Home » Education (Page 12)
Category Archives: Education
Altering the Maps of the Past and Our Various Relationships

Success on any major scale requires one to accept responsibility. When we were made in the image of God, we were given a mind, but we are not equal to God. No human will make a great leader who wants to do it all oneself or to get all the credit for doing it. The moment Adam ate, sin and death came on the human race. His cells were being destroyed faster than they can be replaced, his nature became a sin nature, and it took him nearly one thousand years to die. His soul gave up its eternal life when he ate. It is not because of what you are I do that we are born sinners. We have inherited sin because of our first father, Adam. However, we have been given free choice. Therefore, we are responsible for our behavior and can choose to be good. We are controlled by the Holy Spirit to the measure that we yield ourselves to God, and He empowers us to resist Satan effectively. In addition, God has outfitted us with a full panoply of armor by which we can both defend ourselves from the attacks of the forces of evil and take the offensive against them. The apostle Paul, using the figure of a warrior prepared for battle. “Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girded about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, with which ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,” reports Ephesians 6.13-17. Paul exhorts us to have our “loins girded about with truth.” This belt refers to our sincerity, our honesty. If one is hypocritical and dishonest, one will not successfully resist and overcome evil influence of Satan and his armies. Remember the devil is the father of lies. The child of God must not merely say that he desires victory over sin, but must truly long for it. One is to hate sin and manifest genuine earnestness. One’s vows and public statements must always be sincerely spoken, for the devil has no difficulty in defeating the hypocritical and half-hearted. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

The breastplate of righteousness represents the believer’s way of living. The Christian who desires to ward off the attacks of Satan and evil spirits must consciously choose a life of obedience, moral rectitude, and devout holiness. How is this life that pleases God to be attained? Largely by a humble determination to obey the exhortations of the Scriptures. The obedient believer’s life is characterized by righteousness, and one’s testimony is effective to the winning of the lost and the crippling of Satan’s power. The devil trembles at the sight of a truly Godly person. The Christian also is to have one’s “feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. This means that one is to bear God’s good news. One is to be a witness to others of the peace and joy that came to one when one placed one’s trust in Christ. The believer who does not bear a testimony loses spiritual keenness and becomes vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. The “shield of faith” speaks of strong belief nourished through our daily prayer, Christian Bible study, and spiritual activity. True faith accepts God’s forgiveness with thankfulness, and exercises implicit trust in every time of trial and temptation. Without this confidence in the Lord we would be spiritual weaklings, but with it we are the victors. John said, “and this is the victory that overcometh the World, even our faith,” reports 1 John 5.4. the “helmet of Salvation” describes the believer’s knowledge of one’s redemption. God’s child should rejoice in the assurance of a real, present, and personal salvation. One should remind oneself daily that one has been redeemed, that one has passed from death to life, and that one is no longer under condemnation. The devil cannot effectively tempt a Christian who is actively living a joyful Christian life. The child of God also must wield a weapon of offense: the sword of the spirit, the Word of God. Through the use of the Scriptures, one can resist Satan’s onslaughts successfully. Child of God, you are on the winning side. You have become “a partaker of the divine nature,” reports 2 Peter 1.4. Through the new birth, and your body has become the “temple of the Holy Spirit,” reports 1 Corinthians 6.19. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

Virginity, Chastity, Celibacy—the holy trinity at the core of many cultures. God has given you all you need for a happy and victorious Christian life now. He has explicitly declared that the power of the devil already has been broken,” reports Hebrews 2.14-15, and that someday you will be delivered from the presence of sin and the possibility of temptation. Remember, “greater is one that is in you, than one that is in the World,” reports 1 John 4.4. Chastity belts are deplorable, but they can be unlocked or hacked off, and the woman imprisoned inside them healed and perhaps restored. In many countries, female chastity represents the family’s honor, and women even suspected of having contaminated themselves are several punished. The apostle John, speaking of God’s eternal city, assures us, “And there shall in no way enter into it anything that defileth, neither one that worketh abomination, or maketh a lie,” reports Revelation 21.27. What a wonderful prospect. In ancient times, many of the devices used to keep women chaste were often times doomed women to unimaginable pain, permanent loss of independence, and unnatural confinement. As chastity in women dominated the social agenda, women’s circulation, flesh, and health was sacrificed, and some of the faced a slow death. Still, even in modern times, chastity remains a cultural imperative, but one that requires enforcement through indoctrination and other social pressures. Remember, one of two destinations awaits you—Heaven or Hell. To ignore Jesus Christ is to make impossible your entrance into Heaven. To receive Him as a Savior is to guarantee a safe and successful journey into everlasting bliss. Jesus Christ Himself declared, “I am the door; by me if any human enter in, one shall be saved,” reports John 10.9. Why not bow your head in prayer right now and settle this matter of salvation? Here is a suggested prayer you might offer: “Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner and can never save myself. I realize that my own evil nature and the power of Satan and his forces are too much for me to handle in my own strength. I believe that You died for me and that You arose again from the dead. I am now receiving You as my Savior, my Lord, my only hope of salvation. Amen.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

If you prayed this and really meant it, you are now a child of God. Your life will change, as you receive strength to do the will of God. The Christian Bible assures you, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” reports Romans 10.13. Abstinence—voluntary restraint—is celibacy’s simplest manifestation, and it practiced Worldwide for a multitude of reasons. The most common is as a surefire and free method of contraception, which is the only kind of contraception the Catholic church approves of. Abstinence may also have political roots, as was the case in the Voluntary Motherhood Movement, whose adherents wished to control their husband’s access to their body by agreeing to pleasures of the flesh only for procreation. The Catholic Church believes in celibacy because humanmade contraception is consider sinful due to the fact that the male vital force is redirected into a latex or poly urethane sleeve that is wrapped around the male organ or diaphragms of killed by foam or chemical washes and that is no better than Onan’s sinful casting his seed upon the ground. There are many cultures, like the Dani of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, for example, who do not appear unhappy or stressed about lengthy periods of celibacy. Most intriguingly, Dani society does not preach abstinence or have sanctions in place to punish transgression. Apparently the culture simply does not focus on pleasures of the flesh, either to encourage or discourage it. People like the Cheyenne people of North American plains and they Dani people clearly understood between-child celibacy as their people’s form of birth control. Both cultures would wait a few years after marriage to have a child, and then up to a decade of no activities involving pleasures of the flesh before they had their second child. This was also their people’s way to give the first child a chance. As a Cheyenne named Angel put it, “If I were to have had too many children, I’d be whipping first one, then the other.” Because the Cheyenne hated any punishment, they considered it wiser to let the first child grow up before there were others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

The reason women were considered taboo in some cultures like the Sambia of the New Guinea Eastern Highlands is not only because they considered women’s fluids contaminating, but also because the male vital force is essential to manhood, and it is equally crucial for women, who need to draw it up inside themselves for strength, mother’s milk, and to create babies. This means that, for men, pleasures of the flesh are as much a debilitating drain as a pleasure. Celibacy is an excellent practice for an environment or an economic situation, that cannot sustain much population increase. However, in many cultures, children are in many ways their families’ chief assets, and parents strive to produce as many as possible. Even when they are quite small, children make useful economic contributions to their households. More importantly, in culture without government and retirement pensions, children are their parents’ main security against unforeseen financial or medical crises and to ensure a comfortable old age. When they marry, they extend and reinforce connections between their birth and in-law families. Children are crucial in maintaining the intergenerational links that underpin many social systems. However, there are also many compelling reasons for wanting to ensure that a sufficiently long period elapses between births. Infant and child mortality is closely related to inadequate nutrition and maternal debility, which are in turn related to too little time between births. Child spacing, therefore, has developed as the great if unarticulated foal of these societies. Postpartum abstinence, in conjunction with lengthy terms of feeding a baby mother’s milk, is one of the prime instruments to achieve birth spacing that will keep massive child mortality in check, improve survivors’ health, and—as a byproduct—increase parents’ fertility. Through celibacy, married couples are able to better nurture and protect their planned children. This also prevents such diseases as kwashiorkor, which turns its little victims’ hair reddish and bulges out the bellies on their skinny, protein-deprived bodies. For generation is the process of the divine person into the divine nature, and passive spiration is the process of the subsisting love. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

“Mission” and “giving” have only a temporal significance in God; but “generation” and “spiration” are exclusively eternal; where as “procession” and “giving,” in God, have both an eternal and a temporal significance: for the Son may proceed eternally as God; but temporally, by becoming a man, according to His visible mission, or likewise by dwelling in man according to His invisible mission. Joseph, Oliver, and Sidney Rigdon were on a mission. They reached Kirtland in August, about three weeks after leaving Independence. Many things happened on their journey to strengthen their faith in the Lord’s work and to help them to see that Satan was blinding people so they could not see the truth. Joseph was concerned about the “Land of Zion” and prayed for more information about the gathering of the Saints to Zion and the purchase of land. The word of the Lord came to him that many people were seeking signs that they might have faith: Faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe. Yea, signs come by faith, not by the will of men, nor as they please, but by the will of God. Yea, signs come by faith, unto mighty works, for without faith no human pleaseth God. Wherefore, I, the Lord, am not pleased with those among you, who have sought after signs and wonders for faith, and not for the good of humans unto my glory.” God called upon those who had sinned to repent lest they fall. He promised that those who were faithful and did His will should overcome their temptations and receive an inheritance on the Earth when Jesus comes. The Lord said that those who were to gather to Zion should not go in haste, which would cause confusion and trouble. They should purchase the lands from those who owned them. Then the Saints would have a just claim upon the land and others would not be angry, for Satan was stirring them up to anger against God’s people. The Saints were admonished: The land of Zion shall not be obtained but by purchase, or by blood, otherwise there is none inheritance for you. An if by purchase, behold, you are blessed; and if by blood, as you are forbidden to shed blood, lo, your enemies are upon you, and ye shall be courage from city to city, and from synagogue to synagogue, and but few shall stand to receive an inheritance.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Men were called upon to repent of their wickedness, even of that wickedness which was only in their hearts. In September, 1831, at Kirtland, a revelation was given to the elders of the church encouraging them to forgive one another that they might work together in unity. The Lord’s instructions at this time were: “I, the Lord, forgiveth sins unto those who confess their sins before me, and ask forgiveness. Wherefore I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another, for one that forgiveth not one’s brother one’s trespasses, standeth condemned before the Lord, for there remaineth in one the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all humans.” God revealed the duties of certain men. Some were to go to Zion and others were to remain in Kirtland. All Satins were told to use their money for the purchase of land: “Behold, now it is called to-day…and verily it is a day of sacrifice, and a day for the tithing of my people. Behold, it is said in my laws, or forbidden, to get in debt to thine enemies. Be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great. Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat the good of the land of Zion in these days. And the rebellious shall be cut off out of the land of Zion, and shall be sent away, and shall not inherit the land. Behold, I say unto you that Zion shall flourish, and the glory of the Lord shall be upon her, and she shall be an ensign unto the people, and there shall come unto her out of every nation under Heaven.” In a revelation given in October, 1831, which Joseph Smith has called a “Revelation on Prayer,” the Lord said: “Hearken, and lo, a voice as of one sent down from on high, yea, whose voice is unto humans, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Yea, a voice crying, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Pray unto the Lord; call upon His holy name; make known His wonderful works among the people, call upon the Lord, that His kingdom may go forth upon the Earth; that the inhabitants thereof may receive it, and be prepared for the days to come, in which the Son of Man shall come down in Heaven…to meet the kingdom of God which is set on the Earth. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

“Wherefore, may the kingdom of God go forth, that the kingdom of Heaven may come, that thou, O God, may be glorified in Heaven, so on Earth. For thine is the honor, power, and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” In another revelation given at about this time the Lord said to the elders: “Lay your hands upon the sick and they shall recover. Be patient in affliction. Ask and ye shall receive. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Seek not to be cumbered. Forsake all unrighteousness. Keep these sayings for they are true and faithful, and thou shalt magnify thine office, and push many people to Zion, with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads. Continue in these things, even unto the end, and you shall have a crown of eternal life at the right hand of my Father.” If they were to establish Zion on Earth in the latter days, these revelations indicated that the Lord had set up very high standards of righteousness for His people. Many had been attracted to the church by signs and miracles. To some it was disappointing to learn that faith, humility, patience, and tribulation were requirements which preceded blessings. Some of the members rebelled and left the church when they realized the high standard of excellency that was expected of them. Of these, some expressed their rebellion in retaliation, and tried to overthrow the work of the Lord. If, as we believe, it be true that history moves in cycles, the World is not entering a new cycle. The ancient Chinese culture featured this theory of collective fortunes moving through a series of phases, whilst a similar doctrine has long been held in India. We well remember one evening many years ago listening at riverside village near Gaya, where Buddha attained Nirvana, to one of those melancholy Hindu melodies whose monotonous repetition of the same low wailing notes depresses most Westerners. We complained about this to our cultured companion. He was an extremely old man who sat twice a day in the yogi posture of intertwined ankles—so pleasing to behold, so difficult to perform—with his gaze fixed into space and the fading sunlight playing in quivering undulating waves around his figure. The sacred cord of the twice-born, the white triple thread of the Brahmin, hung around his neck. He did not answer for a full two minutes, for he had been wedded by long habit to silence. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

Then, without turning his head, he said slowly: “My son, among our people it is otherwise. We are not, like the Westerners, afraid of truth’s sadness, while welcoming its joy. We know that the scenes of this World come and pass like a dream of the night. And this is true of all the events and fortunes of a people’s life also—more especially now that we live in the Iron Age, which is ruled by frequent death and covered by spiritual darkness. You know that we measure the World’s history in great epochs, each divided into four successive lesser epochs and each endlessly departing and returning on itself like a wheel. Do not blame us, then, if our minds fall quickly into despondency and if our music reflects this sadness. We accept it resignedly, and through such resignation find contentment. We know that karma is always active and we try to accommodate ourselves to it. Once I brooded for long over the strange prophecies to be found in an ancient Sanskrit book, a Purana. In it I found this passage: ‘When the Earth is bound by iron chains (are they not railways?), when men speak to each other across immense spaces (is this not your telephone without wires?), and when materialism rules supreme (has history shown a less spiritual age than ours?), in that time there will incarnate Kalki, the Slayer of Men, who (it is written symbolically) will carry a flaming sword in his hand.’” The negative and undesirable traits of character will tend to reproduce themselves in undesirable and inharmonious forms of experience. The rule of casting out all negative thoughts, and keeping them out, is an absolute one. There are no exceptions and no deviations. Such negatives as hate, irritability, and fault-finding make poison in the body and neuroses in the mind. They irritate the nerves, disturb the proper movement of the blood, distort the internal secretions, and destructively affect the chemical composition of tissue cells. Nor is this the end. They provoke like emotions in other people with whom we are constantly thrown in contact. As if they were echoes of our own making, we then have to suffer the effects. Thus the discords inside oneself throw up disturbances outside oneself. One’s anger provokes the other person’s anger, for instance. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

Negative emotions and memories hold accumulations of worthless, even self-harming materials, useless debris that serve only to hinger progress. Fierce intense hate blinds the eyes of reason, hurts the hater, and creates delusion. Whoever hold fiercely to one’s hatreds not only can never enter the kingdom of Heaven, but will certainly never enter the kingdom of truth. The human who is when one hates will one day be tutored by having to experience the results of one’s own destructive feelings. One who slanders others attracts slander to oneself. If these negative traits are too strong, they may not only hinder the appearance of “the flash” but also the progress in meditation. This is one of the reasons why the medieval mystical authorities laid down a ruling that cleansing of the heart, purification of the mind, must precede or at least accompany the practice of meditation. That they often carried this process too far and enjoined a rigid extreme asceticism does not invalidate the excellence of their ruling. Arrogance and pride not only prepare the way for a fall, as history so often tells us, but also makes a human stick more stubbornly to one’s deviation from the correct way. “Then I will thrust you down with those who descend into the pit (the place of the dead) to the people of olden times, and I will make you [Tyre] to dwell in the lower World like the places that were desolate of old, with those who go down to the pit, that you be not inhabited or shed forth you glory and renown in the land of the living. I will make you a terror [bring you to a dreadful end] and you shall be no more. Though you be sought, yet you shall never be found again, says the Lord,” reports Ezekiel 26.20-21. Conceive that the humanmade environment is now out of human scale. Business, government, and real property have closed up all the space there is. There is no behavior unregulated by the firm or the police. Unless the entire economic machine is operating, it is impossible to produce and buy bread. Public speech quite disregards human facts. There is a rigid caste system in which every one has a slot and the upper group stands for nothing culturally. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

The university has become merely a training ground for technicians and applied-anthropologists. Gender is divorced from manly independence and achievement. The FBI has a file card of all the lies and truths about everybody. And so forth. If we sum up these imagined conditions, there would arise a formidable question: It is possible, being a human being, to exist? Is it possible, having a human nature, to grow up? There would be a kind of metaphysical crisis. Or put it another way. These conditions are absurd, they do not make sense; and yet millions, who to all appearances are human beings, behave as though they were the normal course of things. For instance, we encourage economic lunacy by watching TV; we gossip about the new BMWs, and how they will make our cities more livable with all their new technology; we attend conventions, listen to public spokesmen, and smile a lot and shake hands. A man is put into doubt about his own sanity. Do they have the right of it, that there is nothing absurd? Then what kind of animal is oneself? Automatically one begins to use their words and think their thoughts, although one knows that they are absurd. One feel depersonalized. It then becomes necessary to stop short and make a choice: Either/Or. Either one drifts with their absurd system of ideas, believing that this is the human community. Or one dissent totally from their system of ideas and stands as a lonely human being. (But luckily one notices that others are in the same crisis and making the same choice.) The picture may be a bit of an exaggeration. In important ways the American system is not inhuman but human-all-too-human. The tone of dependency, for instance, is not servile but, like the diet of hamburgers and malted milk, a regression to childhood. The Americans can make fun of themselves. To top managers and the president are not calculating monsters, but sometimes ignorant and willful human beings. Sympathy with suffering and the feeling for social justice are quite genuine in our country. We are empirical and experimental. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

Although the official spokesmen and the mass media present an impenetrable front, the speakers are confused persons and quickly betray it under personal questioning. For all the foolishness we are bombarded with, the Americans are not foolish and ghoulish; we have a saving sense built in, just like other peoples. And there are carelessly swept corners full of Long-haired Professors, Hipster Generations, Winos, and other assorted fry who are officially conceded to exist. This does not add up to a metaphysical crisis. It is not even hard to see the economic and psychological causes of many of the existing absurdities and to think up expedients. However, the difficulties are arduous; to persist as a human does require unusual moral character, intellect, or animal spirits. For many young people, however, the difficulties of growing up have been so great that they do think that they are faced with critical choice: Either/Or. They have this picture of themselves and of the World. And then unfortunately, whichever way they choose tends to create in fact the very metaphysical crisis that they have imagined. If they choose to conform to the organized system, reaping its rewards, they do so with a crash, working at it, marrying it. Raising their standard of living, and feeling cynical about what they are doing. If they choose totally to dissent, they do not work at changing the institutions as radical youth used to, but they stop washing their faces, take to drugs, and become punch-drunk or slap-happy. Either way they lose the objective changeable World. They have early resigned. People with borderline personality disorder display great instability, including major shifts in mood, an unstable self-image, and impulsivity. These characteristics combine to make their relationships very unstable as well. Some of Ellen Farber’s difficulties are typical: “Ellen Farber, a 21-year-old, single insurance company executive, came to a psychiatric emergency room of a university hospital with complaints of depression and the thought of driving her car off a cliff…Ms. Farber appeared to be in considerable distress. She reported a 6-month period of increasingly persistent dysphoria and lack of energy and pleasure. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Feeling as if she were “made of lead,” Ms. Farber had recently been spending 15-20 hours a day in her bed. She also reported daily episodes of binge eating, when she would consumer “anything I can find,” including entire chocolate cakes of boxes of cookies. She reported problems with intermittent binge eating since adolescence, but these had recently increased in frequency. She attributed her increasing symptoms to financial difficulties. Ms. Farber had been fired from her job two weeks before coming to the emergency room. She claimed it was because she “owed a small amount of money.” When asked to be more specific, she reported owning $150,000 to her former employers and another $100,000 to various local banks. From age 20 to 23, she had used her employer’s credit cards to finance weekly “buying binges,” accumulating the $150,000 debt. [To relieve feelings of distress,] every few days she would impulsively buy expensive jewelry, watches, or multiple pairs of the same shoes. In addition to lifelong feelings of emptiness, Ms. Farber described chronic uncertainty about what she wanted to do in life and with whom she wanted to be friends. She had many brief, intense relationships with both men and women, but her quick temper led to frequent arguments and even physical fights. Although she had always thought of her childhood as happy and carefree, when she became depressed, she began to recall [being abused verbally by an employer]. Like Ellen Farber, people with borderline personality disorder swing in and out of very depressive, anxious, and irritable states that last anywhere from a few hours to a few days or more. Their emotions seem to be always in conflict with the World around them. They are prone to bouts of anger, which sometimes result in physical aggression and violence. Just as often, however, they direct their impulsive anger inward and inflict bodily harm on themselves. Many seen troubled by deep feelings of emptiness. Only 23 percent of adults in the United States of America reported openly expressing their anger. Around 39 percent say that they hide or contain their anger, and 23 percent walk away to try to collect themselves. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

Contrary to the notion that “letting off steam” reduces anger, angry subject in one study acted much more aggressively after hitting a punching bad than did angry subject who first sat quietly for a while. Many of the patients who come to mental health emergency rooms are individuals with borderline personality disorder who have intentionally hurt themselves. Their impulsive, self-destructive activities may range from alcohol and substance abuse to delinquency, unsafe pleasures of the flesh, reckless driving, and cutting themselves. Suicidal threats and actions are also common. Studies suggest that 70 percent of the people with this disorder attempt suicide at least once in their lives; around 6 to 9 percent actually commit suicide. Many, like Ellen, try to hurt themselves as a way of dealing with their chronic feeling of emptiness, boredom, and identity confusion. A common pattern is for people with the disorder to enter clinical treatment by the way of the emergency room, after a suicide attempt or episode of self-mutilation. People with borderline personality disorder frequently form intense, conflict-ridden relationships in which their feelings are not necessarily shared by the other person. They often violate the boundaries of relationships. Thinking in dichotomous (black-and-white) terms, they quickly become furious when their expectations are not met; yet they remain very attached to the relationships, paralyzed by a fear of being left along. Sometimes they cut themselves or carry out other self-destructive acts to prevent partners from leaving. Around 1.5 percent of the general population are thought to suffer from borderline personality disorder. The course of the disorder varies from person to person. In the most common pattern, the instability and risk of suicide reach a peak during young adulthood and then gradually with advancing age. Borderline personality disorder usually starts in childhood from having an unstable household, divorce of parents, death, multiple patent substitutes, or trauma. In fact, some theorists believe that the disorder may be an extended form of posttraumatic stress disorder, triggered by early horrors. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Some features of borderline personality disorder have also been linked to biological abnormalities. Sufferers who are particularly impulsive, as demonstrated by a suicide attempt or aggression against others, apparently have lower brain serotonin activity. People with the disorder also experience abnormalities in sleep that are similar to those of depressed person. In accord with these biological findings, close relatives of those with borderline personality disorder are five times more likely than the general population to have the disorder. Some sociocultural theorists suggest that cases of borderline personality disorder are particularly likely to emerge in cultures that change rapidly. As a culture loses its stability, they argue, it inevitably leaves many of its members with problems of identity, a sense of emptiness, heightened anxiety, and fears of abandonment. Family units may come apart, leaving people with little sense of belonging. Change of this kind in society today may explain growing reports of the disorder. Yet, there is some optimism. It appears that psychotherapy can eventually lead to some degree of improvement with borderline personality disorder. It is not easy, however, for a therapist to strike a balance between empathizing with the patient’s dependency and anger and challenging one’s way of thinking. Furthermore, when such a person does make progress in treatment, termination is sometimes difficult because of the patient’s remaining problems with relationships and abandonment. Psychodynamic therapy has been somewhat effective when it focuses on the patient’s central relationship disturbance, poor sense of self, and pervasive loneliness and emptiness. During the past few decades, this treatment has often been combined with cognitive-behavioral interventions designed to help people recognize and address the perspectives of others. For example, the therapist may model alternative ways of interpreting and reacting to situations and also arrange for clients to receive social skills training. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

A few communications and sociology class dealing with “Marriage and the Family” may help. In addition with a psychology class in “Human Sexuality.” One will learn how to speak to others and do detailed reports. Learn gender differences and the dynamics of the family and what is and is not acceptable. And one will also learn about gender roles and how to care for babies, which will help one understand them better and that should make life a little easier in a household that has to deal with child. This combination treatment, called dialectical behavioral therapy, has received growing research support and is now considered the treatment of choice in many clinical circles. Group therapy has also been of help to some people with borderline personality disorder. It offers them an opportunity to form close attachments to a number of persons rather than focusing all their emotions and hopes on just one or two “chosen” relationships. Although, if you look at the overall picture, mental health problems are not as rampant as people think, for 26 percent of Americans ages 18 and older suffers from one, but there seems to be a pretty fine line between raising a psychopath and a well-adjusted adult. Finally, antidepressant, antibipolar, antianxiety, and antipsychotic drugs have helped some individuals to calm their emotional and aggressive storms. Given the high risk of suicide attempts by these patients, however, their use of drugs on an outpatient basis is controversial. Some individuals have benefited from a combination of drug therapy and psychotherapy. In one study of persons who admitted to regularly cutting, burning, or otherwise mutilating themselves, the individual said that they performed such acts to see whether they were still alive or real; to quiet negative feelings such as anger, fear, or guilt; to block painful memories; or to cry out for help. The compromise with evil leads in the end to confusion and weakness, a gradual decline of standards, a wavering fealty to opportunism, and a fatal contradiction of principles. If a negative emotion is strong enough, it may not only color one’s reasoning faculty, but even preclude its use altogether. It is hard for a human who is filled with bitterness about a situation in which one is involved to be strictly objective toward it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

We are weakened every time we give harbourage to snarling thoughts about other people and whimpering ones about ourselves. The negative person too frequently expresses criticism, disapproval, or anger. This contributes to one’s own bad health. When the lower passions of violence, aggression, and greed are more developed than reason, they enslave reason and put it to their own selfish service. Excessive greed and unscrupulous ambition easily distort the straight shapes of rational truth and put plausible disguises on ancient errors. The defect in all such thinking is that it has not been pushed far enough. It stops too short and too soon. It stops working when confronted by ethical considerations and it will not go on to reckon with the existence of retributive karma. The defeat and failure of its wrong-doers illustrates the eventual defeat and failure which always overtake wrong-doing in the end. In World affairs, new strategies are needed because new economic realities no longer necessarily align with old borders and existing power relationships. In many parts of the World there are “region-states,” some brilliant people consider them “engines of prosperity.” In China, the centralized Communist government, whether deliberately or not,” is reorganizing itself along corporate lines. Like many corporations, China is moving most decision-making to the business unit level—semi-autonomous, self-governing economic region-states that compete fiercely against each other for capital, technology, and human resources. Dalian, China, along with a dozen other regions in China, has become a de facto regional-state, setting its own economic agenda. While still part of China and, in theory, subject to the rule of Beijing, it is largely autonomous. The reality is that it ties with Beijing are weaker than those with business centers throughout the World. Many emerging economic zones spill across existing nation-state boundaries. Thus parts of Texas and southern California are merging with stretches of northern Mexico into two big bi-national economic regions, each of which could, in the decades to come, develop its own distinctive bi-national culture—and cross-border political structure as well. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Elsewhere, Jussi Jauhiainen, professor of geography at the University of Helsinki, describes a region that embraces Helsinkl in Finland and spills over into Tallinn in Estonia; another that exists on both sides of the border between Finland and Russian Karelia; and a third that includes Narva in Estonia and Ivangorod in Russia. The United Nations has proposed developing a portion of the Tumen River region, which is a river that is over 521 kilometre long, bordering Russia, China, and North Korea in Northeast Asia. There are move being made towards regional cooperation. The development is aimed at turning the Tumen River delta region into a hub for international transport—between Japan and South Korea on one side and Northeast China, Russia and Mongolia (and via rail way ultimately Europe) on the other- and also around the vast natural resource reserves in Mongolia, Russia, China and North Korea. Ice-free ports are also a matter of special interest, as Northeast China lacks access to the coastline by a mere 12 kilometers and functioning links by train, ship, and roads would significantly lower transportation costs. In December of 1991, the DPRK government designated the Rajin-Sonbong area adjacent to the mouth of the Tumen River as a free economic and trade zone, in an attempt to introduce a market economy to the country. This is a special economic zone where various preferential measures have been introduced in order to try to attract foreign capital; this area is said to have been selected in line with the policy of the former leader of the DPRK. After UNDP announced its support for the development of the Tumen River area at the Northeast Asia, the UNDP presented its Vision for the Development of the Tumen River Area. This was a colossal vision for undertaking infrastructure development over 20 years using $30 billion, in order to turn the region into the Hong Kong of the Northeast Asia. The Tumen River Economic Development Area liking the large triangular area (10,000 km^2) of Yanji, Chongjin and Vladivostok be established in order to support the TREZ. This area is expected to become a Pacific powerhouse. Here we are again altering the maps of the past and our various relationships to the deep fundamental of space. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

The acceleration of change implies, however, that the new maps will be increasingly temporary, always ready for on-the-ground reversals or relocation. For little is permanent in the revolutionary wealth system. Inevitably in every life there comes a time of waiting. In the fields the grain is ripe but not yet harvested. We have worked hard to bring things to fruition, but reward is not yet certain. The days shorten. We remember that to harvest we must sacrifice the warmth and light of summer and pass into autumn. This is the time of harvest, of thanksgiving and of leavetaking and gathered. The end of a cycle has come. We enter our resting season. It is our quiet time. We do not speak, because the voices are within us. It is our quiet time. We do not walk, because the Earth is all within us. It is our quiet time. Gain control of the mind, to lessen and quieten the activity of thinking, to bring a settled calm into the entire consciousness, and to soothe and pacify the emotions, the primary means used to establish a rhythm by breathing at a measured rate. Why do people sigh agitatedly or catch their breath when hearing unexpected news about a relative’s death? Is this not a sign that breath is the brother of thoughts? Because breathing then becomes converted temporarily from an unconscious into a conscious process, and mentally also the calm strength, the renewal of poise which you need most of the time. This is so supposed to attune one with high spiritual aspirations. It gives a momentum to the optimistic and ennobling forces of the whole being. The state of one’s breathing shows also the state of one’s feelings, one’s mind, and even one’s will. The relaxed tension-free life brings with it a loss of nervousness, and this in turn a loss of the desire for deviant behaviour. This World is more frequently subject to the power of humans than the love of God. Its power is revealed when humans are able to exercise defiance in the face of adversity. Our task is to act, not only to enjoy; to change, not only to accept; to segment, not only to discover the glory of God. If not our compassion and ability to help, what is it that makes us worthy of life. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

We do not exist for our own sake. If not the love it confers, life would be preposterous. Love cleanses the emotional nature and purifies the nervous system. Love and faith in God will bring a tingling sensation of Divine Life to every cell in the body. By faithful concentration we eventually learn to focus the mind and its power on any desired line of thought and hold it there, free of distinction. This enables us to rightfully seek a solution for every problem, and bit by bit opens up for us a greater and more fascinating spiritual horizon. Faith is a dynamic, personal act, flowing between the heart of humans and the love of God. The human of faith will know when to consent and when to defy. It is faith from which we draw the sweetness of life, the taste of the sacred, the joy of the imperishably dear. It is faith that offers us a share in eternity. Faith is the insight that life is not a self-maintaining, private affair, not a chaos of whims and instincts, but an aspiration, a way, not a refuge. Faith is real only when it is not one-sided but reciprocal. If God can rely on humans, humans can rely on God by the symmetric property of congruence. We may trust in Him because He trusts in us. Our trustworthiness for God is the measure of the integrity of our faith. We cannot make God visible to us, but we can make ourselves visible to Him. So we open out thoughts to Him. To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain the sense of the mystery that animates all beings. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great. As a tree torn from the soil, as a river separated from its source, the human soul wanes when detached from what is greater than itself. Without the ideal, the real turns chaotic; without the universal, the individual becomes accidental. Unless we aspire to the utmost, we shrink to inferiority. Prayer is our attachment to the utmost. Without God in sight, we are like the scattered rungs of a broken ladder. “Can anyone hide oneself in secret places so that I cannot see one? says the Lord. Do not I fill Heaven and Earth? says the Lord,” reports Jeremiah 23.24. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20


Sometimes we pretend we’re living in a resort. 😉 This single story home at #Havenwood (Model 1 to be exact) offers HUGE amenities when it comes to finishes.

