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Come to Me and You Will Find Rest in Your Souls–I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End!
We often worry about what we will be tomorrow, but do not take into account that we are somebody today. Life should be a place of learning suffused with excitement, engagement, passion, challenge, creativity, and joy. When we are in the minority, that is when the test of courage comes; when we are in the majority is when the test of acceptance comes. It is our destiny and the destiny of everything in the World that we must come to an end. Very end that we experience in nature and humankind speaks to us with a loud voice: you also will come to an end! It may reveal itself in the farewell to a place where we have lived for a long time, the separation from the fellowship of intimate associates, the death of someone near to us. Or it may become apparent to us in the failure of a work that gave meaning to us, the end of a whole period of life, the approach of old age, or even in the melancholy side of nature visible in autumn. All this tells us: you will also come to an end. Whenever we are shaken by this voice reminding us of our end, we ask anxiously—what does it mean that we have a beginning and an end, that we come from the darkness of the not yet, and rush ahead towards the darkness of the no more? When Augustine asked this question, he began his attempt to answer it with a prayer. And it is right to do so, because praying means elevating oneself to the eternal. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
In fact, there is no other way of judging time than to see it in the light of the eternal. In order to judge something, one must be partly within it, partly out of it. If we were totally within time, we would not be able to elevate ourselves in prayer, meditation and thought, to the eternal. We would be children of time like all other creatures and could not ask the question of the meaning of time. However, as human beings we are aware of the eternal to which we belong and from which we are estranged by the bondage of time. We speak of time in three ways or modes—the past, present, and future. Every child is aware of them, but no wise being has ever penetrated their mystery. We become aware of them when we hear a voice telling us: you also will come to an end. It is the future that awakens us to the mystery of time. Time runs from the beginning to the end, but our awareness of times goes in the opposite direction. It starts with the anxious anticipation of the end. In the light of the future we see the past and present. So let us first consider our going into the future and towards the end that is the last point that we can anticipate in out future. The image of the future produces contrasting feelings in beings. The expectation of the future gives one a feeling of joy. We may even learn to recapture the will to laugh and the art of laughing at will. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
It is a great thing to have a future in which one can actualize one’s possibilities, in which one can experience the abundance of life, in which one can create something new—be it new work, a new way of life, or the regeneration of one’s own being. Courageously one goes ahead towards the new, especially in the earlier part of one’s own life. However, this feeling struggles with other ones: the anxiety about what is hidden in the future, the ambiguity of everything it will bring us, the shortness of its duration that decreases with every year of our life and becomes shorter the nearer we come to the unavoidable end. And finally the end itself, with its impenetrable darkness and the threat that one’s whole existence in time will be judged as a failure. Therefore, it may be a good idea to think before one speaks, and read before one thinks. This may give one something to think about that we did not make up ourselves—a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when one is at the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions. We want to be in the pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in the pursuit of us. The goal is to fully realize the wealth of sympathy, kindness, and generosity hidden in our souls. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
How do beings, how do you, react to this image of the future with its hope and threat and inescapable end? Probably most of us react by looking at the immediate future, anticipating it, working for it, hoping for it, being anxious about it, while cutting off from our awareness the future which is farther away, and above all, by cutting off from our consciousness the end, the last moment of our future. Perhaps we could not live without doing so most of our time. However, perhaps we will not be able to die if we always do so. And if one is not able to die, is one really about to live? How do we react if we become aware of the inescapable end contained in our future? Are we able to bear it, to take its anxiety into a courage that faces ultimate darkness? Or are we thrown into utter hopelessness? Do we hope against hope, or do we repress our awareness of the end because we cannot stand it? Repressing the consciousness of our end expresses itself in several ways. Many try to do so by putting the expectation of a long life between now and the end. For them it is decisive that the end be delayed. Even old people who are near the end do this, for they cannot endure the fact that the end will not be delayed much longer. Many people realize this deception and hope for a continuation of this life after death. They expect an endless future in which they may achieve or possess what has been denied them in this life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
This attitude that we will achieve our hearts desires in the after life is a prevalent attitude about the future, and also a very simple one. It denies that there is an end. It refuses to accept that we are creatures, that we come from the eternal ground of time and return to the eternal ground of time and have received a limited span of time as our time. It replaces eternity by endless future. However, endless future is without a final aim; it repeats itself and could well be described as an image of hell. This is not the Christian way of dealing with the end. The Christian message says the eternal stands above past and future. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” The Christian message acknowledges that time runs towards an end, and that we move towards the end of that time which is our time. Many people—but not the Bible—speak loosely of the “hereafter” or the “life after death.” Even in our liturgies eternity is translated by “World without end.” However, the World, by its very nature, is that which comes to an end. If we want to speak in truth without foolish, wishful thinking, we should speak about the eternal that is neither timelessness nor endless time. The mystery of the future is answered in the eternal of which we may speak in images taken from time. However, if we forget that the images are images, we fall into absurdities and self-deceptions. There is no time after time, but there is eternity above time. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Time is like a jigsaw puzzle. Each edge piece of a puzzle interlocks with two others to form the puzzle’s framework and give structure and support to the puzzle as a whole. Each piece has a unique design and cut that ensures just the right place to fit within the puzzle. Each morning, people from the edge pieces that interlock to create a safe environment and give support to one another and the whole. Each morning, they provide just the right place for every individual to fit safely and securely. The community members are strength and stability, and like the edge pieces, they do not stand alone in this responsibility. There are always others to support and assist, ensuring that every person has a place. The spirits temper the movements of bodily parts. Some infectious diseases are chiefly in the spirits, and not so much in the humours. We have complex and contradictory feelings toward the freedom and independence and self-determination of the individuals and countries: we desire these and are proud of the past support we have given to such tendencies, and yet we are often frightened by what they may mean. We tend to value and respect the dignity and worth of each individual, yet when we are frightened, we move away from this direction. Suppose we presented ourselves in some such fashion, openly and transparently, in our foreign relations. We would be attempting to be the nation which we truly are, in all our complexity and even contradictoriness. What would be the result? #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
If we, as a country, were more open and transparent in our foreign relations, it seems the results would be similar to the experiences of a client when one is more truly that which he or she is. Let us look at some of the probable outcomes. We would be much more comfortable, because we would have nothing to hide. We could focus on the problem at hand, rather than spending our energies to prove that we are moral or consistent. We could use all of our creative imagination in solving the problem, rather than in defending ourselves. We could openly advance both our selfish interests, and our sympathetic concern for others, and let these conflicting desires find the balance which is acceptable to us as a people. We could freely change and grow in our leadership position, because we would not be bound by rigid concepts of what we have been, must, ought to be. We would find that we were much less feared, because others would be less inclined to suspect what lies behind the façade. We would, by our own openness, tend to bring forth openness and realism on the part of others. We would tend to work out the solutions of World problems on the basis of the real issues involved, rather than in terms of the facades being worn by the negotiating parties. In short what I am suggesting by this fantasied example is that nations and organizations might discover, as have individuals, that it is a richly rewarding experience to be what one deeply is. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
I am suggesting that this view contains the seeds of a philosophical approach to all of life, that it is more than a trend observed in the experience of clients. Feeling rules are what guide emotion work by establishing the sense of entitlement or obligation that governs emotional exchanges. This emotion system works privately, often free of observation. It is a vital aspect of deep private bonds and also affords a way of talking about them. It is a way of describing how—as parents and children, wives and husbands, friends and lovers—we intervene in feelings in order to shape them. What are feeling rules? How do we know they exist? How do they bear on deep acting? We may address these questions by focusing on the pinch between “what I do feel” and “what I should feel,” for at this spot we get our best view of emotional convention. Now, when we take a closer look at the whole person, we find that there are six basic aspects in our lives as individual human beings—six things inseparable from every human life. These together and in interplay make up human nature. Thought (images, concepts, judgments, inferences), feeling (sensation, emotion), choice (will, decision, character), body (action, interaction with the physical World), social context (personal and structural relations to others), and soul (the factor that integrates all of the above to form one life. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
Simply put, every human being thinks (has a thought life), feels, chooses, interacts with one’s body and its social context, and (more of less) integrates all of the foregoing as parts of one life. These are the essential factors in a human being, and nothing essential to human life falls outside of them. The ideal of the spiritual life in the Christian understanding is one where all of the essential parts of the human self are effectively organized around Go, as they are restored and sustained by him. Spiritual formation in Christ is the process leading to that ideal end, and its result is love of God with all of the hearts, soul, mind, and strength, and of the neighbor as oneself. The human self is then fully integrated under God. The salvation or deliverance of the believer in Christ is essentially holistic or whole-life. David the psalmist, speaking of his own experience but prophetically expressing the understanding of Jesus the Messiah, said, “I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure,” reports Psalm 16.7-9. Note how many aspects of the self are explicitly involved in this passage: the mind, the will, the feeling, the soul, and the body. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
A major part of understanding spiritual formation in the Christian traditions is to follow closely the way the biblical writings repeatedly and emphatically focus on the various essential dimensions of the human being and their role in life as a whole. We will draw from spiritual understanding the incentive to keep on with our quest and the courage to set higher goals. To learn from God in this total-life immersion is ow we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. The outcome is that we increasingly are able to do all things, speaking or acting, as I Christ were doing them. As apprentices of Christ we are not learning how to do some special religious activity, but how to live every moment of our live from the reality of God’s kingdom. I am learning how to live my actual life as Jesus would if He were me. No matter what my profession is, I am in full-time Christian service no less than someone who earns his or her living in a specifically religious role. Jesus stands beside me and teaches me in all I do to live in God’s World. He shows me how, in every circumstance, to reside in His word and thus be a genuine apprentice of His—His disciple indeed. This enables me to find the reality of God’s World everywhere I may be, and thereby to escape from enslavement to sin and evil. We become able to do what we know to be good and right, even when it is humanly impossible. Our lives and words become constant testimony of the reality of God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
When, for example, an architect facing a difficult architectural job, one must know how to integrate it into the kingdom of God as much as someone attempting to win another to Christ or preparing a lesson for a congregation. Until we are clear on this, we will have missed Jesus’ connection between life and God and will automatically exclude most of our everyday lives from the domain of faith and discipleship. Jesus lived most of His life on Earth as a blue-collar worker, someone we might describe today as an independent contractor. In His vocation He practiced everything He later taught about in life in the kingdom. It is important to move away from derogatory language against others, calling them twits, jerks, or idiots, and increasingly mesh with the respect and endearment for persons that naturally flows from God’s way. This in turn transforms all of my dealings with others into tenderness and makes the usual coldness and brutality of human relations, which lays a natural foundation for unspeakable actions, simply unthinkable. Our mind and heart will keep coming back to God’s grace. The grace of God is so inexhaustible and at times overwhelming. “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever more! Amen,” reports 2 Peter 3.18. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
Growing in the grace of God allows one to become acquainted with elements of our experience which have in the past been denied to awareness as too threatening, too damaging to the structure of the self. One finds one’s experiencing these feelings fully, completely, in the relationship, so that for the moment one is one’s fear, or one’s anger, or one’s tenderness, or one’s strength. And as one lives these widely varied feelings, in all their degrees of intensity, one discovers that one has experienced oneself, that one is all these feelings. One finds that one’s behavior changing in constructive fashion in accordance with one’s newly experienced self. One approaches the realization that one no longer needs to fear what experience may hold, but can welcome it freely as a part of one’s changing and developing self. However, it seems to me that the good life is not any fixed state. It is not, in my estimation, a state of virtue, or contentment, or nirvana, or happiness. It is not a condition in which the individual is adjusted, or fulfilled, or actualized. It is not a state of drive-reduction, or tension-reduction, or homeostasis. I believe that all of these terms have been used in ways which imply that if one or several of these states is achieved, then the goal of life have been achieved. Certainly, for many people happiness, or adjustment, are seen as states of being which are synonymous with the good life. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
Social scientists have frequently spoken of the reduction of tension, or the achievement of homeostasis or equilibrium as if these states constituted the goal of the process of living. So it is with a certain amount of surprise and concern that I realize that my experience supports none of these definitions. If I focus on the experience of those individuals who seem to have evidenced the greatest degree of movement during the spiritual and therapeutic relationship, and who, in the years following this relationship, appear to have made and to be making real progress toward the good life, then it seems to me that they are not adequately described at all by any of these terms which refer to fixed states of being. I believe they would consider themselves insulted if they were described as adjusted, and they would regard it as false if they were described as happy or contented or even actualized. As I have known them I would regard it as most inaccurate to say that all their dive tensions have been reduced, or that they are in a state of homeostasis. So I am forced to ask myself whether there is any way in which I can generalize about their situation, any definition which I can give of the good life which would seem to fit the facts as I have observed them. I find this not at all easy, and what follows is stated very tentatively. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination. The direction which constitutes the good life is that which is selected by the total organism, when there is psychological freedom to move in any direction. This organismically selected direction seems to have certain discernible general qualities which appear to be the same in a wide variety of unique individuals. The good life, from the point of view of my experience, is the process of movement in a direction which the human organism selects when it is inwardly free to move in any direction, and the general qualities of this selected direction appear to have a certain universality. Many people, however, seem to be morally bankrupt—completely devoid of any decent moral qualities. And it is just about the worst thing you can say about a person. A lot of people are also spiritually bankrupt. Spiritual bankruptcy is a most absolute state. It means we have nothing to give to God. Salvation is a gift from God; it is entirely by grace through faith—not by works. People living the good life are righteous and the process seems to involve an increasing openness to the experience. It is the polar opposite of defensiveness. Defensiveness is an organism’s response to experiences which are perceived or anticipated as threatening, as incongruent with the individual’s existing picture of oneself, or of oneself in relationship to the World. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
These threatening experiences are temporarily rendered harmless by being distorted in awareness, or being denied to awareness. I quite literally cannot see, with accuracy, those experiences, feelings, reactions in myself which are significantly at variance with the picture of myself which I already possess. A large part of the process of therapy is the continuing discovery by the client that one is experiencing feelings and attitudes which heretofore one has not been able to be aware of, which one has not been able to own as being a part of oneself. If a person could be fully open to one’s experience, however, every stimulus—whether originating within the organism or in the environment—would be freely relayed through the nervous system without being distorted by any defensive mechanism. There would be no need of the mechanism of subception whereby the organism is forewarned of any experience threatening to the self. On the contrary, whether the stimulus was the impact of a configuration of form, color, or sound in the environment on the sensory nerves, or a memory trace from the past, or visceral sensation of fear or pleasure or disgust, the person would be living it, would have it completely available to awareness. Thus, one aspect of this process which I am naming the good life appears to be a movement away from the pole of defensiveness toward the pole of openness to experience. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
The individual living the good life is becoming more able to listen to oneself, to experience what is going on within oneself. One is more open to one’s feelings of fear and discouragement and pain. One is also more open to one’s feelings of courage, and tenderness, and awe. One is free to live one’s feelings subjectively, as they exist in one, and also free to be aware of these feelings. One is more able fully to live the experiences of one’s organism rather than shutting them off. Almighty and everlasting God, Who hast made known the Incarnation of Thy Word by the testimony of a glorious star, which when the wise men be held, they adored Thy Majesty with gifts; grant that the star of Thy righteousness may always appear in our hearts, and our treasure consist in giving thanks to Thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. O God, the Enlightener of all nations, grant Thy people to enjoy perpetual peace; and pour into our hearts that radiant light which Thou didst shed into the minds of the wise men; thought Jesus Christ Our Lord. “Behold, O Lord, thou hast smitten us because of our iniquity, and hast driven us forth, and for these many years we have been in the wilderness; nevertheless, thou hast been merciful unto us. O Lord, look upon me in pity, and turn away thine anger from this thy people, and suffer not that they shall go forth across this raging deep in darkness; but behold these things which I have molten out of rock,” reports Ether 3.3. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
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At the Heart of Each Atom there is Quiescence, that Mysterious Stillness of the Unseen Power of God!
