed to telepathic communication. The same is true of clairvoyance and clairaudience. The clairvoyant who sees the spirit of a woman’s dead grandfather standing beside her does not see the actual spirit of the man but, instead, reads the mind of the woman and, from the image of the man in her mind, imagines him as a spirit. In dealing with the question of acquired knowledge, we may consider that all of unknown subject thousands of miles distant, the one dabbling in the occult may acquire instant knowledge of various arts and sciences. This does not prove the objective existence of demons, only the ability of the human mind to become a powerful receiver and transmitter of telepathic signals. Unlike the mundane, who are influenced continuously by thoughts which are not their own, the person involved in the occult may receive the information one desires without being controlled by the desires or aims of others. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
There is an interesting phenomena which occurs in magic and which involves the creation of thought-forms. The person practicing the occult can create an image within his or her subjective mind and impose it upon the objective World so that it influences the subjective minds of all those individuals who come into contact with it. Objects may be charged with this magical energy and become charmed or cursed. Within a magical group or coven, a group-consciousness develops and acts as if it were an individual entity. These thought-forms are also responsible for buildings and locations assuming an aura; becoming sacred, holy, defiled, unholy, and so forth. These thought-forms were used by Egyptian magicians to guide burial chambers and resulted in the deaths of archaeologist, after they raided the tombs thousands of years later. This phenomena cannot be explained by telepathy, but is rather a form of magnetism or mesmerism, concerning which much research has also been done. If this is, in fact, the case, then those who have a great understanding of the occult may use telepathic (and vocal) communication to communicate with (summon) all manners of gods, angels, and demons as well as to control the minds of others. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Many studies have shown steady declines in motivation by those who think they are cursed or who have done a lot of evil things in their lives. Most inhabitants intend to use their free time for creative pursuits. In reality, they end up marking time and may become apathetic. As many as 5 percent of subjects might experience some psychological disturbance. Most often the problem will be depression. However, in rare instances people have become paranoid, psychotic, suicidal, or uncontrollably aggressive. The threat of nuclear war, social conflict, crime, prejudice, infection disease, over-population, environment damage, famine, homicide, economic disaster—these and most other major problems facing us are behavioral. Will spaceship Earth endure? It is a psychological question. Oh, God, teach my heart this day where and how to see you, where and how to find you. You have made me and remade me, and have bestowed on me all the good things I possess, and still I do not know you. I have not yet done that for which I was made. Teach me to seek you, for I cannot seek you unless you teach me, nor find you, unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you in my desire, let me desire in seeking you. Let me find you by loving you, let me love you when I find you. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
On Predicting Our Future—I Do Not Want to Have a Beer with Him
I came in the World cryin’ and fussin’. We had nothin’. Every ghetto I know is the same. Once I am on top, I am never going to stop. It is impossible to gaze always upon a lovely countenance with equal admiration, for the sense becoming saturated, the heart requires something more—something to interest, to delight, to fix beyond the moment. Take a moment to make a list of your closet friends. What do they have in common (other than the joy of knowing you)? It is likely that most are similar to you in age and the same gender and race as you. There will be exceptions, of course. However, similarity on these three dimensions is the general rule for friendships. Nevertheless, sometimes things are so little different one from another, that there is no making pleasure out of anything, so sometimes people expand their circle of friends to include people from other cultures and genders. The most important thing about friendship is that it is an idle title of a thing, which cannot be where virtue is not established. People have a need to affiliate (a desire to associate with other people) and it is a basic human trait. This is probably because affiliation helps us meet needs for approval, support, friendship, and information. We also seek company to alleviate fear or anxiety. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possess, and under the operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or timid, become wise, active, and resolute, in another’s behalf? Beautiful people tend to be rated as more appealing than those of average age appearance. This is due, in part, to the halo effect (a tendency to generalize a favorable impression to unrelated personal characteristics). Because of it, we assume that attractive people are also likeable, intelligent, warm, witty, mentally healthy, and socially skilled. Basically, we act as if what is beautiful is good. Physical beauty can be socially advantageous. However, physical beauty is generally unrelated to actual personal traits and talents, and in reality, physical attractiveness has almost no connection to intelligence, talents, or abilities. Overall, good-looking people are less lonely, less socially anxious, more popular, more socially skilled than unattractive people. Does that seem shallow? If so, it may be reassuring to know that beauty mainly affects initial acquaintance. Later, more substantial personal qualities become important. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