Rather if you are working from home, entertaining guests, enjoying family time, this home offers spaces for everyone to cherish. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/residence-one/

All the sunny windows will allow you the rest and relaxation you need. We especially love the All Ready connected home smart package!
The Spirits Connected to Her Haunted Mansion

One of the many signs of someone being possessed is when one starts speaking in different voices, languages, and explaining things like you just met them that are out of context for the situation. However, scientific research has been unable to find an explanation for some well-documented speech occurrences. The so-called charismatic movement in our own country with its emphasis upon speaking in tongues has focused a great deal of attention upon this subject. Many people in Christian churches believe they are reproducing the gift of tongues reported in the book of Acts and discussed by the apostle Paul in the first letter to the believers in Corinth. The Biblical soundness of their belief lies outside the scope of this study, but we can report that scientifically conducted investigations have shown all instances of tongues-speaking to have the same characteristics wherever they are encountered. The variation between the tongues spoken in a state of hysterical frenzy among primitives is only superficially different from that practiced in a quiet, composed Christian setting. He considers that all tongues experiences are a means by which uneasy and unsatisfied people identify with the supernatural, securing psychological compensation for the spiritual vacuum in which they live. Some Christian scholars believe that added to the psychological element is the possibility that demons are involved in tongues-speaking, but results of investigations in this field are not yet conclusive. Tongues-speaking can be a language of ecstasy; that is, articulated sounds which do not constitute an actual language. Reports keep coming of an even more astonishing phenomenon—speaking a real dialect that was never learned. Hundreds of missionaries, especially those working among people in Asia, report that they often have encountered the mysterious ability of natives to speak in real languages that they never knew. These accounts come from Christian workers who represent widely divergent opinions regarding the charismatic movement. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13

One of Mrs. Winchester’s staff members that worked in the greenhouses on her property, who was born and reared on the Tibetan border used to report hearing the Tibetan monks in their ritual dances speak in English with quotations from Shakespeare, with profanity like drunken soldiers, or in German and French, or in languages unknown. A maid also reported the same experiences in the mansion. Reports of this nature are so numerous and come from such reputable people that one cannot set them aside lightly. Perhaps this is the reason Mrs. Winchester installed the mysterious windows in the Grand Ballroom? Christians must not jump to hasty conclusions on such delicate and complicated subjects, but they certainly must recognize the possibility of demonic activity and exercise extreme caution in an attitude of prayerful dependence upon God. We will be able to analyze these reports far more adequately after they have been thoroughly researched by competent investigators. Research teams have found that many of the physical and psychical phenomena declared impossible by the rationalistic scientists of the early 1900’s actually do take place. Most researchers do not even pretend to have a full explanation of how or why these occurrences transpire, but Christians are aware that some of them may be the result of evil spirits who work under the control of Satan. Regarding the occultic, the believer should walk the pathway of extreme caution. One should avoid any so-called magic that claims to bestow unusual knowledge or power through a psychic gift or ritualistic performances. It goes without saying that one must keep a safe distance from any form of black magic, and that one must examine carefully the doctrinal teaching of anyone who purports to provide healing or other temporal benefits in the name of the Lord. Biblical faith is built upon trust in God and expresses itself in submission to His will. Every follower of Christ should be wary of magical cures and all outward demonstrations of allegedly supernatural power. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13

As children of God, we must remember that we “walk by faith, not by sight,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.7, and that the faith through the senses. When we received Christ, we were brought into a vital union with Him, and the apostle Peter was writing to us when he said, “Who, having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and fill of glory,” reports 1 Peter 1.8. When a believer discovers the emptiness of this World’s enchantments, Satan tries to lure one into accepting his help through some form of occultism. Through these devices, the devil and his organization of evil spirits may attempt to bring defeat and misery into the lives of God’s children. Satan is unable to harm a believer, however, if that person accepts the instruction of the Bible, maintains a life of prayer, and submits oneself to God, and resists the devil. If one is hypocritical and dishonest, one will successfully resist and overcome the evil influence of Satan and his armies. The child of God must not merely say that one desires victory over sin, but must truly long for it. One’s spiritual vows and public statements must always be sincerely spoken, for the devil has no difficulty in defeating the hypocritical and half-hearted. The devil cannot effectively tempt a Christian who is actively living a joyful Christian life. Some believe that the door-to-nowhere in The Winchester Mystery House is just a wing of the mansion that was never finished, but perhaps it was a biblical metaphor. “I am the door; by me if any one enter in, one shall be saved,” reports John 10.9. It is elevated to a high level on the estate with no entrance reminds use to raise or consciousness, but by going the wrong way through the door, it may be a plunge into the pit of hades. There was once a woman who worked at Mrs. Winchester’s estate whose hand was terribly mangled by a gun explosion. Little did Mrs. Winchester know, that some men on the estate, amiable farmers, when not performing their specific functions, they were wizards, necromancers, exorcists, but above all priests, representatives of the people in offering sacrifices and making contact with the spirits. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13

Over one hundred years ago, human sacrifices had been made in some places, members of the community offered up by the noblest lords, but now animal sacrifices are made. They exhort their listeners about Heaven and hell in which they firmly believe, the one a place of joy and the other of torment…They keep the register of all males born and are intimate contact with sorcerer-priests, who can read ancient manuscripts and incantations for use on all religious occasions. While working on the estate, a man of Asian decent went to the farmers and asked for medical assistance for his wife. It was a moment of weakness—but he needed help. After the wizards, sorcerer-priests, necromancers, and exorcists evaluated the grounds keeper’s wife several times, they found she was suffering a higher fever also. While making preparations to treat her, they noticed the husband cutting three little bamboo sticks about eight inches long and a quarter of an inch in diameter. Oblivious to all that was taking place around him, he silently moved across the room with these three sticks and a rice bowl. After placing a little water in the bottom of the bowl and ordering his wife to dip the fingers of her right hand in it, he waved the bowl over her prostrate body. His next act was to place the bowl on the floor and try to balance the three sticks in the center of it. While this balancing process was going on, he kept calling out the names of demons. The men of supernatural powers soon awakened to the fact that this man was preparing to call a demon out of his wife. The men of supernatural powers suggested that the man’s wife’s fever was probably due to an attack of malaria, but the man insisted that she was demon-possessed. The naming of demons continued until the name of “Lin,” and then the sticks stood on end. Upon learning this was the demon’s name, the man placed some rice in the blow and mixed it with the three sticks—a little salt was added to give it flavor. He then waved the bowl in circles over his wife and politely called out, “Please, Mr. Lin Demon, come out—come out—look at this, tasty bowl of rice—it’s for you if you’ll only come out—please, oh, please come out, Mr. Lin Demon.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13

Then he moved slowly toward the door and outside, sprinkling a little of the rice along the way and begging the demon to follow him. When he reached the end of the estate, he flung the remaining portion of rice as far out as he could and then returned to the house. This was too much for some of the men of supernatural magic. They were determined to find out the shenanigans behind this thing, even if it meant calling down the wrath of the gods and demons combined. They asked the fellow if her would let them try to stand those sticks on end. He smilingly gave them the go-ahead signal; but he tried and those things just would not stand. Still not satisfied, they asked the man with the injured wife if he would show them how to do it. The whole process was reverently repeated, even to the standing of the sticks when the name “Lin” was called out. However, the men of supernatural magic finally despaired of ever making those sticks stand. They asked the man where did he learn this art. He answered through a séance with Mrs. Winchester. Six scrolls of some ancient script containing incantations appeared in the Blue Séance Room, along with other radical writings. The men of supernatural magic then realized this was the employment of evil angels they were dealing with. They were dealing with the rulers of darkness of this World, and spiritual wickedness in high places. In another case at the Winchester Mansion, these men who doubled as farmers met a fifteen-year-old girl who had a disease of the eyes. She spent quite a time in an eye clinic, but in spite of the treatment she was not cured. Since medical help had failed, she turned to the men of supernatural magic. These men, using white magic, case some spells over her. Within 24 hours of the charming, the girl’s eye trouble disappeared, but thereafter she felt a terrible inner unrest. She prayed but found no peace. Later, when she visited her former eye specialist, he could only shake his head in astonishment and ask her how she had been healed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13

Although white magic has been able to heal people, some still believe it is inspired by the powers of darkness. Through white magic some may even obtain what they actually desired, and so it is often only in the effects that its true nature is revealed. The boundary between prayer and magic can be very fluid. If one is able to differentiate between the genuine and the imitation articles, it is essential to have the gift of discerning of spirits. However, whether it sails under a black, white or neutral flag, many people believe they have evidence to prove that the effect of magic in any form is the work of the devil. Yet, that is not what I believe. I have met some very nice people who claim to be witches and warlocks, and they are some of the most kindest people you will every meet. They define those that Christians, who pontificate about the bible, harass and attract and really listen and get to all sides of the story, some it makes some wonder, who is really evil? I am not saying that all Christians are bad, but the witch hunts were started by Christians, as well as lynching in the Southern states. I am not telling anyone what to believe, I am just presenting information that is fascinating. Part of being educated is to remain unbiased and be able to have a discussion, until you draw your own reasonable conclusion based on the evidence presented. If one does not have a case, or does not want to be contradicted by evidence that would prove their argument false, of course they turn to slander, harassment, and terrorism. That is what ignorant people do. They gang up and try to lie so loud to make sure no one can hear the truth they are suppressing. But as the Bible says, all things will come to the light. Everyone has things they need to deal with inside of themselves and sometimes it is more comfortable to try to find fault with others and blame others instead of taking responsibility. For instance, the dynamic of idolatry is demonism since idolatry is in reality the worship of other gods who are demons (1 Corinthians 10.20), headed by Satan the “god of this World,” (2 Corinthians 4.4). #RandolphHarris 6 of 13

Occultism involves dealing with demonic forces through fortune-telling, magic, spiritism, or religious cults, which are supposedly closely allied to idolatry. Persons who deal in the occult often discover that they have spiritistic sensitivity, extrasensory perception, or abnormal intellectual powers enabling them to engage in clairvoyance, precognition, divination, psychometry, magic, and spiritism. Dealing in the occult often results in the subjection to the powers of darkness to such a degree that the mind becomes blinded to truth, immersed in deception and error. This frequently results in acute depression with thoughts of self-destruction. However, not all emotional problems or suicidal tendencies should be attributed to occultism. However, demons can also oppress that human mind. Enslavement to demons sometimes reaches a point in which the demonic spirits harass and torment their victims. In the preceding stage of subjection, the evil spirits sporadically dominate their victims, but they do not necessarily harass them, at least not as they do in this deeper and more tragic state of oppression. Oppression in some form will be the final outcome of all who become psychically enslaved, even though some are not psychically gifted with spiritistic or magical powers. One well-attested and widely occurring form of demonic oppression is poltergeist phenomena. “Poltergeist” is German for “noisy ghost.” In such a case, the oppressed person is hounded by strange noises and sounds, such as shouts and obscene threats, rattling of chains, moaning, weeping, or piercing laughter. Dishes clatter, furniture is moved by invisible hands, and myriads of other strange happenings occur, invisibly produced by spirits connected with a haunted house where spirit activity has been practiced. Some who are oppressed continue to be tormented even though they may move to another residence. Also, common in the victims of demonism are the appearances of ghosts, specters, and monstrous phantasms. These phenomena are often explained away as hallucinations, but are well attested in occultism as spirits appearing as dwarfs, animals, dismembered parts of a human body, etcetera. At times these hideous spirits will strangle, bite, strike, or attack their victims in some way. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13

Perhaps the most terrible and revolting form of demonic oppression is what is known in the history of religion as incubi and sccubae experiences. This is the assault by an unclean spirit upon its enslaved victim for the purpose of lust involving pleasures of the flesh. Both men and women have been attacked and molested by “seducing male and female demons.” Such fully established phenomena show that angelic-human union, a major cause of the flood (Genesis 6.1-4; 2 Peter 2.4; Jude 1.6-7), has its parallel in occultism today. The account of the following portent is given us in Aubrey’s Miscellanies. “When King James II first entered Dublin after his Arrival from France, 1689, one of the Gentlemen that bore the Mace before him, stumbled without any rub in his way, or other visible occasion. The Mace fell out of is hands, and the little Cross upon the Crown thereof stuck fast between to Stones in the Street. This is well known all over Ireland, and did much trouble King James himself with many of his chief Attendants”; but not doubt greatly raised the hopes of his enemies. A few years later a witch-story comes from the north of Ireland. “At Antrim in Ireland a little girl of nineteen (nine?) years of age, inferior to none in the place for beauty, education, and birth, innocently put a leaf of sorrel which she had got from a witch into her mouth, after she had given the begging witch bread and beer at the door; it was scarce swallowed by her but she began to be tortured in the bowels, to tremble all over, and even was convulsive, and in fine to swoon away as dead. The doctor used remedies on the 9th of May 1698, at which time it happened, but to no purpose, the child continued in a most terrible paroxysm; whereupon they sent for the minister, who scarce had laid his hand upon her when she was turned by the demon in the most dreadful shapes. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13

She began first to rowl herself about, then to vomit needles, pins, hairs, feathers, bottoms of thread, pieces of glass, window-nails, nails drawn out of a cart or coach-wheel, an iron knife about a span long, eggs, and fish-shells; and when the witch came near the place, or looked to the house, though at the distance of two hundred paces from where the child was, she was in worse torment, insomuch that no life was expected from the child till the witch was removed to some greater distance. The witch was apprehended, condemned, strangled, and burnt, and was desired to unto the incantation immediately before strangling; but said she could not, by reasons others had done against her likewise. But the wretch confessed the same, with many more. The child was about the middle of September thereafter carried to a gentleman’s house, where there were many other things scarce credible, but that several ministers and the gentleman have attested the same. The relation is to be seen in a pamphlet printed 1699, and entitled The Bewitching of a Child in Ireland.” People in ancient times used to rely more on the spiritual, witchcraft, magic, séances, curses, potions, and meditation. Perhaps that is why there were so many more instances of supernatural things happening today. Some of these claims sound so outrageous and many of them report the same types of instances. Then today, we have all these technologies and medications and machines that we rely on and people who tell us what is actually possible and how many of these stories from the past happen to be something else explained by medication or a camera that so many people start to disbelieve in the supernatural. However, just because it can be explained by science, does not mean it is not supernatural. The Christian Bible even speaks about miracles, which are things that are supernatural. Supernatural phenomenon is real. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13

However, supernatural phenomena may be less common today because land is so densely packed, so many people turn into TV and Music and digital entertainment, so they spend less time praying and tuning into nature. In the 1800s, one could life in a house and not see another person for years because there was so much space to spread out on. People had time to read books and gaze at the moon and the sky and think up inventions. By now, everyone has probably heard of the legendary Sarah L. Winchester. She is the one who built the most mysterious mansion in the World. One thing that surprises me is that no one has, as of yet, tried to duplicate or create something just as wonderful. Nonetheless, it has been said that Mrs. Winchester slept in a different bedroom every night, supposedly in order to confuse evil spirits. And it totally makes sense. Because even now, people say when bad things are happening to you, you need to figure out what you are doing to cause it and draw closer to God. Back in Mrs. Winchester’s day, the 1800s, people were into spiritualism and also believed that spirits were the source causing bad things to happen to people. So they would try to appease them to protect themselves from curses and demons and so forth. Every generation has their methods and religions and that is just how it is. Some say Mrs. Winchester also held special dinner parties for her spirit friends. Legend has it that she would serve her phantom friends on solid gold plates, offering them delicious cuisine like caviar, truffles, and pheasant stuffed with pate. The mansion’s staff was also well-fed. On a stormy night, the front of the house was dark and silent, for it was long past bedtime. It was thirteen past one, and raining like blazes. It was thirteen years ago this day that Louis Le Prince had been seen alive, for Black Knight, one of Mrs. Winchester’s mares kicked the life out of him in the house stable one morning. One could feel the present and all its dangers towering around. Staff who walked by the horse stable this day reported feeling lost, a ghost dislodged from time. Indeed, it struck many people as unusual that the lad was left for the to care for the horses by himself. It might have been a fancy stable, but there was a queer feel about the place. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13

The sun was just beginning to set as they headed back to the estate. By the time they got inside, the night was as black as your hat: not a vestige of a moon, not a single star to break the uniform of darkness of the sky. With sunset a noisy blustering wind had sprung up, rattling about one of the chimneys, clashing the wet branches, and deadening the sound of cautious footfalls creeping across the paddock in the direction of the stables. The wind dropped suddenly, making the silence all the more intense by contrast with the previous roar; and through the stillness, Mrs. Winchester heard the clink of a bucket, and the sound of someone moving about in the stables. She sprang to her feet and snatched up her lantern. She thought that someone was trying to get at one of her horses, and her hand was on her father-in-law’s ivory-gripped Winchester pistol when she opened the door. So strong was the impression that she was absolutely surprised to find no sign of an intruder. The horses were perfectly quiet. Mrs. Winchester looked all around. There was certainly nothing to see, but it struck her that the air felt very cold, and she shut the door. The instant it closed behind her, a dark shadow fell across the square of light issuing from the entrance to the saddle-room. She figured it must have been the wind she heard and locked the door and went back inside. However, the butler Henry Boynton Clitz, was also suspicious. He turned the key in the lock and looked into the horse stable; then he gave a slight start, and drew quickly back. There was light inside, but where is came from would have been difficult to say. Beyond the shadow lay black and impenetrable, a wall of darkness. As he crossed the threshold Henry felt a blast of cold air sweep towards him, striking a strange chill into his very bones. Straight opposite stood a horse, and before him was an old man who appeared to be asleep. However, even in that intense stillness the tout could catch no sound of his breathing. His own heart was thumping against his ribs with the force of a sledge-hammer. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13

Henry felt his flesh creeping with a sensation of fear that was almost sickening. Fear? Yes, that was the word; he was horribly afraid. And of what? Of a weak old man, for whom he would have been more than a match single-handed, and they were two to one. What a fool he was, to be sure! With desperate effort he pulled himself together and went forward, his eye warily fixed on the silent figure. Neither man nor horses moved. As Henry moved forward, he heard a low chuckling laugh. The man was looking at him. The gleaming eyes fixed on him with a sort of mesmeric power. His face fastened on the figure, taking in every item of the quaint dress, the high gill collar and ample bird’s eye stock, the drab coat and antiquated breeches and gaiters. His mouth was open, but for the life of him he could not speak. He was waiting in the helpless fascination of horror to see the face of a man who had been dead and buried for thirteen years. Slowly, like an automaton, that strange watcher turned his head. The square, resolute mouth was open as if to speak; the shrunken skin was a greenish yellow color, like the skin of a corpse; along the temple ran a dull black mark in the shape of a horse’s hoof; but the eyes burned like two living coals, as they fixed themselves on the face of the terrified publican. Next, Henry heard the crash of a lantern on stones and the sound of Louis’s flying feet, and an awful terror came upon him, a great fear, which made his teeth chatter in his head and curdled the blood in his veins. The place seemed full of an unnatural light—black flames. The air was foul with the horrible odors of decay. Above all, Henry felt the fearful presence of that which was neither living nor dead—the semblance of a man whose human body had for thirteen long years been rotting in the grave. It was not living, but it moved. Its cold, shining eyes were looking into his, were coming near. There was no mistaking the look of that helpless body, the limp flaccidity of those outstretched arms. “He’s dead,” said Henry, as he turned up the white face. Its coat was wet with—something. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13

It was blood. But it was strange there should be no marks of violence about him, and yet he looks as if he had died hard. And truly, the dead man’s face was terrible in its fixed expression of mortal fear. The eyes were staring and wide open, the teeth clenched, a little forth hung about the blue lips. It was a horrid sight. Henry locked the door on the corpse until the police could arrive, and spent the remainder of the night in the butler’s pantry. However, when the Henry awoke, he could throw very little light on the matter. There was no one in the horse stables. No body, no foul odor, no broken lanterns. Just the horses and an old noose in one of the empty stalls. Whatever happened remain a mystery. The old living soul who knew the truth held her tongue. Mrs. Winchester simply told him, “Leave it to other staff members and never set foot in that cursed place. The poor boy is dead, and there is no reason for me to get myself mixed up in the business.” Demons can cause physical ailments such as dumbness (Matthew 9.32-33), blindness (Matthew 12.22), and various other defects and deformities (Luke 13.11-17). In all such cases medical and psychiatric treatment are of no avail, because the cause is demonic. Only be dealing with the spiritual causes of the malady can it be cured. Besides actual sickness, demons can cause speech and behavior abnormalities. In demon possession, which is an extreme form of enslavement and oppression, the speech and behavior abnormalities appear in greatly accentuated form with such violent physical manifestations as retching, screaming, blaspheming, cursing, foaming at the mouth, convulsions and display of tremendous physical strength. So completely does the demonic spirit gain mastery that one takes over the body of the victim and speaks through it with one’s own voice and language, which may be completely foreign to the language of the demonized. Sometimes evil spirits endanger humans’ temporal safety by exercising a certain control over natural forces. “I’ve covered my brother completely (That bump on the right is his knee) I will dig him out when I am ready to find how he liked it, you see.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 13

Winchester Mystery House

Tickets are almost sold out for tonights Flashlight Tours! 👀🔦 March 5th & 12th nights still have availability – hurry and purchase before they are all gone! You don’t want to miss this 👻

I’ll bet you wonder whether poor Whitney’s race is run. I hate to keep you guessing, but I must have my fun. 🎟 link in bio. https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/

REGARDLESS OF VACCINATION STATUS, ALL PERSONS IN SANTA CLARA COUNTY MUST WEAR FACE COVERINGS AT ALL TIMES WHEN INDOORS. WHILE THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA LIFTED THE UNIVERSAL MASK MANDATE AS OF FEBRUARY 16, 2022, SANTA CLARA COUNTY MASK MANDATES ARE STILL IN EFFECT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
I Cannot Tell an Engineer to Come Up with a Good Idea by Seven

America is becoming a country whose labor force is increasingly composed of “free agents”—that is, workers who are solo professionals, freelancers, independent contractors, consultants and other self-employed workers—many of whom set their own hours. There are already 33 million free agents or “disorganized” men and women in the United States of America—more than a quarter of the entire American workforce. Thus is about twice the number of manufacturing workers and twice the number of labor union members. Although the available statistics do not tell us, probably more than half of all free agents are paid by project, by commission or on some other non-temporal basis. Thus another characteristic of industrial capitalism, wage labor, can no longer be taken for granted. People working at home, as so many millions already do, may stop for a sandwich or go out for a walk when they choose, unlike the assembly-line worker whose absence, even for a moment, can keep larger numbers of downstream workers waiting. The same, of course, is true for other at-home or online economic activities as well—shopping, banking and investing—most of which can also be done asynchronously at any time. More important, because the value of work increasingly depends on knowledge, work time does not lend itself as well to standardized packaging. I can tell a factory worker to show up at seven a.m. and be productive. However, can I tell an engineer or researcher to have a great idea at seven? Because leisure time is usually seen as “non-work” time, it is the flip side of the work calendar. The timing of our free-time periods is becoming more varied as the hours and weeks of paid work become more flexible. Many people are actually working on their leisure time. While enjoying life, work does not just turn off. Some are still thinking about projects and jotting down idea while they laying in the sun, playing baseball, or eating a family dinner. So vacation are a half-holiday, and Saturdays are more of a half-day holiday. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

In these days with inflation rising 6 percent to a forty-year high and stiff competition for jobs, health, well-being, and security is linked to job security and your salary. Afterall, without an income, one could lose everything they worked for and end up homeless. And the estimate of 5,800-48,000 deaths per years are among people experiencing homelessness. There is such a broad range in this estimate because the death count reported by a city or county likely misses many deaths each year because a decedent’s housing status is unrecorded, incorrectly recorded as housed, the death is not investigated by the medical examiner or coroner, or the death is unknow by community members compiling the annual homeless death count. Men account for approximately three in four of homeless decedents. In Austin, Texas, 87 percent of the people who died while experiencing homelessness were male, compared to 13 percent female. The proportion is lower in some places, such as Multnomah County, Oregon, where 76 percent of homeless decedents are male and 24 percent are female. The entire homeless population in the United States of America is approximately 600,000 individuals. So you can see why people are working so hard to maintain their jobs and come up with good ideas. The line between work time and family time is blurring, along with fixed schedules. When I was growing up, my parents came home from work, had dinner at half-past five, and watched the news at six…I do not know anybody in my neighborhood who has that regular a life. Fewer than a third of Americans now work a nine-to-five schedule and rituals such as family dinner are disappearing. The death of appointment-based television is also in decline because of work schedules, alternative programs that can be accessed over the Internet and this machine that allows users to program a time and TV station or a program they want recorded that stores the information and allow the users to play back the program at their leisure. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

Because of time-shifting technologies, we do not watch television shows at the same time, and this is also eroding those national moments. Moments of breaking news when things happening around the globe and everyone is at home, after dinner, watching TV to have their program interrupted for a special announcement. This will also destroy future national moments, like when humans’ colonies Jupiter. Will people even care since they are so busy working, will they even know? Many are now using a database and zoom meetings in which family member, friends, and employees and employers make their schedules available to one another so that face time be can organized. The wealth system, in short, is not just accelerating; it is introducing greater irregularity into our relationships with time. In so doing, it liberates the individual from the prisonlike rigidities and regularities of the industrial age. However, it increases unpredictability and requires fundamental changes in the way personal relations and wealth creation are coordinated and business is done. Few things upset people—and whole cultures and economies—more than changes in timing. This, as we wrote in 1970 when fast food started flooding into France, “explains the pathological antagonism toward what many regard as the ‘Americanization’ of Europe.” Nearly thirty years later in Germany, retailer Gunter Biere got a taste of precisely this reaction when he insisted on opening his Kaufhof department store in Berlin on a Saturday, using a loophole in regulations that forbade Sunday sales. He instantly became the storm center of national controversy and was attacked as an upsetter of convention and a “Rambo.” Supporters of Sunday sales came to his defense. Only the “stupid tradition of an old Germany is against this,” said one shopper from Schwedt in the former East Germany. “We should accept our Americanization.” What is happening, however, is not Americanization. It is the arrival of an alien rhythm of life associated with the latest wealth system. The changed rhythm is present and, despite opposition, slowly advancing in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Things already move faster in Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai than in Paris, London or Berlin. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

Speed and irregulaization go hand in hand with another time shift—from intermittent to continuous-flow operations. This is seen in the rapid spread of 27/4 in everything from hotel business centers to newspaper-printing plants. In Japan, beauty parlors, gyms, supermarkets and retail chains are staying open later and later. A growing number of Maruetsu supermarkets and Aeon Max value outlets are operating around the clock. In time, according to marketing professor Tomoo Noguchi of Waseda University, sales at late-night businesses will grow 50 percent of the ordinary daytime total. For a glimpse of tomorrow night, visit Curitiba, Brazil. Home to international Linux distributor Conectiva, and with two hundred other software companies operating there, this model “green” city is studied by architects and urban planners from around the World. One midnight we accompanied its former mayor, Jaime Lerner, and urban planner by training, on a visit to its “24 Hour Street,” a block glistening with new coffee shops and restaurants jammed with young couples who smile, wave and call out “Jamie!” The next street was designed to house twenty-four-hour-professional services—doctor, dentists and lawyers. The next one was planned to hold twenty-four-hour municipal offices where individuals can get permits or licenses and take care of other city business at any hour. Continuous-flow services permit consumption schedules to be designed by each individual, thus further promoting the shift to irregular time. In both production and consumption, then, times and tempos are becoming more complex and “de-massified.” This, in turn, has practical consequences for every business, in every sector, and for economies at every level of development. The shift toward continuous flow is especially conspicuous in finance. Electronic communications networks allow people to buy and sell stocks after the markets are officially closed. And online trading has forced staid stock exchanges to consider increasing their hours. The trading systems of the future will never sleep. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

The pressures of time, our ability to slice it into tinier, uneven units, the overwhelming power and speed of the electronic infrastructure, the unbundling of products, and the growing granularization of payments all point to the day when money flows no longer predictably peak on certain present days—Friday nights, for example, or the fifteenth of the month. These interrelated shifts—acceleration, irregularization and continuous flow—are transforming the entire timescape. However, even these changes are only part or a larger story as we replace industrial time with twenty-first-century time. These self-feeding alternatives will trigger many social consequences: a faster slow of things, people, places, relationships and information through out corporate and personal lives. Throwaway products multiply—computers today maybe cars tomorrow. So throwaway ideas, business models—and personal relationships. They also push us father toward ad-hocracy—the shift away from permanent or long-lasting organizational structures in business to one-shot, short-term organizational formats—even temporary stores, management firms, and government contractors. Thus a Tokyo-based company formed by designer Rei Kawakubo and her husband, Adrian Joffe, has opened a store in Berlin that, they claim, will exist for only one year, and will be closed down after that, whether profitable or not. The idea is supposed to reflect the ever-shorter shelf life of fashion, movies, music and celebrity. Companies also engage in continuous-flow internal reorganization as they race to adapt to changes in markets, finance, and other variables. Organizational temporariness or transience, which has been on the increase for decades, is now an inescapable feature of advanced economies. Even more ephemeral are the management fads that pop up, influences these successive reorganizations and whiz into oblivion. Prices, too, change more frequently. Investors demand quicker and quicker payback. Relations to people, places, ideas, technologies and vendors become more and more shortlived. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

If part of its population is freeing itself from routine, standardized schedules and the other part remains driven by the clock time of the past, how far can any society go toward hyperspeed and jangled time relations? How do employers cope with young workers, products of the new way of life, who regard punctuality as an imposition on their freedom and creativity? Researchers today suggest that the spread of mobile phones had been accompanied by a more relaxed attitude toward punctuality inasmuch as people can call ahead and apologize in advance for lateness. However, the deeper reason is the decline of the assembly line. If one worker is late, it slows down all others on the line, and that is why assembly lines require synchronized work. It requires a level of punctuality little known in agrarian societies. Today, with more free agents, more individuals working on all different schedules, time is more important, but exact punctuality matters less. We cannot discuss here the full social, cultural, psychological and economic implications of these shifts. What should be clear by now, however, is that with our key institutions out of sync with one another; with tensions between synchronization and de-synchronization rising; with hyperacceleration continuing; with the irregularization of time; with productivity less and less linked to time, while each interval of time is potentially worth more than the last; with humans capable of measuring, exploring and controlling shorter and shorter, as well as longer and longer, expanses of time, something truly historic is underway. We are revolutionizing humanity’s links to one of the deep fundamentals of wealth. That alone will transform our lives and those of our child. However, even that is not all. Now, among less affluent men, quitting school early and perhaps meeting discrimination in the better unions, or others obstacles to making something of ourselves, the more permitted and widely stimulated pleasures of the flesh can work as a deadly trap. For there is desire and opportunity for intimate passions at the same time as the older adolescent’s sense of personal worth is diminishing. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

Even when one does not feel like a man, one must act the man. This may come to the impotence of the unemployed or the self-disapproving alcoholic. If the desirable woman seems to choose “successful” fellows, or either it a young man has the convention that dating costs money, it is not helped. The contrary alternative is that pleasures of the flesh itself becomes a proof of manly worth, a form of conquest without lust or love, or not even conquest, but simply potency proving potency. For instance, young Navy sailors who on the ship are griping but docile children, on shore regard the women as their “pigs” and do not let themselves get “involved.” Among the Spanish less affluent, too, the tradition of macho, masculinity, that they have brought with them, seems to be especially a means of proof that a young man is not a contemptible boy. So in a historical sense, when one calls a man a “boy” to insult his manhood, this action may have led to generations machismo in men. On either alternative, one’s need for pleasures of the flesh can get a fellow into plenty of trouble. To get the money and be a success, one may steal. If one proves oneself by intimate passions, brutality of promiscuity will get one into scrapes over pleasures of the flesh. If pleasure of the flesh gets one into too much trouble, of it one’s doubt of potency is too strong, one may withdraw altogether, into gambling or being a tough guy, or passively into narcotics. The American South shared a double standard between men and women, but its unique society—European American and African America free, freed, and slave—so complicated the issue that it was played out quite differently, though the racial caste system shared some elements of the class divisions elsewhere. And because slavery was a legal institution, only after the Civil War abolished it was the race-muddled double standard even dented. Delicate as lilies, spotless as doves, polished as alabaster, fragile as porcelain—such creatures as these certainly belonged high up on a secure, untouchable pedestal. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

In the South, that was where, metaphorically, the antebellum European American women were stashed away. Their flesh-and-bloodedness was ignore, their intimate passions denied. “In Georgia,” one observer commented wryly, “a woman was not supposed to know she was a virgin until she ceased to be one.” European American female chastity was so prized that impugning it carried a monetary penalty; one smeared South Carolinian woman was awarded $1,000 from a defendant of modest means. Southern gentlemen seducers, despite the oxymoronic term, were deemed guilty primarily of betraying their society’s moral code, while their victims were blamed for the actual seduction. Certainly a seduced woman would pay the price of a ruined life with no remission for subsequent blameless conduct. So far, business as usual—the double standard nicely trimmed and flying at full staff. However, in the America South, slavery and racism contributed their special leaven, imposing double standard upon double standard. The tension here was not merely between European America men and African American men, but between European American men and African American women, and European American women and African American men. (African American men and African American women pursued their own paths, following remembered West African standards and pitting themselves as best they could against European American men’s intimate predations.) European American men, whose own women were supposedly brushing Heaven atop the proverbial pedestal of chastity, had no compelling reason for purity in pleasures of the flesh. Unlike the Cheyenne, for example, who bound their women into chastity belts, then remained celibate as well, the Southerner turned his lost on captive women without means to resist him. One British visitor put it nicely: “The men of the South especially are more indelicate in their thoughts and tastes than any European people; and exhibit a disgusting mixture of prudery and licentiousness combined…one of the effects of the system of slavery, and the early familiarity with vicious intercourse to which it invariably leads.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