One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant people, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The professional actor has a modest say over how the stage is assembled, the props selected, and the other characters positioned, as well as a say over his or her own presence in the play. This is also true in private life. In both cases the person is locus of the acting process. However, something more operates when institutions are involved, for within institutions various elements of acting are taken away from the individual and replaced by institutional mechanisms. The locus of acting, of emotion management, moves up to the level of the institution. Many people and objects, arranged according to institutional rule and custom, together accomplish the act. Companies, prisons, schools, churches—institutions of virtually any sort—assume some of the functions of a director and alter the relation of actor to director. Officials in institutions believe they have done things rights when they have established illusions that foster the desired feelings in workers, when they have placed parameters around a worker’s emotion memories, a worker’s use of the as if. It is not that workers are allowed to see and think as they like and required only to show feeling (surface acting) in institutionally approved ways. The matter would be simpler and less alarming if stopped there. However, it does not. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
Some institutions have become very sophisticated in the techniques of deep acting; they suggest how to imagine and thus how to feel. As a farmer puts blinders on his or her workerhorse to guide its vision forward, institutions manage how we feel. We commonly assume that institutions are called in when individual controls fail: those who cannot control their emotions are sent to mental hospitals, homes for disturbed children, or prisons. However, in looking at the matter this way, we may ignore to shape feeling. We might ask instead what sort of church, school, or family influence was unavailable to the parents of institutionalized patients, who presumably tired to make their children into adequate emotion managers. One of the ways we guide visions into progression is by prearranging what is available to the worker’s view. A teaching hospital, for example, designs the stage for medical students facing their first autopsy. Seeing the eye of a dead person might call to mind a loved one or oneself; to see this organ coldly violated by a knife might lead a student to faint, or flee in horror, or quit medicine then and there. However, this seldom happens. The immaculate, brightly lit appearance of the operating room, and the serious professional behavior required, justify and facilitate a clinical and impersonal attitude toward death. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Certain parts of the body are kept covered, particularly the face and genitalia, and the hands, which are so strongly connected with human, personal qualities, are never dissected. Once the vital organs have been taken out, the body is removed from the room, bringing the autopsy down to tissues, which are more easily depersonalized. The deft touch, skill, and professional attitude of the prosector makes the procedure neater and more bloodless than might otherwise be the case, and this increases intellectual interest and makes it possible to approach the whole thing scientifically rather than emotionally. Students appear to avoid talking about the autopsy, and when they do talk about it, the discussion is impersonal and stylized. Finally, whereas in laboratory dissection humor appears to be a widespread and effective emotional control device, it is absent in the autopsy room, perhaps because the death has been too recent and [humor] would appear too insensitive. Covering the corpse’s face and genitalia, avoiding the hands, later removing the body, moving fast, using white uniforms, and talking in uniformed talk—these are customs designed to manage the human feeling that threatens order. Institutions arrange their front stages. They guide the way we see and what we are likely to feel spontaneously. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Consider the inevitable institutional halls, especially those near the areas where people wait. Often in medical, academic, and corporate settings we find on the walls a row of photographs or oil paintings of persons in whom we should have full confidence. In the waiting room of the psychiatrist: With crossed legs you claim repose, tranquility. Everything is under control. With the straight shoulder you say dignity, status. No matter what comes up, this guy has nothing to fear, is calmly certain of his worth and of his ability. With the head turned sharply to the left you indicate that someone is claiming his attention. No doubt hundreds of people would like this guy’s attention. He was engrossed in his book, but now he is being interrupted. And what was he reading? Reader’s Digest? Architectural Digest? The Bible? Oh, no; he is into something heavy. We cannot see the title, but we know it is plenty important. Usually it is Osler’s Principles and Practice of Medicine. And the finger marking his place? Why he is been at it so intently, so diligently, he is already halfway through. And the other hand, lying so lightly, so gracefully, on the book. That shows intelligence, experience, mastery. He is not scratching his head trying to figure out what the hell the author is getting at. Anytime you knock on this guy’s door, you will find him just like that, dressed to the nines, tie up tight in his buttoned-down collar, freshly pressed jacket, deeply immersed in one of these heavy tomes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
The professional’s office, of course, should be done in a pleasant but impersonal décor, not too messy and colorful but not too cold and bare; it should reflect just the amount of professional warmth the doctor or lawyer or banker himself or herself ought to show. Home is carefully distinguished from office, personal flair from professional expertise. This stage setting is intended to inspire our confidence that the service is, after all, worth paying a lot for. Airlines seem to model “stage sets” on the living rooms seen on daytime television serials: the Muzak tunes, the TV and movie screens, and the smiling flight attendants serving drinks are all calculated to make you feel at home. Even follow passengers are considered part of the stage. At American Airlines, for example, flight attendants in training are advised that they can prevent the boarding of certain types of passengers who pose a security threat. One’s effect on the emotion memory of other money-paying passengers might he all wrong. Sometimes props are less important than the influential directors. Institutions authorize stage directors to coach the hired cast in deep acting. Buttressed with the authority of a high office or a specialized degree, the director may make suggestions that are often interpreted at lower levels as orders. The director’s role may be simple and direct, as in the case of a group of college students training to be clinicians in a camp for emotionally disturbed children. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
These students, who composed the junior staff, did not know at first how they were supposed to feel or think about the wild behavior of disturbed children. However, in the director’s chair sat the senior counselors, advising them on how to see the children: “They were expected to see the children as victims of uncontrollable impulses somehow related to their harsh and depriving backgrounds, and in need of enormous doses of kindliness and indulgence in order to break down their images of the adult World as hateful and hostile. They were also taught how to feel properly toward them: The clinician must never respond in anger or with intent to punish, although one might sometimes have to restrain or even isolate children in order to prevent them from hurting themselves or one another. Above all, the staff were expected to be warm and loving and always to be governed by a clinical attitude. To be warm and loving toward a child who kicks, screams, and insults you—a child whose problem is unlovability—requires emotion work. The art of it is passed down from senior to junior counselor, as in other settings it passes from judge to law clerk, professor to graduate student, boss to subordinate. The professional worker will implicitly frown on certain uses of emotion memory. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
The senior counselor of disturbed children will not allow one’s self to think, “Brett reminds me of a terrible brat I had to babysit when I was thirteen, and if he is like that I will end up hating him.” Instead, one will reconceive Mark in another way: “Brett is really like the other kid I used to babysit when I was fourteen. He was difficult, but I got to like him, so I expect I will get to like Brett despite the way he pushes me away suspiciously.” A proper way to experience the child, not simply a proper way to seem to feel, was understood by everyone as part of the job. And the young caretakers did admirably: To an extraordinary degree they fulfilled these expectations, including, I am convinced, the expectations that they feel sympathy and tenderness and love toward their charges, despite their terrestrial-like behavior. The speed with which these college students learned to behave in this way cannot be easily explained in terms of gradual learning through a slow process of internalization. In more circuitous ways, too, the formal rules that prop up an institution set limits to the emotional possibilities of all concerned. Consider, for example, the rules that guard access to information. Any institution with a bit of hierarchy in it must suppress democracy to some extent and thus must find ways to suppress democracy to some extent and thus must find ways to suppress envy and resentment at the bottom. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Often envy is suppressed by enforcing a hierarchy of secrets. The customary rule of secrecy about pay is a case in point: those at the bottom are almost never allowed to know how much money those at the top get each month, nor, to the fullest extent, what privileges they enjoy. Also kept secret are deliberations that determine when and to what level an individual is likely to rise or fall within the organization. As one University of California administrative memorandum explained: “Letters concerning the disposition of tenure review cases will be kept confidential, in order that those involved not hold grudges or otherwise harbor resentment toward those unfavorably disposed in their case.” In this situation, where the top depends upon being protected from the middle and the bottom—from those involved as the memo put it—leaks can cause panic. Finally, drugs of various sorts can be used to stimulate or depress mood, and companies are not above engineering their use. Just as the plow displaced manual labor, in some reported instances drug use seems to be displacing emotion labor. The labor that it takes to withstand stress and boredom on the job can be performed, some workers have found, by Darvon and Valium. Workers at the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, for example, found that nurses in its medical department used to give out Valium, Darvon, codeine, and other drugs for free and without prescription. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
There are a number of ways, some of them company-sponsored, to “have a nice day” on the job, as part of the job. The stage actor makes the finding and expressing of feeling one’s main professional task. In Stanislavski’s analogy, he seeks it with the dedication of a prospector for precious metal. He comes to see feeling as the object of painstaking internal mining, and when he finds it, he processes it like gold. In the context of the theater, this use of feeling is considered exciting and honorable. However, what happens when deep and surface acting become part of a day’s work, part of what we sell to an employer in return for a day’s wage? What happens when our feelings are processed like raw ore? A lot of people who deal with others, especially when dealing with customers, engage in some acting. If a worker pretends he or she is feeling really up, sometimes they actually get into it. The customer will then respond to the individual as though he or she were really friendly, and then more of the employee responds back [surface acting]. Sometimes one will purposely take some deep breathes. Try to relax one’s neck muscles [deep acting with the body]. One may just talk to one’s self: “Watch it. Do not let him get to you. Do not let him get to you. Do not let him get to you.” And then one will talk to one’s partner and she will say the same thing to one. After a while, the anger foes away [deep acting, self-[prompting]. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
One has to try to remember if a customer is drinking too much, he or she is probably scared of something. It might help to think to yourself, “he’s a little child.” Really, that is what he is. And when you see him that way, you will not get mad that the customer is yelling at you. He is like a child yelling at you. [deep acting, Method acting]. Surface and deep acting in a commercial setting, unlike acting in a dramatic, private, or therapeutic context, make one’s face and one’s feelings take on the properties of a resource. However, it is not a resource to be used for the purpose of art, as in drama, or for the purposes of self-discovery, as in therapy, or for the pursuit of fulfillment, as in everyday life. It is a resource to be used to make money. Outside of Stanislavski’s parlor, out there in the American marketplace, the actor may wake up to find oneself actually operated upon. In spite of—or perhaps because of—the fact that instinctivists and behaviorists share certain similarities in their respective pictures of humans and their philosophical orientation, they have fought each other with a remarkable fanaticism. Nature or nurture, instinct or environment became flags around which each side rallied, refusing to see any common ground. In recent years there has been a growing tendency to overcome the sharp alternatives of the instinctivist-behaviorist war. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
One solution to the instinctivist-behaviorist war is to change the terminology; some tended to reserve the term “instinct” for the lower animals and to speak instead of “organic drives” when discussing human motivations. In this way some developed such formulations as “most of Human’s behavior is learned, whereas mist of a bird’s behavior is not learned.” This latter formulation is characteristic of the new trend to replace the old “either/or” by a “more-or-less” formulation, thus taking account of gradual change in the weight of the respective factors. The model for this view is a continuum, on the one end of which is (almost) complete innate determination, on the other end (almost) complete learning. Perhaps a more serious weakness in the present psychological handling of instinct is possessed in the assumption that a two-class system is adequate for the classification of complex behavior. The implication that all behavior must be determined by learning or by heredity, neither of which is more than partially understood, is entirely unjustified. The final form of any response is affected by a multiplicity of variables, only two of which are genetical and experiential factors. It is to the identification and analysis of all these factors that psychology should address itself. When this task is properly conceived and executed there will be no need nor reason for ambiguous concepts of instinctive behavior. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Because learning plays a more important role in the behavior of higher than in the behavior of lower forms, the natively determined behavior pattern of higher forms become much more extensively modified by experience than those of lower forms. It is through such modification that the animal may become adjusted to different environments and escape from the narrow bounds the optimum condition imposes. Higher forms are therefore less dependent upon specific external environmental conditions for survival than are lower forms. Because of the interaction of acquired and innate factors in behavior it is impossible to classify many behavior patterns. Each type of behavior must be separately investigated. Yet, there are more important problems from the standpoint of this study and that is the difference between organic drives (food, fight, flight, sexuality—formerly called instincts), whose function it is to guarantee the survival of the individual and the species, and nonorganic drives (character-rooted passions), which are not phylogenetically programmed and are not common to all beings: the desire for love and freedom; destructiveness, narcissism, sadism, masochism. Often these nonorganized drives that form being’s second nature are confused with organic drives. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
A case and point is the sexual drive. It is a psychoanalytically well-established observation that often the intensity of what is subjectively felt as sexual desire (including its corresponding physiological manifestations) is due to nonsexual passions such as narcissism, sadism, masochism, the wish for power, and even anxiety, loneliness, and boredom. For a narcissistic male, for instance, the sight of a woman may be sexually exciting because he is excited by the possibility of proving to himself how attractive he is. Or a sadistic person may be sexually excited by the chance to conquer a woman (or as the case may be, a man) and to control her or him. Many people are bound for years to each other emotionally just by this motive, especially when the sadism of one fits the masochism of the other. It is rather well known that fame, power, and wealthy makes is possessor sexually attractive if certain physical conditions are present. In all these instances, the physical desire is mobilized by nonsexual passions which thus find their satisfaction. Indeed, it is anybody’s guess how many children owe their existence to vanity, sadism, and masochism, rather than to genuine physical attraction, not to speak of love. However, people, especially men, prefer to think that they are “oversexed” rather than that they are “overvain.” The same phenomenon has been clinically studied minutely in cases of compulsive eating. This symptom is not motivated by physiological but by psychic hunger, engendered by the feeling of being depressed, anxious, empty. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Therefore, destructiveness and cruelty are not instinctual drives, but passions rooted in the total existence of humans. They are one of the ways to make sense of life; they are not and could not be present in the animal, because they are by their very natures rooted in the human condition. The main error many instinctivists have made is that they have confused the two kinds of drives, those rooted in instinct, and those rooted in character. A sadistic person who waits for the occasion, as it were, to express one’s sadism, looks as if he or she fitted the hydraulic model of a dammed-up instinct. However, only people with a sadistic character wait for the opportunity to behave sadistically, just as people with a loving character wait for the right opportunity to express their love. imagine an absolutely material World, containing only physical and chemical fact, and existing from eternity without a God, without even an interested spectator: would there by any sense in saying of that World that one of its states is better than another? Or if there were two Worlds possible, would there be any rhyme or reason in calling one good and the other bad—good or bad absolutely, I mean, and apart from the fact that one might relate itself better than the other to the philosopher’s private interests? However, we must leave these private interests out of the account, for the philosopher is a mental fact, and we are asking whether goods and evils and obligations exist in physical facts per se. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Surely there is no status for good and evil to exist in, in a purely insentient World. How can one physical fact, considered simply as a physical fact, be better than another? Betterness is not a physical relation. It its mere material capacity, a thing can no more be good or bad than it can be pleasant of painful. Good for what? Good for the production of another physical fact, do you say? But what in a purely physical Universe demands the production of that other fact? Physical facts simple are or are not; and neither when present or absent, can they be supposed to make demands. If they do, they can only do so by having desires; and then they have ceased to be purely physical facts, and have become facts of conscious sensibility. Goodness, badness, and obligation must be realized somewhere in order really to exist; and the first step in ethical philosophy is to see that no merely inorganic nature of things can realize them. Neither moral relations nor the moral law can swing in vacuo. Their only habitat can be a mind which feels them; and no World composed of merely physical facts can possibly be a World to which ethical propositions apply. The moment one sentient being, however, is made a part of the Universe, there is a chance for goods and evils really to exist. Moral relations now have their status, in that being’s consciousness. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
So far as one feels anything to be good, one makes it good. It is good, for one; and being good for one, is absolutely good, for one is the sole creator of values in that Universe, and outside of one’s opinion, things have no moral character at all. In such a Universe as that it would of course be absurd to raise the question of whether the solitary thinker’s judgments of good and ill are true or not. Truth supposes a standard outside of the thinker to which one must confirm; but here the thinker is a sort of divinity, subject to no higher judge. Let us call the supposed Universe which one inhabits a moral solitude. In such a moral solitude it is clear that there can be no outward obligation, and that the only trouble the god-like thinker is liable to have will be over the consistency of one’s own several ideals with one another. Some of these will no doubt be more pungent and appealing than the rest, their goodness will have a profounder, more penetrating taste; they will return to haunt one with more obstinate regrets if violated. So the thinker will have to order one’s life with them as its chief determinants, or else remain inwardly discordant and unhappy. Into whatever equilibrium one may settle, though, and however one may straighten out one’s system, it will be a right system; for beyond the facts of one’s own subjectivity there is nothing moral in the World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The enlightened being can condemn nobody, can regard none as outside one’s range of compassion, and can find a place in one’s heart for the worst sinner. One knows that duality is but a dream and discovers oneself anew in all sentient creatures. One knows that the World’s woe arises out of its false and fictitious sense of separateness. One receives too many confidences ever to be surprised by any of them, too many confessions ever to be shocked. However, even if one had never heard or read a single one, one would receive them just as calmly. For one’s compassions and insight, one’s tolerance and realism embrace the whole range of human feeling or human behavior. One is always oneself, without pose, without pretense, and without self-consciousness. It is not the studied poise of good breeding but a natural poise upwelling from within. One’s uniqueness extends through body, feelings, thoughts, character, outlook—it is total. The ordinary being see only one’s personal objective, but the illumined being sees simultaneously both the objective and the person pursuing it. One’s silence bravely takes its stand on the fact that truth is a reality, is a power, is invincible. One knows the proper value to stamp on fame, position, and wealth, and the proper place to assign them. One neither rejects them with harsh ascetic scorn nor seeks them with hard self-centered ambition. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
The strength with which he has conquered both oneself and life will be evident to those who are sensitive to more than merely commonplace things. In every affair one knows where one stands, but more in the sense than one listens and obeys the higher guidance than in any other. Blessed be the Lord God, Who cometh in the Name of the Lord, and hath dawned upon us; Whose Coming hath redeemed us, Whose Nativity hath enlightened us; Who by His Coming hath sought out the lost, and illuminated those who sat in darkness. Grant, therefore, O Father Almighty, that we celebrating with pious devotion the day of his Nativity, may find the day of judgement a day of mercy; that as we have known His benignity as our Redeemer, we may feel His gentle tenderness as out Judge. We give Thee thanks, O Lord our God, and bless Thee from day to day, Who hast been pleased to bring us to this Thy holy solemnity. Vouchsafe us, with Thy faithful people, in peace and quietness through many succeeding years to welcome Christ, through Thy mercy. “And they did pray unto the Lord their God continually, insomuch that the Lord did bless them, according to his word, so that they did wax strong and prosper in the land,” reports Alma 62.51. One learns from within, intuitively, much more than from without, the full teaching to which other beings or their books have led them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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The Line Between Knowing and Loving is Impossible to Draw–Feelings are More Important than Anything Under the Sun!