Still, in the Ricki Lake culture of the 1990s, when gushing out one’s insecurities and body shaming became popular as a tool to use against people who are naturally thin, people who were uncomfortable with their size began to lash out against others who were considered traditionally beautiful and privileged, and because these instigators had been demonized for so long, if the traditionally beautiful person responded, people would gang up on them and call them names and make that individual feel bad about being thin and beautiful, like the image that is so accepted by the fashion industry. So basically, people who felt undesirable inside, might be overweight, or have thinning hair, or did not like themselves for whatever reason, had a license for revenge, they got to go out and take out all their frustrations on people they were jealous of without any retaliation. And because some people who are considered traditionally beautiful are really nice and find all types of people attractive and valuable, they could not respond because in hurting that person for attacking them, they knew that they would be also hurting themselves and their friends, so it made these traditionally beautiful people feel shamed for being thin, pretty or handsome, and they started feeling like rejects. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
As a result, more people started turning to suicide because they felt bad for being who they were and could not respond. People would shout things at them like, “Go eat a burger, b*tch,” and think it was funny, and because Americans tend to be more heavy set than most of the World, that culture became acceptable. To make thicker people feel more socially acceptable, people started to shame the thin and beautiful. Art may disguise complexions, but never improve them. Similarity refers to the extent to which two people are alike in background, age, interest, attitudes, beliefs, and so forth. Social psychologists have repeatedly found that similar people are attracted to each other. And why not? It is reinforcing to see our beliefs and attitudes shared by others. It shows we are “right” and reveals that they are clever people as well. So eventually, hordes of people who felt like social rejects, even after plastic surgery, buying wigs, or wearing makeup, felt good about teaming up and harassing people who seemed to have it all. And when the witch hunters got into positions of power, they collectively, and systematically started harassing and terrorizing these individuals they did not like, to try and make them believe that they were cursed and would be better off dead and that even God was against them and that is why they had so much bad luck. One professor even told a student that suicide was probably his best option. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
God, send me a friend that may tell me of my faults: if not, any enemy, and he will. There are friendships which are only bottle-deep. How do people who are not yet friends learn if they are similar? Through self-disclosure. Our friendships and intimacies are only calculated for strong life and health. Forming a group to terrorize someone is really not a great option to being accepted. However, getting to know others requires a willingness to talk about more than just the weather, sports, or nuclear physics. At some point, you must begin to share private thoughts and feelings and reveal yourself to others. Such self-disclosure is essential for developing close relationships. A lack of self-disclosure, as noted above, is associated with anxiety, unhappiness, and loneliness. We more often reveal ourselves to persons we like than to those we find unattractive (physically or mentally). Disclosure also requires a degree of trust. Many people play it safe or “close to the vest,” with people they do not know well. Indeed, self-disclosure is governed by definite norms about what is acceptable. For instance, if you sit next to a boy you think it cute in math, you might start off by saying, “I hope this class is not too difficult.” Moderate self-disclosure leads to reciprocity (a return in kind). #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
Young men of open, generous dispositions are naturally inclined to gallantry, which, if they have good understandings, exerts itself in an obliging complacent behavior to all women in general. Overdisclosure is self-disclosure that exceeds what is appropriate for a relationship or social situation. For example, imagine standing in a line at a supermarket and having a stranger in front of you say, “Lately, I do not know how I feel about Black people. I think I am pretty well adjusted, but occasionally I have some questions about them advancing in society and wonder if they are sharing their wealth with their family?” When self-disclosure proceeds at a moderate pace, it is accompanied by growing trust and intimacy. When it is too rapid or inappropriate, we are likely to back off and wonder about the person’s motives. Thus, as friends talk, they influence each other in ways that gradually deepen the level of likening, trust, and self-disclosure. Gambling requires as much coolness as the most austere school of philosophy. Women and men display an interesting difference in patterns of self-disclosure. To carry on two controversies at the same time is favorable to neither. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