In fact, the mixed-race population of the American South was almost exclusively the product of European American men and African America women relationships, though a few less affluent European American women opposed society’s norms and had intimate passions with or married African American men. Miscegenation, the inelegant and condemnatory term for interbreeding accounted for 4 to 8 percent of all slave births during the 1850s. One Louisiana planter commented that no pretty African American woman in the state could escape being a European American man’s concubine. (This phenomenon was less widespread in the other slave states.) It was essential, however, for the liaison to be secret or at least discreet. Kentucky politician Richard Johnson, who during the 1820s and 1830s unwisely lived with, loved, and educated the daughters he had with his mulatto housekeeper, Julia Chinn, could make no headway in Southern Democratic politics because of his “scorn of secrecy.” Usually, the offspring of African American women and African European American men were simply treated as slaves, for the child of a slave inherited his mother’s legal status. Some were freed and cared for, but far more simply served in lighter-skinned bondage. Plantation mistress Mary Boykin Chestnut lamented in her journal: “God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system, a wrong and an iniquity! Like the patriarchs of old, our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines; and the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the European American children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody’s household but her own. Those, she seems to think, drop from the clouds.” The legacy of slavery died a slow death. The Southern double standard, coupling as it did with European American female chastity and European American male lasciviousness, meant people of African American heritage and European American heritage had radically different personal experiences. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

European American women had to preserve their chastity at all cost, all the while aware their men were indulging in intimate passions with other women, often without bothering even to conceal their infidelities. Many African American women had to deal with both their own men and with European American men. Many successfully fought off unwanted attention, and some African American men died defending their women. The high rate of miscegenation, however, is proof that slavery empowered European men at the expense of everyone else. Contemplating this, as millions did prior to the Civil War, led to a scarifying question: What if African American men were to turn their sights to God and the law forbid!—European American women? What if, as the pro-slavery folks often demanded of the abolitionists, an African American man wished to marry a European American man’s daughter? Some believed that people where so outraged by slavery, that young European American women would feel sympathy for an African American man and would be more likely to find one attractive and want to marry him. Therefore, the abolition of slavery would hasten the end of this situation some saw as intolerable and liberate vulnerable European American women as well as slaves. In fact, this was one of the abolitionists’ strongest counterarguments to slavery defenders’ fears about rampaging African American men in the prime of their lives. The abolitionists’ other strategy was to shore up their own morality through strict adherence to the tenets of Moral Purity, from suppressing lust to dampening their physical appetites with bland concoctions of Graham flour. (Many were fanatical believers in the flour’s properties of moral purification, through one felt it improved only his toilet habits.) The abolitionists yearned to eradicate not merely the double standard of slavery, in which different-hued men and women were unequal, but also the double standard and the grievous humiliation and jealousy it caused them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

Of course, enough men practiced prolonged celibacy, and it was documented that it caused various health problems. Some of consequences of celibacy were: irritable state of the testes, headaches, malaise, etcetera, and from nocturnal emissions. Many men had become prudes. However, African American men were still deemed a lustful threat and European American women had to adhere to enforced celibacy before married and after becoming a widow. Prior to the 1880s, lynch mobs were often equal-opportunity killers, stringing up African American and European American alike. About 80 percent of the victims were African American males. Castration was also common. In the Southern states between 1882 and 1930, an estimated 2,805 African American men died from lynching. Not only did the abolition of slavery fail to crush the South’s double standard, it may even have intensified it. There are classes of differences; but through all classes, it is hard to grow up when the general social attitude toward intimate passions is inconsistent and unpredictable. (It is hard to exist as an adult too.) In this respect our society is uniquely problematical. Broadly speaking, there are three universally widespread and incompatible attitude toward behaviour dealing with intimate passions, and two of these are inconsistent in themselves. In the ideal theory and practice, pleasures of the flesh are one of the important natural functions and the attitude toward it ranges from permissive to enthusiastic. Yet there are puzzling inconsistencies. What applies to brother does not apply to sister, though every girl is somebody’s sister. What is affirmed and tacitly condoned, must still not be done overtly. For instance, although all Serious Thought is agreed on the simple natural function and there are colourful little abstract treatises for children, it is inconceivable for a publisher to print a sober little juvenile story about one’s self-love. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

Most public spokesmen are for a “healthy frankness” in dealing with intimate details of one’s private business, but the public schools are run quite otherwise. In an example, a high school science teacher employed the bright-idea project of tabulating the class’s habits involving pleasures of the flesh as an excise in fact finding. This got him into terrible hot water, and the School Board carefully explained, “What we teach is human reproduction, much as we discuss the functions of the human eye or ear,” that is, without mentioning light or sound, colour or harmony, or any other act or relation. The treatment of sexuality in the popular culture and the commodities and advertising is less puzzling: it is to maximize sales. Existing lust is exploited and as far as possible there is created an artificial stimulation, with the justified confidence that the kind of partial satisfactions obtainable will involve buying something: cosmetics, sharp clothes, art magazines, dating entertainment. And since, for very many people, lust is at present accompanied by embarrassment, shame, and punishment, these too are exploited as much as possible. I do not think there is here any inconsistency. One simply goes along with the widespread melodramatic fantasy of lust and punishment. Exempli Gratia, the public sentiment for form Mayor Kevin Johnson beating someone nearly to death because he hit him in the face with a pie, 70 percent, expressed itself with terrifying frequency in sadistic, pornographic, and vindictive language: the plays of Tennessee Williams are the deep poetry of these people. If the popular culture tired to be factual, analytical, or compassionate, it would be inconsistent. However, there is an absolute incompatibility between this sexuality of popular culture and the ideal theory and practice of the “simple natural function.” If we ask, however, what is acceptable public behaviour in the neighborhoods or with the neighbors, the confusion is baffling. There are islands of contradictory practice, even though these may have the identical Culture and almost the same Thought. Youth pleasing themselves may be smiled on or ignored, or they may be barred from one’s home, or they may be arrested as delinquent. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

Among the boys, themselves, up to the age of thirteen mutual self-pleasure is a wicked thrill, but after thirteen it is queer and absolutely to be inhibited. Adolescent couples must pet or it is felt that something is wrong with them; but “how far?” If they can get away with it or they absolutely must not, sometimes they may become involved in pleasures of the flesh. You admire and speak to strange girls on the street, it is flattering and shows spirit; or you may not, it is rude and threatening. However, if you whistle at them while you huddle in your own group, that is a bully. You may pet in public like the French; you may not pet in public, it is disgusting; you may on the beach but not on the grass. Among the boys, to boast of actual or invented prowess is acceptable, but to speak soberly of a love affair or a problem involving pleasures of the flesh in order to be understood is strictly taboo; it is more acceptable among girls. It is assumed that older teenagers are experienced and sophisticated, but they are legal minors who must not be corrupted. More important, any relation between an older teenaged girl and a man even in his twenties, or between an older teenaged boy and an experienced woman, is shocking or ludicrous, though this is the staple of education involving educational material that relates to pleasures of the flesh among the civilized. Society is not as sterile as it used to be and this type of education might almost be illegal to teach in schools today, but the youth need to know what to be careful of and how to react to what are now “normal” situations. Nonetheless, in this tangle of incompatible and inconsistent standards, one strand is sure and predictable: that the law will judge by the most out-of-date, senseless, and unpsychological conventions, even though it is against the consensus of almost every family in the neighborhood and the confessional attitude of the parish priest. They will arrest you for nude bathing a mile away on a lonely beach. (But this tendency to maintain the moral-obsolete is, of course, in evitable in our kind of democracy. A legislator may believe what one pleases, but how can one publicly propose the repeal of a statute against sin?) #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

I am describing again an interrupted revolution, the so-called Sexual Revolution, which Dr. Freud started. And as you see, looking back from Victorian times to 2022, pleasures of the flesh are just exploding into our everyday life. It is all some adults talk about. It is on the TV, in the magazine, talked about at work and school. Because of this revelation, purity movement and chastity have been ripped to shreds, which is why statutory laws have become so strict. Because many youths cannot protect themselves, and some parents will not, the law has to do it and they are extremely strict. It is so strict that for self-protection some men choose to be celibate. No one wants to end up in a situation like Kobe Bryant, Henry Rollins, or Shia LaBeouf. We see again how the organized system of production and sales manages to profit by the confusion of the interruption, whereas a finished revolution would be economically a dead loss, since good satisfaction in intimate passions costs nothing, it needs only health and affection. Now, the cluster of “dramatic” personality disorders include antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders. The behaviours of people with these problems are so dramatic, emotional, or erratic that it is almost impossible for them to have relationships that are truly giving and satisfying. These personality disorders are more commonly diagnosed than the others. However, only the antisocial and borderline personality disorders have received much study, partly because they create so many problems for other people. The causes of the disorders, like those of the odd personality disorder, are not well understood. Treatments range from ineffective to moderately effective. The violence and vice of our times are the direct consequences of the irreverence and materialism of our times. When humans who have spent their whole lives harbouring destructive ideas are given a constructive teaching, they are naturally impermeable and unreceptive to it. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

There are materialists who are impatient at hearing philosophic truths and even irritated by them. Such person may even become quite violently abusive. This happens because they have completely lost their capacity to practise calm unprejudiced abstraction thinking, and because they have crushed the feeling of veneration before something higher or nobler than themselves—whether it be a beautiful landscape or God. The hard, almost callous, insensitivity of so many moderns, their sceptical, contemptuous, sarcastic, and conceited attitude when confronted with the finer and subtler things of life, show how deeply atheism, or materialism, has eaten into their souls, how ignorant they are of the higher laws of governing life. We naturally and normally shrink from entering into the study of spiritual mysteries, so materialized have we become. Humans are more miserable, more restless and unsatisfied than ever before, simply because half one’s nature—the spiritual—is starving for true food, and the other half—the material—is fed with bad food. Whilst so many are obsessed by materialistic outlooks, it is inevitable that they should lose the moral sense and commit blunder after blunder and consequently suffer distress after distress. Yet of the worst result of these obsessions, they are not even aware. And that is, to live so remote from their own inner core of divinity as to miss the most worthwhile values and meanings of life itself. Without knowledge of these higher laws, humans blunder into sin and suffering. With the increased power to hurt others which the advances of science have brought them, the need of this knowledge has become acute. For the fear and hate which they have brought over from their animal phase of evolution will still motivate the use of this power. The search for truth is impossible in a society where freedom of thought is forbidden, where public activity on behalf of mystical truth is totally forbidden and on behalf of religious truth progressively throttled. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

It was not a moralist or religionist, but an economist—J.M. Keynes himself—who looked back on life and confessed that “in truth, it was the Benthamite Calculus, based on over-valuation of the economic criterion, which was destroying the quality of the popular ideal. Higher values vanish, morals disappear, and character becomes baser when shallow atheism replaces superstition and imposture masquerades as religious faith. Their faith in a higher purpose of life having failed, it is not long before the labor of correcting and purifying human nature will seem unnecessary. The suffering which people have gone through has not awakened them sufficiently, and spiritually people have even declined. This is a grave problem everywhere, and has its roots in a materialistic obsession with merely external life. The worth or worthlessness of a materialistic attitude towards life will come out not only in dealing with the ordinary questions and everyday problems but much more in special difficulties, emergencies, and crises. The danger today is that most humans are not only unaware of their true relation to Nature, but also obsessed by their deceptive materialistic illusion about it. The very sense of an inner lack which exists in so many people today, is itself a recognition of their spiritual deficiency. A World without meaning, a life without purpose—this is the miserable consequence of materialism! We hope that even children and homes do not become disposable. The number of awakened individuals must be compared with the number who still remain asleep in ignorance and materialism. Then it will be realized how greatly the latter rules humanity. One of the biggest geographical shifts of wealth in history is now taking place. Wealth, as never before, is on the move. Just as we are changing our relationship to time, we are also changing our relationships to the deep fundamental of space—the places where wealth is created, the new criteria by which we choose these places and the way we are linking them together. The result is a period of spatial turbulence. This increasing “wealth mobility” will affect the future of jobs, investment, business opportunities, the structure of companies, the location of markets and the daily lives of ordinary people all over the World. It will determine the fate of cities, countries and whole continents. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

Cresleigh Homes

Welcome Home to Havenwood Residence one! ☀️ Space is definitely a theme in this home, welcoming all with an open great room, dining and kitchen that is a delight for entertaining.

Arranged with light, bright living space, this home is nestled in the city of Lincoln, it truly is the perfect location to call home.

This gorgeous, private, low-maintenance backyard is inviting all year round for an evening hosting or a day in the sun.

Head on over to the blog to learn more now! Link in bio. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/residence-one/
Time Belongs to God Alone and it is Worth More than Money

The person who does not read good books has no advantage over the person who cannot read them. The American Airlines 757 airplane was approaching the Rocky Mountains on a flight from Boston to Los Angles when a passenger called Michael Tighe’s, arm and head, suddenly lurched into the aisle. His wife, a nurse, who was sitting alongside him, immediately knew something terrible was about to happen. Mr. Tighe’s heart had begun beating erratically, failing to send an adequate blood supply to his brain. Mr. Tighe, sixty-two, was at the edge of death when flight personnel appeared with a laptop-sized device. Attaching electrical leads to his body, they shocked him—once, twice, several times—and literally brought him back to life, making him the first person to be saved in-flight by a defibrillator. It has been installed on the plane only two days earlier. Like the human heart, societies and economics, too, are subject to premature beats, local tachycardias, fibrillations and flutters, as well as “chaotic” irregularities and paroxysms. While this had long been true, the uneven, ever accelerating pace of change and continual de-synchronization that comes with it may now be pushing us toward temporal incoherence—without a defibrillator on board. When our institutions, companies, industries, and economy are out of sync with one another, what happens to us as individuals? If we are, indeed, running faster and panting harder, where will it end? How did we get chained to time and speed in the first place? Start here with a point made earlier that in less affluent societies, ancient China or feudal Europe for example, people were not generally paid hourly wages. As slaves, serfs or sharecroppers, they typically received or kept some fraction of what they actually produced. Work time, as such, did not directly translate into money. Add to that the facts that weather, the limitations of human and animal energy, and extremely primitive technology all set upper limits on human productivity, no matter how many hours a less affluent family might work. The result was a relationship to time remarkably different from our own. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

As late as the fourteenth century in Europe, according to French historian Jacques Le Goff, clerics were sill preaching that time belong to God alone and therefore must not be sold. Selling work for time was almost as bad as usury—the selling of money for interest. And as far as the fifteenth-century Franciscan monk Bernardino of Siena was concerned, humans were not even supposed to know how to tell time. The industrial revolution changed all that. Fossil fuels and factories smashed the agrarian limitations on human productivity. Clocks and watches made it possible to monitor and measure time more accurately. And how long or fast you worked did make a difference. Second Wave employers, in hopes of maximizing output, sped up assembly lines of paid piecework to squeeze additional muscle power from workers. And based on the “time is money” formula, factory workers came to be paid by the hour. Which explains why the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics still typically measures “labor productivity” in terms of output per hour. The early modernizers went further, forging another link in the chain that inextricably bound wealth to time. The New World gradually did away with traditional anti-usury laws and legitimized interest payments based on time. This was ultimately followed by a vast expansion of other time-based payments by consumers, corporations and, above all, governments. In this way, the pricing of labor and the pricing of money both became increasingly based on time. Introduced separately and gradually, these twin changes were momentous. They meant that the same individual as worker, as consumer, as borrower, lender and investor became chained to time as never before. Workers grumbled about the rat race. Artists, writers and filmmakers satirized it, as did Fritz Lang in his scenes of workers and clocks in his amazing film Metropolis (1927) and Charlie Chaplin in his classic Modern Times (1936). However, the chains of time only tightened over the years as punch clocks and time-based Taylorite. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

Temporal incoherence is often seen in modern times because of globalization and international business. With countries like China being 13 hours ahead of America, it means in most cases they are often a day ahead. And while we are sleeping, they are waking up. So some business people will need to be up at 1am or 2am to do deals with China and prepare to get their projects in a day ahead to make sure they are delivered on the day expected. With everything moving at rapid pace, Americans needs to sometimes be ahead one or two days, so this often means there are no weekends, it is just a constant cycle of business everyday of the month. Nonetheless, even today some employers in call centers and factory-style offices equipped with the latest Third Wave technologies continue to use Second Wave methods of management. Counting an employee’s keystrokes or calls per hour, they apply the traditional speed-up methods of the old-line textile mill or auto assembly line. The pace of life—not just at work—is in for a jolting further acceleration. Acceleration has clicked into ultra-drive and an avalanche of words has been devoted to elaborations by others. An entire new vocabulary of terms—“twitch speed,” “hurry sickness,” “time deepening,” “Internet time,” “digital time,” “time famine”—reflects the accuracy of that early forecast. Today millions feel harassed, stressed out and “future shocked” by the compression of time. London’s Evening Standard reports the unsurprising arrival of therapists who specialize in helping “rushaholics” to slow down. We hate to wait. The epidemic of attention deficit disorder among American kids may be chemical rather than cultural in origin, but it perfectly symbolized the growing refusal today to defer gratification as the future speeds up. However, if businesses necessarily want instance gratification, faster and larger returns and even automated services to reduce conversation and speed up transactions, why do we blame kids for wanting the same? However, this chemical reaction combined with the loss of patients due to having anything and everything at one’s fingertips has created a perfect formula for addictive tendencies and poor impulse control. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

The inability to control impulses leads to short term pleasure and reduces the ability to reach one’s highest potential. One recommendation is that when you do give in to instant gratification for something, spend time reflecting on how it made you feel and whether you want to make decisions that way in the future. Yet also remember the demand for instant gratification is everywhere. Consumers expect to find the services, products, and information that they want quickly and easily. As it stands, 60 percent of women say they do not have enough free time and 60 percent feel guilty for spending the free time they have on themselves. Around the World, multi-tasking and multi-focus replace single-minded concertation as an entire generation grows up in a culture and an economy moving from sequential to simultaneous processing. Even when some people have a long-term injury or sickness, they are still training themselves and focusing on a project like it is their job because no one knows what the future holds, so it is best not to set around like a vegetable, you have to train yourself for something and keep your mind sharp so you can participate in intelligence conversations. If and when you recover, people will be impressed by how much you know and the ways you can contribute to conversations and projects. This may give you an advantage over others who have more experience and a better education on paper. A lot of people like to hire people based out how they feel about a person because when you can see someone is knowledge able, trustworthy, possesses important skills, and are loyal, that is the type of person you want to take a risk on. Corporations are not faceless giants, behind that name are several people who have staked lot of money, in hopes of making more. And if you see intelligent and are business friendly, that will go a long way. However, it is also good to make sure you are truly ready for paid labor, because a physically or mentally unprepared employee can cost a firm hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars if they breakdown. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

People are all processing more and more input at faster and faster rates and are bored with anything they regard as slow, so that is important to keep in mind. A person can get approved for a mortgage, car loan, credit card, or personal loan within seconds. They can find out the results of medical examinations, with detailed results in minutes. All these pressures for speed explain why a covey of “time management” consultants and shelfload books offer advice on how to reschedule our days and relate time to our personal priorities. Yet all this advice scarcely touches on the less obvious reasons for the speed-up of life. Several forces have been converging to drive the acceleration needle off the gauge. The 1980s and ‘90s saw a global shift toward liberal economics and hypercompetition. Combine that with the eighteen-month rate of semiconductor-chip power and you get near-instantaneous financial transactions. (Currency traders can find out about a trade within two hundred milliseconds of its completion.) Put differently, behind all of these pressures is the historic move to a wealthy system whose chief raw material—knowledge—can no move at nearly real-time speed. We live at a pace so hyper that the old law that “time is money” needs revision. Every interval of time is now worth more than money than the last one because, in principle if not in practice, more wealth can be created during it. In turn, all this changes our personal relationship to the deep fundamental of time. In yesterday’s work World, time was packaged in standard lengths. “Nine-to-five” became the template for millions of U.S. workers. Half an hour or an hour for lunch were the norm, along with so many days of holiday time. Labor contracts and federal laws made overtime expensive for employers and discouraged deviance from standard time packages. These standard time packages spread from the factory throughout the rest of life as well. Paralleling the factory, virtually all industrial-age offices also set fixed, standardized schedules. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

Schools, meanwhile, prepared future generations of factory workers by submitting children to a similar time discipline. In America, kids in their conspicuous yellow buses were unwittingly being prepared to commune to work on time. Inside, the school bells rand and the children were (and still are) marched through a sequence of standard-length classes. By contrast, today’s emergent economy, for which those schoolchildren are being misprepared, runs on radically different temporal principles. It is, we are fragmenting yesterday’s standard time packages as we shift from collective time to customized time. Put differently, we are moving from impersonalized to personalized time in parallel with the moves toward personalized products and markets. Now, consider some incidents of pleasures of the flesh and marriage in a more “privileged” and more “underprivileged” situation. For the first, we can return to the remarkable boom in early marriages and child bearing occurring especially among the economically privileged who previously would have married late. No doubt this has been partly due to the war and the Cold War, clinging to life and clutching to something safe in an era of anxiety. However, it seems to be also partly a strong reaction to drift toward formlessness which these young persons could observe in their own parents. These young-marrying, contemporaries or juniors of the Hipster Generation, have often expressed themselves as follows: “My highest aim in life is to achieve a normal healthy marriage and raise healthy [non-neurotic] children.” On the face of it, this remark is preposterous. What was always taken as a usual and advantageous life-condition for work in the World and the service of God, is now regarded as an heroic goal to be striven for. Yet we see that it is a hard goal to achieve against the modern obstacles. Also it is a real goal, with objective problems that a human can work at personally, and take responsibility for, and make decisions about—unlike the interpersonal relations of the corporation, or the routine of the factory job for which the worker could not care less. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

However, now, suppose the young man is achieving this goal: he has the wife, the small kids, the suburban homes, and the labor-saving domestic devices. How is it that it is the same man who uniformly asserts that he is in a Rat Race? Either the goal does not justify itself, or indeed he is not really achieving it. If marriage and children are the goal, perhaps the truth is a man cannot really achieve it. It is not easy to conceive of a strong husband and father who does not feel justified in his work and independent in the World. Correspondingly, if he is running a Rat Race, his wife feels justified in the small children, but does she have a man, do the children have a father? Into what World do the small children grow up in such a home? If its personnel are married and have homes responsibilities, it is advantageous to the smooth function of the organized system. (Exempli gratia, it is much harder for them to act up and quit.) However, the smooth functioning of the organized system may not be advantageous to the quality of marriage and the fatherhood. It is a troubling picture. On the one hand, early marriage is excellent and promising, especially in the probable case that both the young people have had experience in pleasures of the flesh and could have others, and they have chosen the marriage as a reasonably steady and jealousy-free alternative. And having children early is admirable, rather than delaying for the empty reasons that middle-class people used to give. On the other hand, to take on such early responsibilities indicates an early resignation: the marriage seems partly to be instead of looking ambitiously for a worth-while career. If the highest aim in life is to achieve a normal marriage and raise healthy children, we can understand the preoccupation with Psychology, for the parents do not have much activity of their own to give rules to the family life. The thousands of happy marriages, then, have the touching dignity of evangelical tracts, as is indeed their tone; they teach how to be saved, and there is no other way to be saved. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

On the children is lavished an avalanche of attention. They cannot possibly reward so much attention, and the young father, at least, soon gets pretty bored and retires to his Do-It-Yourself. Now it used to be said that middle-class parents frustrate the children more, to meet high standards, but the frustration is acceptable because it leads to an improved status, esteemed by the children; the lower classes, on the contrary, are more permissive; nor would the discipline be accepted, because the father is disesteemed. What then is the effect, in the ranch houses, if the discipline is maintained, because the standard is high, but the status is disesteemed, first by the father himself, who talks cynically about it; then by the mother, who does not respect it; then by the growing children? Is it possible to maintain and pass on a middle-class standard without belief in its productive and cultural mission? I wonder if we are not here describing the specific genesis of a Hipster Generation: young men who cannot break away from the father who has been very good to them, but who simply cannot affirm father’s values; and there are no other dominant social values to compensate. If this is the case, where now there are thousands of these young men, there will be hundreds of thousands. The organized system is the breeding ground of a Hipster Generation. Now, after the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, the moral pursuits and other reformers focused on the age of women of the evening. In England, the age of consent was far too early. Grown men eagerly sought out undeveloped girls, knowing they had nothing to fear from the law. Some were a class of men who are disgraced in every society because the mates they choose are far, far too young for anyone to consider, and this was because in many cases they wanted to protect themselves from diseases, which virgins did not carry. In consequence, a supply of very young girls, often spurious virgins, came onto the market to become women of the evening. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

The opposition to changing this was powerful and persistent. Many legislators were themselves unrepentant brothel habitues and resisted all efforts to modify the legislation. In 1875, they relented slightly and raised the age of consent to thirteen. Moral reformers saw this as a cynical reaffirmation of the double standard. Underclass women over the age of thirteen remained virtually unprotected, and men of all classes considered them fair game. For an entire decade, nothing changed while the spotlight was on the Contagious Diseases Acts. Then in 1875, the Herculean efforts of reformers and a crusading journalist named William Thomas Stead convinced the reluctant lawmakers to raise the age of consent to a more “acceptable” sixteen. Mr. Stead was the son of a Congregational minister and the doting father of six children. At the age of sixty-two, he went down on the Titanic, quietly reading in the first-class smoking room, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee on a doomed journey to a peace conference. In his prime, Stead used his editorship of The Pall Mall Gazette to research and expose flaws and inequalities in his society. His grandstanding journalistic campaign on behalf of ruined young girls was startlingly unorthodox. Frist, he found a London police officer willing to be quoted about how abysmally the law protected girls. When Mr. Stead inquired, “Is it or is it not a fact that, at this moment, if I were go to the proper [brothels] houses, well introduced, the keeper would, in return for money down, supply me in due time with a maid—a genuine article, I mean, not a mere women of the evening tricked out as a virgin, but a girl who had never been seduced?” The police source replied without a moment’s hesitation, “Certainly.” Having established the situation surrounding his issues, Mr. Stead proved his point in a manner that went far beyond investigative-reporting techniques. Through a brothel-keeper, he actually negotiated with certain Mrs. Armstrong, an alcoholic mother, to purchase her virginal daughter Eliza (a pseudonym for Lily), “a bright, fresh-looking little girl, who was thirteen years old last Christmas.” Mr. Stead and Mrs. Armstrong struck a deal, and Eliza was his for the price of five pounds. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

However, before he paid the entire sum, Mr. Stead had the girl’s virginity professionally certified by Madame Mourez, an abortionist/midwife, whose skills in pronouncing upon the physical evidences of virginity is generally recognized in the profession. After a brief examination, Madame Mourez issued a written certificate of virginity. She was even moved to exclaim to Mr. Stead, who she assumed was about to deflower young Eliza, “She is so small, her pain will be extreme. I hope you will not be too cruel with her.” With his certified virgin in tow, Mr. Stead stepped firmly off the path of acceptable journalistic practice and into a netherworld of quasi-criminality, morally justified, tactically sound, but legally indefensible. Mr. Stead instructed his brothel-keeping agent to take Eliza to a house of solicitation on Regent Street. There, despite her extreme youth, she was admitted without question, Mr. Stead reported. She was also undressed and put to bed, quieted with chloroform purchased from Madame Mourez, the abortionist, who had enthusiastically recommended it for deflowering virgins. Mr. Stead then entered Eliza’s room, closing and locking the door. Silence. Then, with a scream like the bleat of a frightened lamb,” the drowsy child, “in accents of terror, ‘There’s a man in the room! Take me home—oh, take me home!’” Eliza need not have worried. She was in no danger of being assaulted by physical force. She was merely the sacrificial lamb in Mr. Stead’s blazing crusade to reform the age-of-consent laws. Once his cautionary drama had been played out and documented, Mr. Stead arranged for Eliza’s passage out of merciless England to France. Then her sat down at his desk and penned his account of Eliza’s adventure. “The Maiden Tribute of Babylon” caused a sensation. “An Earthquake has shaken the foundations of England,” proclaimed the bishop of Truro. Ironically, Mr. Stead soon replaced Eliza as principle victim of the expose. He was charged, convicted, and condemned to three months in prison for exporting a minor without parental consent. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

Mr. Stead responded bitterly. “What else could one expect?” he declared, given that the very legislators he had hoped to prod into reform were themselves patrons of Mrs. Jeffries’s brothel in Chelsea or Berthe’s on Milton Street. Despite this, Mr. Stead’s revelations created an outpouring of public outrage, including a four-hundred-thousand-name petition that, unrolled, was two and a half miles long. The legislators, secret clients of brothels or not, caved in and raised the age of consent to sixteen. Though women over sixteen remained unprotected against predatory males, this legislation was nonetheless a heavy blow to England’s historically entrenched double standard. It is clear to see money is not the root of all evil. Today, hard-won laws in North America and much of Europe have established a measure of equality that has deeply eroded the most blatant manifestations of the double standard. Feminists of both genders keep vigilant watch to ensure the old ways of thinking, acting, and legislating do not creep back into use, at least in the law. However, even now, remnants linger on. Randy young men still sow their wild oats, but the girls they sow them with are often times unchaste, sometime chaste. Yet, the double standard is eroding, but chastity still bears a woman’s face. Now, while interviewing for the job of editor, Frederick said, “This may sound self-serving, but I am extraordinarily gifted. I am certain that I will do great things in this position, that I and the newspaper will soon set the standard for journalism in this city. The committee was impressed. Certainly, Frederick’s credential were strong, but even more important, his self-confidence and boldness had wowed them. A year later, many of the same individuals were describing Frederick differently—arrogant, self-serving, cold, ego-maniacal, draining. He had performed well as editor (though not as spectacularly as he seemed to think), but that performance could not outweigh his personality. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

Colleagues below and above him had grown weary of his manipulations, his emotional outbursts, his refusal every to take the blame, his nonstop boasting, and his grandiose plans. Once again, Frederick had outworn his welcome. To be sure, Frederick had great charm, and he knew how to make others feel important, when it served his purposes. Thus he always had his share of friends and admirers. However, in reality they were just passing through, until Fredrick would tire of them or feel betrayed by their lack of enthusiasm for one of his self-serving interpretations or grand plans. Or until they simply could take Frederick no longer. Bright and successful though he was, Fredrick always felt entitled to more than he was receiving—to higher grades at school, greater compensation at work, more attention from girlfriends. If criticized even slightly, he reacted with fury, and was certain that the critic was jealous of his superior intelligence, skill, or looks. At first glance, Frederick seemed to have a lot going for himself socially. Typically, he could be found in the midst of a deep, meaningful romantic relationship—one in which he might be tender, attentive, and seemingly devoted to his partner. However, Frederick would always tire of his partner within a few weeks or months and would turn cold or even mean. Often he started affairs with other women while still involved with the current partner. The breakups—usually unpleasant sometimes ugly—rarely brought sadness or remorse to him, and he would almost never think about his former partner again. He always had himself. Each of us has a personality—a unique and enduring pattern of inner experiences and outward behaviour. We tend to react in our own predictable and consistent ways. These consistencies, often called personality traits, may be the result of inherited characteristics, learned responses, or a combination of the two. Yet our personalities are also flexible. We learn from experience. As we interact with our surroundings, we try out various responses to see which are more effective. This is a flexibility that people who suffer from a personality disorder usually do not have. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

A personality disorder is an inflexible pattern of inner experience and outward behaviour. The pattern is seen in most of the person’s interactions, continues for years, and differs markedly from the experiences and behaviours usually expected of people. Frederick seems to display such a disorder. For most of his life, his narcissism, grandiosity, outburst, and insensitivity to others have been excessive and have dominated his functioning. The rigid traits of people with personality disorders often lead to psychological pain for the individual and social or occupational difficulties. The disorders also bring pain to others. Witness the upset and turmoil experienced by Frederick’s co-workers and girlfriends. Personality disorders typically become recognizable in adolescence or early adulthood, although some start during childhood. These are among the most difficult psychological disorders to treat. Many sufferers are not even aware of their personality problems and fail to trace their difficulties to their inflexible style of thinking and behaving. Approximately 9 to 13 percent of all adults may have a personality disorder. Disorders of long standing that usually start before adulthood may continue into adulthood. More acute disorders that often begin as a noticeable change in a person’s usual behaviour are, in many cases, of limited duration. People with avoidant personality disorder, who fearfully shy away from all relationships, may be prone to develop a social phobia. That is why, even though 64 percent of students, sometime in their grade school career want to be homeschooled or transferred, parents make them stay in the schools they are in so they can become social and confident adult. Another point while we are on the topic of school, detention is a really great program. If kids did not have responsibilities, did not have to play sports or work, for those performing below standards, think how much reward they would get from staying after school and reading a chapter they did not complete or finishing up a worksheet. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