“It is easy for us to make beings like you. We do it all the time. There is nothing to it. We can easily replace you. Understand, all the mental and physical equipment we have given you is for a purpose.” At this point, I knew my first real fear. I was afraid they were going to do away with Derek then and there. I could not bear it. The pain in me was so all-consuming that it took all the strength I possessed to stand by and say nothing. However, I did not feel that there was anything that I could do to prevent whatever the Parents would now do to Derek. What deep-seated fears and needs underly Derek’s delusional system? We were long in finding out, for Derek’s preventions effectively concealed the secret of his autistic behavior. In the meantime we dealt with his peripheral problems one by one. During his first year with us Derek’s most trying problem was toilet behavior. This surprised us, for Derek’s personality was not “anal” in the Freudian sense; his original personality damage had antedated the period of his toilet-training. Rigid and early toilet-training, however, had certainly contributed to his anxieties. It was our effort to help Derek with this problem that led to his first recognition of us as human beings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Going to the toilet, like everything else in Derek’s life, was surrounded y elaborate preventions. We had to accompany him; he had to take off all his clothes; he could only squat, not sit on the toilet seat; he had to touch the wall with one hand, in which he also clutched frantically the vacuum tubes that powered his elimination. He was terrified lest his whole body would be sucked down. To counteract this fear we gave him a metal wastebasket in lieu of the toilet. Eventually, when eliminating into the wastebasket, he no longer needed to take off all his clothes, nor to hold on to the wall. He still needed the tubes and motor which, he believed moved his bowels for him. However, here again the all-important machinery was itself a source of new terrors. In Derek’s World the gadgets had to move their bowels, too. He was terribly concerned that they should, but since they were so much more powerful than men, he was also terrified that if his tubes moved their bowels, their feces would fill all of space and leave him no room to live. He was thus always caught in some fearful contradiction. Our readiness to accept his toilet habits, which obviously entailed some hardship for his counselors, gave Derek the confidence to express his obsession in drawings. Drawing these fantasies was a first step toward letting us in, however distantly, to what concerned him most deeply. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Drawing was the first step in a year-long process of externalizing Derek’s anal preoccupations. As a result he began seeing feces everywhere; the whole World became to hm a mire of excrement. At the same time he began to eliminate freely wherever he happened to be. However, with this release from his infantile imprisonment in compulsive rules, the toilet and the whole process of elimination became less dangerous. Thus far it had been beyond Derek’s comprehension that anybody could possibly move his bowels without mechanical assistance. Now Derek took a further step forward; defecation became the first physiological process he could perform without the help of vacuum tubes. It must not be thought that he was proud of this ability. Taking pride in an achievement presupposes that one accomplishes it of one’s own free will. He still did not feel himself an autonomous person who could do things on his own. To Derek defecation still seemed enslaved to some incomprehensible but utterly binding cosmic law, perhaps the law his parents had imposed on him when he was being toilet trained. It was not simply that his parents had subjected him to rigid, early training. Many children are so trained. However, in most cases the parents have a deep emotional investment in the child’s performance. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
As a result of this deep emotional investment, the child’s response in turn makes training an occasion for interaction between them and for the building of genuine relationships. Derek’s parents had no emotional investment in him. His obedience gave them no satisfaction and won him no affection or approval. As a toilet-trained child he saved his mother labor, just as household machines saved her labor. As a machine he was not loved for his performance, nor could he love himself. So it has been with all other aspects of Derek’s existence with his parents. Their reactions to his eating or noneating, sleeping or wakening, urinating or defecating, being dressed or undressed, washed or bathed did not flow from any unitary interest in him, deeply embedded in their personalities. By treating him mechanically his parents made him a machine. The various functions of life—even the parts of his body—bore no integrating relationship to one another or to any sense of self that was acknowledged and confirmed by others. Though he had acquired mastery over some functions, such as toilet-training and speech, he had acquired them separately and kept then isolated from each other. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Toilet-training had thus not gained Derek a pleasant feeling of body mastery; speech had not led to communication of thought or feeling. On the contrary, each achievement only steered him away from -self-mastery and integration. Toilet-training had enslaved him. Speech left him talking in neologisms that obstructed his and our ability to relate to each other. In Derek’s development the normal process of growth had been made to run backward. Whatever he had learned put him not at the end of his infantile development toward integration but, on the contrary, farther behind than he was a its beginning. Had we understood this sooner, his first years with us would have been less baffling. In order to explore more fully the relations among the several parts of social front, it will be convenient to consider here a significant characteristic of the information conveyed by front, namely, its abstractness and generality. However specialized and unique a routine is, its social front, with certain exceptions will tend to claim fact that can be equally claimed and asserted of other, somewhat different routines. It is unlikely that Derek’s calamity could befall a child in any time and culture but our own. He suffered no physical deprivation; he starved for human contact. Just to be taken care of is not enough. At the extreme where utter scarcity reigns, the forming of relationships is certainly hampered. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
However, in our society of mechanized plenty often makes for equal difficulties in a child’s learning to relate. Where parents can provide simple creature-comforts for their children only at the cost of significant effort, it is likely that they will feel pleasure, that gives children a sense of personal worth and sets the process of relating in motion. However, if comfort is so readily available that the parents feel no particular pleasure in winning it for their children, then the children cannot develop the feeling of being worthwhile around the satisfaction of their basic needs. Of course parents and children can and do develop relationships around other situations. However, matters are then no longer so simple and direct. If he is to feel loved and worthy of respect and consideration, the child must be on the receiving end of care and concern given with pleasures and without the exaction of return. This feeling gives him the ability to trust; he can entrust his well-being to persons to whom he is so important. Out of such trust the child learns to form close and stable relationships. For Derek relations with his parents were empty of pleasures in comfort-giving as in all other situations. His was an extreme instance of a plight that sends many schizophrenic children to our clinics and hospitals. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Many months passed before he could relate to us; his despair that anybody could like him made contact impossible. When Derek could finally trust us enough to let himself become more infantile, he began to play at being a papoose. There was a corresponding change in his fantasies. He drew endless pictures of himself as an electrical papoose. Totally enclosed, suspended in empty space, he is run by unknown, unseen powers through wireless electricity. As we eventually came to understand, the heart of Derek’s delusional system was the artificial, mechanical womb he had created and into which he had locked himself. In his papoose fantasies lay the wish to be entirely reborn in a womb. His new experience in the school suggested that life, after all, might be worth living. Now he was searching for a way to be reborn in a better way. Since machines were better than men, what was more natural than trying to rebirth through them? This was the deeper meaning of his electrical papoose. As Derek made progress, his pictures of himself became more dominant in his drawings. Though still machine operated, he has grown in self-importance. Now he has acquired hands that do something, and he has had the courage to make a picture of the machine that runs him. Later still the papoose became a person, rather than a robot encased in glass. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Eventually Derek began to create an imaginary family at the school: the “Carr” family. Why the Carr family? In the car he was enclosed as he had been in his papoose, but at least the car was not stationary; it could move. More important, in a car one was not only driven but also could drive. The Carr family was Derek’s way of exploring the possibility of leaving the school, of living with a good family in a safe, protecting car. Derek at last broke through his prison. In this brief account it has not been possible to trace the painfully slow process of his first true relations with other human beings. Suffice it to say that he ceased to be a mechanical boy and became a human child. This newborn child was, however, nearly 12 years old. To recover the lost time is a tremendous task. That work has occupied Derek and us ever since. Sometimes he sets to it with a will; at other times the difficulty of real life makes him regret that he ever came out of his shell. However, he has never wanted to return to his mechanical life. One last detail and this fragment of Derek’s story has been told. When Derek was 12, he made a float for our Veteran’s Day parade. It carried the slogan: “Feeling are more important that anything under the Sun.” Feelings, Derek had learned, are what make for humanity; their absence, for a mechanical existence. With this knowledge Derek entered the human condition. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Instead of having to maintain a different pattern of expectation and responsive treatment for each slightly different performer and performance one can place the situation in a broad category around which it is easy for one to mobilize one’s past experience and stereotypical thinking. Observers then need only be familiar with a small and hence manageable vocabulary of fronts, and know how to respond to them in order to orient themselves in a wide variety of situations. There are grounds for believing that the tendency for a large number of different acts to be presented from behind a small number of fronts is a natural development in social organization. In the descriptive kinship system which gives each persona a unique place, it may work for very small communities, but, as the number of persons becomes large, clan segmentation becomes necessary as a means of providing a less complicated system of identifications and treatments. As a compromise, the full range of diversity is cut at a few crucial points, and all those within a given bracket are allowed or obliged to maintain the same social front in certain situations. In addition to the fact that different routines may employ the same front, it is to be noted that a given social front tends to become institutionalized in terms of the abstract stereotyped expectations to which it gives rise, and tends to take on meaning and stability apart from the specific tasks which happen at the time to be performed in its name. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
The front becomes a collective representation and a fact in its own right. When an actor takes on an established social role, usually one finds that a particular front has already been established for it. Whether one’s acquisitions of the role was primarily motivated by a desire to perform the given takes or by a desire to maintain the corresponding front, the factor will find that one must do both. Further, if the individual takes on a task that is not only new to one but also unestablished in the society, of if one attempts to change the light in which one’s task is viewed, one is likely to find that there are already several well-established fronts among which one must choose. Thus, when a task is given a new front we seldom find that the front it is given is itself new. Since fronts tend to be selected, not created, we may expect trouble to arise when those who perform a given task are forced to select a suitable from for themselves from among several quite dissimilar ones. Thus, in military organizations, task are always developing which (it is felt) require too much authority and skill to be carried out behind the front maintained by one grade of personnel and too little authority and skill to be carried out behind the front maintained by the next grade in the hierarchy. Since there are relatively large jumps between grades, the task will come to carry too much rank or to carry too little. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
When Reese remarked to me that a man in her home town would not have committed suicide if one person had known him, what was she saying? I believe she was saying that this man had no person to whom he could open himself up, no one who was interested enough in him to listen, to pay attention to him. Se was saying that he lacked someone who had compassion for him, a compassion which would be the basis of his self-esteem. If he had had such a person, he would have counted himself too valuable to wipe out. She was also saying, although she did not know it, that the line between knowing and loving is impossible to draw. One merges into the other. If I know someone well I will tend to have compassion for one; and as I have compassion for one I will try to know one well. This is why it is next to impossible, when somebody you dislike is talking to listen to one, take in what you hear, and let it form itself into a comprehensible structure in your mind. If not our ears, the tendency is to close off our minds; to block out the person we do not like. The development of power is a prerequisite for compassion just as it is for communication. At the beginning of psychotherapy persons are normally so bereft of power in interpersonal relationships that they have very little compassion to give. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Compassion requires that one have some security, some position of power from which one can give concern to another. Lack of self-esteem and self-affirmation makes it very difficult to have anything left over for others; an individual must have something with which to prime the pump before one can give to others. I cannot agree with some of my colleagues who hold that there are two kinds of people: those who operate by love, and those who operate by power. I believe this is a dichotomy which leaves the way open for the illusion of the past, namely that one can have powerless love and another (generally a person one does not like) loveless power. Do not protest, let love alone rule! Can you prove it true? However resolve: every morning I shall concern myself anew about the boundary between the love-deeds-Yes and the power-deed-No and pressing forward honor reality. If we are to honor reality, we must be aware that power and love can have a dialectical relationship, each feeding and nourishing the other. We must turn our attention to the interplay between love and power, and the fact that powers needs love if it is not to slide into manipulation. Power without charity ends up in cruelty. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
The destructive kind of power generally comes from persons who have suffered radical deprivation, like when Duke Harry, despairing over the lack of effect his protest had in Washington, fantasied firing all the people in the supermarket. The constructive forms of power, such as nutrient power and integrative power, come only when there has already been built up within the individual some self-esteem and self-affirmation. Having established the relationship between power and love, let me now state that there is an experience in which love does transcend power. This is shown in Goethe’s drama in which Faust has made his compact with Mephistopheles to gain infinite knowledge and infinite sensual experience. Mephistopheles can give him only power, and that he does. Faust has loved Margarete and Helen of Tory and thinks he will leave them easily and casually behind. However, when Faust experiences the moment when his soul should logically be surrendered to the devil, he is saved by Margarete’s love for him. The mothers re-enter the drama, carrying with them the ties that every being has with nature and humankind. This allegory of love conquering power reveals an archetype of human experience that speaks to us all in diverse ways: I do not know what would remain to us were love not transfigured power and power not staying love. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