Two male friends share lunch at a restaurant. In the next hour they talk about sports, cars, sport cars, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, sports, cars, and basketball. (Did I mention sports and cars?) Jill, who sat at a nearby table overheard the entire conversation. Here is her summary of what the men said to each other: “All they talked about was cars and sports and beautiful women.” In North American culture, most male friendships are activity based. That is, men tend to do things together—a pattern that provides companionship without closeness. You know, going to the mall means going to the mall, not drive me to some dark, secluded location and start feeling on me. Having a drink and shooting pool, means playing sports and not getting me plastered or pressuring me into drinking so I am unaware of what is going on. Increasingly, homosexual men are not attracted to other homosexual men, they want a guy who seems like a traditional father, fraternity guy, or a nerd. And so these guys are often preyed on by men, who they think genuinely want a friendship, but actually have ulterior motives. I was watching a documentary, and the author says that guys who are negative and not into drugs have to be very careful. Because sometimes party boys will pick up on them and take them to a club and turn them out. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
It is especially dangerous to take an unsuspecting man, or boy out of his element because they are used to having a drink meaning having a drink, not let me spike your drink and have my way with you while you are unconscious and unable to consent because you will not report it. And sometimes people will get them hooked on drugs and some of these people have terminal illnesses and in their manic party phase, they lose their inhibition, may forget and get you sick in the process. So, in modern times, you have to be very careful with gendered friendship, the day next door type, may secretly be a homosexual male trying to turn you out. People usually want what they cannot have and that is why they come at you sideways or use ulterior motives. I think more men, especially in World Class Cities are catching on to what coming over for a beer means to some guys. I was talking to a guy and he told me to be careful about drinking with guys around here. And I heard another guy recently defending, to his girlfriend, why he did not want to go out with his guy friend, without going into details. When his lady asked him, “Why not?” He replied, “It is not that I do not like him, I just do not want to have a drink with him,” and I knew exactly what he meant. (I do not trust him and I am not about that party and pleasure lifestyle.) #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
The face of gay men is changing and their modus operandi (distinct pattern or method of operation that indicates or suggests the work of a single criminal in more than one crime) is changing. Not all gay men are open about their sexuality, and you might think some guys are just nice and want to be your friend, but they may be trying to get over on you. So, you have to be cautious when it comes to drinking with the guys and make sure you really know these guys. A lot of people grew up in good communities with family values, but times are changing. This is not the days of Archie Bunker, where having a beer meant having a beer and people openly discussed their feelings about culture. True bigots often hide in places where you least expect them, and will pretend to be neutral. When it comes to women, in many cases, the friendships of women are more often based on shared feelings and confidences. If two female friends spent an afternoon together and did not reveal problems, private thoughts, and feelings to one another, they would assume that something was wrong. For women, friendship is a matter of talking about shared concerns and intimate matters. Actually, the differences between male and female friendships are smaller than implied here. Men do know something about the private thoughts and feelings of their friends. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
Often times, people assume they know you and have ideas about who you are and could be wrong. A lot of people think because men are nice and smile and do not speak up about things that they are slow, but they actually may not really like you and just be trying to avoid you and any conflict. Nevertheless, most contemporary men do not form close friendships with other men. Many could probably learn something from female friendships: Men live their friendships side by side; women live them face to face. Decision does not give one knowledge of anything that will occur in the future because the mere fact that a person has decided does not ensure that he or she will not falter, change one’s mind, or die tomorrow. Hence, it appears to be mistake to assume that because decision entails ignorance prior to decision, this ignorance is of something which one will know later as a result of decision; what one comes to know when one decides is nothing in addition to the decision itself appears to be that decision is an intentional concept. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
“I really wanted it. I really wanted it. I was being the Wander Slut in those days. I kept a list on my computer of all the people I seduced. I seduced Randall. He nearly shot himself on account of it. It was perfectly disgusting.” I already got some designer to hold up my pants, I just want some ice on my wrist so I look better when I dance, have you lookin’ at it put you in a trance. Lord, may nothing separate me from you. Teach me how to choose only your way so each step will lead me closer to you. Help me to keep my heart pure and undivided. Protect me from my own careless thoughts, words, and actions and the Devil and his red hot pitch forks so they do not try and stick them in my hiney. And help me rest in the truth. And keep me from being distracted by my thoughts, desires and ideas how things should be. Help me to embrace what comes my way as opportunity. God, you are my rock and my fortress. You are my shield and my strong tower. Teach me how to stand strong and choose only your way. Thank you that you love me and nothing can every take that away from me! Thank you Father in Heaven. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
Randolph Harris II International Institute 