Nonetheless, diagnoses of personality disorder can easily be overdone. We may catch glimpses of ourselves or of people we know in the descriptions of these disorders, and we may be tempted to conclude that we or they have a personality disorder. In the vast majority of instances, such interpretations are incorrect. The cluster of “odd” personality disorders consists of paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personality disorders. People with these disorders typically display odd or eccentric behaviors that are similar to but not as extensive as those seen in schizophrenia, including extreme suspiciousness, social withdrawal, and peculiar ways of thinking and perceiving things. Such behaviours often leave the person isolated. Some clinicians believe that these personality disorders are actually related to schizophrenia, and they call them schizophrenia–spectrum disorders. In support of this idea, people with these personality disorders often qualify for an additional diagnosis of schizophrenia of have close relatives with schizophrenia. Of course, such findings may simply reflect the difficulty of distinguishing these personality disorders from schizophrenia, rather than some kind of direct relationship between them. Clinicians have learned much about the symptoms of the odd personality disorders but have not been so successful in determine their causes or how to treat them. In fact, people with these disorders rarely seek treatment. Now, what the scientists have done with atomic energy is to destroy the atom, the stud which God made and used to make the Universe. They have released destructive forces into the World and degenerative forced along with them among humankind. Even the peaceful commercial use of nuclear energy in reactor-installations brings these evils among us and the precautionary safeguards fail to overcome them. Human intellect, when not balanced by intuitive feeling and when directed by one’s wild and egoistic impulses, can only lead one to self-destruction in the end. In total sense, this will not be permitted by the World-Mind. Therefore, its course will be hindered and on oneself restrained as soon as the time is appropriate. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

The physical starvation or privation which afflicts so many millions in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas is deplorable but the spiritual starvation or moral degeneration which afflicts many more is really a worse evil. This idea may seem strange, even repulsive, to most people. For its truth can become evident only after carefully thinking out the causes and consequences of both situations, although it is evident in a flash to those who have enough intuitive insight. There is a grimmer prospect than overpopulation. By destroying their home, humans as a species are destroying themselves, not to mention animals and plants who will pass with them. If this planet dies a new one will be born, yes, but one will carry the moral guilt. In an unsympathetic society, what is deep in a human heart may be deliberately denied expression and not allowed to come out. The large cities have become large blots on humankind’s inner life and outer health. They are marvels of ingenious arrangements but monstrosities of nervous strain and psychoneurosis. Their inhabitants follow an artificial existence under the delusion that it is human existence. Everything within them is abnormal yet custom and cowardice, ignorance and selfishness have proclaimed it normal. The air is filled with chemical poisons by travelling vehicles and factories and industrial plants. Their water flows through miles and miles of sediment-lined pipes. Their food is stale, devitalized, adulterated, and often disease-breeding. The unnatural living and high tension of millions of city-prisoned people exposes them to physical and nervous sickness. It becomes harder with each year for the inhabitants of modern London or modern New York to achieve this gentle receptiveness to intuitive spiritual moods. If its industrial constructions have turned wandering streams into foul gutters, green fields into filthy slums, and pleasant valleys into mean joyless streets, science had not served the World. Worse is the poisoned air and food, the mechanized worker. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

In destroying woods and forests, in building over glades and dells, humans have been destroying one of their principal resources of spiritual welfare. The message which their loveliness and silence could give is lost; the benefit to feeling and thought is not received. Battlement in the face of the World problem produces inertia and paralyses initiative. We are all suffering the evil effects of dispersed radioactivity even now. The dosage is mall but cumulative, worsening with every year that passes. An exhausted people may become too tired to believe in anything or to hold on to principles, may live from moment to moment in weary opportunism. Despite delusions about their progress in conquering Nature all humans are still controlled by Nature’s higher laws. Violation of those laws always brings suffering but the present-day violation will bring disaster. An ethically blinded World may not perceive the actuality and factuality of Universal Law. However, there is no other God pulling historic stings than the Universal Laws of retribution and re-adjustment. And let us not forget that this destiny is not an arbitrary tyrannical power; it is self-earned by the nations as by individuals and thus self-called into operation. The sufferings it brings to peoples are really the reactions of their own near or remote deeds. They are visited by the consequences of their own making. Universal Laws work on their own time to set straight all crooked things, not in ours. Nevertheless we can sometimes see it move quickly enough to teach a vivid lesson both to those who suffer its consequences and those who observe that suffering. Because sufficient people were unable or unwilling to learn the proper lessons of the first World War, they had to suffer the consequences of this failure in a worse form—the second World War. If the latter’s lessons are in turn also left unlearned, then those consequences will come in the worst possible form—a Third and Atomic World War. When a civilization becomes so mechanized or brutalized or sensualized or materialized as to be quite insensitive to the higher values of life, it invokes its own slow passing away or abrupt disappearance. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

When we are aware of the Earth’s processes, seeing ourselves as parts of a whole, we learn to let go of the need to control life. We are reminded to accept the inevitable cycles of green and dry, birth and death, cold and warm, emptiness and fullness, light and dark, that characterize the events and activities of our daily life. Use this energy to achieve magically and create mentally whatever specific physical or mental objective one is aspired to. It becomes a vehicle of sacred consecration of spiritual force. Our prayers remind us of our role in shaping not only our physical existence but our human consciousness as well. Just as the spring has been celebrated for tens of thousands of years as the point of fertility, as when nature displays its beauty to bring about the conception of life, so too our own life has its birthing seasons. As a newborn babe, I can stand on my wobbly legs in the new World, wash the new body that has just been so tenderly born from a lifetime labor, and walk to stand before the bright sun. O Lord of hosts, happy is the human that trusts in Thee. Though I am fallen, I shall raise again, though I dwell in darkness, Thou art my light. Thou art my lamp, O Lord, Thou dost illumine my darkeness. My heart is not turned away, neither have my steps departed from Thy path. In earthquake and storm, I shall not fear, though mountains be moved into the heart of the seas; though surging waters roar and foam, and mountains shake under the storm; though the fig tree may not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines; though the olive crop has failed, and the fields yield no food; though there be no flocks in the field, and no heard in the stalls; yet will I have faith in Thee, O Lord; I shall rejoice in the God of my salvations, for with Thee is the foundation of life; in Thy light we do see light. To have faith is to perceive the wonder that is here, and to be stirring by the desire to integrate the self into the holy order of living. Faith does not spring outside of nothing. It comes with the discovery of the holy dimension of our existence. We live by the certainty that we are not as dust in the wind, that our life is related to the ultimate, the meaning of all meanings. God’s existence can never be tested by human thought. All proofs are mere demonstrations of our thirst for Him. Does the thirsty human need a proof of one’s thirst? There is neither advance nor service without faith. Nobody can rationally explain why one should sacrifice one’s life and happiness for the sake of the good. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17


Let that sunshine pour in! It’s a stunning #Thursday and we’re so excited to be hosting guests in our #Havenwood home today!

There’s enough space for a crowd, but the thoughtfully designed floorplan works just as well for a small gathering. Best of all the worlds!

The eye-catching design is as stunning on the inside as it is on the outside. If you want to add more stylish, functional living space for all to enjoy, the upper-level loft is a popular choice.

No More Cold Eggs–Societies for the Reformation of Morals

How simple it is to see that all the worry in the World cannot control the future. Leaders set aside a portion of each day (even if it is only a matter of minutes) for quiet time devoted to prayer, meditation, imaging, or just daydreaming. Learn to value your time alone—when you value something you are keener to protect it. Humans who are wholly selfish, cunning, combative, ambitious, and unscrupulous represent the dark principle and become dangerous to society. Sentimentality is not spirituality. It is true we give our goodwill to all humankind, and so we give it to those who are the instruments of dark forces. However, that does not mean weakness or foolishness in our dealings with them. Life will teach them. Leave them alone. Brotherhood? No, be the thought far from me. They are Adam’s children—alas, yes, I well remember that, and never shall forget it; this rage and sorrow. However, they have gone over the dragons; they have quitted the Father’s house, and set up with the Old Serpent; till they return, how can they be brothers? They are enemies, deadly to themselves and to me and to you, till then; till then, while hope yet lasts I will treat them as brothers fallen insane. Those who have scientifically engaged in psychical research know that a psychological belt wherein a host of evil Earth-bound spirits are congregated surrounds this planet. Physical researchers are aware too that such obsessing entities become most active at night, as anyone may discover by watching the conduct of a possessed person. A human being can be infested astrally with psychic vermin as one can be with physical vermin. The wise human refuses to accept removable evils and avoidable sufferings. If one finds oneself brought by circumstances into the society of evil-minded people, the first step to self-protection should be to switch the mind instantly into remembrance of the witness-self and to keep it there throughout the period of contact. To turn inwards persistently when in the presence of such discordant persons is to nullify any harmful or disturbing effect they might otherwise have on our thoughts. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

This instant and unhesitating turning inward is also an effective method of insulating oneself against the currents of fear, despair, and weakness which misfortune often generates. If the student feels evil forces have attacked one from time to time, let one pray earnestly every day for self-purification and make the sign of the cross whenever one becomes aware of their presence, at the same time invoking the help of whatever power or personage one feels inspires one most. In times of terrible danger, one should stick to one’s faith in the divine power as a protective talisman. Whenever one is in difficulty, one should drop all fear and trouble temporarily from one’s mind and imagine oneself handing them over to one’s higher Self, thereby surrendering oneself to its will, help, and protection. When there is evidence of being obsessed by a spirit-entity, the only radical cure is exorcism. Unless one has the guidance of an actualized Christian, the following is suggested: First, one should try sleeping with a green-coloured night light burning throughout the night. It should be placed not more than eighteen inches from the bed. If this fails, then an ordinary non-coloured bulb may be substituted, thus giving a stronger light. The inconvenience of trying to sleep with the bedroom illuminated will only exist for a few days or a few weeks and will vanish as the eyes become accustomed to the new habit. It may even be averted by covering the eyes with a black silk bandage. In addition to this, one must pray, and combine this with creative meditation, wherein one actually pictures the freed condition desired during the night. One should also pray and meditate prior to retiring. One must learn to control one’s thoughts—deliberately driving out the memory of undesirable psychic experiences or of any individual possessing “evil powers.” One should take the protective words, “Jesus Christ, I am with You always” and repeat them to oneself, trying to realize their truth and meaning. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

The student who has got involved with sorcery or black magic must cut off every possible connection and communication with the source of evil. Then, one must destroy or get rid of any articles or writings in one’s possession coming from it. One must express repentance for one’s errors of judgment and pray for guidance in the future. One needs for such psychic encounters the faith, the courage, and the knowledge which may come with time and growth. One needs such an attitude as George Fox had when, thrust into a cell haunted by the ghost of men’s murderers, he exclaimed, “I told them if all the spirits and devils in hades were there, I was over them in the power of God, and feared no such thing.” One who is confronted with a choice of evils must call in the help of the higher power. Even trouble can be turned to self-educative uses, and some kind of benefit gained out of the experience. However, this can happen more easily and more quickly only if the willingness to learn is there, and only if a corresponding surrender of self is present. It is then that so-called evil is converted to so-called good. What Jesus Christ taught over two thousand years ago is still true—even more true, if that could be, for it has the proofs afforded by all history during that time: hatred cannot end by being returned, nothing will dissolve it save a generous and patient goodwill. A friend who has turned against you and become an enemy can be met in a better way. Instead of getting angry or resentful for one’s unkind words or actions, try to turn one over benevolently to the higher power. If you succeed in entering the Stillness for a period with your last thought being such a wish for one, this will be, in the end, more effective. It will make it possible for one’s attitude to be modified and for one’s own hurt feelings to calm down. The more you forget one in the Stillness, the better the result will be for both of you. Some religions associate grief with the evil principle, and therefore shun it. Summon the strength to refuse to receive other people’s negative opinions. Say plainly that they are certainly entitled to their views, but you would rather not discuss them and would prefer some other subject—providing it is optimistic. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

Instead of hating your enemy, and meeting punches with punches, one’s sin with your sin, try another way, Christ’s way. This involves real risk, moral courage, and mental flexibility. It requires willingness to endure and suffer for what is right, a trust in spiritual principle rather than in brute power. One is competent to deal with life who equips oneself to deal with its darker sides as well as with its brighter ones, with its difficulties and sufferings no less than with its joys and successes. We cannot ignore the spirit of our times without inviting failure, and we cannot despise it without inviting danger. We must need to face its reality. Throw out negative feelings, expel resentments against other persons, and one will be better and happier person. Every negative thought about others cut it out at once by a smile to yourself, looking at your higher Self dealing with it. At the heart of every atom of every Universe there is Spirit, divine and deathless. It is for this reason that any human society based upon its denial has no future and cannot survive. As long as humans exists, one will need to satisfy inner hunger, to find spiritual comfort, to receive holy communion, and to hear words of eternal truth. The sight of evil humans rising to power over stupid or stupefied masses has brought good human to despair. However, the Universe has room for both. It is a school for all and the outcome of its instruction is yet to be seen. It may well be that those who have banished the religious faith of childhood from their hearts and replaced it by the scientific scepticism of adulthood, followed by the political cynicism of maturity, will end by banishing hope, too. The perversity of humankind, the hypocrisy of its leaders, and the presence of materialistic society may well seem to justify it. Through ignorance of destiny’s laws and through weaknesses in one’s psychological being, humans create the conditions which must finally express themselves in violent conflict with one’s fellows. Most people have failed to recognize that the forces of destiny are back of these events. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Even the powerful impact of such stirring events as history has recorded in our times has not been enough to bring about this recognition. Yet they sense their own helplessness, although they do not understand that it is the very inevitability of their retribution from misusing the Universal Law which has made them feel this helplessness. Some humans radiate animosity as others radiate goodwill. The unfortunate members of the first class are victims of their own negative thinking. Those of us who have been born and brought up in democratic countries like England and the United States of America rightly resent the idea of living under oppressive dictatorship. Yet we tend to overlook the fact that even in such countries the State is itself becoming more and more formidably dictatorial as it becomes more and more centralized. Those of us who value individuality and freedom are coming into inner conflict with it—some of us even into outer conflict. Humans who are scarcely sane, who are either pathological cases or in need of psychological treatment, become heroes and leaders among the young. Confronted in actual firsthand experience by the terrors and errors, the tragedies and sufferings of these decades, the serious mind could lose its balance enough to declare life an unmitigated evil. The disciples of Materialism say that the execution of 3000-odd persons in the French Revolution was a small price to pay for the beneficial reforms which it brought about. However, only the philosopher can trace the line of connection between its hatred and violence and the Napoleonic wars which soon followed it, taking a half million French lives and hundreds of thousands wounded, mutilated, or crippled French bodies; these too must be added to the cost of hatred, the price of violence. Cunning criminals and brutal plotters have found whole nations willing to follow them. These sinister figures seek, and often get, key positions in politics, organized groups, etcetera, and from there manipulate the mass and use them as blind unwitting tools. If we are to report faithfully at all, when we examine the forces which are active in the heart of sick humanity today, we must report little hope for the patient’s future. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

Spiritual faith is stronger in a few individuals but weaker in the great masses. The future is bright for better machines yet dark for better morals. A moral awakening and religious renewal was hoped for. That, unfortunately, is not the situation which has actually developed. Humanity has suffered but has not been prepared enough by its sufferings to let the new spirit have entry into its heart. Nothing is gained by blinking at these facts. The end of the war did not bring that new spirit amongst humankind which is the prerequisite to a better era. The social, political, and economic structures now being erected will not succeed without it. It is a waste of time to enter any public activity which is foredoomed to defeat. This disadvantage of attempting to avoid sufficient consideration of these truths and of shutting one’s eyes to their consequences, is that the pleasanter time thereby gained is much more than offset by the immense worsening of the climax when it does come. Too many find their work boring, their careers futile, and their lives aimless. The result is spiritual torpor. In other times what they sought from drink or pleasures of the flesh, ambition or adventure, was happiness. However, in these times what they seek from them is—short of ending their lives (which is NOT recommended)—refuge from unbearable hopelessness and fatiguing uselessness. They must be uneasy whose hearts are spiritually empty but whose World is full of menace. The past has become a grave of buried hopes, the present a dulled waiting for better times, and the future a bitter blankness which will not bear contemplation. Just as the introduction of poisons into the human body harms it, so the introduction of unsuitable materials and forces into the Earth’s body will harm it too. Nature brings its own retribution to its dwellers for what they do to the planet. This applies just as much to the introduction of mental and psychical pollutions into the invisible atmosphere or aura. The magnetic relationship between the two Earth poles has been disturbed by the excessive amounts of radiation poured lately into space, with great weather disturbance as a result. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

A despondent outlook can be an effective obstacle to hearing the Overself’s voice. History, both ancient and modern, shows that there is much evil in humankind, that its stupefying effects leads not only to an unwillingness to listen to truth and an unreadiness to understand it, but also to a hostile malignity against it expressed through vituperation and opposition. Resistance to the spiritual forces and rejection of their message must lead in the end to the destructive penalties of which war, pestilence, and flood are instances. We have tried broadly to paint some of the background conditions that discourage patriotism: the lack of bona fides about our liberties, the dishonourable politics in the Universities, the irresponsible press, the disillusioning handling of the adventure in space, the inferior and place-seeking high officers of the State, the shameful neglect of our landscape and the disregard of community; later we shall speak of our trivial leisure which has no community meaning. However, besides these not usually mentioned background conditions, there are of course the persistent immediate uglinesses that everybody talks about and every child sees: the cases of graft, social injustice, stupid law, and injustice to persons. Yet in an important sense, these scandals do not discourage patriotism, so long as there is the feeling of a persistent effort against them. My guess is that more pride of country is engendered by one good decision, or even a good powerful dissenting opinion, of the at least traditional Supreme Court, than by billions of repetitions of the pledge of allegiance. Racial segregation and prejudice destroy community by definition, and we need not discuss them. Here again the revolution commenced in Jefferson’s time and recommenced by the abolitionists, went unfinished; and we have inherited the consequences. However, it is perhaps useful to point out again that, when there is prejudice, the community of the dominant class is equally destroyed. Some people, for instance, talk a blatant patriotism and a specious regionalism grounded in nothing but keep some groups of people marginalized. The result is that flag and cross have become contemptible in their own eyes. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Real regionalism, that finds its culture and satisfaction in its own geography and economy and can withstand the temptations of the national cash-nexus, has long ago succumbed to Madison Avenue, Hollywood, and Wall Street. Now that law and religion side against them, the groups who like to discriminate are manic with wounded conceit and intimate fear; their behaviour or integration should be referred not to the Attorney General but to the Public Health Service. All this has come banging down on the children as the battleground. Yet, paradoxically, among all young people it is perhaps just the young people are the ones who find life worth living these days, because something real is happening in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. (In some cities and towns, also, the children are thrown into a central position in the community crisis of exclusion and prejudice, but sometimes as peacemakers. Here is an interesting architectural example. It has become common to use the new centralized school building as the community building for meetings and recreation. One reason is economy. However, another reason that is given is that the school is the one community function that brings together the otherwise discordant elements in the neighbourhood, so maybe the adults can get together in the school. It is a curious situation when the grownups have to rely on the children to make sense for them and when the school building is the chief community building. However, it is better than nothing.) Deep in the organized system itself there has been an important new effort toward community. The postwar boom in young marriages and the sensational rise in the urban birth rate that for the first time promises to surpass the rural birth rate, have been accompanied by the moving of affluent workmen to suburban projects and of the middle status to ranch houses. These new settlements devote time and energy to common interest. Do they do anything for local patriotism? They are communities for small children, one to five, and for women as the mothers of small children. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

These are the groups in society unequivocally benefited by high production, full employment, and the high standard of living. They thrive on animal security. Labour-saving devices make the World of the infants much pleasanter. Morally and vocationally, there is no question that having and caring for the children is justified work for the mothers, necessary, honoured, and using good human capacities. Women have real jobs, and men are likely to be certified public accountants or politicians. Today, when so many work in the Rat Race, few would deny that this is correct. So now men too try earnestly to devote themselves to the small ones as a secondary but real career. This is called the New Fatherhood. The child World, in the suburbs and surrounding country, and somewhat less in the city, is the best that small children have had in modern times. The new psychology of belonging is feeble stud, but the new psychology of infant care has been radical: no toilet training, permissive thumb sucking and so forth, free crying and movement, exposure to the grownups’ bare skin, honest answers to questions. The new medicine gets them quickly over the usual diseases (though there is debate about the later consequences). The school system as a whole is poor, but the nursery schools are often first-rate, progressive, and have intelligent and dedicated young teachers. It is said that children’s toys and games are excellent, practical and imaginative, up to the age of six, when the commercial criteria of the eleven-billion-dollar market begin to operate. For the adults, the improvement of this child’s World results in genuine community participation, committee meetings and lectures on psychology, concern for traffic and zoning, and even extension courses in cultural subjects to create the proper atmosphere for growing up. It seems astonishing, given so much active participation, that these community activities have not much developed into other important political and social action. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

However, courage gives out at the political issues relevant to age six. The sponsorship and control of the organized system are everywhere apparent. (For instance, in a recent agitation that has prevented some marginalized groups from moving into Deerfield, a suburb of Chicago—average income per person $93,026.91-$103, 363.24—an “attractive young married couple” explained that most of their friends had most of their money tied up in their houses: “We do not expect to live in them very long. Some of the junior execs expect to become seniors and move to the real North Shore, and a lot of us will be transferred all over the United States of America. When this happens, we want to be sure our houses have resale value.” The spiritedness of this speaks for itself.) Unfortunately, when the adults devote themselves thus to the child’s World, there is not much World for the child to grow up into in the next stage. For Father to guide his growing son, it is necessary for him to have a community of his own and be more of a man. In the circumstances this is difficult. However, if there is no big environment, there are no grounds for patriotism. The corporations, however, have now entered into this arena too, to organize the next stage of growing up. This is the meaning, surely of the publicity that has been trumped up for the Little League, the baseball teams of subteen-agers sponsored and underwritten by various business firms. What value the Little League has as play, I do not know, I have not watched games. The high-pressure advertising has been violently denounced by the older sports writers as giving kids an unsportsmanlike taste for publicity. As a school of rulemaking, responsibility, and impersonality, the Little League certainly cannot compare with the free games of the street, but we saw that these have been passing away. Economically, however, the function of the Little League is clear-cut: it is child labour, analogous to ten-year-olds picking hemp in the factory one hundred and sixty years ago: it keeps idle hands out of mischief; it is not profitable as production, but it provides valuable training in attitude and work habits. Viewed so, the suburban and exurban trends are the formation of a new proletariat, producers of offspring. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Naturally the Public Relations have been unable to restrain themselves from invading the public schools. The classes are flooded with pamphlets and documentary films on electronics and the introduction of cows into New Zealand (Oh, and in America, we are do thankful to the Europeans because so many of us love red meat and it is not native to America.), put out by Consolidated Edison, Ford, Shell, Westinghouse, the National Dairy Council, Union Carbide, Bell, etcetera, and even Merrill Lynch. These proclaim their sponsorship with more or less discreet plugs. In the ninth grade, however, at a New York City school I know well, they have spent class time with an item called The Educational ABC’s of Industry, a collection of advertisements interlarded with reading matter; and the class was actually required, by a teacher distracted by overwork, to copy out jingles in which C stands for Orange-Crush, “taste it and see,” and F for the Ford Motor Company, “where the first car grew.” I would gladly share this literature with the reader, but is publisher has not given me permission. Also, why not allow corporations to advertise in schools. Like for example when teaching the ABC. A could stand for Audi, B for BMW, C for Cadillac, instead of charging a Mello-Roos. We need to find ways for government institutions to make money besides through taxes and consumer spending. Allow, for instance, NASA to build private airplanes that car fly to space and manufacture cars. Imagine how good they would be with the technology they have. Now, when we consider some of uncontrolled debaucher in society, there are some consequences for this. There were countries that proposed to protect a great many virgins by legalizing a limited number of people who were allowed to solicitate intimate passions. The rationale for this moral triage—for every three virgins, there would be one person who was allowed compensation for indulging in pleasures of the flesh. However, solicitation became so widespread that Societies for the Reformation of Morals, moral vigilantes who hunted down and prosecuted sinners, had sprung up everywhere. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

The gravest consequences of solicitation were illnesses, which, in two Centuries, made such incredible Havock all over the World. The Innocents had to suffer by it as well as the Guilty: Men gave it to their Wives, Women to the Husbands, or perhaps their Children…so that no Age, Gender, or Condition could be entirely safe from the Infection. Other terrible consequences were that children without a father to claim them were terminated after birth, lascivious young men refrained from marrying because they prefer to indulge in pleasures of the flesh with hired help, and marriages were destroyed by errant husbands. Seduced young maidens are were ruined when a “slip of this nature was discovered” because afterward, they have no chance of marrying and were often forced into becoming women of the evening. However, at the bottom of it all, the blame is with human nature. Because pleasures of the flesh are taught to be something everyone should enjoy. To counterbalance their innate sensuality, social pressures were employed. All young woman were to have strong notions of honour carefully inoculated into them from their infancy. Young girls were taught to hate solicitors, because they knew what the “word” is implying in these circumstances; and when they grow up, they find their Worldly interest entirely depending upon the reputation of their chastity; and it is upon this compound of natural and artificial chastity, that every woman’s real actual chastity depends. This shrewd analyses of seduction and courting rituals, painfully reminiscent though cleverer by far than the offerings in many modern women’s magazines, explained how women calculate their dream guy will continue to love them as they have struggled to maintain their chastity and surrendered it only after being “stormed” or seduced. Wrong, wrong, wrong, of course—but by then, chastity is a thing of the past, but many would like to revive it. Especially because many people dislike the double standards between genders. At the heart of the matter, they only way to preserve female chastity, is to prevent the men from laying siege to it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Legislation against impropriety, of course, will not work well because cities and states cannot claim they own human bodies, as slavery was already outlawed. However, a campaign to advocate abstinence and celibacy is an excellent idea because it will advise people of the risks involved in being unchaste and make it clear that the male and the female are both responsible from preserving their own bodies and health. Yet many critics say that is the job of the church and the parents. Also, a system of carefully regulated “solicitation” is not a solution. The double standard would remain in full force, laundered and made tolerable by decriminalizing “solicitation.” All women suffer a hangover from our long understanding of the relationship between wives, nuns, and virgins. Virtually every woman who was not an aristocrat had to uphold an ideology of respectability and chastity that is distinguishes her from an unchaste person. Of course, there are some other things people were outraged about involving this double standard, which we will discuss tomorrow. Now, people recovering from schizophrenia need medication, psychotherapy, help in handling daily pressures and responsibilities, guidance in making decisions, training in social skills, residential supervision, and vocational counseling—a combination of services sometimes assertive community treatment. Those whose communities help them meet these needs make greater progress than people living in other communities. Some of the key features of effective community care programs are coordination of patient services, short-term hospitalization, partial hepatization, supervised residencies, and occupational training. When the Community Mental Health Act was first passed, it was expected that community care would be provided by a community mental health center, a treatment facility that would supply medication, psychotherapy, and inpatient emergency care to people with severe disturbances, as well as coordinate the services offered by other community agencies. Each center was expected to serve a geographic area with a population of 50,000 to 200,000 people. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

When community mental health centers are available and do in fact provide these services, patients with schizophrenia often make significant progress. They are better integrated into the community and function more effectively than patients who receive only standard outpatient care. Coordination of services is particularly important for the so-called mentally ill chemical abusers (MICAs), patients with schizophrenia as well as a substance-related disorder. When people develop symptoms of schizophrenia, today’s clinicians first try to treat them on an outpatient basis, usually with a combination of antipsychotic mediation and psychotherapy. If this approach fails, short-term hospitalization—in a mental hospital or a general hospital’s psychiatric unit—that lasts a few weeks (rather than months or years) may be tried. Soon after the patients improve, they are released for aftercare, a general term for follow-up care and treatment in the community. Short-term hospitalization usually leads to greater improvement and a lower rehospitalization rate than extended institutionalization. Countries throughout the World now favour this policy. People’s need may fall between full hospitalization and outpatient therapy, and so some communities offer day centers or day hospitals, all-day programs in which patients return to their homes for the night. Such programs actually originated in Moscow in 1933, when a shortage of hospital beds necessitated the premature release of many patients. Today’s day center provides patients with daily supervised activities, therapy, and programs to improve social skills. People recovering from schizophrenia in day centers often do better than those who spend extended periods in a hospital or in traditional outpatient therapy. Another kind of institution that has become a popular setting for the treatment of people with schizophrenia is the semihospital, or residential crisis center. Semihospitals are houses or other structure in the community that provide 24-hour nursing care for people with mental disorders. Many individuals who would otherwise be cared for in state hospital are being transferred to these virtual hospitals. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

Many people do not require hospitalization but, at the same time, are unable to live alone or with their families. Halfway houses, also known as crisis houses or group homes, often serve individuals well. Such residences may shelter between one and two dozen people. The live-in staff usually are paraprofessionals—lay people who receive training and ongoing supervision from outside mental health professionals. Those houses are usually run with a milieu therapy philosophy that emphasizes mutual support, resident responsibility, and self-government. Research indicates that halfway houses help many people recovering from schizophrenia adjust to community life and avoid rehospitalization. Here is how one woman described living in a halfway house after 10 hospitalizations in 12 years: “The halfway house changed my life. First of all, I discovered that some of the staff members had once been clients in the program! That one single fact offered me hope. For the first time, I saw proof that a program could help someone, that it was possible to regain control over one’s life and become independent. The house was democratically run; all residents had one vote and the staff members, outnumbered 5 to 22, could not make rules or even discharge a client from the program without majority sentiment. There was a house bill of right that was strictly observed by all. We helped one another and gave support. When residents were in a crisis, no staff member hustled them off or increased their medication to calm them down. Residents could cry, be comforted and hugged until a solution could be found, or until they accepted that it was okay to feel bad. Even anger was an acceptable feeling that did not have to be feared, but could be expressed and turned into constructive energy. If you disliked some aspects of the program or the bahviour of a staff member, you could change things rather than passively accept what was happening. Choices were real, and failure and successes were accepted equally. Bit by bit, my distrust faltered and the fears lessened. I slept better and made friends. Other residents and staff members who had hallucinated for years now were able to control their hallucinations shared with me some of the techniques that had worked for them. Things like diet…and interpersonal relationships became a few of my tools.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Paid employment provides income, independence, self-respect, and the stimulation of working with others. It also brings companionship and order to one’s daily life. For these reason, occupational training and placement are important services for people with schizophrenia. Many people recovering from this disorder receive occupational training in sheltered workshop—a supervised workplace for employees who are not ready for competitive or complicated jobs. The workshop replicates a typical work environment: products such as toys or simple appliances are manufactured and sold, workers are paid according to performance, and all are expected to be at work regularly and on time. For some, the sheltered workshop becomes a permanent workplace. For others, it is an important step toward better-paying and more demanding employment or a return to a previous job. In the United States of America, occupational training is not consistently available to people with severe mental disorders. Some studies find that fewer than 15 percent of such people are completive employed. The way the World works, is not always perfect, but many people try hard. In a perfect timed World, friends would never show up late, breakfast eggs would never be cold and kids would always come home on schedule. Better yet, inventories would be reduced to zero, eliminating their various costs, including storage, maintenance, management and warehousing. Best of all, meeting would always begin and end on time. However, what kind of economy would result? In economics, the term balanced growth has been loosely used to mean many things. For some, it suggests that environmental factors are taken into account. For others, it signifies the inclusion of transportation or take your pick of other factors in the definition of “growth.” It can mean growth that occurs when capital and labour inputs (adjusted for productivity) increase at the same rate. Alternatively, it can imply an equal emphasis on agriculture and industry in development policy. In the 1960s, and ‘70s, a school of “balanced growth” economists argued that the best way for an economy to develop was for all sectors to grow at the same rate, with the relations of all inputs and outputs held steady. This was, in fact, a call for perfectly synchronized development—a belief that the path to ever-growing wealth was through ever-greater synchrony. However, things are not that simple. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

These theorists brushed aside something important. Perfect synchronization, holding key variables in fixed relationships, makes any system inflexible, inert and slow to innovate. It creates an all-or-nothing game in which you have to change everything at once or change nothing at all. And changing everything at once, still less proportionally, is extremely difficult. By contrast, as economist Joseph Schumpeter showed, economic development also requires “gales of creative destruction”—winds of change that annihilate old, backward technologies and industries to make way for the new and disruptive ones. And the first thing creative destruction tears up is yesterday’s timetable. Every firm, every financial system, every national economy needs, therefore, both synchronization and some degree of de-synchronization. Unfortunately, at present we lack both the data and the metrics that would help us know when we are about to crash the limits of either. What might be called “chronomics”—the study of timing in the economy—is still primitive at best. What is clear, however, is that time adjustment is now so complex and important that a big, booming synchronization industry has grown up around it. This industry experienced three “great leaps forward” between the mid-1980s and the first quarter of the new century. Today it is a gain. Tomorrow it will be even bigger. In 1985, when the Institute of Industrial Engineers published a book called Innovations in Management: The Japanese Corporation, the term Kanban—what the West came to call the “just-in-time” principle or JIT—hardly rated mention. Manufacturing in the United States of America was still dominated by something called material requirements planning or MRP, a mainframe-based system for scheduling factory resource requirements. MPR’s purpose was to produce parts and products according to a present schedule. The JIT system, by contrast, first developed by Toyota, allowed the customers’ changing needs to set the schedule. It made flexible timing practical. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

By 1990, when the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences in the United States of America published its Competing in World-Class Manufacturing report, JIT had already become a buzzword in America and was spreading throughout manufacturing. Soon management consultants jumped on board the JIT express and sped its implementation. IBM, Motorola, Harley-Davidson and scored of other leading firms adopted it. A study of 291 diverse manufacturing facilities in the United States of America and in 128 in thirty other countries found that, as the NCMA summarized it, “of the many potential means of improving productivity, only JIT-related ones were statistically shown to be consistently effective. What JIT did, however, was shave time tolerances even more closely. And that required far more sophisticated synchronization than ever before. Another burst of change in business began when consultants Jim Champy and Michael Hammer, in their best-selling book Reengineering the Corporation, told managers to “reengineer” their firms when “leading competitors achieve significantly shorter cycles,” when the organization responds a single supplier and required the restructuring of entire long supply chains in the 1990s and early 2000s. Not only did first-tier markers of components have to deliver them as needed, but second-tier suppliers did as well, in order to accelerate through-put and reduce inventories. The goal was tighter synchronization at every level. Huge companies such as Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft and scores of others offering enterprise resource planning (ERP) and related software owe their very existence, in substantial measure, to the mounting demand for smarter and closer timing in business. Hundreds of consulting firms by now were heavily into the synchronization business. SAP or Oracle, say, would sell the software. Then I.T. consultants would be called in to implement it. Anderson Consulting (now Accenture), one of the largest consulting firms in the World, owed much of its remarkable growth to the new synchronization systems. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

The greater the synchronization, the greater the value added to the entire supply chain’s performance. No wonder some UPS delivery trucks bear the slogan: “Synchronizing the World of Commerce.” The synchronization industry still has a long way to go—and grow. First, many small firms that have not yet restructured their supply and/or value chains will increasingly be compelled to do so. Second, synchronizing supply and distribution chains is only one step toward tomorrow’s deeper and more comprehensive temporal integration. Now the synchronizers want to do more than sell just the initial software. They also want to service their direct customers and tier after tier of downstream customers stretching all the way to the end user. Indeed, it may even extend beyond that someday because more and more products may be returned to the manufacturer for recycling, as is already the case with autos in European and printer ink cartridges in the United States of America. All these changes multiply layer after layer of suppliers, distributors, servicers and users needing synchronization. Last, the synchronization industry will expand because rising competition requires innovation after innovation, each of which, in turn, changes timing requirements and requires resynchronization. However, the hidden paradox of the law of de-synchronization is that the more you synchronize at one level in a system, the more you de-synchronize at another. If price decisions are taken neither continuously nor in perfect synchronization, the process of adjustment of all prices to a new nominal level will imply temporary movements in relative prices. It might then well be that, to avoid these movements in relative prices, each price setter will want to move one’s own price slowly compared to others. The result will be a slow movement of all prices to their new nominal level, and substantial inertia of the price level. Even small departures from perfect synchronization can generate substantial price level inertia. If price decisions are desynchronized, even anticipated movements in money will usually have an effect on economic activity. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

It is however possible to find paths of money deceleration which reduce inflation at no cost in output. Price desynchronization has implicated for relative price movements as well as for the price level. Goods early in the chain of production have more price and profit variability than good further down the chain. Price inertia, if it is due to price desynchronization, may be difficult to remove. It may well be that, given the timing decisions of others, no agent has an incentive to change one’s own timing decision: the time structure of prince desynchronization may be stable. Until recently, a mindless cult of acceleration led by numerous business “gurus” in the United States of America urged companies to “Be first! Be agile! Shoot now, aim later!” This simplistic advice led to the launch of many low-quality, poorly tested products; angry customers; unhappy investors; a loss of strategic focus; and a high turnover of CEOs. It ignored the problems of synchronization and de-synchronization. It was a superficial way of dealing with the deep fundamental of time. Mismatched timing can damage—even kill—individual companies. However, this is not just a problem of particular enterprises. It can upset relations among multiple firms. Moreover, anecdotal evidence at least suggests that it can impact the whole industries, entire sectors of a country’s economy, and even the global economy. Now, time to close in prayer. Little by little roads eat away the hearts of mountains. Fires burn through, come back in huckleberries, trails close in August, too many bears. Too many bears, now following avalanche chutes, glacier lily, early spring. Caribou in old growth spruce, lichen, banks of snow and fog. Bear tracks in the mud. Treat each bear as the last bear. Each wolf as the last, each caribou. Each track the last, gone spoor. Gone scat. There are no more deertrials, no more flyways. Treat each animal as sacred, each minute our last. Ghost hooves. Ghost skulls. Death rattles and dry bones. Each bear walking alone in warm night air. To pray is to mediate on events of the past which testify to God’s guiding spirit in the affairs of humans, and which give us courage to fight for justice and freedom, and to look confidently and hopefully to the future. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

Cresleigh Homes

Our Riverside Residence 1 home may be the smallest floorplan, but it clocks in at 3 bedrooms with the option to convert the den into a fourth!