We are the creatures whose love is continually straying into power, and whose power is occasionally transfigured by love. We all participate in some way or other in the power structure of our society. Compassion is the name of that form of love which is based on our knowing and our understanding each other. Compassion is the awareness that we are all in the same yacht and that we all shall either skin of swim together. Compassion arises from the recognition of community. It realizes that all being, men and women, are bothers and sisters, even though a disciplining of our own instincts is necessary for us even to being to carry out that belief in our actions. Compassion is the tie felt for another not because one fulfills one’s potentialities (as if anyone ever did!). Compassion is felt for another as much because one does not fulfill one’s potentialities—in other words, one is human, like you or me, forever engaged in the struggle between fulfillment and nonfulfillment. We then surrender the demand that we be divine in order to join humankind in its suffering and its destiny. We are all lonely….We have learnt to pity one another for being alone. And we have learnt that nothing remains to be discovered except compassion. Compassion is the acceptance of the conviction that nothing human is foreign to me. I can then understand that if my enemy is killed, humanity is reduced that much. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Even if the sum total of cruelty has not greatly diminished in the last twenty-one centuries—children still suffer for the things which they have not the slightest responsibility—we shall not require a token of success. It is in the confronting of this dilemma—fighting cruelty without regard for tangible success—that beings discover what one is in the dept of one’s personality. An interesting illustration of the dilemma of selecting an appropriate front from several not quite fitting ones may be found today in American medical organization with respect to the task of administering anesthesia. In some hospitals anesthesia is still administered by nurses being the front that nurses are allowed to have in hospitals regardless of the task they perform—a front involving ceremonial subordination to doctors and a relatively low rate of pay. In order to establish anesthesiology as a specialty for graduate medical doctors, interested practitioners have had to advocate strongly the idea that administering anesthesia is a sufficiently complex and vital task to justify giving to those who perform it the ceremonial and financial reward given to doctors. The difference between the front maintained by a nurse and the front maintained by a doctor is great; many things that are acceptable for nurses are infra dignitatem for doctors. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Some medical people have felt that a nurse under-ranked for the task of administering anesthesia and that doctors over-ranked; were there an established status midway between nurse and doctor, an easier solution to the problem could perhaps be found. Similarly, had the Canadian Army had a rank halfway between lieutenant and captain, two and a half pips instead of two or three, then Dental Corps captains, any of them of underrepresented ethnic origin, could have been given a rank that would perhaps have been more suitable in the eyes of the Army than the captaincies they were actually given. I do not mean here to stress the point of view of a formal organization or a society; the individual, as someone who possesses a limited range of sign-equipment, must also make unhappy choices. Thus, in the crofting community studied by the writer, hosts often marked the visit of a friend by offering one a shot of hard liquor, a glass of wine, some home-made brew, or a cup of tea. The higher the rank or temporary ceremonial status of the visitor, the more likely one was to receive an offering near the liquor end of the continuum. Now one problem associated with this range of sign-equipment was that some crofters could not afford to keep a bottle of hard liquor, so that wine tended to be the most indulgent gesture they could employ. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
However, perhaps a more common difficulty was the fact that certain visitors, given their permanent and temporary status at the time, outranked one potable and under-ranked the next one in line. There was often a danger that the visitor would feel just a little affronted or, on the other hand, that the host’s costly and limited sign-equipment would be misused. In our middle classes a similar situation arises when a hostess has to decide whether or not to use the good silver, or which would be the more appropriate to wear, her best afternoon dress or her plainest evening gown. Compassion gives us a basis for arriving at the humanistic position which will include both power and love. Compassion occupies a position opposite to violence; as violence projects hostile images on the opponent, compassion accepts such daimonic impulses in one’s self. It gives us the basis for judging someone without condemning one. Although loving one’s enemies requires grace, compassion for one’s enemies is a human possibility. I have suggested that social front can be divined into traditional parts, such as settings, appearances, and manner, and that (since different routines may be presented from behind the same front) we may not find a perfect fit between the specific character of a performance and the general socialized guise in which it appears to us. #RandolphHarris #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
These two facts, taken together, lead one to appreciate that items in the social front of a particular routine are not only found in the social fronts of a whole range of routines, but also that the whole range of routines in which one items of sign equipment is found will differ from the range of routines in which another item in the same social front will be found. Thus, a lawyer may talk to a client in a social setting that one employs only for this purpose (or for a study), but the suitable clothes one wears on such occasions one will also employ, with equal suitability, at dinner with colleagues and at the theater with is wife. Similarly, the prints that hang on one’s wall and the carpet or hardwood on the floor may be found in domestic social establishments. Of course, in highly ceremonial occasions, settings, manner, and appearance may all be unique and specific, used only for performances of a single type of routine, but such exclusive use of sign equipment is the exception rather than the rule. Will our compassion be ignited by the wars in African and the Middle East? Many of us have no way out of despair at being unable to stop these cruel holocausts, noting effective to do, struggle as we might with the viable alternatives. Almost universally these wars are hated, and is they could, most people would like to forget. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Regardless of all our protests and prayers, it goes on and on, with the steady attrition of our sense of honesty, credulity, and even language. However, even as we continue all efforts to end the wars as soon as is humanly possible, it may be that the Middle East and Africa will be, in the long run, of service—if one may speak that way without blasphemy—to America. With all the evil the wars in Africa and the Middle East, daimonically indeed, represent an occasion in which American could achieve an insight into life that will be essential to its future. This could come about by our gaining a tragic sense, an awareness of our own complicity in evil, our own participation in automatized, dehumanized destructiveness. “All the violence you see amongst the mammals, all of it stems from the drive to live, to survive, and to have offspring to survive and to obtain all the food and drink necessary to survive and procreate. This is the basis of all life on Earth. And self-aware human mammals—intelligent mammals—are the most savage and cruel and vicious of all beings on the planet, or any planet in the ‘Realm of Worlds.’ They are always too deeply enmeshed in pain or pleasure, loneliness or suffocating sense of paralysis, a need for love, or a raging jealousy resulting from love, or a desire for vengeance due to personal defeat or injury. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
“And when they [humans] are physically wounded or experience disease, their suffering is unendurable for them. They are driven by it to terrible extremes. Peace, harmony, joy elude these creatures. (Pages 248-249 of Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis by Anne Rice.) The guilt we feel is surely a normal guilt and may be the beginning of America’s transformation from an adolescent posturing to the maturity of a responsible nation. So far we have kept our innocence, despite all lessons to the contrary. Let us hope that these sad events will constitute a farewell to war. Do not let the repetitiveness of pain and suffering make you callous to the endless torment. “There is hope. You have seen the human mammals of the planet weeping and sobbing and praying. They have hope, hope that the Maker (God) hears them and that when they die their spirits go up and away from Earth.” (Pages 254 of Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis by Anne Rice.) If the so-called powerful and practical persons and the self-confessed materialistic ones only knew how much nearer to realities the sage is than the they, how much more “practical” one is, they would be very much surprised. “Thus we nay see that the Lord is merciful unto al who will, in he sincerity of their hears, call upon his holy name. Yea, thus we see that the gate of Heaven is open unto all, even to those who will believe on the name of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God,” reports Helaman 3.27-28. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Evil Flows from Poisoned Wells; Good Flows from Pure and Crystal Fountains, Dazzling a Silvery Shower of Love and Beauty!
We seek to perfect what we are, not to constantly alter it. We seek to find something that is a true expression of our soul with which is to shape what makes up our form. However, there is no need for you to trouble yourself over these things. If your reasoning is correct, it should throw some light upon the peculiar quality of property delinquency in the delinquent subculture. We have already seen how the rewardingness of a college-boy and middle-class way of life depends, to a great extent, upon general respect for property right. In an urban society, in particular, the possession and display of property are the most ready and public badges of reputable social class status and are, for that reason, extraordinarily ego-involved. That property actually is a reward for middle-class morality and the possession of property. The middle-classes have, then, a strong interest in scrupulous regard for property rights, not only because property is intrinsically valuable but because the full enjoyment of their status requires that status be readily recognizable and therefore that property adhere to those who earn it. The cavalier misappropriation or destruction of property, therefore, is not only a diversion or diminution of wealth; it is an attack on the middle-class where their egos are most vulnerable. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
Group stealing, institutionalized in the delinquent subculture, is not just a way of getting something. It is a means that is the antithesis of sober and diligent labor in a calling. It expresses contempt for a way of life by making its opposite a criterion of status. Money and other valuables are not, as such, despised by the delinquent. For the delinquent, and the non-delinquent alike, money is a most glamorous and efficient means to a variety of ends and one cannot have too much of it. But, in the delinquent subculture, the stolen dollar has an odor of sanctity that does not attach to the dollar saved or the dollar earned. This delinquent system of values and way of life does its job of problem-solving most effectively when it is adopted as a group solution. We have stressed that the efficacy of a given change in values as a solution and therefore the motivation to such a change depends heavily upon the availability of reference groups within which the deviant values are already institutionalized, or whose members would stand to profit from such a system of deviant values if each were assured of the support and concurrences of the others. So it is with delinquency. We do not suggest that joining in the creation or perpetuation of a delinquent subculture is the only road to delinquency. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
We do believe, however, that for most delinquents delinquency would not be available as a response were it not socially legitimized and given a kind of respectability, albeit by a restricted community of fellow-adventurers. In this respect, the adoption of delinquency is like the adoption of the practice of appearing at the office in open-collar and shirt sleeves. It is much more comfortable, is it more sensible than full regalia? Is it neat? Is it dignified? The arguments in the affirmative will appear much more forceful if the practice is already established in one’s milieu or if one sense that others are prepared to go along if someone makes the first tentative gestures. Indeed, to many of those who sweat and chafe in ties and jackets, the possibility of an alternative may not even occur until they discover that it has been adopted by their colleagues. This way of looking at delinquency suggests an answer to a certain paradox. Countless mothers have protested that their “Simon” was a good boy until he fell in love it a certain bunch. However, the mothers of each of Simon’s companions hold the same view with respect to their own offspring. It is conceivable and even probable that some of these mothers are naïve, that one or more of these youngsters are “rotten apples” who infected the others. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15
We suggest, however, that all of the mothers may be right, that there is a chemistry in the group situation itself which engenders that which was not there before, that group interaction is a sort of catalyst which releases potentialities not otherwise visible. This is especially true when we are dealing with a problem of status-frustration. Status, by definition, is a grant of respect from others. A new system of norms, which measure status by criteria which one can meet, is of no value unless others are prepared to apply those criteria, and others are not likely to do so unless one is prepared to reciprocate. We have referred to a lingering ambivalence in the delinquent’s own value system, an ambivalence which threatens the adjustment one has achieved and which is met through the mechanism of reaction-formation. The delinquent may have to contend with another ambivalence, in the area of one’s status sources. The delinquent subculture offers him status as against other children of whatever social level, but is offers hum this status in the eyes of one’s fellow delinquents only. To the extent that there remains a desire for recognition from groups whose respect has been forfeited by commitment to a new subculture, one’s satisfaction in one’s solution is imperfect and adulterated. One can perfect one’s solution only by rejecting as status sources those who reject one. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
This too may require a certain measure of reaction-formation, going beyond indifference to active hostility and contempt for all those who do not share one’s subculture. One becomes all the more dependent upon one’s delinquent gang. Outside that gang one’s status position is now weaker than ever. The gang itself tends toward a kind of sectarian solidarity, because the benefits of membership can only be realized in active face-to-face relationships with group members. This interpretation of the delinquent subculture had important implications for the sociology of social problems. People are prone to assume that those things which we define as evil and those which we define as good have their origins in separate and distinct features of our society. Evil flows from poisoned wells; good flows from pure and crystal fountains. The same source cannot feed both. Our view is different. It holds that those values which are at the core of the American way of life, which help to motivate the behavior which we most esteem as typically American, are among the major determinants of that which we stigmatize as pathological. More specifically, it holds that the problems of adjustments to which the delinquent subculture is a response are determined, in part, by those very values which respectable society holds most sacred. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
The same value system, impinging upon children differently equipped to meet it, is instrumental in generating both delinquency and respectability. The rebel insists that one’s identity be respected; one fights to preserve one’s intellectual and spiritual integrity against the suppressive demands of one’s society. One must range oneself against the group which represents to one conformism, adjustment, and the death of one’s own originality and voice. Continuously through human history and through the life-span of each one of us, there goes on this dialectical process between individual and society, person and group, being and community. When either pole of the dialectic is neglected, impoverishment of the personality sets in. Every being has from time to time impulses to shock one’s society, fantasies of outraging one’s neighbors. Paradoxically enough, one’s own continued mental vitality depends on this. Also, paradoxically, the community itself, even though it condemns the outrage, gets its health, vitality and new growth from the outrage. This shows once again that human beings do not grow in one-dimensional fashion toward something better and better, but rather by a dynamic process, a thesis and antithesis; they grow down at the same time as they grow up, deeper while they grow higher. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
The Garden of Eden myth portrays the rebellion as being against God. And, indeed, it is against authority, against the status quo, against whatever clings to the values of the past rather than looks to the future. What is omitted from the rhetoric in this rebellion is that the outcome is not either/or, but a dialectical interplay: we need authority as we rebel against it. We rebel against the culture with the very language and knowledge that we learned from the culture; we revolve against or parents while loving them at the same time. The rebel also needs one’s society. One’s language, one’s concepts, one’s way of relating to others all come from that culture which one now opposes. One rises from the society, criticizes it, and aligns oneself with those who are trying to reform it; and all the while one is a member of the very culture one opposes. If one thinks of civilization as ungrateful in killings its prophets, one also sees the absurdity of the whole question of gratitude or ingratitude in the behavior of the rebel. This is why I call the relationship dialectic. It is a dynamic interrelationship in which each pole exists by virtue of the other pole—as one changes, the other does likewise. Beings therefore have a right to fear that society may unhuman them. Yet no being has made the best of one’s gifts without the setting [up] of a helpful society, such as the Greek or the Italian city states. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
Always the animal drive for self, the jungle of nature, waits to disrupt one’s city. And yet that force, anti-social as it is, is not all alien or all bad. The mind that drives it is full of human wishes. The Greeks remembered that every mind, good as well as bad, takes strength from our animal body. It is the nature of society to suppress that individual person. Pointing this out, it is a surprise that people do often talk as through the group ought to behave differently. Society can be spoken of as being bureaucratic, juggernaut, supertechnocratic, all implying that while society has its faults, we are what we are. On one hand, this arises from a utopianism—the expectation that when we develop a society which trains us rightly, we will all be in fine shape. On the other hand, it is like a child wheeling one’s parents because they are not taller or in some other way different from what they are. All of which society cannot be expected to be. For society, on one side, is us. The rebel is a split personality that one realizes one’s society nursed one, met one’s needs, and gave one security to develop one’s potentialities; yet one smarts under its constraints and finds it stifling. The rebel is continually struggling to make the society into a community. People feel they rebel, therefore they exist. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