In this expansive floorplan is serious living space and seriously gorgeous features! This is the perfect setting for every day life or entertaining guests.

The beautiful life you’ve always wanted can be yours. Check it out at cresleigh.com


Who Would Keep a Cow of their Own that Can Have a Quart of Milk for a Penny?

No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in the soul by God. The human mind is fascinating. A young officer working on a ship wrote that he would awaken during the night and discover himself under an undesirable physical and mental condition. He seemed to be clearly in a mesmerized condition, caused by someone or something giving the powerful posthypnotic suggestion to wake up and obey. The remedy is to use the same technique in reverse. That is, practise auto-hypnosis, give the self-suggestion that on waking up there will be full conscious and full rejection of the negative idea. If one must hate something, let one hate hatred itself. The storms of violent passion are to be resisted as the smoothness of inner peace is to be invited. To keep one’s temper in a single provocative situation may be easy, but to keep it consistently equable is a real feat. Life is a conflict. One must not let these negative feelings take up lodgement within in one longer than a single moment. All humankind must awake from its materialistic apathy and cast out something of its selfishness. It is called upon to renounce its violence and meannesses, its intolerance, unkindnesses, and injustices. It must either emerge from its animal brutality or else suffer itself to be extinguished by it. It must come out from the shadows of ignorance, selfishness, and materialism. Only then will it find the sunshine of a larger life that awaits it. It is not always one oneself who acts in a particular way at a particular time. Impulses from lower sources or outside contacts may be strong intuitions from higher levels or outside sources may influence one to wise choices which bless one’s future. We must not hate those who are born of the same divine essence as ourselves but we may hate the sins they perpetrate and the evil they radiate. The seeker has to contend not only with limiting environments but also with internal enemies. Apathy delays one, depression obstructs one, and loneliness frustrates one. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

The more one becomes sensitive, intuitive, responsive to the spirit, the more one is unfolding exceptional passivity. However, this puts one in peril, for one feels the negative presence too. Hence the more one must restrict one’s contacts until one’s strength is above them. It is prudent to escape from a situation where there is much pressure to commit a foolish action or to make a foolish decision leading to calamitous results—and not continue to stay in it until the danger materializes. One whose presence is felt to be odious, whose personality is regarded as distasteful, is better left alone. One should never allow the actions or words of ignorant human to arouse in one reactions of anger, envy, or resentment. The years are too few and there is too much to be done—both on oneself and for oneself—to waste them in negative, resentful thought and decaying, neurotic emotion. When one comes to understand its importance, one will begin to exercise some vigilance over one’s thoughts. Resist beginnings—that is the most practical way to deal with negatives. The destructive thoughts of fear and self-doubt which whine at your door, whine at the door of every human. However, you can make them powerless to hurt you. For—there is n chance, no destiny, no fate can circumvent, can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul! If the negative thought persists then one has to wrench oneself away from it with the assent and use of all one’s being—feeling, reason, intuition. One’s own attitude towards events holds the power to make them good or bad, whatever their nature of itself may be. Those who are unable to think correctly about this tragic World situation must be pardoned, but those who refuse to think correctly about it do not deserve pardon. The counsel of Jesus to “resist not evil” does not apply to other men’s acts but to our own thoughts. We are to turn aside from a negative thought-habit by the simple method of substituting the opposite and the beneficial one. We need not to spend our strength resisting the thought of misery, for example. We are to substitute hope for misery, whenever the latter appears. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

Wrong-doing will be avoided not because it is punished by the law of recompose even when it is not punished by the law of society, but because of the strong inner conviction that right-doing is its own reward, its own satisfaction. The beautiful is allied to the good. If we cultivate beautiful feelings, evil ones begin to get dissolved. One will not risk rebuffs by expressing one’s views and describing one’s experienced to the uncomprehending of the unsympathetic. It I cowardice to refuse to face the fact that one has made a mistake and to continue following the same course because it is to stop it and return to the right road. The easier way is too often the worse way, leading to trouble for one’s self and others. There is a limit to the extent of concessions to prejudice; we must not beyond it. Beware of those whose mind is vindictive and whose speech is venomous. If they are born of emotional prejudice or passionate bias, it is of little use to meet irrational arguments with rational statements. The ancient saying that where goodwill exists agreement will not be hard to find, still remains true. The crowds which delighted in the gladiator shows of ancient Rome and, to a lesser extent, those which delighted in the bullfights of modern Spain, do not see to understand how bestial they allow themselves to become at such times. If one is to be distinguished from a member of the savage species, the true human being, the fully evolved human, must have the quality of pity in oneself. Do not attempt to fight evil with evil. Overcome it by calling on a higher power to bring out the good in you wherewith to meet it. In this way you obey Jesus’ counsel, “Resist not evil.” Synesis (fourth century): “This would be the most extreme of ills—not to be conscious of the presence of evil. For this is the condition of those who no longer try to rise…for this reason repentance is elevating means…[but] both deeds and words [must] lend a helping hand.” A philosopher may not ignore the negative side of one’s or another’s life: one has to deal with it because circumstances force one, like everyone else to do so. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

However, one’s way will be different, because one will use all one’s faculties and capacities: intellectual, practical, and intuitive. One will keep calm and not let passion or negative emotion carry one away. However, all that done, one hands over the results to the higher power (which includes destiny). One’s mind must stay in That which transcends negativity, sin, evil, even if one must grapple with them. Philosophy will not disregard the bad in others, and the sin in ourselves, but having seen them clearly it does not react negatively in useless condemnation. Instead, it reacts constructively in trying to realize the meaning of evil, the consequence of sin, and then proceeds to cultivate the opposite quality, the good of that particular evil—as honesty where there is dishonesty and so on. If practical dealings are involved, we may regret the existence of these faults in others, but we may not refuse to recognize them. Amid all the pessimistic reflections which the state of the World so easily induces in the thinking human, one may yet be buoyed up by the hope which the eternal verities must again and again give one, that is, the hope that the end of it will be immeasurably better. The existentialist view—so popular with so many young people today—that we begin with oblivion and end with annihilation, that what comes between is either meaningless or mysterious, with no solutions to problems, no answers to questions, is a view which the tragedy and evil and catastrophe of our times tempt us to accept. However, religion and philosophy release us from this despair. In such critical times as these even some faith in the existence of a higher power, and some aspiration towards serving it, has protective value. Trust, not tension: trust in the higher power producing serenity rather than tension; because of the pressures of life this is a great need today. However dark or desperate World history may seem at times, we must always remember no one can disrupt the divine World-Idea, or spoil its manifestation, or prevent its glorious outcome. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Fear of the power and cunning of these evil opponents causes them to rely on obvious but ordinary human forces and weapons for protection. They forget the divine forces they could, and should in this crisis, call on—and neglect the superhuman and extraordinary. To express a half-amused contempt for the intelligence of our time is not at all the same thing as to make a jaundiced indictment of it. To witness the magnificent parade of a civilization of almost unredeemed triviality is less likely to arouse bitterness in the soul and more likely to give it a good half-hour’s amusement. On the one hand, carried away by the idealistic enthusiasm and millennial promises of merely emotionalist cults, some believe that a spiritual teaching has only to be propagated and it will spread triumphantly everywhere. On the other hand, confronted by the formidable spectacle of a whole World plunged in ignorance, conscious that the ordinary individual can do so little to uplift it, others drift into bewildered defeatism and actually do nothing at all. However, this second attitude, although much more sensible and much more justifiable than its opposite one, is not quite philosophical. According to the old classical fable, we had to look for truth in the bottom of a well; today we have to look for it in the bottom of a bitter disillusionment. In the dismal World conditions of today it is a paramount necessity to obtain some glimpse, however meagre, of the divine plan which is working out for all our lives. Only in this way can we co-operate with it understandingly and adequately. Instead of relying on flight into the unknow and uncertain, it is better to rely on God. In the first case one may be making a false escape and duping oneself, but in the second case one opens the way for true guidance in the matter. With peace in the mind and harmony in the feelings, both completed by knowledge of the universal presence of divinity—who could harbour evil thoughts, hatreds, or destructive plans? #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Every evil person who crosses our path provides an opportunity, in the injury one attempts to do us, to keep ourselves from being provoked into retaliation, anger, or resentment. If we succeed in overcoming our own feelings, we mount upward a step. In a negative situation, where negative criticism and negative emotions are rampant, other persons may try to involve one in it, or at least get one to support their attitude and endorse their criticism. However, a feeling may come over one preventing one from doing so. If so, one should obey and remain silent. With time the rightness of this course will be confirmed. One the injunction to return good for evil, the question arises, with what then will you return go? Return good for good, but justice for evil. Is this not wiser counsel? Does not the other punish goodness to an extremist position, rendering it almost ridiculous by condoning bad conduct? Inner and outer difficulties are often related. What appears to be an ugly state of affairs may well be a definite attack of certain evil forces using interested human instruments. In such a situation, the individual should never practise nonresistence in any way, but, on the contrary, should fight them off as hard a one can. At the same time, one must remember that weakness in self-control can give these evil forces an opening which they might not have had otherwise. If one wishes to emerge victorious in the struggle, one must be on one’s guard. If one does not throw off this condition, one, oneself, unwittingly erects a barrier though which the divine help sent one finds it difficult to penetrate. Although the temptation to seek release as such a time through, for example, the easy way of drink is understandable, one must nevertheless remember the duty one owes to one’s spiritual life, to one’s personal interest on the relative plane, and to others. Although the student must forgive those who mistreat one, one need not think tht forgiveness implies one has to associate with such people thereafter. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

Whenever the thought of them, or their abuse, comes into one’s mind one must exert one’s willpower to drive it out, and immediately direct one’s thoughts toward God, or toward any inspired individual in whom one had faith. Only the actualized Christian is entitled to dismiss evil and to deny its existence: all others must look it in the face, understand it, and overcome it by slow gradations. It is better to keep out of the way of evil humans, especially when they are in power, until or unless we are driven by the necessity of circumstance of the inward voice of duty to oppose ourselves to them. It is always a certainty that the practice of active goodwill directed toward those who regard one harshly will benefit one’s own development, while it is always a possibility that this practice may dissolve the harsh feeling against one. It is all gain and no loss. This is one part of the case for Jesus’ advice to return good for evil. It is a technique of this evil power to paralyse its intended victims by frightening them. If we give way to fear, we give assistance to its effort. It cannot be beaten without open defiance and ready valour. One must remember that one will meet with those individuals who are themselves the bearers of antagonistic forces, instruments of darkness—sometimes consciously, most unconsciously, people used by evil forces. So far as possible one must avoid such people. Certainly never enter into intimate associations with them, whether the relation be business or personal. If one does one will find that sooner or later some of their unfortunate behaviour will be returned by Universal Law and tumble on one and one with have to suffer with the afflicted individual. These people make talk as believers in spiritual things—indeed, they often belong to some cult or other. However, they do not understand truth or live it. They cannot help one and one is not strong enough to carry them. So leave them alone. And that is not always easy, because often they are people of a kind that force themselves into one’s life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

Sometimes one can know them by this hallmark, by this aggressive way which they try to entangle another individual. It may even be necessary at times to deal with such people with a firm hand, even mercilessly and relentlessly. If so, do not hesitate, but do it without any personal feeling of any kind. The American landscape has been badly corrupted. European writers no longer even notice the natural wonder of it, they are so put off by the ugliness and conformity of the towns. However, worse than the ugliness and conformity is the neglect that baffles pride of place. Our poets try to move themselves by nostalgically repeating the names of towns: “Biloxi and Natchez, Pascagoula and Opelousas”—but beware of paying a visit. The Americans disesteem public goods, and improving the landscape is a big expense. Historically, the neglect of appearance and plan of our scores of thousands of villages and small towns, especially in the Middle West and South—the diner, the Woolworth’s, and two filling stations—can be analogized to the neglect of the present-day less affluent. In the tide of expansion, appearance was disregarded as not essential; later, the matter would be mopped up. However, the neglect rigidifies, it is a hard core not easy to change. Instead, the present tendency is to impose on the countryside a new corporation style altogether, in the form of shopping centers (=national chain supermarkets) on the highway. This works out disastrously for the communities, for these “centers” are not centers of villages, and there cease to be villages at all, simply scattered family houses. This is the end of a long process of disruption, for in any case the industry is gone, then men work in plants thirty miles away. It is possible to travel many miles even in New England and not see a single activity a man could make a living at, except automobile agencies and filling stations; not even a food store. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

The schools too are large and centralized. The families tend to move away frequently, but even while they are put, they are driving around. This does not make much community to grow up in. In more primitive societies, a chief community activity is working together, thatching a roof, net fishing. However, with us, precisely this co-operative labour, for instance the work in a factory, is removed from its community setting ad emptied, by the relations of production, of any community spirit. Places that have no shape have no face-to-face functioning, for the shape is the functioning community. The loveliness of so many hamlets in Europe is that they have shape and are built of local materials by local craft. Perhaps the people had to cluster to attend early masses. In Ireland, where they farm out the back door, the rows of thatched houses line both sides of a little street. In France, where men go off to their farms, there may be a square. In our own early New England villages, where congregational and political spirit was strong, there was a common green with public buildings, though the families lived scattered on the farms they worked. There was the shape of a community, with its economy, its crafts, and its ideas. The advantage of growing up in such a community in one’s early years is evident. It is not family supervision, on which the physicians of juvenile delinquency are now laying such stress; quite the contrary! it is that the family does not have to bear the burden of teaching the culture. In a community, everybody knows the child face to face. There is an easy grading of overlapping ages, right up to the adults who are going about their business in a going concern, and not paying too much attention to children. A good city neighbourhood works in the same way. From this point of view, the swarm of kids in a city housing project form a better community than present-day country boys or the kids on Park Avenue. Therefore they have more local patriotism. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

The bother with this community chain, however, is that it terminates abruptly before it reaches the adults, who belong to a different World; so the kids are a gang and the local community spirit turns into loyalty to a Code; it does not eventuate in anything socially cohesive and culturally worthwhile. And such a gang in prone to be delinquent because, as we shall see, in such conditions it is the forbidden tht best cements loyalty. Politically, a delinquent gang is not lawless and not in the state of nature. Balked in its growth, the local loyalty turns on itself and simple reinvents the feud-code of Alfred the Great, marking out safe territories and making provision for special classes of revenge. On this view, if one teenage gang, pursuing its vendetta, falls on another and murders a kid, it would not be our business to interfere in the law of that differently constituted society. Also, like Danes or Vikings of Alfred’s time, they regard our larger society merely as a field of sports and plunder; they have not yet reinvented International Law. However, we, of course, cannot view it so, for we live in an advanced state of politics and law: they are members of our community. We are not children but more experienced and somewhat wiser, and therefore responsible, so we cannot simply annihilate them like pirates (they are small in size, few in numbers, and armed with primitive weapons); and we cannot let them hurt themselves. (I think it is wise sometimes to regard disaffected groups as if there were plausibly these two viewpoints, rival patriotisms. It is better humanity and it might make better law. The advantage is that it takes the disaffected seriously as disaffected, rather than merely pathological; it keeps in the foreground the question of allegiance. We must deserve allegiance.) However, they are children. Let us consider rather the peculiar patriotic problem of an older disaffected group, the Hipster young men, for then we can see that it is a patriotic problem. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Here too, I think, there has often been a strong community influence of growing up together. For instance, fellows who went to Black Mountain College, which was oriented to community and creative arts—a powerful, and powerfully disaffecting, combination—are pillars of Hipster society. Other fellows were buddies in the armed services. However, it was, as Hispters their community spirit is strong. They barge in to sleep, they share property, they share a culture. Now think of this community, disaffected from America, as engaged in a pathetic quest for some other big patriotism, an adult peer group. We saw how, appointing themselves outcast, they affirm the accidental symbol of other marginalized groups: African American, Puerto Rican, the less affluent, and others. However, this is pretty thin gruel for intellectual young men, many of whom have been to college. On the other hand, they are unable to make the jump to the great international humanists community because, simply, they do not know anything, neither literature nor politics. (I once taught at Black Mountain College, and to my astonishment I found that the students had never read the Christian Bible, Milton, Dryden, Gibbon, etcetera, etcetera, nor did they feel—as a lack—that such things existed. However, they knew odd facts about Mayan hieroglyphics which their teacher had been interested in.) What then? Since it is necessary for grown fellow to have some major allegiance or other, they have latched on to the late Japanese masters of Zen Buddhism. (This is a late effect of the early-century discovery of Japan by Fenollosa, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Misses Lowell and Ayscough, and Ezra Pound, suddenly reinforced by the postwar occupation under General MacArthur.) Now, as we shall see, Zen is not irrelevant to those young men’s needs, for it is a theology and style of immediate experience. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

However, the pathos is that Zen was the flower of an intensely loyal feudal system that fed, protected, and honoured its masters, and to which the Zen masters in turn had fealty. For example, it is said that the haiku was invented by a poet as a public service when one was suicidally despondent because one’s Emperor had died. However, Zen without farmers and servants is an airy business; and the young men, as we have seen, are betrayed into dubious devices to keep body and soul together, nor do they have a flag to salute. Community approaches have worked to resolve many problems. In looking at mental health, the broadest approach for the treatment of schizophrenia is the community approach. In 1963, partly in response to the terrible conditions in public mental institutions, the U.S. government ordered that patients be released and treated in the community. Congress passed the Community Mental Health Act, which stipulated that patients with psychological disorders were to receive a range of mental health services—outpatient therapy, inpatient treatment, emergency care, preventative care, and aftercare—in their communities rather than being transported to institutions far from home. The act was aimed at a variety of psychological disorders, but patients with schizophrenia, especially those who had been institutionalized for years, were affected most. Other countries around the World put similar sociocultural treatment programs into action shortly thereafter. Thus began four decades of deinstitutionalization, an exodus of hundred of thousands of patients with schizophrenia and other long-term mental disorders from state institutions into the community. On a given day in 1955 close to 600,000 patients were living in state institutions; today only around 60,000 patients reside in those setting. The unfortunate result is that mental health lost most of its funding and a lot of people with mental illnesses have to where to go, but jail or to live on the street. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Clinicians have learned that patients recovering from schizophrenia can profit greatly from community programs. However, the actual quality of community care for many of these people has been inadequate through the United States of America. The result is a “revolving door” syndrome: the few patients, who are lucky enough to be treated, have been released to the community, readmitted to an institution within mothers, released a second time, admitted yet again, and so on, over and over. A lot of people who want mental health care are not able to access this precious resource. In fact, 10.3 percent (over 4.7 million) of adults with a mental illness remain uninsured. And, 56 percent of patients want access to a mental health care facility. As COVID-19 continues to rage, Americans are experiencing anxiety and depression. More than 42 percent of U.S. adults reported symptoms, up 11 percent in the previous years. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans has some type of mental health condition. Spending on mental health treatment and social services has reached over $250 billion, which is up approximately 60 percent since 2009. This cost includes spending on things like therapy and prescription medications as well as stays in psychiatric or substance abuse rehabilitation facilities. However, it does not take into account indirect costs, such as lower workforce participation rates and decreased productivity. In fact, depression alone is estimated to account for $44 billion in loses to workplace productivity. And access to care can be prohibitively expensive—even more so than physical health costs. An hour-long traditional therapy session can range from $65 to $250 for those without insurance. A patient with major depression can spend an average of $10,836 a year on health costs. Meanwhile, a person with diabetes taking insulin can spend $48,000 to manage their condition. On a national level, research shows that the United States of America is likely to continue to experience a shortage of mental health professional through 2025. If you are looking for excellent health and wellness coverage, consider becoming a Kaiser Permanente member. You do not need a referral for mental health and addiction care services. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

Other ways to help keep health and wellness in check is celibacy. However, there is the double standard that is a Worldwide phenomenon that has many layers of meaning. The first is that one and one is not always two, because the woman or man of the evening is a criminal but their client is a “john,” an also because women are expected to be virginal at marriage and chaste afterward, and some men are expected to be chaste before a relationship and after, and during the marriage and relationship, but one’s husband is not bound by the same constraints. The double standard implies, in other words, that chastity is primarily and woman’s and small percent of men’s domain. Nonetheless, only women are typically judged more harshly than all men whose conduct is identical. Even today, the discrimination is thunderously obvious, preached from pulpits and parliaments and specifically mandated in the law. The double standard is nefarious not only because it embodies egregious gender inequality but because it condoned solicitation as an acceptable outlet for unchaste men. Though it condemns people of “the evening” as social scum and consigns them to lives of degradation and danger and disease, it sanctions their profession. The reason is obvious: without solicitation, lascivious people might seduce rather than marry the virgins of their own social class. It is particularly chilling that the members of many churches and other organizations in positions of authority support the double standard and, albeit reluctantly, swallows the equation that no men or women of the evening equals no chastity. Laws essentially force women to abide by a higher standard of regard in the matters of chastity than men. They also denounce solicitation but at the same time partially exonerate it as the safety valve that kept virgins pure. It is unsurprising, then, that the double standard matured as a code of conduct in pleasures of the flesh that demand female chastity and at the same time approve, or at least tolerate, the dominant group of mostly men, and their carnality expressed in the use of other humans as toys, though this meant sacrificing certain women and sometimes other to unchaste, unrestrained men and a small fraction of women. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

Furthermore, not all men honour their obligations to marry their child’s mother. And when men who came from a higher social echelon seduced a working-class girl, they almost never honoured that class’s code. Domestics and shop girls in particular were the pray of privileged men, but being with child destitute these women rather than pushing them into marriage with the baby’s father. However, often times, after these men who have money start to become older and nearing retirement, they will then leave their wives for young women of other ethnic backgrounds and of lower social standings because these women tend to be considered more exotic and attractive. The women will marry for older man for security and to escape labour. However, in a few cases, it is real love. In society, another problem is many people seem to scarcely be able to comprehend what chastity means, or to regard it as a virtue. Among the middle and upper classes, chastity’s double standard wreaked havoc on social decency. Some of these moral puritanical, which even frown on premarital male activities involving pleasures of the flesh, young women are coached to trap husbands without surrendering beforehand even a taste of the delights to come. Men are, in some cases, are frustrated at this implacable wall of chastity and take it as a challenge. They play games. In large numbers, they form unholy crusades to seduce young virgins. This upper-class deviance was depicted on shows like the original on Gossip Girl. “Resist, resist!” the virgins’ elders urge them. “Just say a resounding ‘No’ to your pleading, inveigling, deceiving young suitors.” After all, as the old adage went, “Who would keep a cow of their own that can have a quart of milk for a penny?” However, at the same time, ladies, and a small percentage of men, forgive them for trying to ruin you. This double standard of conduct involving pleasures of the flesh is necessary, because unlike you, the dominant class of men and a small percentage of dominant women, by nature have an urgent, irrepressible need. Brothels used to be officially licensed. Unchaste people play a crucial role in upholding their societies’ notions about chastity. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

Now, nowhere is a failure to achieve perfect synchronization more lamented than in the bedroom—unless it is when the U.S. Federal Reserve or the Bank of Japan rises or lowers interest rates and get the timing wrong. Timing, as any comedian can tell us, is everything. However, we are, for the most part unwittingly, changing our links to time, and that is no joke. As interested as investors and economists may be about exact timing in finance, they re remarkably uniformed about the role of synchronization—and, even more so de-synchronization—in the creation of wealth and poverty. Yet understanding these can give us a wholly new way of thinking about wealth creation. Some degree of synchronization has been needed ever since hunters and gatherers began working in groups. Historian William McNeill argues that mass rhythmic activities have been used throughout history to promote synchrony, which in turn improved economic productivity. Tribal dancing, he suggests, strengthened teamwork and made hunting more efficient. For thousands of years fishermen have chanted in unison as they hauled in their nets, the musical beats indicating when to pull and when to breathe. Agrarian economies also reflected seasonal change. According to anthropologist John Omohundro, writing about the Philippine island of Panay, “Through the dry season…and into the rainy season…businessmen are in their slowest season. All aspects of the distribution system slow down. By September or October the rice crop begins to arrive in town…Because the wealth of the province is regulated by agrarian cycles, city business activity rises and falls the these cycles.” Economic anthropologist Willem Wolters adds: “Purely local banks have never been viable in the semi-arid tropics because of the seasonality and synchronic timing.” Early industrial economics operated under completely different temporal conditions. Assembly-line work required a different rhythm. Thus, the factory whistle and the time clock were invented to coordinate work schedules. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

By contrast, today, as we will see, business activities are speeding toward real time. In addition, the uses of time are becoming increasingly personalized and irregular, if not erratic. More different tasks need to be integrated, and the acceleration effect truncates the time available for each task. All this makes synchronization harder to achieve. And that is only the beginning. If we look deeper, we find that every economy throbs and vibrates with unnoticed rhythms. We may buy a newspaper daily, pick up soap or milk at the supermarket weekly, gas up the car every ten days or so, cash a paycheck every two weeks and pay credit card bills monthly. We might call a broker sporadically according to what is happening in the stock market, buy a movie ticket or a book on a whim a few times a year, pay taxes quarterly or annually, go to the dentist when a toothache strikes and purchase a gift for a relative who is getting married in June. These and countless other transactions create rhythms that flow through banks, markets and lives. With the very first slap on our infant behind, every one of us becomes part of this ongoing economic music. Even our biorhythms are affected (and in turn influence) the marvelously complex, orchestrated process that pulse around us as people work—making things, providing services, managing others, caring for one another, financing companies or processing data and information into knowledge. At every moment, some tempos speed up, others slow down. New melodies and harmonies are introduced, then fade out. There are choruses, counterpoints and crescendos. Beyond these, throughout the entire society and economy, there is a generalized pulse of life that is itself the average, as it were, of all its subordinate tempos. The “economic music” never stops. The result is not patternless chaos because, within every wealth system, various components or subsystems are continually adapting their speeds, phases and periodicities to one another. In biology this process is called “entertainment.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Neurons, it turns out, do not work alone. They form temporary teams—much as businesses increasingly do today. In the words of Science magazine, “Neurons frequently fall into step with one another, forming ensembles that play the same tune, as it were, firing in relative synchrony for brief periods, before some neurons drop out of synch, perhaps to join another ensemble.” Firing in sync, moreover, apparently predisposes the neurons to “joint processing” at high levels of the system. Today’s breakup of monolithic corporations into congeries of short-lived project team, alliances, partnerships and joint ventures parallels these ephemeral “ensembles” in the neural system. One way the World could survive in joy is if the whole World worships God. We hear you, fellow-creatures. We know we are wrecking the World and we are afraid. What we have unleased has such momentum now, we do not know how to turn it around. Do not leave us alone, we need your help. You need us too for your own survival. Are there power there you can share with us? In the Service of the Heart, nothing is further from the truth than the widespread notion that to pray is synonymous with to beg, to request, or to supplicate. To be sure, to pray means to call upon God to help us. However, we need Him not only when we are physically in danger. We need Him also when we are spiritually in danger. To pray means to seek God’s help, “to keep our tongue from evil,” “to purify our hearts,” “to put into our hearts to understand, to learn and to fulfill in love, the words of the Christian Bible,” and thus to keep us unswervingly loyal to truth, goodness, and beauty. To pray is to feel and to give expression to a deep sense of gratitude. No intelligent, healthy, normal human being should take for granted, or accept without conscious, grateful acknowledgement the innumerable blessings which God in His infinite love bestows upon one daily—blessings of parents and loved one, of friends and country, of health and understanding. To pray is to express renewed allegiance to the moral and ethical principles which we accept as the guides of our personal lives, and which we recognize as the indispensable foundation stones for a decent human society. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18


The love fest continues for our newest community at #Havenwood! 😍 This one, obviously, is a great use of kitchen space!

A large porch entry welcomes you into the home, where a spacious great room opens into the dining and modern kitchen area featuring a large prep island.

Breathtaking and incredibly spacious living is yours in this gorgeous single-story home. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/

All our homes come with owned solar, and you can choose from four distinct floorplans!
#CresleighHomes

Speaking of Human Experience, Let Us Consider the Idea of Equality

In the beginning there were the laws and the particles. The laws caused the particles to aggregate to form atoms of a limited number of types and properties and the atoms to fit together in specific molecular configurations. In the atmosphere of the primordial Earth the basic sources of energy—radioactivity, ultraviolet radiation, electric discharge, and heat—broke up some of the gaseous molecules into fragments that, on recombining, formed a number of heavy and relatively complex compounds which drifted down into the sea. The new ingredients included energy-rich molecules which drifted down into the sea. The new ingredients included energy-rich molecules which, by temporarily hooking on to other molecular fragments, facilitated their participation in the formation of even more complex compounds. There were also amino acids, which sometimes linked together to form simple proteinlike substances; there were sugars, phosphates, and bases, which under suitable conditions of temperature and juxtaposition, were occasionally able to form primitive precursors of the nucleic acids. In isolated pools cut off from the major seas by seismic events, evaporation of most of the water greatly increased the rate of chemical activity. Within these pools the statistics of random combination of molecular fragments occasionally resulted in the creation of complex molecular assemblies, which constituted effective catalysts for specific chains of reactions among the available ingredients. Once in a long while the phenomenon of autocatalysis occurred, resulting in closed cycles of self-amplifying chemical activity. Through the operation of the laws of physics that determine the properties of high-molecular-weight material dissolved in water, the new compounds had a tendency to collect in droplets, or coacervates. These bags of chemicals ultimately came to display lifelike properties, including the ability to “grow” and, under suitable circumstances, to “reproduce” their own kind. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Meanwhile, another important line of chemical evolution was developing. The simple nucleic acid molecules which continually and automatically formed in the “hot dilute soup” of the primordial seas began to exhibit interesting reproductive processes of their own. The first occurred in sophisticated types of coacervates which possessed certain kinds of catalytic ingredients as well as temporally varying cycles of chemical activity. Ultimately the random but thorough process of evolutionary trial and error succeeded in combining a fortunate set of properties in the same coacervate. These properties included the conditions required for the precise self-reproduction of the “genetic” nucleic acid molecules” of nucleic acid to stretch out on solid inclusions and form attachments with shorter “transfer molecules” of the same substance. The natural attraction of the unattached ends of the transfer molecules for other molecular species the yielded a spectacularly important by-product of these reactions—the manufacture of other complex organic compounds in addition to nucleic acid. With the passage of time evolutionary refinement specialized the messenger and transfer molecules until the nucleic acid mechanisms became unusually effective in the assembly of protein enzymes. These powerful catalysts, in turn, ultimately took over control of the pattern of interrelated reactions that, finally, contributed to the “bags of chemicals” enough stability and metabolic sophistication to entitle them to be called “living organisms.” Along with the increased architectural effectiveness of the nucleic acid/enzyme mechanisms came other evolutionary improvements in the structure and metabolism of single-celled organisms. Membrane properties improved. Ribosomes and “organelles,” such as mitochondria, appeared to contribute to the viability of the cell. The development of the nucleus facilitated complex chemical reactions by providing a degree of isolation between major metabolic subsystems. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

Additional ruggedness was provided by dividing the functions of nucleic acid between two different kinds of molecules and protecting, by means of the chromosomal mechanisms, those carrying the basic “book of instructions” for control of the structure and metabolism of the cell. These unusual packaging provisions resulted in such a precise means of nucleic acid distribution, during cell division, as to ensue the high degree of genetic stability appropriate to the relatively advanced evolutionary stage of modern life. The economics of evolution even permitted capitalization on what might have seemed an important weakness in the cellular mechanisms: the sensitivity of some of the nuclear and cytoplasmic reactions to the influence of chemical agents in the environment. For the resulting nuclear gene switching and cytoplasmic modulation of enzymatic effectiveness made possible multicellular organisms by permitting different groups of cells to develop in different ways despite a common genetic endowment. And, because of the contribution of local environmental effects to the differentiation of the parts of the organism, the information content of the book of instructions in the genes could be enormously less then that required to code the detailed structure and metabolism of every cell into the nucleic acid molecules. Thus, complex organisms became practicable. Higher plants and animals, including man, were able to develop. It can certainly not be claimed that the sequence of events just summarized has been documented in these reports with anything like completeness. The time scale is so vast and the absence of corroborating paleontological evidence for some of the important steps is so complete as to render it unlikely that the speculative aspects can ever be entirely removed from this kind of narrative. It still appears necessary to invoke an element of faith if any story of the creation is to carry conviction. To those who are inclined to believe in a lawful and orderly World, however, the present state of knowledge and theory offers considerable encouragement. Any self-consistent explanation of the origin of life in terms of purely physical, nonvitalistic principles, despite inaccuracy of detail, is a significant accomplishment. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

And such a spectacular biochemical success as the stimulation of cell-free extracts from bacteria into the manufacture of protein, by means of human-made nucleic acid molecules, comes close to the long-awaited demonstration that “life” can be synthesized in the test tube. Such developments must greatly enhance confidence in the thesis that proclaims the unity of biological and physical science. Thus our narrative has carried us a long way toward the philosophic objective of establishing that physical principles alone are capable of accounting for all human observation and experience. Yet the story told here is obviously not complete; for the adequacy of physical science to account for the structure and chemistry of living organisms does not necessarily imply equal adequacy for the explanation of such seemingly nonphysical attributes as behaviour, intelligence, and consciousness. The evidence that has been considered seemed convincing to the conclusion that all aspects of behaviour, including those which we call “intelligent,” will ultimately be found reducible to the operation of a combination of physical principles not fundamentally different from that which underlies the design of advanced versions of human-made computing and logic machines. If that is true, there remain only the phenomena of conscious awareness to be accounted for in order to establish that all experience can be explained by the operation of a single set of natural laws. However, there is a growing body of evidence attesting to an orderly and predictable interrelationship connecting the qualities of conscious experience with the physical condition of parts of the brain. We know, for example, that a signal sent from the brainstem to the cortex turns on or off the state of consciousness that sensations of pleasure, pain, rage, horror, or ecstasy appear automatically in response to the injection of electric current into specific parts of the brain. These discoveries can be interpreted as indications that conscious phenomena are suitable for inclusion in the subject matter dealt with by the laws and methods of the physical sciences. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

To be sure, a mere formal transfer of the phenomena of consciousness out of metaphysical and into the realm described by the physical laws of nature would not “explain” the mystery of subjective awareness. However, as observed in the introduction, physical science does not really explain any of its mysteries. Gravitational attraction and electric charge are essentially as inexplicable as consciousness; they seem better understood only because we have long since established that their effects are regular and predictable, not because we know what they “really” are. The available evidence is consistent with the expectation that the properties of conscious experience may ultimately be found to be as regular and predictable as are those of gravity and electricity. If so, it is inevitable that we shall eventually add the relationships between physical states of neuronal matter and qualities of subjective awareness to the laws which, along with the basic particles, make up the content of modern physics. And, for all its philosophic importance, this will then be but an incident in the continuing development of our understanding of the body of natural law that determines the course of observable events. The same body of natural law will then suffice to “explain” the formation of a distant nebula, the operation of a television receiver, the growth of a child, and the genius of an Einstein. Like other sweeping philosophic generalizations, this belief in the unity and adequacy of science cannot be proved to be correct—it is essentially an article of faith. However, it has a great advantage over the philosophies: this philosophy, uniquely, derives further strength from every new scientific discovery. This is because, in science as it is actually practiced, all theory is nonvitalistic: the postulate of a single set of natural laws is the starting point for all modern scientific explanation. And spectacular advances in our understanding of the Universe are continually being made by application of this simplifying assumption. Thus, in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, the case for the unity and adequacy of science has become a strong one. Future discoveries may soon render inescapable the conclusion toward which science had for so long been trending—that the regular and predictable operation of a single body of physical law is sufficient, without supplementation by any form of extra-scientific or “vitalistic” principle, to account for all aspects of human experience. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

Speaking of human experience, let us consider the idea of equality, one of the foundations of rationalistic-progressive ethics. In the light of the principle of love, and in the perspective of the idea of Kairos, the following can be said: love implies equality in some respect. One who loved and one who is loved are equal to each other insofar as they are worthy of love, the love, the one for the other. However, nothing but precisely this principle in different situation, with love and the distortion of love at the same time. Looking at a Greek city-state, we discover that there is a political equality among individuals in a special group, and to a certain extent among all those who are free; but there is an absolute inequality between the free and the slave. Love is not manifest as the principle; but since it is potentially the principle, it is effective even in the religion and culture of Apollo and Dionysus. It is effect in the kind of equality that the city-state gives to those who belong to it, excluding slaves and barbarians. Love is effective even in this restricted equality, but it is a restricted, distorted love—love within the boundaries of national pride and racial discrimination. The central Kairos in which love becomes manifest as what it really is has not yet appeared. Nor did it appear in the period of the universal Roman empire, when Stoicism extended equality to all human beings—men and women, children and slaves. Here the principle of love broke through the limitations of national and social arrogance, but it did so as a universal, rational law, and not as love. Stoic equality is universal, but cool and abstract, which out the warmth and communal element of the limited equality in the city-state. At its best, it is participation in Roman citizenship and implies the possibility of a human’s becoming wise. In the Christian message, love becomes manifest in its universality, and, at the same time, in its concreteness: the “neighbour” is the immediate object of love, and everyone can become “neighbour.” All inequalities between humans are overcome insofar as humans are potential children of God. However, this did not lead Christianity to the Stoic idea of equality. Not even the inequality between the lord and slave was attacked, except in the realm of the Christian community. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Later, not the totalitarian but the hierarchical principle was supported by the Christian church in accord with the late ancient and medieval society. The social and psychological inequalities of the feudal order did not seem to contradict the element of equality implied in the principle of love. On the contrary, the mutual independence of all the degrees of the hierarchy, the solidarity of all the members of a medieval city, and the patriarchalistic care of the feudal lords for the “people,” were considered the highest form of equality demanded by the principle of love. In bourgeois liberalism, equality was again interpreted in terms of the general natural law, the law of reason and humanity. Equality became equality before the law and the demand for equal economic opportunities. This was in accord with the principle of love over against the tyranny and injustice into which the older system had developed. However, it the measure by which the equal opportunity of everybody became a mere ideology to cover the exclusive opportunity of a few, the liberal idea of equality became a contradiction of love. A new idea of equality arose, conceiving the equal security of everyone, even at the sacrifice of much political equality. One must not condemn the collectivistic and authoritarian forms of equality just because they negate equality’s liberal and democratic forms. Love may demand a transformation in this Kairos. A new creative realization of the element of equality as implied in the principle of love may be brought about in our period. It will be good insofar as it is in better accord with the demands of love in our special situation than were the demands of love in our special situation than were the feudal and liberal forms. It will be bad insofar as it will become a distortion and contradiction of love. For love is eternal, although it creates something new in each Kairos. One could refer to many other ethical problems in order to demonstrate their double dependence on the principle of love, on the one hand, and on the changing Kairos, on the other. For example, one could point to the evaluation of wok and activism in the different periods of history and their relation to leisure and meditation. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

It is obvious that a coming collective will reduce the emphasis on work and activism considerably by restraining the principle of competition. As the struggle against some forms of feudal and ecclesiastical leisure and meditative life was a demand for love in the period of the decaying Middle Ages, and occurred at the time when humankind began to control nature, so it is now a demand of love and Kairos that leisure meditation returns in terms of a new more collectivistic structure of society over against a self-destructive adoration of work and activism. Other examples are the problems of asceticism and worldliness, of self-control and self-expression, of disciplines and creativity, their relation to each other. Both sides these contrasts follow from the principle of love. The negation of the first aspect would prevent the self-surrender implied in love; the negation of the second would destroy any subject worthy of love. It depends on the Kairos as to which of these aspects, in which form and in which balance with the other, is emphasized. For our present stage, neither the supranatural asceticism of the Catholic system nor the rational self-control of bourgeois society, nor the naturalistic war-and-state discipline of fascism can provide the solution. And the same is true of feudal eroticism, of bourgeois aestheticism, and of the fascist idolatry of vitality. Another solution is demanded by love and by Kairos. Psychoanalysis provides some elements of the solution, although mere psychotherapeutic psychology is not able to create by itself a new system of ethics. Other elements of the solution are suggested by the rediscovery of the classical meaning of eros, one the one hand, and self-control, on other, are shaped by love. A final question must be answered. If love is the principle of ethics, and if Kairos is the manner of its embodiment in concrete contents, how can a permanent uncertainty, a continuous criticism which destroys the seriousness of the ethical demand, be avoided? Is not law and are not institutions necessary in order to maintain the actual ethical process? Indeed, law and institution are required. They are required by love itself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

For every individual, even the most creative, needs given structures that embody the experience and wisdom of the past, that liberate one from the necessity of having to make innumerable decisions on one’s own, and that show one a meaningful way to act in most situations. On this point Catholicism was superior in love both to Protestantism and to liberalism. And this is the reason why the younger generation in many countries eagerly demands laws and institutions to relieve them of their unbearable burden of having to make continuous ultimate decision. In system of ethics can ever become an actual power without laws and institutions. Luther, in his great emphasis on the creativity of love, forgot this necessity. This is one of the reasons why the moral education of the masses in Germany is less thorough than in Calvinistic countries. On the other hand, there is a greater readiness for a Kairos in Germany than there is in the more thoroughly educated and normalized Western nations. Love demands laws and institutions, but love is always able to break through them in a new Kairos, and to create new laws and new systems of ethics. I have not mentioned the word “justice” in this report. It would be misleading in the present discussion because it is generally understood in the sense of the abstract natural law of Stoicism and rationalism. As such, it is either empty or is the concrete law of special period, and is thus without universal validity. If justice is taken concretely, it means the laws and institutions in which love is embodied in a special situation. The Platonic ideal of justice was the concrete harmony of the city-state. In America, justice was the pious obedience to the commands of God. In medieval feudalism, it was the form of mutual responsibility of all levels of the hierarchy to each other. The liberal idea of justice was the abolition of formal privileges and the introduction of legal equality. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

In the more collectivistic society of the future, justice will be the system of laws and forms by which a sufficient security of the whole, and of all members, will be developed and maintained. It follows, then, that justice is the secondary and derived principle, while love, actualized from Kairos to Kairos, is the creative and basic principle. I have given no definition of love. This is impossible because there is no higher principle by which it can be defined. It is life in its actual unity. The forms and structures in which love embodies itself are the forms and structures in which life is possible, in which life overcomes its self-destructive forces. And this is the meaning of ethics: the expression of the ways in which love embodies itself, and life is maintained and saved. Humans who are otherwise capable of correct judgment and sane conduct, as in their business activity, will reveal a paranoid imagination or pernicious delusion when racial, class, religion, or aesthetic prejudice gets into their head or eyes. The use of blood in animal sacrifices is a legacy from Atlantean sorcery. It is evil, and found only among peoples who have not attained the refinement of consciousness and development of conscience which accompany a higher conception of God. The terrible fact is that millions of so-called sane humans are so unbalanced, so hysterical, and so obsessed, that they are really half insane. They are dangerous to themselves and to society. The average person who thinks one belongs to the human species, has still a long way to travel before one becomes a full member. Only half of one has become human. The rest is still terrestrial, in whom the killing instinct is still active enough to punctuate one’s history with frighting wars. One’s terrestrial ancestry has provided humans with the killing instinct. One’s human cleverness has provided one with the most effective weapons to express that instinct. Ones spiritual aspiration has not evolved to the level where is should be—above the other two and restraining them. There are other manifestations of this killing instinct, this lust to slay another living creature. We see it in the child who tears wings off a fly. Brutality and cruelty are especially linked with the minds and actions of those persons swayed by evil forces, whether physical or psychical. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

There is enough unpleasantness or evil in the World in which we have to live. We should avoid getting involved in it so far as we can. This applies to activity and also to receptivity through reading, through entertainment, and other uses of leisure. When adult people begin to accept, and their young children to demand, entertainment by the daily portrayal of sadistic violence or obscenity, when those who feel outraged by this situation have become a small minority, we have to assume that decadence, bad manners, and low moral standards are triumphant. The school of journalism and periodical-filling these days is preoccupied with the ego, with personality: the universal and impersonal does not attract or interest. Moreover, it is only the bestial, the negative, the pretty, and the surface characteristics of the ego which hold their scribblers’ attention. Prying, meddlesome, trivial gossip and pulling other to pieces is a favourite sport. There must be censorship in the era of annually increasing crime. How many films and stage plays, books and magazine are let loose on an undisciplined World packed with detailed suggestions for immorality and criminality. This is not entertainment: it is evil. So many composed pieces are almost textbooks for the susceptible imitative young on how to start self-destructive, antisocial, selfish careers, how to yield to fleshly promptings without exercising the slightest restraint. We would not allow full freedom of movement to plague-carrying rats in our kitchens and homes. Yet we allow these human carriers of mental plague the freedom to print and publish, declaim, and propagate their poisonous suggestions and negative ideas, their pleasures of the flesh and violence, their hates and moral subversion, their evil. The young worshippers of new art forms in the pop and rock World are the same ones who contributed to the ranks of drug takers and, later, hatha yoga. They need violent thrills to sustain their interests. That is, they are primarily pleasure-seekers, not spiritual seekers. They are governed by moods and impulses. The romantic rubbish which fills the ears and attracts the eyes of the modern young through the communications media leads them into false pictures of the life which awaits them and so into false values. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

When a civilization finds its pleasures in witnessing plays which explore all aspects of pleasures of the flesh, seeing films exploring all aspects of brutality and crime, permitting sports as cruel as fox-hunting, it has become low in morals, vulgar in taste, and self-destructive in its universal law. It will fall, as Rome fell. In the time of Washington, the public men—Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, Henry, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay—were a fair sampling of the good spirits in the country, humane, literate, brave, not self-seeking. (There is a remarkable letter of Jefferson’s to David Rittenhouse, urging him to waste no more time in mere politics, for the World needed him more in his capacity as a scientist.) By and large, it could not be said of our presidents and governors at present, the symbols of the country, that they are a fair sampling of the best of us. It would not be difficult to make a list of a hundred, or two hundred, who are superior to them in every relevant way, in whom a boy could feel pride and trust. Of course this is not a new trouble among us. Just as the European writers of the eighteenth century idolized our statesmen as if they were demigods, so in the nineteenth they spoke of their inferiority. This is the consequence of another missed revolution, the democratic revolution. A man of sense obviously cannot waste his life learning to sure to an ignorant electorate and coming up through political ranks in which disinterestedness and pure convictions are not the most handy virtues. Yet the fault is not with democracy, but that we have failed to have enough of it. For instance, if our emphasis had been on perfecting the town meeting and the neighbourhood commune, there would not be ignorant electors and they would choose great officers. If people had the opportunity to initiate community actions, they would be political; they would know that finally the way to accomplish something great is to get together with the like-minded and directly do it. However, the men in power do not think politically either. For instance, this year we have had the usual spectacle of politicians going about the country looking for nominators for the Presidency, presumably (why else?) because they have important new programs to offer. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

However, as soon as it becomes clear that the country leaders of the party do not want them, they retire from the race and rally to elect whomever. What becomes of the programs? Since this is what political responsibility means to a politician, why should the electorate respect politics, and how could an honest boy be inspired to enter on such a career? Characteristically, we have an immense amount of formal training in flourishing institutes for public administration at Harvard, Princeton, Syracuse, Tufts, etcetera, as if we could get the thing by learning the role. Commager sensibly concludes that training does not begin early enough and it lacks the content of actual experience. The environment does not encourage public service, it does not esteem public goods. Few fathers give much thought to the distant generations of posterity, and children do not take fire in reading about the great men of history and thinking “Why not I?” as a plausible purpose. And finally, says Commager, the narrow chauvinism and energetic hostility to subversive ideas that are now the test of our political are precisely disastrous to patriotism, for that must be spacious, disinterested, and broad-based, otherwise it is intolerable foolishness. The men who won our independence and laid the foundations of the America nation were devoted patriots but they were, too, me of the World. They were children of the enlightenment. Reason taught them that all men were brothers, that purely national distinctions were artificial, that there existed a great community of arts and letters and philosophy and science cutting across and transcending mere national boundaries. The nationalism of the eighteenth century did not rest on a narrow base but on a broad one. It did not find nourishment in fear and suspicion but in faith and confidence. Perhaps one reason for the decline in statesmanship is that we have hemmed our potential statesmen in, we have denied them tolerant and spacious ideas. As it is, what must be the effect on a boy when he comes to realize that the public spokesman up there is not even speaking his own words, but repeating, like performer, something written for him by a staff from Madison Avenue? The boy must learn to shout, “Shame! Make your own speech at least!” #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

Our present President (Mr. Biden) is an unusually uncultivated man. It is said that he has invited no real writer, no artist, no philosopher to the White House. Presumably he has no intellectual friends; that is his privilege. However, recently he invited the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to a banquet and musical. And the formal music of the musical they listened to was Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got to Do with It” and such other numbers. (Well, at least he has great taste in music.) So anyway, in dealing with mental health, family therapy is often a good idea. Around 25 percent of persons who are recovering from schizophrenia live with family: parents, siblings, spouses, or children. Such situations create special pressures, so that even if family stress was not a factor in the onset of the disorder, a patient’s recovery may be greatly influenced by the behaviour and reactions of the relatives at home. Generally speaking, persons with schizophrenia who feel positively toward their relatives do better in treatment. Recovered patients living with relatives who display high levels of expressed emotion—that is, relatives who are very critically, emotionally overinvolved, and hostile—often have a higher relapse rate than those living with more positive and supportive relatives. For their part, family members may be greatly affected by the social withdrawal and unusual behaviours of a relative with schizophrenia. One individual complained, “In the evening you go into the sitting room and it’s darkness. You turn on the light and there he is just sitting there, staring in front of him.” To address such issues, clinicians now commonly include family therapy in their treatment of schizophrenia, providing family members with guidance, training, practical advice, psychoeducation about the disorder, and emotional support and empathy. In the family therapy, relatives develop more realistic expectation and become more tolerant, less guilt-ridden, and more willing to try to new patterns of communication. Family therapy also helps the person with schizophrenia cope with the pressures of family life, make better use of family members, and avoid troublesome interactions. Research has found that family therapy—particular when it is combined with drug therapy—helps reduce tension within the family and so helps relapse rates go down. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

The principles of this approach are evident in the following description: Mark was a 32-year-old single man living with his parents. He had a long and stormy history of schizophrenia with many episodes of psychosis, interspersed with occasional brief periods of good functioning. Mark’s father was a bright but neurotically tormented man gripped by obsession and inhibitions in spite of many years of psychoanalysis. Mark’s mother appeared weary, detached, and embittered. Both parents felt hopeless about Mark’s chances of recovery and resentful that needing to care for him would always plague their lives. They acted as if they were being intentionally punished. It gradually emerged that the father, in fact, was riddle with guilt and self-doubt; he suspected that his wife had been cold and rejecting toward Mark as an infant he had failed to intervene, due to his unwillingness to confront his wife and the demands of graduate school that distracted him from home life. He entertained the fantasy that Mark’s illness was a punishment for this. Every time Marl did begin to show improvement—both in reduced symptoms and in increasing function—his parents responded as if it were just a cruel torment designed to raise their hopes and then to plunge them into deeper despair when Mark’s condition deteriorated. This patten was especially apparent when Mark got a job. As a result, at such times, the parents actually became more critical and hostile toward Mark. He would become increasingly defensive and insecure, finally developing paranoid delusions, and usually would be hospitalized in a panicky and agitated state. All of this became apparent during the psychoeducational session. When the pattern was pointed out to the family, they were able to recognize their self-fulfilling prophecy and were motivated to deal with it. As a result, the therapist decided to see the family together. Concrete instances of the pattern and its consequences were explored, and alternative responses by the parents were developed. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

The therapist encouraged both the parents and Mark to discuss their anxieties and doubts about Mark’s progress, rather than to stir up one another’s expectations of failure. The therapist had regular individual sessions with Mark as well as the family session. As a result, Mark has successfully held a job for an unprecedented 12 months. The families of persons with schizophrenia may also turn to family support groups and family psychoeducational programs for assistance, encouragement, and advice. In such programs, family members meet with others in the same situation to share their thoughts and emotions, provide mutual support, and learn about schizophrenia. Although research has yet to determine the usefulness of these groups, the approach has become popular. Now, celibacy could also be another way to prevent mental illness and mood disorders because people are not potentially exposing themselves to the dark side of what could be a toxic relationship. In the Aztec empire, female virginity was so exalted, that a certified virgin was spoken of metaphorically as a precious jewel. A young woman was motivated to preserve hers by pride, reinforced by her terror of retribution. The disgusted gods would not rot her flesh and if he suspected her virginity was not intact, her husband would not reject her.Rejection would happen during the marriage festivities, on the sixth day. An unhappy husband would announce his wife’s misconduct by serving wedding guest their food in pierced dishes. She would not be stoned to death, as both men and women were for adultery, but she could expect either divorce or an eternally suspicious husband. In reality, this seldom happened, for Aztec maidens were thoroughly indoctrinated from childhood. A lyrical folk tale repeated a loving father’s counsel to his little daughter. “My precious necklace, my precious quetzal plume, my human creation, my offspring,” he croons. “You are my blood, my colour, in you is my image.” Then he warns her: “Do not give up your body in vain, my little daughter, my child, my little dove, my little girl…If…you cease being a virgin…you will be lost…you will never be under the protection of someone who truly loves you.” The ecstasy of pleasures of the flesh will become your bitterest memory and will haunt you forever, he concludes, because even your husband will always suspect your chastity. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

The Aztec preoccupation with premarital celibacy stemmed from their religious convictions and Worldview and forged a golden mean between excess and abstinence. By eliminating rivalries involving pleasures of the flesh, it greatly reduced tension between the military and the collective labourers. Another important feature of virginity was that it emphasized the difference between youth and adult. The Aztecs feared that emotional attachment resulting from an early experience with pleasures of the flesh might foster individuality or rebellious independence. This would seriously affect a young person’s relations with one’s family and one’s future life as a citizen in this highly regulated and hierarchical society. For quite different reasons, the tiny Enga societies of the New Guinea Highland also stressed bachelor virginity. After a half century of foreign contact, often with Australian and American anthropologist, the Enga number about 180,000 and live on the western side of the Hagen Mountain range. The Enga are subsistence farmers who specialize in cultivating sweet potatoes and raising pigs as symbols of wealth and prestige. They share a religious belief system that leads the unmarried men to accept celibacy. Indeed, this precept is so thoroughly instilled that few of them have the slightest desire to disobey it. The Engas’ supreme creator is Aitawe, who inhabits the upper World along with the sky beings, the yalyakali. The underworld is populated by ghost, or timango, mighty spirits who interfere constantly in human affairs and sometimes kill humans by biting them, though each timango is restricted to a single death-by-biting. Timango are malign, and the Enga devote much time to placating them. In particular, they must observe tradition, for the timango strike the entire clan to punish a single clam member’s transgression. The Enga must also maneuver between the negative and positive forces of their World. Some negative forces are women, mothers, grandmothers, women’s private areas, and ghosts. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

Their positive opposites are men, fathers, grandfathers, the male organ, and sky deities. Marriage, then, is a union of polarities, often contracted between members of warring clans: “We marry the people we fight!” one Enga clan trumpets. This is not as anomalous a system of material selection as it might first appear, because the Enga notion of war is more stylized than real—one anthropologist describes them as “balletic episodes.” To foreign eyes, Enga battles resemble fencing matches or duels between fight leaders or bands of warriors armed with bows and arrows. Bloodshed is limited and death infrequent. After a day of fighting, the combatants engage in ritual rhetoric. Later, Enga Big Men on both sides present each other with impessive gifts of pork to mark the return of peace. Men marry for the first time at twenty to thirty years old, women between fifteen and eighteen years. Both should be chaste, the bride so her clanspeople may arrange a suitable marriage, the groom because only upon marriage can he acquire magical protection against the dangerous consequences of pleasures of the flesh with women or contact with his wife when she dealing with “female” concerns. The bachelor “knows,” for example, that touch a woman who is dealing with “female” concerns will, in the absence of magic sicken a man and cause persistent vomiting, turn his blood black, corrupt his vital juices so that his skin darkens and wrinkles as his flesh wastes, permanently dull his wits, and eventually lead to a slow decline and death. This “knowledge” is just the beginning. At about fifteen years, Enga boys join bachelor associations and remain members for about a decade, when they marry. Ritual baths protect them from the female influence, and ceremonies preserve the flora that is their subclan’s heritage. Ritual retreats enhance the bachelor’s physical appearance, including growing the hair, a symbol of masculinity and physical stamina, which must never be cut or even coiffed against the proud possessors’ wishes. Pleasures of the flesh by any of these bachelors would endanger them all and kill their precious plant life. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

The bachelors would beat any offender and fine him the price of a pig in compensation for the harm he has done them. They avoid looking at each other’s private areas and prudishly refrain from mentioning pleasures of the flesh or bodily functions in their conversations. At four-day retreats, essentially bachelors’ purification rituals, the agenda is instruction in Enga lore and magic and preparation of appropriate costumes and wigs. In most Enga societies, everyone but disabled adults will marry, so the preparatory activities for future husbands are compulsory, and participants take them seriously. Enga premarital chastity is integrally linked to ghost, the wrathful timango who serve all human activity and even penetrate thoughts and that is why men need magical protection. Premarital chastity may also serve another, unacknowledged purpose: to limit population growth, desirable in this cramped society with such limited resources, where was perpetually flare between clans trying to subsist on barely adequate land. This extends to the mores dealing with pleasures of the flesh of married couples, who enjoy intimate passions infrequently and, apart from their initial coupling, never near their gardens, whose fertility they fear contaminating. These negative emotions are just like physical ills: they too require treatment, and are not to be left in neglect. These negative thoughts have a habit of pushing themselves into one’s consciousness. One must just as often resolutely push them out again. In every human difficulty there are two ways open to us. The common way is familiar enough: it consists in reacting egoistically and emotionally with self-centered complaint, irritability, fear, anger, despair, and so one. The uncommon way is taken by a spiritually minded few: it consists in making something good out of something bad, and in reacting selflessly, calmly, constructive, and hopefully. This is the way of practical philosophy, this attempt to transform what outwardly seems so harmful into what inwardly at least must be markedly beneficent. It is a magical work. However, it can only be done by deep thought, self-denial, and love. If the difficulty is regarded as both a chance to show what we can do to develop latent resources as well as a test of what we have already developed, it can be made to help us. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Even if we do not succeed in changing an unfavourable environment for the better, such an approach would to some extent change ourselves for the better. We must accept, with all its tremendous implication for our past, present, and future, that we are ultimately responsible for the conditions which stamp our life. Such acceptance may help to shatter our egoism and that, even though it is painful, will be all to the good. Out of its challenge can come the most blessed change in ourselves. Truth twisted into service of the lower purposes or even the evil forces must be carefully inspected, analysed, and lastly corrected or rejected. Now, as we look at institutions of today and how they interact, it becomes clear that what America confronts today is not simply a runaway acceleration of change but a significant mismatch between the demands of the fast-growing new economy and the inertial institutional structure of the old society. Can a hyperspeed, twenty-first-century info-biological economy continue to advance? Or will society’s slow-paced, malfunctioning, obsolete institutions grind its progress to a halt? Bureaucracy, closed courts, legislative myopia, regulatory gridlock and pathological incrementalism cannot but take their toll. Something, it would appear, will have to give. Few problems will prove more challenging than the growing systemic dysfunctionality of so many related but desynchronized institutions. If Americans want the enormous benefits of a World-leading economy, the United States of America will have to root out, replace or radically restructure its legacy institutions that stand in the way. As change accelerates still further, institutional crises will not be limited to the United States of America. Every country in the twenty-first-century World economy—including China, India, Japan, and the European Union nations—will need to invent new style institutions and adjust the balance between synchronization and de-synchronization. Some countries may find that more difficult than the United States of America, whose culture, at least, smiles on change-makers. In any case, while our partially tongue-in-cheek speed rankings are certainly debatable, one central reality is not: All across the board—at the level of families, firms, industries, national economies and the global system itself—we are now making the most sweeping transformation ever in the links between creation and the deep fundamental of time itself. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Whenever a strong impulse becomes uppermost and inclines one toward some deed or speech of a negative kind, one had better scrutinize its source or nature as quickly as one can. Enjoy your youth, be polite and clean so people will want you are a neighbour, employee, and friend. We harmed no animals in Eden, but afterwards, when things got hard, we forgot the peaceful kindship of that ancient kingdom. So people began to see humans as soulless, of no good reason, and no rational speech. We then made a chain of things to protect us—fire, medicine, our locking houses, many kinds of clothes. We pray that we will see the face of everything thing in Heaven. We thank God for the tasks we shared together, and for the hours we communed here with Thee; for the joys we found in the fellowship of worship, for the blessings of courage, comfort and peace; for the will to strive and the wisdom to accomplish, for hope when despondent and faith when in doubt; for comrades who laboured, devotedly loyal, with spirit undaunted, with vision undimmed; for all these we thank Thee and praise Thee, our Father; Thy House is our refuge, our buttress, our strength, our bond with the past, our hope for the future, our fathers’ bequest and our children’s sacred trust. We reverently pause to recall those departed, who loyally served with heart and with hand; they live in this Sanctuary they helped to establish, they live in our thoughts, in our prayers, in our deeds. O may we maintain and preserve what they builded, and bring to fruition the seeds they have sown. We come with our children to pray at Thine altar, that their hearts, like ours, maybe lifted to Thee, to find here the truths that their forefathers cherished, and make this their Holy Place, even as we. Our old and our young who worship together, renew here the pledge that their forefathers made. Accept then, O Lord, our hearts’ earnest devotion, and keep us united in service to Thee. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21


Residence Three is the largest of the single story homes offered in Cresleigh Havenwood. A porch welcomes you upon entry to the home. Inside you will find an expansive 2,827 square feet; you’ll be hard pressed to a contemporary floorplan that offers this much space.