In our particular day, the rebel fights the mechanizing bureaucratic trends not because these in themselves are evil, but because they are the paramount modern channels for the dehumanizing of beings, the stultifying loss of integrity, and the indignity of beings. One fights affluence for a similar reason, for one thinks that an abundance of wealthy may erode power, and riches are particularly dangerous for the well-being of republics because corruption has a tendency to set in and take precedence over justice, family values and human rights. The rebel also may be found in the colorful, albeit sometimes tattered, clothes of the dropout. The young person rightly sensing the threat to one’s values and to one’s life in the Syrian war, pollution, and the dehumanization which seems to accompany our vast technological progress, drops out of society for a period. One’s action is protest against the rigidity of society, but it is also a time in which one can find oneself. It is similar to the withdrawal of Jesus to the wilderness to find inner integrity before beginning their ministries. It is also similar to that period of wandering taken by the students of the Middle Ages as an integral part of their education. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
True, the dropout can never completely deny one’s culture, never entirely sever one’s umbilical cord. One takes it with one to the mountain or the dessert in one’s language, one’s way of thinking, and even as an object against which to protest. However, in one’s withdrawal one can get new perspective, a new awareness of oneself which may stand one in very good stead later on. I have had the impression in talking with hipsters that for some of them the year or so they dropped out protected them from psychosis. It gave them some breathing time in the burdensome sequence of nursery, elementary school, high school, college, graduate school—during which many of them find themselves in a genuine danger of suffocation. Often the dropping out serves a purpose similar to psychoanalysis. No one would argue that the dropout has not selected a more satisfactory way of working things out, not to say less expensive for all concerned, than a stint in a mental hospital. It is entirely possible that one comes back from one’s seemingly lighthearted wanderings with a new seriousness in one’s relationship to oneself and one’s society. Human beings can be conditioned into any form of Nazilike obedience or antlike organization of colonies. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
However, we must not forget at the same moment that there are individuals who from time to time pull themselves and oppose the group even to the extent of going to prison. Edward Snowden, the Berrigan brothers, and Bonhoeffer come to mind. Daniel Ellsberg’s decision to make the Pentagon Papers available to the people was the one tangible step he felt he could take to shorten the Vietnam war. Some people become rebels because they have empathy for the suffering of people, especially helpless children. Rebellion can be a flamboyant, long struggle for psychological integrity. However, whatever the motives, it is clear that rebels step out because in many cases they are performing acts against law and order. With social media, people are less dependent on the news because they can get their points out using mass communication and modern technology in the service of the rebellion. There is no escape from living through this dialectical conflict of individual and society. The only choice is whether one will live it through constructively and with zest and dignity or waste one’s energy and substance protesting against a Universe which is not organized according to one’s living. No matter how much society is changed—and much of it cries to high Heaven for change—there still will exist the fundamental dialectical situation of individuation against the conformist, leveling tendencies of the society. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
Some societies have recognized and made allowance for the destructive, protesting, anarch needs of the citizens. Then you get situations like what is going on in China. Tens of thousands of protesters in Hong Kong are peacefully marching on the 22nd anniversary of the former colony’s handover from Britain to China, but also a group of protestors took their frustrations out, as hundreds of young protestors broke into the heart of the government of Hong Kong’s legislative council. We need our ways of mocking authority. We have our Halloween and April Fools’ Day. However, we need ways of channeling our secret dreams of outraging our neighbors and scandalizing the town fathers—in short, of symbolically expressing our dreams of revenge on a society that thwarts and confines us. An interesting example of this is the scapegoat king, who accepts the scepter knowing that he will be killed during some riotous saturnalia in which all authority is mocked. And consider the mocking of ultimate religious authority in the crucifixion of God’s son, Jesus. The expression of our disdain and mocking—indeed, of all these so-called negative and destructive emotions—enables us then to see and experience more clearly the beneficial side of religious conviction. We can change the forms of these beneficial and negative sides of human nature, but we cannot change the fact of them without amputating part of human experience and impoverishing ourselves. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
Are not the excesses in American life—one of which is violence—symptoms in part of a lack of sound opportunities to let out the secret dreams of revenge on the society that thwarts and contains the individual. You cannot in fact bottle up these deep feelings of protest in a World as mechanical as ours and think that you will syphon them off casually in lacy thrillers and in little evasins of the forces of order. Anti-social feelings in a hierarchy society like ours are first a power, then a commodity on which some unscrupulous leader can raise to fame, and become the spokes persons for the dream of violence of all the underrepresented. The recognition of the value of the rebel would go a long way in channeling such daimonic forces in constructive directions. For the rebel does what the rest of us would like to do but do not dare. Not that Christ willingly takes on Himself the sins and the scorns of beings; He acts, lives, and dies, vicariously for the rest of us. This is what makes Him a rebel. The rebel and the savior then turn out to be the same figure. Through his rebellion the rebel saves us. We see here another demonstration of my previous thesis—that civilization needs the rebel. The possibilities of the human being are unlimited, and that statement can be de-energizing. If you take it at face value, there is no real problem anymore. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
Every problem will sooner or later be overcome by these unlimited possibilities; there remain only temporary difficulties that will go away on their own accord when the time comes. Saying that possibilities are unlimited to a person who has not figured out how to overcome a situation, however, is like putting someone into a canoe and pushing one out into the Atlantic toward England with the cheery comment, “The sky is the limit.” The canoer is only too aware of the fact that an inescapably real limit is also the bottom of the ocean. There is the inescapable physical limitation of death. We can postpone our death slightly, but nevertheless each of us will die and at some future time unknow to and unpredictable by us. Sickness is another limit. When we overwork, we get ill in one form or another. There are obvious neurological limits. If the blood stops flowing to the brain for as little as a couple of minutes, a stroke or some other kind of serious damage occurs. Despite the fact that we can improve our intelligence to some degree, it remains radically limited by our physical and emotional environment. There are also metaphysical limitations which are even more interesting. We can blind ourselves to reality and come to grief. True, we can surpass to some extent the limitations of our family backgrounds or our historical situations, but such transcendence can occurs only to those who accept the fact of their limitation to begin with. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
For seekers of truth, real fruit is only borne when one seeks within, for the indwelling God, who author of our soul. The question of how far one will be prepared to travel in this quest has no geographical reference. It is a metaphorical one and refers only to the time one can give each day to the exercises, studies, and devotions, as well as to the moral ideals one can bring oneself to pursue. One is not asked for more than one feels one can humanly give under one’s present circumstances and responsibilities. We do not need to cross the sea to find God—the Word is nigh thee, is in thy heart. To come to know our true divine power, we must continually become something greater and therefore that which we were must come to an end. Immortality through it sounds good on the surface in an exoteric sense is truly the source of attachment and fear of change. Embracing God is overcoming perfection. Through the depths of your soul you must also come to realize that all systems of enslavement which emanate from this concept of external divinity are equally useless when compared to your potential. Simply reading and understanding it intellectually is not enough. It must be experiences through the work itself so that you have become stronger in faith, so strong that you can rise above stress and anxiety. “They were in captivity, and again the Lord did deliver them out of bondage by the power of his word; and we were brought into this land, and here we began to establish the church of God throughout this land also,” reports Alma 5.5. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15
Of Luxuries Bright, Milky Soft and Rosy– Shall Not the Judge of All the Earth do Right?
I want you to go to New York. New York is the capitol of the World. And I want you to go to school there. You are to have other companions now, good, decent security guards who will keep you safe. I want you to have the finest education. Remember, whatever you have suffered, no matter how bad it has been, you can use that, use that to be a stronger person. Once people believed that the World was flat; however, science has proved that the World is round. Now in spite of that, one still believes that life is flat and goes from birth to death. However, life is probably round and much superior in extension and capacity to the hemisphere known to us at present. Future generations will probably enlighten us on this so interesting subject; and then science itself might arrive—willy0nilly at conclusions relation to the other half of existence. We respect the voyager, the explorer, the climber, the cosmonaut. It makes far more sense to me as a valid project—indeed, as a desperately and urgently required project for our time—to explore the inner space and time of consciousness. In over 100 cases where we studied the actual circumstances around the social event when one person comes to be regarded as schizophrenic, it seems to us that without exception the experience and behavior that get labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Schizophrenia can be a potential breakthrough as well as breakdown. Some schizophrenics are exceptionally bright and sensitive. They cannot dismiss the lies and distortions that beset them (indeed, all of us). They are extremely vulnerable, therefore, and experience full range of degradations. At the same time, they cannot tolerate these degradations. They do not know how to handle or rechannel them. So they build massive defenses against them, withdrawing, dissociating, or exploding. Yet, these excesses are also potentialities. They can, if properly integrated, signify the awakenings of freer minds. They can point beyond stifling patterns and pave the way to more creative, flexible lifestyles. Roman clap-trap? To the contrary. Consider such luminaries as Blake, Van Gogh, and Nietzsche. Consider numerous studies of the creative process. I believe that the key to significant life change is to be found in recovering one’s centering of life in one’s subjective vision. Genuine insight is to my mind is inner-sight, subjective vision. So-called insight that is chiefly derived from the therapist’s perceptions and interpretations is not inward-seeing; it is objective information about the person the patient has been, but is not evocative of one’s present being. I have always wanted to be one of the right people, always since my earliest recollections. My mother was a great admirer of cultured people. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Very early I somehow got the idea that cultured people had a different skin texture than most people—maybe it was because another favorite word of hers described cultured people as finer. Being right is so important and so easily lost. Obviously, being right means pleasing the teachers. Clearly, being right means being like Dad, who is loving and dependable. And so the explorations go. In some ways, I get confirmation of being right—recognitions, offices, approval. However, always the secret self must be hidden, that I know it right. It is shameful because it is emotional and unpractical, because it really wants to play many times when I force it to work, because it likes to daydream instead of being realistic. To selves: gradually one becomes more public, the other more hidden. We discover with how crippled and stifled a life can be when it is half-lived, half-listened to, and half-searched. Attending to the process of becoming aware, of inner searching, is another healing process. It is the capacity to reinterpret what cannot be denied. It might also be simply called the capacity for creative change. Such capacity means turning one’s dual nature into rewarding personal and professional activity, including enjoying one’s family, teaching and practicing psychotherapy. For clients and many of us, creative change also means a wealth of personal and career transformations with fresh ways to reunite and reframe our lives. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Something more has emerged from the explorations of my awareness…Something has been created. New meanings, new perceptions, new relationships, new possibilities now exit where they were not to be found before. In short, my inner vision is a creative process that does more than observe what is already at hand; it brings into being fresh possibilities. This is the astonishing and creative possibility latent in our being. Life that is searched and found choice, that chose and found change, that changed and found power. Again and again, I find that those to whom I speak or write take other—and to me, lesser—point as more fresh or meaningful. And yet, it is this very knowing as distinct from knowing about, which must be taken seriously; it is the World which so often calls out to be bridged. It is our lost sense, the inner awareness that has the potential to let each of us live in wholeness and with true realization of his or her unique nature. [And] it is our avenue toward the most profound meaning of life and the Universe. It is a plausible assumption that the working-class boy whose status is low in middle-class terms cares about that status, that this status confronts him with a genuine problem of adjustment. To this problem of adjustment there are a variety of conceivable responses, of which participation in the creation and the maintenance of the delinquent subculture is one. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
What does the delinquent response have to offer? Let us be clear, first, about what this response is. The hallmark of the delinquent subculture is the explicit and wholesale repudiation of middle-class standards and the adoption of their very antithesis. The corner-boy culture is not specifically delinquent. Where it leads to behavior which may be defined as delinquent, for instance, truancy, it does so not because nonconformity to middle-class norms defines conformity to corner-boy norms, but because conformity to middle-class norms interferes with conformity to corner-boy norms. The corner-boy plays truant because he does not like school, because he wishes to escape from a dull and unrewarding and perhaps humiliating situation. However, truancy is not defined as intrinsically valuable and status-giving. The member of the delinquent subculture plays truant because good middle-class (and working-class) children do not play truant. Corner-boy resistance to being herded and marshaled by middle-class figures is not the same as the delinquent’s floating and jeering of those middle-class figure and active ridicule of those who submit. The corner boy’s ethic of reciprocity, his quasi-communal attitude toward the property of in-group members, is shared by the delinquent. However, this ethic of reciprocity does not sanction the delinquent and malicious violation of the property rights of persons outside the in-group. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
We have observed that the differences between the corner-boy and the college-boy or middle-class culture are profound but that in many ways they are profound differences in emphasis. We have remarked that the corner-boy culture does not so much repudiate the value of many middle-class achievements as it emphasizes certain other values which make such achievement improbable. In short, the corner-boy culture temporizes with middle-class morality; the full-fledged delinquent subculture does not. It is precisely here, we suggest, in the refusal to temporize, that the appeal of the delinquent subculture is possessed. Let us recall that it is characteristically American, not specifically working-class or middle-class, to measure oneself against the widest possible status Universe, to seek status against all comers, to be as good as or better than anybody—anybody, that is, within one’s own age and gender category. As long as the working-class corner-boy clings to a version, however attenuated and adulterated, of the middle-class culture, he must recognize his inferiority to working-class and middle-class college-boy. The delinquent subculture, on the other hand, permits no ambiguity of the status of the delinquent relative to that of anybody else. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