This floor plan is a perfect choice for couples, growing families, and singles who like to entertain.

There are four bedrooms, two and one half bathrooms, and a three car garage. Utilize the den as your own private study or convert into an optional fifth bedroom if needed.

The Dining Room and Kitchen are well situated to make entertaining a breeze.

The location of the Owner’s Suite makes it feel like a separate wing from the rest of the home allowing for maximum privacy and retreat.

Life is Very Short When You Look Back and Realize How Long You Spent Not Living Your Dreams

One of the interesting things that has happened in extant genetic codes is the discoveries that have to do with the degeneracy of the genetic code—the existence of several different sequences of bases in the messenger RNA molecule that can cause the same amino acid segment to be incorporated in the protein under construction. For example, the evidence strongly suggests that the amino acid arginine can be evoked by any one of three messenger RNA triplets CGC, AGA, and UCG. The related inference also appears to be correct: that three different types of transfer RNA molecule, each capable of carrying the amino acid arginine, correspond to these three messenger RNA triplets. Such degeneracy in the code is compatible with the fact that 4 X 4 X 4, or 64, different messenger or transfer RNA triplet combinations can be made of the 4 bases of the nucleic acid molecule, whereas only 20 amino acids must be specified by the various combinations. The evidence to this point suggests that every one of the 64 possible combinations may ultimately be found to be “meaningful” in the sense of specifying one or another of the 20 amino acid constituents of the end-product protein molecules. It should be noted that this kind of degeneracy does not lead to ambiguity in the genetic code. To be sure, it means that messenger RNA molecules with different base sequences can govern the production of the same kind of protein. And the existence of such alternative “words” within the genetic language suggests that different species of organisms may employ somewhat different dialects in the nuclear books of instruction with which they control their cellular chemistry. Nevertheless, the code could still be universal in the sense that a given messenger RNA molecule, if capable at all of operating the genetic mechanisms of different types of foreign organisms, would always produce the same kind of protein molecules. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Not only did Bonner’s successful crossbreeding of the genetic mechanisms of pea plants and E. coli cell-free extracts in experiments with synthetic messenger RNA has provided further confirming evidence. While much less work has been done with mammalian than with bacterial components, it has at least been established that the messenger RNA triplets that evoke specific amino acids in the finally fabricated protein molecules are the same for mammalian as for bacterial systems in the case of the half-dozen kinds of messenger nucleic acid that have been tested. In general, while making allowance for some degree of variation from species to species in the details of the genetic mechanisms, biochemists today are confident that the genetic code has essentially been “broken”—that they are on the point of being able to line up every possible messenger RNA triplet with a particular amino acid in the resulting protein molecule. However, the specific sequence of amino acid segments in the manufactured protein molecules determine their catalytic properties and therefore controls the specific set of chemical reactions that take place in the cell. Therefore, the solution of the genetic code in this way implies the ultimate ability of the scientist to “read” the molecules of messenger RNA (or the nuclear DNA which produces them) and thereby learn the properties of the cell whose metabolism they control—whether the cell is to have the properties of pea plant or intestinal bacillus, for example. Inasmuch as the higher organisms, including humans, are believed to employ the same system of genetic control (plus a few complications yet to be treated), the implications of this work are that one day the biochemists are now able to determine the colour of eyes and shape of the nose of a yet-to-be-developed human individual by analysis of the structure of the nucleic acid molecules in the cells of the embryo! #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

Before we move on to some of the additional complexities that characterize the structure and metabolism of higher organisms, we should make sure that we understand how the discussion how all of this information contributes to our basic thesis as to the purely physical origins of life. The experimental evidence reported here can only strengthen our faith in the soundness of our nonvitalistic philosophy; for strong support for the thesis of the fundamentally physical nature of the life processes is provided by the success of the biochemists in extracting from living cells the pertinent nucleic acid/enzyme apparatus and in stimulating it to perform its architectural functions by means of the addition of nucleic acid from other organisms. Ans the successful employment of human-made chemicals for this purpose even verges on the dramatic in its demonstration of the workability of our physical explanations. Not even the evidence for the similarity of the principal features of the genetic mechanisms in all forms of life is particularly disturbing. To be sure, this might at first glance appear to be more reconcilable with the vitalistic view of the supernatural purposiveness of life than with the materialistic view that everything has happened as the result of the blindly probabilistic physical laws of the Universe. However, there is really no great problem in imagining evolutionary developments that could have led to a considerable degree of ultimate standardization in the nucleic acid/enzyme mechanisms. And such evidence of variety as the degeneracy of the genetic code, with the accompanying implication of divergence from species to species in some of the details of the genetic mechanism, seems comfortably consistent with our views of the normal consequences of the evolutionary process. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

As we address ourselves to some of the further complexities that characterize modern higher organisms, we shall find that our considerations will continue to be intimately involved with the genetic mechanisms that have occupied so much of our attention to this point. We shall not be able to escape being enormously impressed by their overriding power and importance in the phenomena of life. While evolution is clearly the great technique employed by nature for developing its biological novelties, we shall find it easy to conclude that the genetic mechanisms may constitute the most ingenious and important invention yet achieved by the use of that technique. Now, looking ahead. Did you know that your DNA determines your reaction to caffeine? Caffeine is widely consumed in foods and beverages and is also used for a variety of medical purposes. Despite its widespread use, relatively little is understood regarding how genetics affects consumption, acute response, or the long-term effects of caffeine. Twin studies find the heritability of caffeine-related traits to range between 0.36 and 0.58. Analysis of poly-substance use shows that predisposition to caffeine use is highly specific to caffeine itself and shares little common disposition to use of other substances. Genome association studies link variations in adenosine and dopamine receptors to caffeine-induced anxiety and sleep disturbances. Polymorphism in the metabolic enzyme cytochrome P-450 is associated with risk of myocardial infraction in caffeine users. Modeling based on twin studies reveals that genetics plays a role in individual variability in caffeine consumption and in the direct effects of caffeine. Both pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic polymorphisms have been linked to variation in response to caffeine. These studies may help guide future research in the role of genetics in modulating the acute and chronic effects of caffeine. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

Caffeine is the World’s most widely used stimulant. Nearly 90 percent of adults in the United States of America alone consume an estimated 30 million pounds of this psychoactive substance annually. It is the most consumed psychoactive substance in the World. Seventy-five percent of this caffeine is taken in the form of coffee (from the coffee bean); the rest is consumed in tea (from the tea leaf), cola (from the kola nut), chocolate (from the cocoa bean), and numerous prescription and over-the-counter medications, such as Excedrin. Caffeine’s popularity Worldwide can be attributed to its ability to promote wakefulness, enhance mood and cognition, and produce stimulatory effects. It is used clinically to treat premature neonatal apnea and as an analgesic adjuvant. Around 99 percent of ingested caffeine is absorbed by the body and reaches its peak concentration with an hour. It acts as a stimulant of the central nervous system, again producing a release of the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine in the brain. Thus it increases arousal, mild euphoria, alertness, enhanced cognitive performance and motor activity and reduces fatigue. It also disrupts the performance of motor tasks and may interfere with sleep. Finally, it increases the rate of breathing and gastric acid secretions in the stomach. More than two to three cups of brewed coffee (250 milligrams of caffeine) can produce caffeine intoxication, which may include such symptoms as restlessness, nervousness, anxiety, stomach disturbances, twitching, and increased heart rate. Grand mal seizures and fatal respiratory failure or circulatory failure can occur at doses greater than 10 grams of caffeine (about 100 cups of coffee), but there is a decreased risk in neurodegenerative disorders. Many people who suddenly stop or cutback on their usual intake of caffeine experience withdrawal symptoms—even some individuals whose regular consumption is low (two and a half cups of coffee daily or seven cans of cola). #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

It is likely that several factors contribute to individual differences in responses to caffeine, including demographic and environmental factors such as age, other drug use, circadian factors, and sleep hygiene. One important source of variability that has received some attention in the recent year is genetic predisposition. There is growing evidence that individual differences in caffeine response or caffeine consumption are related to genetic factors. Genetic factors may influence responses to caffeine directly, by altering acute or chronic reactions to the drug, or indirectly, by affecting other psychological or physiological processes that are related to the drug effect, such as sensitivity to anxiety, rewarding and reinforcing effects of substances in general, or related personality traits. Finally, genes can also alter the body’s adaptive responses to long-term caffeine use. The biological mechanisms of these possible sources of variation likely involve interactions at multiple sites. One study had adult subjects consume their usual caffeine-filled drinks and foods for two days, then abstain from such foods for two days while taking actual caffeine pills. More subjects experienced headaches (52 percent), depression (11 percent), anxiety (8 percent), and fatigue (8 percent) during the two-day placebo period then during the caffeine periods. In addition, subjects reported using more unauthorized medications (13 percent) and performed experimental tasks more slowly during the placebo period than during the caffeine periods. Genetic contribution to caffeine consumption changes through different stages in life. It appears that genetic contribution becomes more pronounced throughout adolescence and then stabilized during adulthood. Researchers found that genetics influence individual sensitivity to caffeine toxicity, tolerance, and withdrawal in female twins. On average the woman reported slightly higher level of caffeine-induced insomnia and greater sleep disturbances in general health than men. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Epidemiological studies indicate that smokers drink more coffee than nonsmokers, but it is not clear whether these associations are related to genetic factors or to drug interactions, social conditioning, or other variables. One approach to solving this question is to correlate the use of caffeine to other drugs and using the common pathway model and mapping the genetic contribution to a common joint use factor and substance-specific factors. Using this technique, researchers found that the heritability for coffee use overlapped with that of nicotine and alcohol, though 0.72 of the total heritability was specific to caffeine, which was considerably higher than that for nicotine and alcohol. Investigators often assess caffeine’s impact by measuring coffee consumption, yet coffee also contains other chemicals that may be dangerous to one’s health. Thus, although some studies hint at links between caffeine and cancer (particularly pancreatic cancer), the evidence is not conclusive. Similarly, studies demonstrating correlations between caffeine and heart rhythm irregularities (arrhythmias) or high cholesterol levels are not fully reliable. Caffeine does, however, appear to cause at least a slight increase in blood pressure over time in regular users and a larger but short-lived increase during the first few days of consumption by new users. As public awareness of these possible health risks has increased, caffeine consumption has declined. Around half of Americans now drink coffee daily, whereas 80 percent did so in 1983. Heavier caffeine users appear to be more influenced by genetics than lighter caffeine users. People who tend to consume more alcohol also tend to drink more coffee. Genetic association studies have been used to identify specific genes that are responsible for the heritable components of these caffeine-related traits. Caffeine and its metabolites belong to the methylxanthine class, which are structurally similar to cyclic nucleotides, and interact with cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

Caffeine is absorbed rapidly and completely from the gastrointestinal tract. It is metabolized by cytochrome P-450 enzymes, which represent the rate-limiting step for plasma clearance, and its elimination follows first-order kinetics. P-450 1A2, which is coded for by gene CYP1A2, is the primary isoenzyme responsible for the demethylation of caffeine into dimethylxanthine metabolites paraxanthine, theobromine, and theophylline. Each of these metabolites is subjected to further demethylation into monimethylxanthines. Variation in the CYP1A2 activity, both within and between individuals, represents a major source of variability in pharmaco-kinetics of caffeine. The clearance of caffeine can vary to up to 40-fold within and between individuals. Notable exogeneous factors that affect clearance include numerous drugs, medications, and smoking status, as well as caffeine itself. Endogenous factors include pregnancy, ethnicity, and genetics. Asian and African populations, for instance, appear to metabolize caffeine at slower rate than Caucasians. Genetic variations in a number of neurotransmitter functions could influence responses to caffeine. Because 10 grams of caffeine can be fatal, the substance is classified as a medical poison. The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we will miss it, but that it is too low and we will reach it. A leader is someone who has the capacity to create a compelling vision that takes people to a new place. In 1783 Washington sent a circular letter to the States, describing the situation of the new nations as he saw it. “We have equal occasion to felicitate ourselves,” he said, “on the lot which Providence has assigned to us, whether we view it in a natural, a political, or moral point of light.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

He pointed to the natural resources of the new nation, its independence and freedom, the Age of Reason during which it had come of age, an age of “the free cultivation of letters, the unbounded extension of commerce, the progressive refinement of manners, the growing liberality of sentiment, and above all the pure and benign light of Revelation….if these citizens,” he concluded, “should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be certainly their own. Such is our situation and such are our prospects.” It is hard to read these sentences without agitation and tears, for they are simply true and simply patriotic. In the next generations, almost to our own times, patriotic rhetoric did not cease to sound, more pompously and falsely, but never without a core of truth. There was always something special in the American destiny to be proud of. In 1825 it was the broad democracy. In 1850 it was the magnificent spread and settlement from coast to coast. In 1875, the material progress, the cable and the Pacific railroad, the building of modern industrialism. In 1900, America was the melting pot, the asylum of the poor and the oppressed. In our century, the patriotic rhetoric began to be unbelievable—not by accident, for foreign wars (1898 and 1917) are incompatible with reasonable rhetoric. In recent decades there has been almost a surcease of such speech. Even references to the American Way, free enterprise, high production, and the economy of abundance have finally died out, because they call up the idea of tail fins and TV commercials. Highbrow journalists mention the American Way with scorn. Our case is astounding. For the first time in recorded history, the mention of country, community, place has lost its power to animate. Nobody but a scoundrel even tries it. Our rejection of false patriotism is, of course, itself a badge of honour. However, the positive loss is tragic and I cannot resign myself to it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

A man has only one life and if during it he has no great environment, no community, he has been irreparably robbed of a human right. This loss is damaging especially in growing up, for it deprives outgoing growth, which begins with weaning from Mother and walking out of the house, of the chance of entering upon a great and honourable scene to develop in. Culture is, first of all, city and patriotic culture. Patriotism is the culture, we come with a fatal emptiness to the humane culture of science, art, humanity and God; and this emptiness results in the best people not turning back, like Plato’s philosopher who has emerged from the cave, to serve their country. Many of the best Americans have a strong philanthropic and local community zeal, yet it would seem odd for somebody nowadays to put himself to a big and hard task just to serve his country, to make her better, and be proud of that. Young people aspire mightily to appearances on television and other kinds of notoriety, but I doubt that many now thing of being honoured by a statue in the park and winning “immortal” fame, the fame of big culture. Let me make the same point by analyzing a remarkable proposition of Otto Jespersen, the grammarian. He shows that, contrary to expectation, a child does not learn his mother tongue at home from his mother and immediate family, he does not pick up their accent. The accent, vocabulary, syntax, and styles that form his speech are learned from his first peer groups, outside the home. Jespersen does not explain it, but the psychology seems evident. Speech occurs at the stage of the developing of the “I,” it is a forming of the image of the self, it is a self-appointment to one’s ideal and putting on its uniform. Changes occur as we appoint ourselves to one peer group after another. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

At certain stage a lad appoints himself or commits himself to a band of friends and puts on its jargon, jacket, tattoo, and masculine ring on the fourth finger of the left hand. If he is insecure and disturbed, this conformity is a cowering protection and the band is a delinquent gang, but in every case it is also, we see by the blazon, an achievement. And one way in which the Governor of California does not take the juveniles seriously, when he speaks of giving them a sense of belonging, is that he does not offer an ideal that promises equal manliness. He has none to offer. It is tragic when there is no great adult peer group to meet growth. Consider the case of an artist, my own case. To have simple and sounding language, rather than merely the lovely colloquialism of Sherwood Anderson or William Carlos Williams, it is necessary to believe in the great national culture of one’s people. Our popular culture does not warrant the belief, even to make the sacrifice that Virgil made when he sadly gave up his best vision because strife-torn Rome needed a national poet. True, an artist can then jump to the international and universal, for a mankind and God do not let him down (mankind is the fellow on one’s own block), but this is at the loss of pomp and glitter, of the glancing present. Without a patriotic peer group, it is impossible to have the brilliance of Handel, the material grandeur of Venice. With us the style of the big bright sensation belongs to cheap musical dramas on Broadway. Now, an analogy to the “triumphant conscience,” as developed by Luther personally as well as theologically, appeared in the enthusiastic philosophy of Giordano Bruno. The moral conscience is overcome by the “heroic affect” toward the Universe and the surrender to its infinity and inexhaustible creativity. Participation in the creativity of life universal liberates the moral conscience, the bad as well as the good. Humans, standing in the center of being, are bound to transform life as it is into higher life. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

These living souls take upon themselves the tragic consequences, connected with the destructive side of finite creativity, and must not try to escape them for the sake of a good moral conscience. While in Bruno the transmoral conscience is based on a mystical naturalism, Nietzsche’s transmoralism is a consequence of his dramatic-tragic naturalism. Nietzsche belongs to those empiricists who have tried to analyze the genesis of moral conscience in such a way that its autonomy is destroyed—Hobbes and Helvetius, on the ground of a materialistic metaphysics; Mandeville and Bentham, on the ground of a utilitarian psychology; Dr. Darwin and Dr. Freud, on the ground of an evolutionary naturalism—all have denied any objective validity to the voice of conscience, according to their rejection of any universal natural (rational) law. Nietzsche carried these ideas further, as the title and the content of Genealogy of Morals shows. He says, “The bad conscience is a sickness, but it is a sickness as pregnancy is one.” It is a creative sickness. Humankind had to be domesticated, and this has been done by its conquerors and ruling classes. It was in the interest of these classes to suppress by sever punishments the natural instincts of aggressiveness, will to power, destruction, cruelty, revolution. They succeeded in suppressing these trends. However, they did not succeed in eradicating them. So the aggressive instincts became internalized and transformed into self-destructive tendencies. Humans have turned against themselves in self-punishment; they are separated from their innocent terrestrial past from which they had derived strength, joy, and creativity. However, humans cannot prevent their instincts from remaining alive. They require permanent acts of suppression, the result of which is the bad conscience, a great thing in human evolution, an ugly thing if compared with humanities real aim. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

Nietzsche described this aim in terms which remind one of Luther’s descriptions of the transmoral conscience: “Once in a stronger period than our morbid, desperate present, one must appear, the man of the great love and the great contempt, the creative spirit who does now allow his driving strength to be turned to a transcendent World.” Nietzsche call him the man “who is strong through wars and victories, who needs conquest, adventure, danger, even pain.” The man is “beyond good and evil” in the moral sense. At the same time, he is good in the metaphysical (or mystical) sense that he is in unity with life universal. He has a transmoral conscience, not on the basis of a paradoxical unity with God (such as Luther has), but on the basis of an enthusiastic unity with life in its creative and destructive power. Recent “existential” philosophy has developed a doctrine of transmoral conscience that follows the general lines of Luther, Bruno, and Nietzsche. Heidegger, the main representative of existential philosophy, says, “The call of conscience has the character of the demand that humans in their finitude actualize their genuine potentialities, and this means an appeal to become guilty.” Conscience summons us to ourselves, calling us back from the talk of the market and the conventional behaviour of the masses. It has no special demands; it speaks to us in the “mode of silence.” It tells us only to act and to become guilty by acting, for every action is unscrupulous. One who acts experiences the call of conscience and, at the same time, has the experience of contradicting one’s conscience, of being guilty. “Existence as such is guilty.” Only self-deception can give a good moral conscience, since it is impossible not to act and since every action implies guilt. We must act, and the attitude in which we can act is “resoluteness.” Resoluteness transcends the moral conscience, its arguments and prohibitions. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

The good, transmoral conscience consists in the acceptance of the bad, moral conscience,which is unavoidable whenever decisions are made and acts are performed. The way from Luther’s to Heidegger’s idea of a transmoral conscience was a dangerous one. “Transmoral” can mean the re-establishment of morality from a point below morality. The empiricists from Hobbes to Dr. Freud have analyzed moral conscience, but they have not destroyed it. Either they were dependent in their concrete ethics on Anglo-Saxon common sense; or they identified utility with the social conventions of a well-established bourgeoisie; or they cultivated a high sense of conscientiousness, in scientific honesty as well as in the fulfillment of duties; or they did not dare, unconsciously or consciously, to draw the radical moral consequences of their dissolution of the conscience. In Nietzsche and Heidegger none of these inhibitions is left. However, it is not without some justification that these names are connected with the antimoral movements of fascism or national socialism. Even Luther has been linked with them, as have Machiavelli and Bruno. This raises the questions: is the idea of a transmoral conscience tenable? Or is it so dangerous that it cannot be maintained? However, if the idea must be dismissed, religion as well as analytic psychotherapy would also have to be dismissed. For in both of them, the moral conscience is transcendent—in religion by the acceptance of the divine grace that breaks through the realm of law and creates a joyful conscience, and in-depth psychology by the acceptance of one’s own conflicts when looking at them and suffering under their ugliness without an attempt to suppress them and to hide them from oneself. Indeed, it is impossible not to transcend the moral conscience because it is impossible to unite a sensitive and good conscience. Those who have a sensitive conscience cannot escape the question of the transmoral conscience. The moral conscience drives beyond the sphere in which it is valid to the sphere from which it must receive its conditional validity. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

The celibacy movement was rather interesting. The “silent strike,” with its contingent of proud spinsters, generated an inevitable backlash. This came in the form of gender discrimination. Scientists started to expressed the biological differences been men and women. Havelock Ellis said that, “women’s special sphere is the bearing and the rearing of children, with the care of human life in the home. Man’s primary sphere remains the exploration of life outside the home, in industry and inventions and the cultivation of the arts.” With this observation of the status quo cloaked in scientific garb, Ellis proceeded to extrapolate conclusions. One was the ideal the relations involving pleasures of the flesh would be between male dominance and female submissiveness. Another was that the ideal female, a paragon of Motherhood, was very definitely not a spinster, a word that in Ellis’s writings elaborated on the nasty connotations our century has inherited from his. Like so many Motherhood aficionados, Ellis claimed and was credited with a feminist agenda: surely praising the wonderful work of mothers must be women-positive. In Ellis’s case, this seemed irrefutable, for he also preached the novel idea that women should, indeed must, enjoy pleasures of the flesh. No more lying rigid, clenching fists, and teeth, enduring bimonthly intimate invasion by obliterating it with thoughts of England and the empire. (Ironically, Ellis himself had earlier lost an adored lover because he failed to reach a “proud status” during romantic interlude. His predilection in pleasures of the flesh was to observe the other species using the water closet, which stemmed from his unforgettable boyhood experience of watching his mother relieve herself of fluid in the garden.) #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

Ellis’s espousal of the great Motherhood or, in Germany, Mutterschutz, movement particularly explains his enormous influence. From the 1800s onward, fewer children were born but infant mortality soared. Physical exams revealed the poor condition of many schoolchildren, and military recruits were rejected at a high rate for a plethora of disabilities. Something was wrong—at least, these authorities now knew something was wrong—and the solution seemed to be a nation of Super Moms who would reverse the physical decline. In Ellis’s words, these women would undertake the “regeneration of the race” and the “evolution of a supermankind.” Women, too bought into the Motherhood ideal. Some felt it validated the roles they had chosen or that had been chose for them. Others were persuaded that this form of biology was scientific truth and so believed the conclusions its thinkers so convincingly reported. These conclusions clashed with feminist beliefs, particularly the silent strike, the voluntary spinsters’ movement in which women took control of their lives by refusing to surrender their rights to husbands. Censuring spinster became the keynote of antifeminist attacks. One Motherhood proponent, herself a woman, decried spinsters with an analogy to a beehive, in which infertile workers were like “surplus woman” who refused or had no opportunity to marry. Since the workers bee’s poisoned sting required the egg laying tube, spinsters who relinquished “the power of life” would, by definition, gain possession of “the stinging weapon of death.” Another male antifeminist spoke in alarmist terms of eventual civil war between wives and spinsters, “the waste products of our female population.” In Modern Woman and How to Manager Her, another male writer called spinsters “man-condemning, man-hating…women who are ‘independent of men,’ a motely host, pathetic in their defiance of the first principle of Nature, but of no serious account in the biological sense.” He even proposed polygamy as a solution to “spinsterhood, and the right to live one’s life—the supreme consummation of a large number of revolutionary British women.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

In later years, charges of women who lonely loved other women and frigidity, both caused or worsened by spinsterhood, bolstered the attacks on single, independent women. Given that British women outnumbered men by 2 million, this was heavy artillery indeed. The women were acknowledged—negatively—as the prime movers behind reforms for all species, human and animal. The “fanaticism and crankiness” of these dangerous virgins, charged virulent antifeminist Charlotte Haldane, impelled them to espouse “freak science, freak religions, and freak philanthropy,” and to embrace wholeheartedly such contemptible crusades as antivisection, the bane of England’s scientific advancement, dogs’ homes and cats’ homes, missionary endeavors, and “‘Kill-joy’ propaganda.” Furthermore, “enough is known [about the psychological effects of permanent virginity],” Haldane opined, “to make us aware that in entrusted responsibility towards individuals and the State to elderly virgins we may be acting unwisely.” Women and loved other women, styled “intermediate women,” were even more problematic. They should be allowed only inferior jobs because as educators or nurses or doctors, “intermediate women may do an enormous amount of harm.” In the manipulative hands of the “anatomy biologists” and their unlikely Motherhood allies, the celibacy that women seeking independence had once embraced with such delight and firm purpose was now portrayed as sullied and suspicious, a witch’s mantel for freaky madwomen or a masquerade for reviled women who love women. Society still demanded virgin brides, but their virginity was their supreme offering to a husband who would maneuver them through the rest of their life. Aging girls—women—who failed to contract a marriage were pitied, but self-styled spinsters with agendas, no matter how noble and important, were condemned in vitriolic terms, their brand of feminism repudiated as antisocial and unworthy of any regard but the most evil eye. Their celibacy had become as loathsome as its object: women’s independence and personal fulfillment. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

With so many people in the World today whose outlook is negative, whose emotions are twisted and thinking is warped, it is more needful to stand firm in one’s own spot of optimistic thinking that ever. Whoever doubts the truth of this message, thereby deprives oneself of its benefits. However, this is equally true of the believer who fears its truth. If the future holds distress and suffering, blows and disasters, it is to be met with courage sought and asked from the higher self. According to our faith, it will be given us. It is not a question of what we like or prefer to believe. It is a question of accepting quietly, or else defying vainly, the chose of events and the trend of destiny. If catastrophe and obliteration threaten humanity and if the individual is hopeless when confronted by them, it is logical to conclude that although humanity might not be able to save itself, the individual can save oneself from these disasters if one believes that inner salvation is at least a possibility where outer salvation is not. Yes, you and I can save ourselves from within even when we cannot save ourselves from without. That at least is a better lot than the one of the humans who can save oneself neither from within nor from without and puts one’s faith in political action alone. For politics is merely a system of human bargaining actuated by self-seeking. It can invoke the assistance of no higher power because it does not rise higher than this self-seeking interest itself. However, the individual is free to life oneself above this sordid plane and therefore one is in a position to invite the attention and assistance of higher powers. One who consciously inhabits reality will live independent of the mutations of fate, the catastrophes of history, and the crises of an epoch in dissolution. Even in crisis of war, where danger or even death is lurking, philosophy reveals its immense practicability. For the philosopher can meet them with the utter calmness, effective capacity, and resolute heroism with which one’s studies, reflection, disciplines, and ideals have formed one’s character. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Amid the surging tides of postwar chaos, one sets the example and shows the value of philosophic principles by standing firm as a rock. Just as one kept cool in the very midst of global conflagration, so one now keeps clear-sighted amid the gloom of its dusty aftermath. In the very midst of World confusion, one becomes a little oasis of strength and peace, wisdom and certitude, calm and holiness. If one has to live in a chaotic disordered environment, the sad heritage of war, one still lives one’s own constructive ordered pattern of existence. The very example of such a human keeping steady and balanced thus silently helps some others who are bewildered or aimless. Now, when considering American capitalism, there are a few things we should keep in mind. According to Adam Smith, “Labour was the first, price, the original purchase—money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the World was originally purchased.” It many come as a surprise that, until field of labour was replaced by factory work, few of our ancestors ever held a job. This surely was not because they were rich. Most were wretchedly poor. They did not hold jobs because the “job,” in today’s sense of formally committed work in return for stipulated pay, had not yet been invented. Like the steam engine and other industrial innovations, jobs and wage labour became widespread only during the last three centuries. Work itself was transferred from outdoors to indoors, or schedules set no longer by sunrise and sunset but by the punch clock. Most payments came in the form of wages based on hours worked. Indeed, these arrangements essentially define the term job. However, the job is only one way of packaging work. And as the latest, knowledge-based wealth systems unfold, we are moving toward a future in which, as we will see, more people “work” but fewer hold “jobs.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

It will drastically alter labour relations, human resources departments, legislation and the overall labour market how the offices of employment are conducted in the future. It is bad news for trade unions as we know them. The deep fundamental of work is changing more profoundly than at any time since the industrial revolution. Division of labour, like work itself, traces back to hunting and gathering, when the division was mainly based on gender. However, here, too, we are approaching a turning point. Ever hear of a “metallurgy and failure analysis litigation consultant” or a “post-harvest horticulturalist”? Neither have most of us. (The latter is the superspecialist who determine such things as how many microscopic holes are needed to admit oxygen into the plastic bag that holds vegetables in the supermarket.) Adam Smith in 1776 called the division of labour the source of “the greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour.” And this has been true ever since. However, the more refined and specialized tasks become, the harder and more expensive it becomes to integrate them—especially in an innovation-driven competitive economy. At some point, the costs of integration may exceed the value of such superspecialization. Moreover, narrowly focused specialists may be good at incremental innovation. However, breakthrough innovation is often the product of temporary teams whose members cross disciplinary boundaries—at a time when breakthroughs in every field are, in fact, blurring those very boundaries. And this is not just a matter for scientists and researchers. The new wealth system demands a complete shake-up in the way increasingly temporary skill sets are organized for increasingly temporary purposes throughout the economy. Nothing is more deeply fundamental to the creation of wealthy. Now only are work and the division of labour changing, but income distribution itself—the “who gets what?”—may be heading, over the long term, toward truly revolutionary change. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

The temple of the animals has fallen into disrepair. The pad of feet has faded. The panthers flee the shadows of the day. Tired, I recall the animals of last year: the altars of the bear, tribunals of the ape, solitudes of elephantine gloom, rare zebra-stripped retreats, prophecies of dog, sanctuaries of the pygmy deer. Were there rituals I had forgotten? Animal calls to which those animal voices replied, called and called until that jungle stirred. Were there voices that I heard? Love was the very animal made his lair, slept out his winter in my heart. Did he seek my hear or ever sleep there? I have seen the animals depart, forgotten their voices, or barely remembered—like that last speech when the company goes or the beloved face that the heart knows, forgets and knows—I have heard the dying footsteps of fall. The sound has faded, but lingers here. Ah, bitterly I recall animals of last year. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power, and the glory and the victory and the majesty; all that is in the Heaven and in the Earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and Thou art exalted above all. Both riches and honour come from Thee, and Thou rulest over all; in Thy hand is power and might, and in Thy hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Therefore, our God, we thank Thee, and praise Thy glorious name. O give thanks unto the Lord who alone doeth great wonders; His lovingkindness endureth forever. Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God; He covereth the Heavens with clouds, He prepareth rain for the Earth, and maketh the mountains to be green with grass. He maketh your borders peaceful, He giveth you the fat of the wheat in plenty. He is good to the Earth, and watereth her with His rivers that are full of water. He maketh the Earth soft with showers, and blesseth the growth thereof. He crowneth the year with His goodness, and showereth the Earth with rich bounty. #RandolpHarris 21 of 21

Cresleigh Homes

Stand-out style meets convenience with airy living spaces for sparkling entertainment.

This Valentines Day, we can’t let the holiday pass by without sharing our love for our new address at Mills Station Residence 1. Amazing home; amazing view; amazing life! 💖💖💖

In the Cup of Omens there is a Baptism into Black Magic!

In popular thinking, the term “magic” refers to the tricks of a sleight-of-hand artist, the optical illusions created by a clever trickster, or the cunning exhibition of seemingly supernatural powers by money-hungry charlatans. Undoubtedly many of the amazing demonstrations performed by such people have a completely naturalistic explanation, but honest scholars who have investigated occultic phenomena in many parts of the World agree that science at present is unable to account for some of the apparently supernatural events they have witnessed. The Bible also sets forth the view that not all magic is merely hocus-pocus. In the Biblical portrayal of magic, the Scriptures acknowledge that real superhuman power can be accomplished through sorcery, but clearly teach that the source of such manifestations is evil. The Egyptian magicians actually were able to change their rods into serpents by throwing them on the ground. Some say these rods were really snakes which had been hypnotized into becoming as rigid as a cane, but even so we must admit that no scientist today can explain how these men were able to perform this feat. They also were successful in changing water into blood, and in producing a miraculous multiplication of frogs, thus apparently duplicating what Moses and Aaron had done by God’s supernatural power. The Egyptian sorcerers undoubtedly believed their gods gave them the ability to perform these amazing exploits, and they viewed their encounter with Moses and Aaron as a contest to determine whether or not their gods were more powerful than God. The Bible implies that supernatural beings take advantage of the practices of heathenism to further enslave their adherents, but declares that these invisible agents are neither holy angels nor gods. It states that they are demons—spirit beings who rebelled against God and now are dedicated to Him. For this reason, Moses and Aaron convincingly demonstrated the superiority of God over these demonic forces. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

When Aaron’s rod became a serpent, it swallowed up those the Egyptians had cast to the ground. The greater power of God also was manifested when the pagan sorcerers were unable to remove the plague of frogs, but Moses simply prayed to the Lord, and “the frogs died out of the houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields,” reports Exodus 8.13. God’s servants then brought about the third plague, a changing of dust into lice, a judgment which made life almost unbearable for human and beast. This time the magicians of Egypt were unable to duplicate the miracle, not could they bring about the sudden death of the pests. They therefore humbly acknowledged, “This is the finger of God,” reports Exodus 8.19. In this manner, the Lord demonstrated His absolute superiority over the powers of evil which the Egyptians worshiped as gods. It does important for us to note again that the Bible does not indicate that the magicians were frauds. A careful study of this history of Egypt, Babylon, and other nations of antiquity reveals that heathen priests accomplished many unusual feats, and kept the people under subjection through what appeared to be supernatural abilities. In seeking to understand some of the mysterious phenomena of heathenism, we must bear in mind the declaration of the apostle Paul, “But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons,” reports 1 Corinthians 10.20. The apostle was definitely saying that the worship of idols involved more than merely bowing down to lifeless images. Furthermore, the fact that the Bible repeatedly forbids sorcery, divination, and every other form of occultism is evidence that God links these practices with actual demonic power. We repeat, the death penalty would not have been the prescribed punishment for all mediums, fortunetellers, and sorcerers if they were only quacks guilty of deception for gain. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

Critics of the Bible insist that its attitude toward some forms of witchcraft is inconsistent, and even sincere believers have been puzzled by several passages which appear to condone these practices. A careful examination of these instances, however, reveals that such critical assertions are unwarranted. Genesis 30: 14-18 records the story of Leah and Rachel bargaining for mandrakes, showing that they believed these so-called “love apples” increased a woman’s fertility. However, the fact that Jacob’s wives held to this ancient concept does not necessarily indicate that the Bible expresses approval. Then, too, modern investigation has shown that some primitive medicines, scorned by medics a generation or two ago, actually do possess qualities which make them valuable. At any rate, this passage of Scripture does not indicate that the Bible encouraged the use of magic. In another instance of apparent superstition, Jacob peeled the bark from saplings to give them a spotted appearance become he believed that they offspring of the cattle bred before them would then be speckled and spotted. This story is declared to be an indication that the writer of Genesis held to the notion that the colour of the unborn young would be affected by what the female animal saw at the time of impregnation. (See Genesis 30.37-43.) A careful study of the entire account reveals, however, the truth that God actually was controlling the breeding process through the laws of heredity, not by means of Jacob’s efforts. The angel of the Lord later told the patriarch that the male animals possessed genetic characteristics which brought about the birth of so many striped, speckled, and spotted animals. (See Genesis 31.11-12.) Therefore, we can assert with confidence that this passage of Scripture in no way encourages the use of magic. The statement of Joseph to his brothers about his silver cup also poses a problem for Bible students, because his words seem to indicate that he used it for purposes of divination. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

After the steward had hidden the cup in Benjamin’s sack of grain, Joseph told him what he was to do and say. The King James Version records Joseph’s instructions as follows, “Up, follow after them men; and when thou dost overtake them, say unto them, Wherefore have ye rewarded evil for good? Is not this it in which my Lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth? Ye have done evil in so doing” (Genesis 44.4-5). Scholars today know that the heathen sorcerers of Joseph’s day often sprinkled small particles of gold or sliver into a cup of water, or poured a small amount of oil in it, and then “read” the resulting design in the cup of omens. While it is possible that Joseph fell into this sinful and heathenish practice, we doubt very much that he did, for he had one of the finest characters of all the men portrayed in the entire Old Testament. In addition, we can present good reason for our conviction that Joseph never really used the coup to find out about the unknown. In the first place, Joseph did not need such sources of information. God had spoken to him through dreams and other forms of revelation, and therefore Joseph did possess knowledge ordinarily hidden to humans. In that sense he was able to “divine.” His instruction to his steward may be translated, “Is it not from this cup that my Lord drinks, and concerning which he will assuredly divine?” In other words, Joseph made it clear that he possessed a power which would enable him to find out what happened to the cup. (We must remember that Joseph was play-acting in order to test his brothers. He wanted them to be puzzled by the knowledge he possessed, and did not want to disclose his real identity at this time. For this reason, he did not speak of obtaining information directly from God.) This interpretation of verse 5 fits well with the statement of Joseph recorded in verse 15, “What deed is this that ye have done? Know ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?” #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

He let his brothers know that he was a special person with unusual powers of perception, but did not reveal the source of his ability. Later he told them about his faith in God. Therefore, the story of Joseph and the silver cup is certainly not an indication of Biblical approval of magic, and the likelihood exists that Joseph never practiced the heathen customs of his day. Certain elements of the Mosaic law sometimes are thought to be a form of magic. In Numbers 5, for example, we are told that if a man suspected his wife of unfaithfulness, he was to take her to the priest for trial. The woman would then drink a liquid potion to determine her guilt or innocence. If certain physical results became apparent immediately, she was deemed guilty. If not, she was innocent. On the surface this appears to be a superstitious practice, but when we remember that Israel lived under a theocracy and that God has ordained this test, we can believe He would in this manner declare infallibly the guilt or innocence of the person being tried. The Urim and Thummim as a means of revelation and the long hair of Samson as the secret of his strength are further examples of divinely ordered and controlled phenomena which cannot be compared to the magic of the heathen. Therefore, we can say assuredly that nothing in the Old Testament or the New can be properly interpreted as divine sanction of sorcery or magic. Shortly before the Exile, the prophet Ezekiel delivered a scorching denunciation of women who were using amulets and veils in a magic ritual to bring joy or sadness, blessing or cursing, even life or death to certain individuals. “Likewise, thou son of man, set thy face against the daughters of thy people, who prophesy out of their own heart, and prophesy thou against them, and say, Thus saith the Lord God: Woe to the women that sew amulets upon all wrists, and make kerchiefs for the head of every person of stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you? And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear you lies? #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

“Wherefore, thus saith the LORD GOD: Behold, I am against your amulets, with which ye there hunt the souls to make them fly; and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly. Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted; and ye shall know that I am the LORD. Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, who I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life; therefore, ye shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations; for I will deliver my people out of your hand; and ye shall know that I am the LORD,” reports Ezekiel 13.17-23. Exactly what these women did is not easy to ascertain. Some Bible students have conjectured that they performed a rite in which they symbolically bound up the soul of a person so that the individual would gradually waste away and die. Then, for a fee they would bring about his release. Other scholars think that Ezekiel describes features of “sympathetic magic,” whereby the sorceress fastened something around her own wrists or enshrouded her own head to place a curse upon a specific individual. In either case, the practice of these women appeared to have consequences so serious as to warrant divine condemnation and a prophetic declaration that God would deliver His people from their grasp. The Old Testament acknowledges the existence of real magic, and consistently condemns it in every form. Furthermore, the rites and ceremonies prescribed for Israel were not equivalent to the practices of the heathen, but were instructions that came directly from God and over which He would exercise control. At the very threshold of human history stands God’s command, “Fill the Earth and subdue it,” reports Genesis 1.28. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

The task and right of man was the peaceful conquest of the Earth’s powers in accordance with the will of God. In opposition to this command Satan, the great master of confusion came and put forward his arch-temptation, “You will be like God knowing good and evil,” reports Genesis 3.5. Magic is the very antithesis of the commandment of God as it reveals a hunger for knowledge and a desire for power in opposition to the will of God. When faced with this temptation humankind was at the crossroads. The decision has to be made. Either voluntary subordination to the will of God or rebellion against His statues and His ordinances caused by a greed for power and a desire for knowledge. The decision still faces us today. We either conform to God’s revealed way of salvation or we carry on the rebellion, trying to rule the created World in unforgivable opposition to God. Magic is thus at its roots a rebellion, and it has been so from the beginning. It is the climax of man’s revolt against God. Any talk of harmless forces of nature and neutral applications is criminal in the light of this scriptural fact. On the surface, parapsychology (the science of extrasensory experience) still recognizes something of the double nature of magic. The differentiation is made between Psi-Gamma phenomena and Psi-Kappa phenomena. (Gamma representing gignoskein, to perceive; kappa representing kinein, to move). Here we have again the two basic elements of magic: knowledge and power through supernatural means. Through a great deal of pastoral work, I have noticed four ways in which magical powers can originate. These are through heredity, subscription of oneself to the devil, occult experiments and occult transference. The evidence drawn from many actual case histories goes to prove that magical abilities can be passed on by means of heredity. Often mediumistic powers can be traced back over three or four generations in one family. There are two possibilities here, one being that it is a matter of the genes and the other that it is a matter of succession. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

By this we mean the custom of a person on one’s deathbed actually bestowing the magical abilities upon the eldest son or daughter in order to die peacefully. Often tragic scenes occur when the children do not want to have these abilities passed on to them. A person may cry out for weeks on his deathbed for someone to relieve him of his magical powers. Sometimes a distant relative or an outsider is willing to accept the succession. The reason for this may differ from case to case, be it pity, curiosity or maybe lust for power. The death of some magicians can drag on over a period of weeks till the office of “succession” has been settled. This is not an apostolic but a diabolic succession. Magical powers on the other hand may originate through subscription to the devil. One can see in this the counterpart to baptism. To every event recorded in the Bible, there seems to be a demonic parallel to it in the field of magic. Subscription to the devil accounts for some of the most terrible and formidable cases met with by Christian workers. For example, in Paris there is an occult church with the name or title, “We Worship the Prince of this World.” This church has sister congregations in Basle and berne, and a few decades ago one was opened in Rome. In order to become a member of this church, one has to subscribe oneself to the devil. This is a baptism into black magic! For years a man in Toggenburg, Switzerland, had a flourishing practice as a nature healer and charmer. He could even sure come people who the doctors had given up as hopeless. He had healed the blind, the lame, cases of advanced cancer, tuberculosis, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma and other serious diseases. On one occasion however, the man’s own personal need came to the surface. He said, “I can help others, but for myself there is no help, no not in all eternity!” In his youth the man had subscribed himself to the devil. It was since that time that he had obtained his unearthly healing ability. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

Another way in which magical powers may develop is through experimenting with occultism. A Swiss factory worker grew tired of his job. Since he had often heard that occult healers and mesmerizers made a lot of money, he bought some magic charms, underwent various devil ceremonies and then began healing experiments. His magic healing ability developed rapidly and ultimately his income surpassed his previous earnings many times over. The next example will illustrate all three factors together, that is, the factors of heredity, subscription and experimenting in occultism. A young woman told me this story. Here great-grandmother had subscribed herself to the devil with her own blood. She had practiced black magic and had healed both animals and people. On her deathbed she had suffered terribly as is often the cause with magic conjurers. The daughter, that is the grandmother of my storyteller, took over the magic powers of her mother. The magic literature of her mother also passed into her hands. Later the apparition of the great-grandmother was seen by the relatives. The grandmother however, continued to practice magic. During nights of the full moon, she would charm diseases. She was also in the habit of using a key suspended over a Bible as a pendulum, and she could also successfully stop people from bleeding. If she ever attempted to read the Bible, she found it quite a trial. As she grew older, she began to see black figures in her home, and finally when she died it was again an unpleasant time. Her ghost was also seen after her departure. The story went on that the young woman’s mother had then taken over the magical literature and practices. She too had become a well-known healer, but her fate had been the same as her predecessors’. The fourth member in this terrible line of succession was not the young woman. As a small child, her mother had cast spells over her. Shortly after this, she had become clairvoyant and had also begun to see black figures in the house. Her brother and sister had suffered from depression and she herself had has serious psychic and nervous disturbances which had led her to seek the help of a minister. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

Occult transference is the fourth source of magical powers. A young man told me that he had once had three black magicians lay their hands on his head and murmur some magic charms over him. He had afterwards possessed magic abilities which astonished even the family doctor. The doctor had investigated his powers and had to acknowledge that they were genuine. The laying on of the hands of the magicians would again be a counterpart to the scriptural laying on of hands. Another example, a young man saw someone searching for water with a pendulum. He was asked if he would like to have a go, but the pendulum did not react in his hand. When the dowser took hold of his hands, though, the pendulum had at once reacted. Later when he had tried to repent the experiment by himself, he was again successful, and he discovered that he now had the ability to search for water with both a rod or a pendulum. Yet the young man felt a change in his Christian life. Previously he had been regular in his reading of the Bible and in prayer. After this transference of pendulum ability, however, his love for the Word of God and for prayer declined. Spirits are not normally subject to human visibility or other sensory perception. God’s universe operates undeviatingly in accordance with the purpose for which He created it. The all-wise and all-powerful Creator is not permitting Satan and demons to throw his ordered Universe into confusion by violating the laws he has established. Nor is He permitting His own people to do so through haphazard miracles. Though not ignoring the laws of nature, God’s Word also recognizes the possible transcendence of natural law in divine miracle both in good supernaturalism (Exodus 14.19-31; 17: 5-7; Joshua 3.16-17; 6.20; John 2.9; 11:44) and in evil supernaturalism (Exodus 7.10-11, 22; 8.7; 2 Thessalonians 2.8-10; Revelation 13.15). #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

When natural law is transcended by divine miracle, the natural eye may see the spiritual reality. An illustration is provided in 2 Kings 6.17. In answer to Elisha’s prayer, the Lord “opened the eyes” of the prophet’s servant who saw “the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” In like manner Elisha saw the “chariot of fire, and horses of fire” when Elijah went up by a whirlwind into Heaven (2 Kings 2.11). Similarly John saw the demons coming up from the abyss in their last-day eruption as locusts (Revelation 9.1-12). He also saw the three hideous demons issuing from the months of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet as froglike spirits (Revelation 16.13-14). The apocalyptic seer glimpsed these fouls spirits prophetically and by supernatural vision. However, when they are sent against human, they will be invisible to the natural eye. Their presence will be known by the excruciating pain they inflict and the gross deception they cause. The harm they inflict will be inescapable, because their victims will be unable to shield themselves from an invisible enemy. However, spirits can become discernible to humans through transcendence of natural law. Evil spirits may be seen and communicated through an intermediary or medium. Just as Peter and Paull saw and talked with an angel (Acts 5.19; 27: 23-24), so human beings today can communicate with evil spirits through magic rites and incantations. Communication with the demon World results in supernatural manifestations, but these, strictly speaking, are not miraculous. Occult enslavement and extrasensory phenomena await people who enter the realm from which God would protect his own people (Deuteronomy 18.10-11) and against which He solemnly warns (Leviticus 19.31; 20.27; 1 Samuel 28.9; 1 Timothy 4.1, 2;1 John 4.1-3). When humans ignore God’s warnings and enter a forbidden realm, they may witness materializations, levitations, and luminous apparitions, as well as experience spirit rappings, trances, automatic writing, magic phenomena, clairvoyance, oral and written communications and other forms of spiritistic phenomena. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

Such manifestations are not miracles. They represent the operation of the occult within a certain well-defined sphere tolerated by God. Occult subjection and oppression are the inevitable penalties to all who traffic in the realm of evil supernaturalism. The Scriptures are markedly reticent on the matter of spirits being seen by humans. Here again, the Bible stands in contrast to ethnic and rabbinic systems. Multitudes of demons in bizarre forms are described in ancient semitic demonology. Rabbinic demonology, for example, divides demons into two classes: one composed of purely spiritual beings, the other of half-spirits. The latter were though to have a psycho-sarcous constitution that involved them in physical needs and functions. Although the Bible is silent concerning such “halbgeister,” they would seem to be what the offspring of the angels and mortal women (Genesis 6:1-4) might have been, half-angelic and half-human monsters. Many spiritualists say they accept the Christian Bible as the Word of God. To understand it, however, spiritualists go to the control spirit in the séances, and the spirits reputedly give the proper interpretation. Spiritualists frequently ask, “Why go to the Bible, when you can go directly to the spirit and receive personal instruction from such people as Moses, Abraham, Joshua, Isaiah, David, Peter, James, John, and Paul—even the Master himself?” With that kind of opportunity, few spiritualists prefer to read the Bible—and hence they know little of what it teaches. For the Christian, 2 Timothy 3.16-17, is a key teaching regarding the inspiration and purpose of Scripture: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfectly, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” Spiritualists do not accept the plain meaning of that verse, and they distort another key verse, 2 Peter 1.21, which speaks of “holy men of God” producing prophecy “by the Holy Ghosts.” Spiritualists say this means that the prophets were inspired by the spirits. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

Dr. Moses Hull, an accepted authority among spiritualists, wrote in Biblical Spiritualism, a book he published in 1895: “The Bible is, I think, one of the best of the sacred books of the ages. It is supposedly the sacred fountain from which two, if not three, of the great religions of the World have flowed…While the Bible is not the infallible or immaculate book that many have supposed it to be, no one can deny that it is a great book…Yet it must be confessed that the age of critical analysis of all its sayings and its environments has hardly dawned…John R. Shannon said to his Denver audience, ‘We do not believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. The dogma that every word of the Bible is supernaturally dictated is false. It ought to be shelved away…Verbal inspiration is a superstitious theory; it has turned multitudes in disgust from the Bible; it has led thousands into infidelity; it has led to savage theological warfare’…All these facts would show, if brought out, that the Bible, like all other books, is exceedingly human in its origin. While the Bible is, none of it infallible, none of it unerring—when rightly interpreted it is all of it useful; all of it good. Even the parts which the people called infidels have ridiculed the most, become beautiful when examined in the light of modern spiritualism. In the following chapters the sacred light of spiritualism is applied to the Bible and it becomes indeed a ‘lamp unto our feet and a light to our path.’” To show something of how spiritualists interpret Scripture, I have chosen five examples from Hull’s book. Isaiah 21.4-5. “My heart panted, fearful affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me. Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink; arise, ye prices, and anointed the shield.” The spiritualists interprets the phrase “prepare the table” as meaning a table to be used for spirit manifestation at a séance. Ezekiel 9.4-6. “And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

“And to the other he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite; let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity; slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.” Dr. Hull comments: “Ezekiel was considered an excellent medium, but like many of the nineteenth century he makes wrong predictions. It is thought that very few, if any, of his predictions ever met their accomplishments.” Amos 7.7. “Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.” Hull writes: “Mediums see such manifestations in connection with departed human spirits nearly every day.” Acts 8.26-30. “And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south…and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch…had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him.” Dr. Hull asserts that Philip was carried by a control spirit to speak to the Ethiopian. Galatians 1.11-12. “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” In his handbook for spiritualist, Hull concludes from this text that the Apostle Paul received the gospel by spirit revelation through the mediumship of Jesus. It is noteworthy that to both the spiritualist and the Christian, Satan is God’s archenemy. I was at a séance one time when Satan supposedly entered. It ended abruptly, and we were told it was because of the presence of an evil spirit. It is tragic that many spiritualists never realize they are being deceived by this very devil who can ingeniously adapt his tactics to lure any type of prey. Satan is openly honoured, of course, by some practitioners of the so-called “black arts” or “black magic.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

Generally, some of these people are obsessed with hexes and spells, sexual indulgence, weird rituals, and hints of violence. Spiritualists, who consider themselves followers of God and the “good spirits,” regard such people as self-centered “spiritists” who follow the “bad spirits.” However, these “good” and “bad” spirits serve the same master, Satan, and serve him well, because they each give their followers what Satan dispenses: a sense of goodness and of guidance without dependence on Christ; and a sense of power and self-fulfillment in defiance of God’s commands. However, many spirits do believe in God, and the Christian Bible says there is a Holy Spirit and Angels that guide us, and in many cases, these spirits do prevent people from facing hardships, and these people still depend on Christ. So, it is really hard to generalize and give Satan so much power. Nonetheless, all people are baffled by occult mysteries! Revelations 13.14 says, “Satan’s representative deceiveth them that dwell on the Earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do.” Generally, people think of miracles and blessings as good omens. So, everyone has to make their own decisions as to what they believe, but many people on Earth are always looking for evidence of the supernatural because the very fact that we live on a globe that floats in the sky and provides of with nature and fruit and meat, and sun and a nightlight at night is evidence of a supernatural power. Once upon a time, at the instigation of a ghost, a lawsuit took place at Downpartick in 1685. The account of this was given to Baxter by Thomas Emlin, “a worthy preacher in Dublin,” as well as by Claudius Gilbert, one of the principal parties therein concerned: the latter’s son and namesake proved a liberal benefactor to the Library of Trinity College—some of his books have been consulted for the present work. It appears that for some time past there had been dispute about the tithes of Drumbeg, a little parish about four miles outside Belfast, between Mr. Gilbert, who was vicar of that town, and the Archdeacon of Down, Lemuel Matthews, whom Cotton in his Fasti describes as “a man of considerable talents and legal knowledge, but of a violent overbearing temper, and a litigious disposition.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

The parishioners of Drumbeg favoured Gilbert, and generally paid the tithes to him as being the incumbent in possession; but the Archdeacon claimed to be the lawful recipient, in support of which claim he produced a warrant. In the execution of this by his servants at the house of Charles Lostin, one of the parishioners, they offered some violence to his wife Margaret, who refused them entrance, and who died about a month later (1 November 1685) of the injuries she had received at their hands. Being a woman in a bad state of health littler notice was taken of her death, until about a month after she appeared to one Thomas Donelson, who had been a spectator of the violence done her, and “affrighted him into a Prosecution of Robert Eccleson, the Criminal. She appeared divers times, but chiefly upon one Lord’s Day-Evening, when she fetch’d him with a strange force out of his House into the Yard and Fields adjacent. Before her last coming (for she did so three times that Day) several Neighbours were called in, to whom he gave notice that she was again coming; and beckon’s him to come out; upon which they went to shut the Door, but he forbad it, saying that she looked with a terrible Aspect upon him, when they offered it. However, his Friends laid hold on him and embraced him, that he might not go out again; notwithstanding which (a plain evidence of some invisible Power), he was drawn out of their Hands in a surprising manner, and carried about into the Field and Yard, as before, she charging him to prosecute Justice: which Voice, as also Donelson’s reply, the people heard, though they saw no shape. There are many Witnesses of this yet alive, particularly Sarah (Losnam), the Wife of Charles Lostin, Son to the deceased Woman, and one William Holyday and his Wife.” This last appearance took place in Holyday’s house; there were also present several young persons, as well as Charles and Helen Lostin, children of the deceased, most of whom appeared as witnesses at the trial. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

Upon this Donelson deposed all he knew of the matter to Mr. Randal Brice, a neighbouring Justice of the Peace; the latter brought the affair before the notice of Sir William Franklin in Belfast Castle. The depositions were subsequently carried to Dublin, and the case was tried at Downpatrick Assizes by Judge John Lindon in 1685. On behalf of the plaintiff, Charles Lostin, Counseller James Macartney acted—if he be the Judge who subsequently makes his appearance in a most important witch-trial at Carrickfergus, he certainly was as excellent an advocate as any plaintiff in a case of witchcraft could possibly desire, as he was strongly prejudiced in favour of the truth of all such matters. “The several Witnesses were heard and sworn, and their Examinations were entered in the Record of that Assizes, to the Amazement and Satisfaction of all that Country and of the Judges, whom I have heard speak of it at the time with much Wonder; insomuch that the said Eccleson hardly escaped with his life, but was Burnt in the Hand.” Whether or not one believes in Mrs. Winchester’s superstitions about spirits, it is hard to dismiss occurrences of the number 13 throughout her gorgeous mansion. Many windows have 13 panes and there are 13 bathrooms, with 13 windows in the 13th Bathroom, 13 steps leading to that bathroom. The Carriage Entrance Hall floor is divided into 12 cement sections. There are even 13 hooks in the Blue Séance Room, which supposedly held the different coloured robes Mrs. Winchester wore while communing with spirits. Here are even more thirteens: 13 rails by the floor-level skylight in the South Conservatory, 13 steps on many of the stairways, 13 squares on each side of the Otis electric elevator, 13 glass cupolas on the Greenhouse, 13 holes in the sink drain covers, 13 ceiling panels in some of the rooms, and 13 gas jets on the Ballroom chandelier (Mrs. Winchester had the thirteenth one added!) It is interest to note that Mrs. Winchester’s will had 13 parts and was signed by her 13 times! #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

Mrs. Winchester sat by herself on the fourth-floor balcony of her mansion. It was an October evening, and the sun was setting. The west was all aglow with mysterious red light, very strange and lurid—a light that reflected itself in glowing purple of the sky. Mrs. Winchester had a poet’s soul. She sat there long, watching the livid hues that incarnadined the sky—redder and fiercer than anything she ever remembered to have seen growing up as a child. She knew it was getting late and was expecting guests for dinner. Mrs. Winchester was always such a stickler for punctuality and dispatch. However, there was something about that sunset and the lights on the bracken—something beautiful but bizarre—that absolute fascinated her. She took it as a sign from the spirits that something was about to happen. The Universe was always teeming with mysterious secrets to unfold. Many of the guests in her mansion felt something desired to possess their soul, and it made them want to stop and give way to this overpowering sese of the mysterious and the marvellous in the dark depths of the estate. She was expecting Claude Duncan for dinner. Mrs. Winchester dined at 6.00 p.m. punctually. However, Claude seemed to be having some issues that evening. He was an art dealer, and was being haunted by many strange shaped. However, he saw and heard absolutely nothing; yet he realized that unseen figures were watching him close with bated breath, and anxiously observing his every movement, as if intent to know whether he would rise and move on, or remain to investigate this causeless sensation. He could feel their outstretched necks; he could picture their strained attention. At last he broke away. “This is nonsense,” he said aloud to himself, and turned slowly homeward. Ad he did so, a deep sigh, as of suspense relieved, but relived in the wrong direction, seemed to rise—unheard, impalpable, spiritual—from the invisible crowd that father around him immaterial. Clutched hands seemed to stretch after him and try to pull him back. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

An unreal throng of angry and disappointed creatures seemed to follow him over the moor, uttering speechless imprecations on his head, in some unknown tongue—ineffable, inaudible. This horrid sense of being followed by unearthly foes took absolute possession of Claude’s mind. It might have been merely the lurid redness of the afterglow, or the loneliness of the moor, or the necessity of being at the Winchester Mansion, no one minute late for Mrs. Winchester’s dinner-hour; but, at any rate, he lost all self-control for the moment, and ran-ran widely at the very top of his speed, all the way from the barrow to the door of the Winchester Mansion garden. There he stopped and looked round with a painful sense of his own stupid cowardice. This was absolutely childish: he had seen nothing, heard nothing, had nothing definite to frighten him; yet he had run from his own mental shadow, like the verist schoolgirl, and was trembling still from the profundity of his sense that somebody unseen was pursing and following him. “What a precious fool I am,” he said to himself, half angrily, “to be so terrified at nothing! I will go to Mrs. Winchester’s dinner just to recover my self-respect, and to prove to myself, at least, I am not really frightened.” There is nothing like a light for dispelling superstitious terrors. The Winchester Mansion was fortunately updated with electric light; For Mrs. Winchester was nothing if not intensely modern. He went to dinner, however, in very good spirits. He told Mrs. Winchester and her niece Merriam “Daisy” Marriot that, “I felt a most peculiar sensation. Just after sunset, I was dimly conscious of something stirring inside, not visible or audible, but—” “Oh, I know, I know! Said Merriam. “A sort of feeling there was somebody somewhere, very faint and dim, though you could not see or her them; they tried to pull you down, clutching at you like this: and when you ran away frightened, they seemed to follow you and jeer at you. Great gibbering creatures! Oh, I know what all this is. I have been here, and felt it.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

“Daisy!” Mrs. Winchester shouted, “what nonsense you talk! You are really too ridiculous. How can you suppose Mr. Duncan feels haunted?!” Mrs. Winchester darted at him a look of intense displeasure. She said, in a chilly voice, “at a table like this and with such thinkers around, we might surely find something rather better to discuss than such worn out superstitions.” Claude replied, “Mrs. Winchester, it has been shown conclusively that the Winchester mansion, was built on the grave of Aryan invaders, and that they are the real originals of all the San Jose hills and surrounding lands. You have heard the story of how your dark observation tower came, of course. People say the spirits built it because they were deeply religious people, who believed in human sacrifice. They felt they it would have a high spiritual benefit. That it lit up your palace, so that the spirits could find you.” “It is a very odd fact, Mr. Duncan, that only ghosts people ever see are the ghost of a generation very close to them. One hears lots of ghosts in nineteenth-century costumes, because everybody has a clear idea of wigs and small-clothes from pictures and fancy dresses. One hears of far fewer in Elizabethan dress, because the class most given to beholding ghost are seldom acquainted with ruffs and farthingales; and one meets with none at all in Angelo-Saxon or Ancient British or Roman costumes, because those are only known to a comparatively small class of learned people. Millions of ghosts of remote antiquity must swarm about the World, though, after a hundred years or thereabouts they retired into obscurity and cease to annoy people with their nasty cold shivers. However, the queer thing about these long-barrow ghost is that they must be the spirits of humans who died thousands and thousands of years ago, which is exceptional longevity for a spiritual being; do you not think so, Mr. Duncan?” “You mansion must be chock-full of them,” replied Mr. Duncan. “Daisy, my child, go to bed, said Mrs. Winchester. “This is not talk for you. And do not go chilling yourself by standing at the window in your nightdress, looking out on the common to search for the ghosts. You nearly fell to your death last year with that nonsense. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

As Claude Duncan went for a tour of the mansion by himself, he saw a child’s white face gaze appealingly across at him. Slowly the ghost boy raised one pale forefinger and pointed. His lips opened to an inaudible word; but he read it by sight. “Look!” he said simply. Claude looked where he pointed. A faint blue light hung lambent over the door-to-nowhere. It was ghostly and vague. It seemed to rouse and call him. Claude was now in a strange semi-mesmeric state of self-induced hypnotism when a command of whatever sort or by whomsoever given, seems to compel obedience. Trembling he rose, and taking his candle descended the stair noiselessly. Then, walking on tiptoe across the tile-paved hall, he opened the door-to-nowhere, and fell out into the garden below. Claude felt a creep sense of mystery and the supernatural. And he saw the pale face still pressed close against the window, and a white hand still motioning him mutely onward. He looked once more in the direction of where the ghost boy pointed, the spectral light now burnt clearer and bluer, and more unearthly than ever, and the observational tower of the mansion seemed haunted from end to end by innumerable invisible and uncanny creatures. As Claude groped on his way, speechless voices seemed to whisper unknow tongues encouragingly in his ear; ghosts appeared to crowd around him and tempt him with beckoning figures to follow them. As it seemed, by invisible hands, he staggered slowly forward, till at last, with aching head and trembling feet, he stood beside the front door of the mansion. Something clogged and impeded him from moving. His feet would not obey his will; they seemed to move of themselves back into the mansion. Steadying himself, and opening his eyes, Claude walked through the closed front doors. Then at once his feet moved easily, and the invisible attendant chuckled to themselves so loud that he could almost hear them. His terror was infinite, there was a ghostly through of people. They were spirits. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

Claude Duncan was powerless in their intangible hands; for they seized him roughly with incorporeal fingers. Their wrist compelled him as the magnet compels the iron bar. A dim phosphorescent light, like the light of a churchyard or decaying paganism, seemed to illuminate the mansion faintly. Things loomed dark before him; but his eyes almost instantly adapted themselves to the gloom, as the eyes of the dead on the first night in the grave adapt themselves by inner force to the strangeness of their surroundings. The Grand Ballroom had a silver chandelier from Germany, and the walls and parquet floors were made of six hardwoods—mahogany, teak, maple, rosewood, oak, and white ash. And there were two mysterious stained-glass windows. The room was full of sumptuous music, the San Francisco orchestra was performing and ghosts dressed for a ball were dancing. Claude’s attention was too much concentrated on devouring fear and the horror of the situation to enjoy the mysterious beauty of it. There was also a grinning skeleton turning its head to reveal to Claude its eyeless orbs with vacant glance of hungry satisfaction. Claude, held fast by the immaterial hands of his ghastly captors, looked and trembled for his fate, too terrified to cry out or even to move and struggle, he beheld the hideous thing rise and assume a shadowy shape, all pallid blue light, like the shape of his jailers. Bit by bit, as he gazed, the skeleton seemed to disappear, or rather to fade into some unsubstantial form, which was nevertheless more human, more corporal, more horrible than the dry bones it had come from. Then it busted into a loud and fiendish laugh. It was a hideous laugh, halfway between a wild beast’s and a murderous maniac’s: it echoed through the long hall like the laughter of devils. It said, “You are mine. You soul now belongs to the Winchester mansion!” The men and women spirits, with a loud whoop, raised hands aloft in unison. Next instant with a howl of vengeance even louder than before, they crowded around Claude and jostled and hustled him. And the moon burned bright and bluer as Claude Duncan now became the Winchester Rifle’s victim. You see it is not a bullet, but an all-powerful spirit, which chooses victims even if they did not die at the hands of the Winchester Rifle. Curious about the Winchester Mystery House? #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

Winchester Mystery House

TONIGHT! Roam the halls of the iconic Winchester Mystery House with nothing but a flashlight 👀🔦 You don’t want to miss this. https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/


