In terms of the norms of the delinquent subculture, defined by this negative polarity to the respectable status system, the delinquent’s very nonconformity to middle-class standards sets one above most exemplary college boy. Another important function of the delinquent subculture is the legitimation of aggression. We surmise that a certain amount of hostility is generated among working-class children against middle-class persons, with their airs of superiority, disdain or condescension and against middle-class norms, which are, in a sense, the cause of their status-frustration. TO infer inclinations to aggression from the existence of frustration is hazardous; we know that aggression is not an inevitable and not the only consequence of frustration. Nevertheless, despite our imperfect knowledge of these things, we would be blind if we failed to recognize that bitterness, hostility and jealousy and all sorts of retributive fantasies are among the most common and typically human responses to public humiliation. However, for the child who temporizes with middle-class morality, overt aggression and even the conscious recognition of one’s own hostile impulses are inhibited, for one acknowledges the legitimacy of the rules in terms of which one is stigmatized. For the child who breaks clean with the middle-class mortality, on the other hand, there are no moral inhibitions on the free expression of aggression against the sources of frustration. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Moreover, the connection we suggest between status-frustration and the aggressiveness of the delinquent subculture seems to us more plausible than many frustration-aggression hypotheses because it involves no assumptions about obscure and dubious displacement of aggression against substitute targets. The targets in this case is the manifest cause of the status problem. It seems to us that the mechanism of reaction-formation should also play a part here. Its hallmark is an exaggerated, disproportionate, abnormal intensity of response, inappropriate to the stimulus which seems to elicit it. The unintelligibility of the response, the overreaction, becomes intelligible when we see that it has the function of reassuring the actor against an inner threat to one’s defenses as well as the function of meeting an external situation on its own terms. Thus we have the mother who compulsively shows inordinate affection upon a child to reassure herself against her latent hostility and we have the male adolescent whose awkward and immoderate masculinity reflects a basic insecurity about one’s own gender-role. In like manner, we would expect the delinquent boy who, after all, has been socialized in a society dominated by a middle-class mortality and who can never quite escape the blandishments of middle-class society, to seek to maintain one’s safeguards against seduction. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Reaction-formation, in his case, should take the form of irrational, malicious, unaccountable hostility to the enemy within the gates as well as without: the norms of the respectable middle-class society. Any genuine symbol, with its accompanying ceremonial rite, becomes the mirror the reflects insight, new possibilities, new wisdom, and other psychological and spiritual phenomena that we do not dare experience on our own. We cannot for two reasons. The first is our own anxiety: the new insights often—and, we could even say, typically—would frighten us too much were we to take fully and lonely responsibility for them. In the age of ferment such insights may come frequently, and they require more psychological and spiritual responsibility than most individuals are prepared to bear. In dreams people can let themselves do things that would normally be too outrageous to think or say in ordinary speech. The second reason is we escape hubris. The value of the dreams, like these divinations, is not that they give a specific answer, but that they open up new areas of psychic reality, shake us out of our customary ruts, and throw light on a new segment of our lives. The philosopher came to the conclusion that it meant one is wisest because one had admitted one’s own ignorance. Ecstasy is a time honored method of transcending our ordinary consciousness and a way of helping us arrive at insights we could not attain otherwise. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
An element of ecstasy, however slight, is part and parcel of every genuine symbol and myth; for if we genuinely participate in the symbol or myth, we are for that moment taken out of and beyond ourselves. The humanity of the rebel is possessed in the fact that civilization rises from one’s deeds. The function of the rebel is to shake the fixated mores and the rigid order of civilization; and this shaking, though painful, is necessary if the society is to be saved from boredom and apathy. Obviously I do not refer to everyone who calls oneself a rebel, but only to the authentic rebel. Civilization gets its first flower from the rebel. Civilization begins with a rebellion. Prometheus, one of the Titans, steals fire from the gods on Mount Olympus and brings it as a gift to beings, marking the birth of human culture. For this rebellion Zeus sentences him to be chained to Mount Caucasus where vultures consume his lover during the day and at night it grows back only to be again eaten away the next day. This is a tale of the agony of the creative individual, whose nightly rest only resuscitates him so that he can endure his agonies the next day. However, note also that Prometheus is released from his sufferings only when an immortal renounces his immortality in Prometheus’ favor. This Chiron does. What a vivid affirmation of human life, one of the essential characteristics of which is that each one of us will some day die! #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
It is saying: “I willingly give up immortality to affirm humanity; I am willing to die in order to affirm human civilization.” It is death which humanizes us. And the fact that we die is intimately bound up with our rebellion and our creating civilization. This is a truth which can be known in its full force only by the rebel. A similar rebellion and a similar acceptance of mortality are central in another account of the beginning of civilization, that of the story of Adam and Eve. The essence of their deed is rebellion—with prompting from that daimonic element in nature, the snake. The remarkable parallel in the stories of Prometheus and Adam is that the gods are pictured as the enemies of humans; they seek to keep humans perpetually subordinated. Yahweh is worried least Adam and Eve, having eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, will also eat of the tree of eternal life. Again, the fact of being’s mortality is brought in as a necessary prerequisite for creativity and civilization. True, we yearn for immortality, we struggle to form symbols of it, and we smart under the necessity of dying. Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light. However, if we did not know that we will die we would create no more than did the gods, lolling away their endless days on Mount Olympus, a boring succession of tomorrow and tomorrow relieved only by occasional pleasures of the flesh affairs with mortals. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Consciousness itself, which includes anxiety, guilt, and a sense of responsibility, is born when Adam and Eve are ejected from Eden. And all this happens in an act of rebellion. This is not foreign to psychology: there is no meaningful “yes” unless the individual could also have said “no.” Consciousness requires the exercise of the individual’s counterwill; it is called forth, inspired, and developed by the conflicts that occur in every individual’s life which force one to wonder and to call on power one did not know one possessed. Consider also he tale of Orestes. This is a representation of beings assuming responsibility for one’s own life, likewise a prerequisite of civilization. It is similar to the story of Prometheus and that f Adam and Eve in the sense that it depicts the taking of a giant step forward in the humanization of beings; and the fact that Orestes identifies with his father should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the myth emphasizes even more profoundly that an individual’s existence must start with a rebellion against his mother, to whom he is tied at birth by the umbilical cord. After Orestes’ assassinates his mother, and his cutting himself loose from Mycenae, he endures persecution by the Erinyes, who drive him to virtual insanity. Likewise many persons in psychotherapy struggle, on the brink of psychosis, toward autonomy. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
The stages of the dramas are Orestes’s act, his guilt and atonement, his assuming responsibility for his deed, and his ultimate forgiveness in the Eumenides, the final play of Aeschylus’ trilogy, by a court composed of men, not gods. It is a portrayal of the importance of rebellion for the capacity to assume responsibility for one’s own and one’s fellow’s lives. We also note that startling regularity through history with which society martyrs the rebel in one generation and worships him in the next. Sokrates, Jesus, Prince Lestat, William Blake—the list is as endless as it is rich. It we look more closely at the first two, we shall see how the rebel typically challenges the citizenry with his visions. Jesus’ dictum was: “It was said unto you of old, but I say unto you.” Although Sokrates refused to evade the law, he challenged it: “Men of Athens, I shall obey God rather than you, and so long as I live I shall never cease from the teaching of philosophy.” Both are introductions to frank espousal of rebellious teachings; they are challenges to the structure and stability of the society. Society can tolerate only a certain amount of threat to its mores, laws, and established ways. However, if civilization has only its own mores and no input to fertilize its growth—that is, has only its established ways—it stagnates in passivity and apathy. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The adaptation that has been worked out is to martyr the rebel during the time in which he or she lives and then, when he or she is dead and there is no chance for one to alter one’s message (it is now established), disinter one, apotheosize one, and finally worship one. If the gods are occupied with keeping beings subordinate, why do not we simply say: “Away with them!” Then we could, as rationalist through the ages have tried to do, simply accept Jesus and Sokrates and Prince Lestat as the sensitive human beings they were. However, that is to misunderstand the function of the gods. Gods are, culturally speaking, symbols of our ideal yearnings and visions. (Symbols encompasses diverse stands of reality and participates in the reality itself.) God is the symbol of the power human beings year for but do not have. We are always enlarging our insights and visions. To simply deny the god function in human life is to impoverish our lives, specifically our ideals and our visions. However, as we enlarge and purify our insights (say about justice) and our visions (say of a better World), we also enlarge our symbols of the gods. This is why one reads in the Old Testament of the curious phenomenon of Abraham arguing with God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, saying: “Far be that from Thee! Shall not the judge of all the Earth do right?” (Genesis 18.25). #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Abraham takes God to task for not living up to his own principles. God in terms of his new vision of what God ought to be and stand for. This curious phenomenon—source of much gymnastics among theologians—makes no sense when we define God as the all-perfect, purely ineffable. However, it makes entire sense when we see God, as I believe the higher religions have always seen Him, as the confluence of the Ground of Being (the given aspect of life) and being’s own capacity for spiritual insight (the autonomous aspect of the individual being). The highest function of rebellion is the rebellion in the name of “God above God.” Everyone at one time or another finds oneself in a situation where one must decide whether one shall use or avoid the name of God, whether one shall talk with personal involvement about religion matters, either for or against them. Making such a decision is often difficult. We feel that we should remain silent in certain groups of people because it might be tactless to introduce the name of God, or even to talk about religion. However, our attitude is not unambiguous. We believe we are being tactful, when actually we may be cowardly. And then sometimes we accuse ourselves of cowardice, although it is really tact that prevents us from speaking out. This happen not only to those who would speak out for God, but also to those who would speak out against God. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Whether for or against Him, God’s name is on our lips and we are embarrassed because we feel that more is at stake than social tact. So we keep silent, uncertain as to whether we are right or wrong. The situation itself is uncertain. Perhaps we might isolate ourselves or seem ridiculous by even mentioning the divine name, affirming or denying it. However, there might also be another present for whom the mention of the divine name would produce a first experience of the Spiritual Presence and a decisive moment in one’s life. And again, perhaps there may be someone for whom a tactless allusion to God would evoke a definite sense of repulsion against religion. One may now think that religion as such is an abuse of the name of God. No one can look into the hearts of others, even if one converses with them intimately. We must risk now to talk courageously and now to keep silent tactfully. However, in one case should we be pushed into a direct affirmation or denial of God which lacks the tact that is born of awe. The sublime embarrassment about His real Presence in and through His name should never leave us. When they have had to teach their children the divine name, many persons have felt the pain of this embarrassment, and others have felt it perhaps when they tried to protect their children against a divine name that they considered an expression of dangerous superstition. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
It seems natural to teach child about most objects in nature and history without embarrassment, and there are parents who think it is equally natural to teach them divine things. However, I believe that many of us as parents in this situation feel a sublime embarrassment. We know as Jesus knew that children are more open to the divine Presence than adults. It may well be, however, that if we use the divine name easily, we may close this openness and leave our children insensitive to the depth and the mystery of what is present in the divine name. However, if we try to withhold it from them, whether because we affirm or because we deny it, emptiness may take hold of their hearts, and they may accuse us later of having cut them off from the most important thing in life. A Spirit inspired tact I necessary in order to find the right way between these dangers. No technical skill or psychological knowledge can replace the sublimely embarrassed mind of parents or teachers, and especially of teachers of religion. There is a form of misuse of the name of God that offends those who hear it with a sensitive ear, just because it did not worry those who misused it without sensitivity. I speak now of a public use of the name of God which has little to do with God, but much to do with human purpose—good or bad. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Those of us who are grasped by the mystery present in the name of God are often stung when this name is used in governmental and political speeches, in opening prayers for conferences and dinners, in secular and religious advertisements, and in international war propaganda. Often the frequent use of the name of God is praised, as this is an indication that we are a religious nation. Ans one boasts of this, comparing one’s nation with others. Should this be condemned? It is hard not to do so, but neither is it easy. If the divine name is used publicly with full conviction, and therefore with embarrassment and Spiritual tact, it may be used without offense, although this is hardly ever so. It is usually taken in vain when used for purposes that are not t the glory of His name. Through the process of learning to respect God and his name, one will begin to unlock the deeper mysteries of the Holy Ghost. You will gain greater knowledge in regard to your own divine power and creation itself. It will become clear that through perception we can turn power n and off and will come to understand that gaining power is not really about obtaining something we do no have. It is more about learning to perceive what already dwells within the soul. The soul with allow us to experience God and the vast power of the concept through a continual process of becoming. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Many are worshipping a false divine blueprint drawn upon the collective mind of humanity which binds individual desire to guilt and evil, syphoning the minds of people turning them into slaves, and this is destroying the ability to love self. Evil is a power which cuts down love. This separation from God is the impetus which forces humankind to give up their power of loving, faith and adoring the divine source leaving a black hole of hatred within that cases prejudice, spite, and lack of compassion for the totality. It is not empowering, but separating human beings from the inherent power. “And now behold, we desire to know the cause of this exceedingly great neglect; yea, we desire to know the cause of your thoughtless state. Can you think to sit upon your thrones in a state of thoughtless stupor, while your enemies are spreading the work of death around you? Yea, while they are murdering thousands of your people?” reports Alma 60.6-7. “And now behold, I say unto you, I fear exceedingly that the judgments of God will come upon this people, because of their exceeding slothfulness, yea, even the slothfulness of our government, and their exceedingly great neglect toward their brethren, yes, towards those who have been slain,” report Alma 60.14. The other ways were not without their usefulness and helpfulness, of course, but they lost that value the moment they were turned into substitute for the interior way, which is unique and without a second because each one of us is unique. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Each person gets one’s own special experience of life, makes one’s own special set of contact with other persons, and meets one’s own particular destiny. In one’s reactions to and dealings with all this, one is really reacting to and dealing with oneself. One is showing quarrelsomeness, or trying to conquer it; ne is losing oneself in the day’s activity, or saving oneself from it in a half-hour retreat. One is letting negative thoughts or feelings stay in one’s heart, or trying to drive them out of it. One is practicing a larger relationship and a kindlier attitude toward those one encounters in one’s day-to-day business, or one is failing to recognize why they—and not others who are quite different—have been put into one’s path by the Infinite Intelligence (God). Our environment is really a testing-place and a disciplinary school. Speech is no longer a means to express internal power and raise one’s vibrational frequency via the vibrations of the tonal sound. It is no longer a tool to speak our reality into existence. It is through God’s angelic force that words of power are reserved for the few. Speech is not used for mere conversation even though its power really serves a much deeper and greater purpose. “When a person speaks by power of the Holy Ghost, that power carries it unto hearts,” reports 2 Nephi 33.1. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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As the Essence of Courage is to Stake One’s Life on a Possibility, so the Essence of Faith is to Believe that the Possibility Exists!
So, nobody ever accused me of acquiring any real wisdom in my two hundred years on this Earth. I know only one way to proceed. Previous investigations have pointed to the multiplicity of causes of loneliness. Those experiencing loneliness tend to be widowed and single people, living alone, in their eighties rather than in their sixties, they tend to be men rather than women and to be the relatively infirm. Loneliness cannot be regarded as the simple direct result of social circumstances, but is rather an individual response to an external situation to which other seniors may react quite differently. There seems to be no single cause of severe loneliness in those in retirement age. In several respect the present inquiry reached similar results. Forty-sic percent of widowed people said they were very or sometimes lonely, 42 percent of those living alone, 53 percent of those in their late seventies and eighties and 43 percent of those who were infirm, compared with 27 percent in the sample as a whole. However, it is possible that less emphasis should be given to personal differences and to a multiplicity of causes. The results also suggested that a single social factor may be fundamental to loneliness. This is the recent deprivation of the company of a close relative, usually a husband or wife or a child, through death, illness or migration. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
Examination of individual interview-reports showed that of the 56 people saying they were very or sometimes lonely, 28 had been recently bereaved and 17 separated from children. This seemed to be the chief cause of their loneliness. A further 11 had experiences other drastic changes in family circumstances. It is necessary to consider these lonely people. All but four of the 28 who had been recently bereaved had lost a husband or wife within the previous 10 years. “No one know what loneliness is till your partner happens to go.” “You do not realize it until you know it. But loneliness is the worst thing you can suffer in life.” The men in particular talked about their bereavement with very deep feeling. “I miss her. Every time I look over there—that is her seat. People kept telling me to have someone to look after me but I said to myself, there will never be another woman who will take her place.” Three of them did not talk, they wept. Mr. Heart had lost his wife seven years earlier. He lived with an unmarried son but he had no daughter. “Sometimes I get lonely. I think of her. There is not a day passes but se is in my mind. When she died, I do not know how I stood on my feet. You do not know what it is when you do not have a wife. I wish I had a daughter. If you had a daughter it would put your in mind of your wife. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
“Sometimes I think I hear her calling in the next room. She was what you call exceptional, exceptional good. You never had to run round any public house for her. My son still goes and puts flowers on her grave. You cannot tell how you miss someone until they go. Death is a terrible thing, to lose someone you love.” One of the major consequences of a wife’s death was that the man saw less of his children. He acknowledged it was the mother who held the family together. “When my missus was alive, I had to come and have tea in the bedroom because there was not room in here. The place was crowded out with them (married children and their families on Saturdays and Sundays).” “My daughter used to come round often when my wife was alive, but I do not see so much of them now. But they like to know I am comfortable and being looed after.” Widowers in fact saw less of their children, particularly of their sons, than married men and married or widowed women, as judged by average frequency of contact. However, this falling-off did not apply to all a widower’s children. A close relationship with one child was usually maintained. Several lived with a single or married daughter, or visited a married daughter daily, and then described the pleasure grandchildren gave them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15
“My young granddaughter likes swinging and I pick her up and she swings between my legs. And then she climbs up on me. Playing with my grandchildren is my greatest pleasure.” They found some consolation here. “I am a grandfather,” said one man, “and that is the only goodness I get out of life.” The loss of the marriage partner was not quite such a disaster for women. They had always depended less on husbands than husbands on them, and they found it easier to console themselves wit their families. Nevertheless, many of them were lonely, particularly if their husbands had died recently and particularly if infirmity or shortage of relatives prevented them from finding comfort readily in companionship of others. One woman’s husband had died eight years previously. She had no children. “I get so lonely I could fill up the teapot with tears.” Mrs. Pridy was very infirm and her husband had died only a year previously, when she was 80. She lived with a daughter and grandchildren. “I sit here for hours and hours and sometimes thinking about it. I get depressed and I start crying. We was always together. I can remember even his laughing. “Come on, girl,” he’s say, “don’t get sitting about. Let’s liven ‘em up.” They say what is to be will be. I never thought he would…But we have all got to go. A good many of them do not even know he is gone (neighbors). I sit here for hours thinking about him. I cannot get over it.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
We cannot all have the strength to live like a Christ. However, something worthwhile is within reach of all of us. Let us therefore aim at the immediately practicable, which in its turn will lead to something more. It is foolish to waste time and strength unavailingly grasping for what is out of reach. Almost every man and woman whose husband or wife has died within the previous five years, compared with half between five and ten years and a quarter over that limit, felt lonely. The shorter the period since the death the more likely were people to complain of loneliness. Although practically everyone felt lonely at first after about five or six years the presence or not of an affectionate family seemed to determine how long such feelings persisted. Four people had lost a child and not a husband recently. Three were women widowed in the war who said a son had died in the previous few years. One had lost two sons in the war and another three years previously. “I could cry my heart out sometimes when I sit here.” There was also a married woman who son had been killed at Arnhem. “He is never out of my mind. I always see him in my mind and they are still talking about wars.” In speaking of the loss of children and other relatives it was notable how long people felt grief and how indelible was the memory of these people. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
There is a point in our lives in which our minds must fall back baffled by the great mystery which surrounds us. Reflect and reason, search and probe as much as one can, one can go no farther. However, this does not mean that life is meaningless or that the Universe is meaningless. Only a being superior to humans might possibly penetrate this mystery. The “In Memoriam” column of a local East London newspaper provides many examples of the feelings of relatives for those who had died, some of them several years previously. In the following three illustrations, printed in the newspaper, only the names have been changed. Howard—To the beautiful memory of my beloved daughter, Alice, who feel asleep June 17th. Time takes away the edge of grief, but memories turn back every leaf. Ever in our thoughts—Mum and all. Talewill—In treasured memory of our dear Mum, who fell asleep June 7th. Not a day do we forget you, Mum, in our hearts you are ever near, loved, remembered, longed for always, brining many a silent tear. Sadly missed—Loving sons and daughters. Huggins—In loving memory of our dear nephew who passed away June 6th. Sad and sudden was the call, to one so dearly loved by all, this month of June comes with regret, it brings back a tragedy we shall never forget. –From Aunt Caroline, Uncle Bill, Uncle Herbert, Uncle Steve and cousins Mary, Alice, and children. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
After bereavement, recent separation from children and grandchildren was the most important reason for loneliness, affecting 17 of the 56 people. Eleven of the 17 had no contact with a child living in the district although recently at least one child had been there. What happened was that, if the last child to get married moved out of the district or was unable to find a home in it and there were no other children living nearby, the senior greatly missed their daily companionship, particularly if widowed. A further three seniors had a son living nearby but the daughters had recently moved away. And three widows who had been living with married children now lived alone, although some of their children still lived in the same district. We must work within our own inescapable limits. It is futile to nurture wild ambitions which one is not qualified to realize. In short, let one know oneself. One may then have a key to better knowledge of other things, especially of the meaning of one’s own life. If needs be in the hope of attainting truth, it is only the few, after all, who have the inborn inclination to sacrifice everything. What of the lesser souls who have no such passport, whose temperament, environment, family, or position forbids them from aspiring heroically to the highest goal? #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
Can we hold no hope for lesser soul who are blocked from obtaining the highest goal? It is to be a cause of all or nothing? The answer is that nobody is asked to undertake more than lies within one’s strength or circumstances. There is room here for those with humble aims who do not feel equal to more than the slightest philosophic effort. This is not possible let them accept these teachings on simple faith alone. Let them absorb a few leading tenets which makes special appeal to them or which are more easily understandable by them than others. If they do not have time or tendency to practise more, let the practise a few minutes’ prayer only once or twice weekly. Let them keep in only occasional touch by letter or otherwise with someone who represents in oneself a definite personal attainment which, although beyond their own reach, is not beyond their own veneration. Thus they take the first step to establish right tendencies. If however they are unable to do any of these things, let them not despair. There still remains the path of occasional service. Let individual give from time to time, as suits their capacity or convenience, a little help in kind or toil or coin to those who are themselves struggling against great odds to enlighten a World sorrow-struck through ignorance. For thus they will earn a gift of glad remembrance and internal notice whose unique value will be out of all proportion of that is offered. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
The karmic benefit of such offering will return to them, and even if it be long deferred they will have the intangible satisfaction which comes from all service placed on the Overself’s altar. If one is unable to gather enough strength to seek the Truth, then let one seek it for the sake of the services it can render to one. Although hardly any seeker can perfect oneself in the quest’s varied requirements, all seekers can develop something of each needed quality. If the regeneration sought is to be that also, the change in thinking and living habits must theoretically be a total one. However, the compulsions of earning a livelihood, fitting into the local community, and adjusting to family opposition make this impossible in all but exceptional cases. Beings who have to take these actualities into their consideration in practice attempt to compromise with hard necessity and present environment. This does not mean that they discard the truth—they must indeed keep it loyally as the Ideal—but that they relate it to the prevailing conditions and somehow arrive at some kind of a reconciliation between the two. Nor does it mean that the teaching is impractical, for the few exceptions already mentioned are able to put it into practice a hundred percent simply because they are willing and able to pay the heavy price of isolation for doing so. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
It means that although the teaching is adequate to all circumstances, its devotees are unwilling to court the extra suffering and struggle involved in fighting the insanity and tension of those existing circumstances. The latter tend to promote materialism and are best suited to a materialistic way of thinking and living. Those who, while reading its true character aright, submit to it and refuse to withdraw from it, are entitled to do so—if at the same time they have the clear understanding that the higher illuminations, as well as the permanent one, will have to remain inaccessible to them. Is there not enough to do in climbing to the lesser one, and are they not sufficiently glorious rewarding? There are many who are not seeking for the quickest attainment of the highest goal. They feel, quite pardonably, that the demands of training for it are too great for their modest equipment. However, they are seeking for occasional inspiration and they would be content with just a few glimpses during their lifetime. Although these people are not fully committed to the Quest, they are in general sympathetic with it. If one feels that rising to a higher level of consciousness would be too much for one, then one could simple try to become a better being. If one has to live within one’s limitations, it is some kind of a victory over self for beings to be willing to live without distress. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
However, suppose on the other hand, that instead of giving way to the nightmare view you cling to it that the World is not the ultimatum. Suppose you find yourself a very well spring, of zeal and the virtue of exiting by truth faith as soldiers live by courage; as by strength of heart, the sailor sights with roaring seas. Supposed, however thickly evils crown upon you, that your unconquerable subjectivity proves to be their match, and that you find more wonderful joy than any passive pleasure can bring int trusting on these terms? What sort of a thing would life really be, with your qualities ready for a tussle with it, if not it only brought fair weather and gave these higher faculties of yours no scope? Please remember that optimism and pessimism are definitions of the World, and that our own reactions on the World, small as they are in bulk, are integral parts of the whole thing, and necessarily help to determine the definition. They may even be decisive help to determine the definition. A large mass can have its unstable equilibrium overturned by the addition of a feather’s weight; a long phrase may have its sense reversed by the addition of the three letters n-o-t. This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view; and we are determined to make it from that point of view, so far as we have anything to do with it, a success. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
Now, in this description of faiths that verify themselves, I have assumed that our faith in an invisible order is what inspires those efforts and that patience which makes this visible order good for moral beings. Our faith in the seen World’s goodness (goodness now meaning fitness for successful moral and religious life) has verified itself by leaning on our faith in the unseen World. However, will our faith in the unseen World similarly verify itself? Who knows? Once more it is a case of maybe; and once more maybes are the essence of the situation. I confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible World may not in part depend on their personal response which any one of us may make to the religious appeal. God himself, in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being from our fidelity. If they mean anything, for my own part, I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the Universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. However, it feels like a real fight—as if there were something really wild in the Universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem; and first of all to redeem our own hearts from atheisms and fears. For such a half-wild, half-saved Universe our nature is adapted. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
The deepest thing in our name is this Binnenleben (as a German doctor lately has called it), this dumb region of the heart in which we dwell alone with our willingnesses and unwillingnesses, our faiths and fears. As through the cracks and crannies of caverns those waters exude from the Earth’s bosom which then form the fountain-heads of springs, so in these crepuscular depths of personality the sources of all our outer deeds and decisions take their rise. Here is our deepest organ of communication with the nature of things; and compared with these concrete movements of our soul all abstract statements and scientific arguments—the veto, for example which the strict positivist pronounced upon our faith—sound to us like mere chatterings of teeth. For here possibilities, not finished facts, are the realities with which we have actively to deal; as the essence of courage is to stake one’s life on a possibility, so the essence of faith is to believe that the possibility exists. These, then are my last words to you: Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. The scientific proof that you are right may not be clear before the day of judgment (or some stage of being which that expression may serve to symbolize) is reached. However, the faithful fighter of this hour, or the beings that then and there will represent them, may then turn to the faint-hearted, who here decline to go on, with. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
Those who feel that there are too many evils in the cotemporary ways of living and of earning a livelihood, who sincerely deplore these evils, nevertheless often feel also that there is little of nothing they can do about it until society as a whole develops new and better ways. However, this is only a first look at their situation; it reveals the appearance of it but not the reality. Do they really need to wait until the unlikely event of wholesale and voluntary amendment takes place all around them? For the challenge today, as will be made more clear as time goes on, is not a social but an individual one. More beings are free to take the first steps towards their own liberation from these evils than they usually realize. When their caution becomes excessive, it also becomes a vice. It may prevent them from making mistakes, but it also prevents them from doing anything at all—leading, in fact, to a kind of inertia. Even if they cannot do more, they can make a start to apply new ideals and then see what happens. Will yourself to being down the dense veil of illusion and limitation. The false light and energy of creation will be consumed by the power of truth. This will enable one to become a perceiver of spiritual vision and insight found outside of this World of gross limitation and stasis. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
Remember that in theory reality cannot exist outside of the observer. Therefore, to erase it from perception is to weaken it and make it more malleable. The more people do this exercise the less hold the limits of this World may have upon us as a collective. It is a powerful dynamic. One can perform this by itself throughout the day, and over times you will be surprised at the results attained. We are using the limits of matter to our benefit making it bow to us and serve our purpose by expanding possibility within this World. Feel God’s eternal grace begin to close in on you until you begin to feel it touch you. Feel it devouring any weaknesses in the soul. Feel it healing any spiritual wounds that may be effecting the power and expansion of self. If one has yet to develop their psychic faculties enough to directly perceive and hear God being conjured, observing the many blessings in your life will begin to open up doorways within the mind for more direct communication. It must be understood that when a force is stirred it does indeed answer. It does indeed respond and it is a great mistake to not come to this realization. The trick is in learning to observe and perceive the spirit or force by training the mind to do so. The adept must learn to listen. “Wherefore, having this perfect knowledge of God, he could not be kept from within the veil; therefore he saw Jesus; and he did minister unto him” reports #Ether 3.20. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15
Closer to the Hearts Desire–Be Still My Soul, Be Still; the Arms You Bear are Strong!
They brought me into the house. It was bright and magnificent. They showed me the sunny double parlor with its craved archway and shining floors and they took me through the handsome dining room with its murals of the Winchester Mansion. People in Graystone Hills, in general, are inconsistent in the way they talk and act with reference to the idea of classes. If they are asked bluntly, “Do you believe there are ‘classes’ in the community?” they are very likely to say, “No.” Yet, they will tell you the Hiltons are “a leading family here,” or the “Hearsts are like the Hiltons, and Rothschild, and Winchesters. These families are different from the rest of us; they are exclusive. I guess you would call them our aristocracy.” During the course of the conversation, the same speaker will say that there are several different “types of families” in the community and, justifying one’s judgment by describing the “way they live,” place them in different categories. The democratic tradition that there are no classes in American society is the reason for this type of behavior. Therefore, the people in Graystone Hills deny the existence of class directly but act as if classes exist. However, many beings in Graystone Hills openly say that there are three classes in the community—“upper,” “middle,” and “less affluent”—but when they are requested to name persons in, let us say the “less affluent class” they generally divide the class into the “good” lower class people and the “worthless, ne’er-do-wells.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
The same kind of break appears in the “middle class.” Separation of the “middle class” into “upper middle” and “lower middle” is quite conventional. Even though people in Graystone Hills are inconsistent in their designations of a particular class, the systematic analysis of selected cultural traits associated with each of the five classes, based upon data collected from the 535 families of the adolescents, supplemented by interviews and observations, reveal that the possession of a constellation of differentially evaluated social symbols—functional, pecuniary, religious, educational, reputational, power, lineage, proper associates, memberships in associations—are relied up by Graystone Hills to “hang people on the peg they belong on,” to determine “their place in the community” or “their standing in life.” Class V occupies the lowest-ranking stations in the prestige structure. It is looked upon as the scum of the city by the higher classes. It is believed generally that nothing beyond charity can be done for these people, and only a minimum of that is justified since they show little or no inclination to help themselves. It is the opinion of the upper classes that: “They have no respect for themselves. They enjoy their shacks and huts along the river or across the tracks and love their dirty, smoky, low-class dives and taverns. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
“Whole families—children, in-laws, mistresses, and all—live in one shack. This is the crime class that produces the delinquency and sexual promiscuity that fills the paper. Their interests lie in pleasures of the flesh and its perversion. The girls are always with child; the families are huge; incestual relations occur frequently. They are not inspired by education, and only a few are able to make any attainments along this line. They are loud in their speech, vulgar in their actions, sloppy in their dress, and indifferent toward their plight. Their vocabulary develops as profanity is learned. If they work, the work at very menial jobs. Their life experiences are purely physical, and even these are on a low plane. They have no interests in health and medical care. Then men are too lazy to work or do odd jobs around town. They support the Democratic party because of the relief obtained during the depression. This groups lives for a Saturday of drinking or fighting. They are of low character and breed and have a criminal record for a pedigree.” Class V persons, passive and fatalistic, realize that they are “on the bottom” and believe that they can do nothing to improve their position. They desire money, possessions, education, and favorable prestige, but they do not know how these are achieved. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
When a class V persons attempts to improve one’s position, one is discriminated against by the higher classes, and by many members of one’s own class who think one is trying to “put on airs.” One woman with considerable insight into her class position summarized it thus: “Survival for us depends on staying on good terms with the rich people and the law. Whenever I think about myself and the kids, I am reminded what my father used to say, ‘We are the ones who are told what to do, when and how’ around here. This town takes us for granted. Most people think the people down here [the tannery flats] are too ignorant to do anything and do not care; I guess they are right.” To generalize a little more, class V persons give the impression of being resigned to a life of frustration and defeat in a community that despises them for their disregard of morals, lack of “success” goals, and dire poverty. Family support comes from many sources. The father is the chief breadwinner in three families out of five, but his earnings are meager. Ninety-two percent are unskilled and semi-skilled laborers or machine operators. Not one is a farm owner, and only 8 are farm tenants; 2 are notions salesmen; and 8 operate very small businesses, such as hauling coal from local mines, ash and trash hauling, repair and sales of old cars. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
Fifty-five percent of the mothers in class V “work out” part time or full time as waitresses, dishwashers, cooks, washwomen, janitresses, cleaning women, and unskilled domestic workers. Many younger women and girls work on the production line of a local manufacturer who is reputed to give them preference in his shops because they can be hired for lower wages than class IV workers. Income from wages provides them with enough money to obtain the most meager necessities of life; however, in many cases it is inadequate even for his, and they rely upon private charity and public relief. Annual family income ranges from $15,365 to high of $24,934. The modal income fell in the $18,572 to $18,958 bracket. (Whereas the median income in Rocklin, California is $84,121 and the median income in Oak Park, California is $121,721). Income varies from year to year, depending upon your work conditions and wages. Between 2017 and 2019, the private earnings of 53 percent of these families were supplemented by township relief during at least one-fourth of each year. This figure does not take into consideration federal subsidies, such as Works Progress Administration (WPA) and National Youth Administration (NYA), which prevailed in that period; neither does it include private charity in the form of “outfitting the children” with clothes. Gifts of partially worn-out clothing, linens, bedding, old furniture, dishes, and food are a regular part of the private relief and indirect wage system supported by the two highest classes and to some extent by class III. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
These gifts are given informally to persons who preform domestic service for donors. Begging by class V’s is frowned upon strongly; consequently, needy families do not solicit things in an overt manner, but any class V persons knows how to make his or her wants known to an employer in a humble, discreet manner that generally brings the desired results. Semipublic charity is dispensed through sewing circles, guilds, and clubs that make clothing for infants. The ever-popular rummage sale, one of which is held almost every Saturday by some “middle-class” organization, may be viewed as another form of charity to the lower classes. Many class V women regularly buy their family’s best clothes from these sales. As one class II woman said, “This year, Mrs. Gordon Sweitzer [class I] will have a striking dress, next year you will see it on Mrs. Luke Jenkins [class IV] in the Baptist choir, and three years from now Pearl Soper [class V] will be trying to catch some loafer’s eye with it.” Bank credit is non-existent, and even the small-loan broker has learned through experience to be careful with class V: “Before I loan one of them a cent, I investigate carefully and make sure they own what they put up for security. There is not a person in that class who has not been in here one time of another for a loan. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
“If they have a job and can give me good evidence they can pay back a loan, I will give them from $100 to $250 at first. If they pay it back, just as they agree to, I will let them have a little more next time. Eighty percent of the loans I have written off were made to the class represented by the names you have there. [A group of class V’s we were checking for loans.] Exactly one-half of the class V families studied have procured small personal loans, none over $500; this is the limit the broker will loan to persons he or she does not believe to be “good risks.” Repeated loans to the class V’s are discouraged; the mean is eight loans per family for those who manage to obtain them. On the other hand, the broker encourages class IV’s to borrow time after time, since one considers them “good risks.” The uncertain nature of their employment results in long periods of idleness, you often see them sitting on the front porch or on a bench as if they are waiting for a ride or a bus that never comes; also illness, real or imagined, may result in a voluntary layoff for a few days that, to persons in the higher classes, appears to be laziness. Whatever conditioning factors, these people are far more irregular in their employment than the class IV’s. They will leave a job casually, often without notice, and for flimsy reasons. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
Even then the class V’s are placed in the simplest menial jobs. The work history of a father or mother is generally known to employers, and one acts in the light of it when a son or daughter of one of these families asks one for employment. Therefore, prepare your journey and its integration with your soul. Know that the only comfort you will find is that which you have the strength to create and perceive yourself. This work will pour outward from within. Take record of the journey and examine it closely for it is the mirror reflecting the knowledge of your true self, along with all of its power and glory. It is very easy to cause self-destruction along the journey for there are many noses which seek to hang you. Even if you are in a place of eternal darkness, understand that you have a light within which cannot be dimmed. A light which is unlike any light perceived by those of lower consciousness. This light is the power of your own spirit, developed by your own intellect, spoken words, and chosen deeds within the realm of limitation. What we see as finite never is. Nothing is finite for the same exact reason nothing is infinite. Infinite existence would mean stasis and lack of consciousness, never moving forward in thought or maturity and never growing to expand in influence and in the responsibility of action. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
The only difference between us and those of the more mundane nature is that we choose to consciously guide the process and flux of the chaos of darkness eternal. At this point we see the inadequacy of the concept commonly used in psychoanalytic circles to explain creativity—regression in the service of the ego. In my own endeavors to understand creative people in psychoanalysis and to understand the creative act in general, I find this theory unsatisfactory. This is not only because of its negative character, but chiefly because it proposes a partial solution that diverts us from the center of the creative act and therefore away from any full understanding of creativity. In supporting the theory of regression in the service of ego, creativity often seems to be a regressive phenomenon, and does bring out archaic, infantile, unconscious psychic contents in the artist. The rest—or regression—only serves to release the person from his or her intense efforts and the accompanying inhibitions, so that the creative impulse can have free rein to express itself. When the archaic elements in a poem or a picture or a film have genuine power to move others, and when they have a universality of meaning—that is, when they are genuine symbols—it is because some encounter is occurring on a more basic comprehensive level. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
Eventually the Lord of Darkness will perish because this is the will of the Lord of Darkness. They are as weapons to be put away after the turmoil of war. When the greater work is complete and humanity, they will perish and he like human vessels will be liberated, and humanity will then be able to come to terms with their own power by taking responsibility for the nature of their existence. Civil disobedience does not serve our potential to thrive. Therefore, you will find yourself viewing news reports and the lies being told to you by the media, but instead of consuming it without question, you will directly perceive the agenda that hides behind them. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the World. What tremendous power this is. It is a new revelation, with beauty and how we will learn to resolve this terrible situation in which we modern human beings find ourselves. The reason some people have such power is that they come from a place of intensity of consciousness that includes archaic elements because they are part of them, as they are of every person, and will emerge in any intensely ware moment. However, the symbol has its power precisely from the fact that it is an encounter that also includes the most dedicated and passionate intellectual effort. It is important for us to be receptive, but by no stretch of the imagination passive. We cannot wait until the cry gathers of itself in one’s own throat. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
Obviously, creative insights of all sorts come to us in moments of relaxation. They come not haphazardly, however, but come only in those areas in which we are intensively committed and on which we concentrate in our waking, conscious experience. It may be, as we have said, that the insights can break through only in moments of relaxation; but to say this is to describe how they come rather than to explain their genesis. Choose the moments in which you are capable of your highest, most intense consciousness. Bless be the Lord God of our father, which hath put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem. What must be understood here is that the principle of the dual nature of good and evil cease to exist altogether when the forces are applied in their proper context. All possible actions serve a great purpose under the right circumstances and within the proper context and so there are no absolutes such as good and evil. The nature of symbols and myths do bring into awareness infantile, archaic dreads, unconscious longings, and similar primitive psychic content. This is their regressive aspect. However, they also bring out new meaning, new forms, and disclose a reality that was literally not present before, a reality that is not merely subjective but has a second pole which is outside. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
In other words it is the occult. It is human power and potential that is the crux of that which is hidden. This is the progressive side of symbol and myth. This aspect points ahead. It is integrative. It is progressive revealing of structure in our relation to nature and our own existence. Most will say that language was designed for the sole purpose of expressing the religious doctrine. The power of sound is what created the Universe according to the basis of most religions, and the priests knew the secrets of this power—power that syncs accumulated vibrational intentions of good speech. Language was used to worship energy accumulated (which is why people make “high energy” music like), controlled, and manipulated to shift the vibrational frequency of the environment. Languages are simply an ancient method of brain entertainment. This might seem outright foolish, however, this is a stone age application of the concepts used within the science of binaural beats and isochoric tones that are used today. We know that by the manipulation of sound frequencies, through measuring brainwaves our state of mind, including how receptive we are to ideas. Ideas can be planted directly into the mind as displayed through the craft of science of hypnotism which also depends upon the manipulation of brainswaves and this is why sirens like Aaliyah, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Emma Hewitt and Beyonce are so popular, their soft and seductive voices can put the audience in a state of trance. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
Humankind is an emanation of raw, unadulterated and primal divine power that has been reduced to impotence because we are programmed to believe we must search for this power outside of self. This makes the power impotent because it is analogous to taking the fuel out of a care before starting the engine. We are programmed to believe in, and therefore sustain and fuel the limitation of our power to evolve and become something great. We are sovereign entities with unimaginable power and potential who have been enslaved by spiritual shackles. Seemingly casual words are vibrational emanations of our own dormant divine power. They vibrate according to our own individual level of personal will. Today our words lack power because they are used so frivolously without purpose or intent other than to take part in rather random conversations. It is not that conversation is bad. In fact, effectively relating to others is an important part of our life experience if the goal is to reunite with our eternal soul. This heightened consciousness, which we have identified as a characteristic of the encounter, the state in which the dichotomy between subjective experience and objective reality is overcome and symbols which reveal new meaning are born, is historically termed ecstasy. Like passion, ecstasy is a quality of emotion (or, more accurately, a quality of relationship one side of which is emotional) rather than a quantity. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
Ecstasy is a temporary transcending of the subject-object dichotomy. It is interesting that is psychology we dodge that problem, Maslow’s work on the peak experience being a notable exception. Or, when we do speak of ecstasy we are implicitly pejorative or assume that it is neurotic. The experience of the encounter also brings with it anxiety. I need not remind you of the fear and trembling of artists and creative people in their moments of creative encounter. If not approached in the correct way, prayers, hymns, and devotions will create a very spiritually destructive atmosphere, and chance one’s vibration in a very destructive way if the chaos is not harnessed according to will with proper understanding of the principle of evil speech. Do not hide the agenda to simple mask the intent and power to enslave humankind behind the guise of an imposed definition of what is to be considered good by the herd. The subconscious mind can cause chaos within one’s reality by inverting these concepts due to predispositions and symbolic mental associations. I am impressed by Frank Barron’s studies of creative persons in art and science, for he shows them directly confronting their anxiety. Barron designated his “creative persons” as those who were recognized by their peers as having made distinguished contributions to their field. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
Frank Barron showed them as well as a control group of “normal” people a series of Rorschachlike cards, some of which had orderly, systematic designs on them and others disorderly, unsymmetrical, and chaotic designs. The “normal” people selected the orderly, symmetrical cards as the designs they liked the most—they liked their Universe to be “in shape.” However, the creative persons selected the chaotic, disorderly cards—they found these more challenging and interesting. They could be like God in the Book of Genesis, creating order out of chaos. They chose the “broken” Universe; they got joy out of encountering it and forming it into order. They could accept the anxiety and use it in molding their disorderly Universe “closer to the heart’s desire.” According to the theory proposed here, anxiety is understandably a concomitant of the shaking of the self-World relationship that occurs in the encounter. Our sense of identity is threatened; the World is not as we experienced it before, and since self and World are always correlated, we no longer are what we were before. The anxiety we feel is temporary rootlessness, disorientation; it is the anxiety of nothingness. When these sonic spells are inverted you must keep in mind that it does not have to usher in sickness or anything of that sort, though it can be used that way to wield powers of baneful intent toward enemies. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
Instead, understand that it is rather your right as a human being to seek out and develop good healthy through your actions and choices within the World. This is simple cause and effect which is at the root of the Universe. The obtainment of this logic then leads to empowerment to manifest change within your reality. Creative people, as I seem them, are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of the “divine madness,” to borrow the terms used by the classical Greeks. They do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being. They knock on silence for an answering music; they pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean. I am impelled by chaos to seek order, to struggle with it until I can find a deeper, underlying form. I am then struggling wit the meaninglessness and silence of the World until I can force it to mean, until I can make the silence answer and the non-being be. I can these use this peace for its authentic purpose—namely a deep relaxation of mind and body. Take your time with it, put forth effort to master it. You will find your own individual rhythm and hook into deep currents of power running through the deepest depths of self. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
Channel your mental faculties to recite or memorize the words of power—such as love, joy, friendship, success, accomplish, blessing, advanced, balanced, beneficial, developed efficient, enhanced, innovated, excelled, promoted, refined, recovered, sustained, skilled, secured, saved, taught, trained. valued, validated, and so forth. It will eventually produce great power in the atmosphere of the temple area. These harmonic vibrations will break up the supposed natural order and so you must focus your intent to rebuild the reality you wish. Once your field of energy has been erased you may impose beauty upon the slate. The average human has an estimated 70,000 thoughts per day. Do you know how many of those thoughts are swayed by external forces? What if you were in control of each one of those thoughts? What would your reality be like at that point? To seek control of those thoughts is the premise and purpose of enlightenment. Learn to observe, question, and deconstruct your reality to come to your own personal conclusions. In the way you will start to engage higher spiritual consciousness. “Yea, we have reason to praise him forever, for his is the Most High God, and has loosed our brethren from the chains of hell. Yes, they were encircled about with everlasting darkness and destruction; but behold, he has brought them into his everlasting light, yea, into everlasting salvation; and they are encircled about with the matchless bounty of his love; yea, and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work,” reports Alma 26.14-15. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
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An Ideal Helps to Hold a Being Back from One’s Weaknesses, a Standard Gives One Indirectly a Kind of Support, as Well as, Directly, Guidance!
No matter how long we exist, we have our memories—points in time which itself cannot erase. Suffering may distort my backward glances, but even to suffering, some memories will yield nothing of their beauty or their splendor. Rather they remain as hard as gems. Humans portray themselves and what a form is presented in the drama of the modern age! Barrenness here, license there; the two extremes of human decay, and both untied in a single period. It is a culture itself which inflicted this wound on modern humanity. And this wound was inflicted on beings by the division of labor: Gratification is separated from labor, means from ends, effort from reward. Eternally fettered only to a single little fragment of the whole, beings fashion themselves only as a fragment. This indictment of modern society reaches it climax in the characterization of love: So jealous is the state for the sole possession of its servants that it would sooner agree (and who could blame it?) to share them with a Venus Cythera than with a Venus Urania. Theses are the two forms of the goddess of love in Plato’s Symposium and thus it identifies Venus Cytherea with venal but Urania with genuine love. What I am describing so impressively is what Hegel and Marx characterized as alienation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
By contrasting the polypus nature of the Greek states, where each individual enjoyed an independent existence and, if necessary, could become whole, with modern society which is one of hierarchical division of labor, one can see how modern society produces a fragmentation not only of social functions but of the beings themselves who, as it were, keeps their different faculties in different pigeonholes—love, labor, leisure, culture—that are somehow held together by an externally operating mechanism that is neither comprehended nor comprehensible. Nonetheless, one may consider this analysis of the Greek state as strongly unrealistic and one may, perhaps, even see certain dangers in the glorification of Greece; nevertheless, this analysis of modern beings, points far beyond our age, remains valid and it is perhaps only today that we have become fully conscious of how true this analysis is. If someone tells you that the path is a mere figment of the imagination, they are welcome to their belief. I, who have seen many beings enter it and a few finish it, declare that the difference between the beginning and the end of the path is the difference between a slave and a master. If the quest is presented as too difficult for everyone but the superhuman, an inferiority complex is created and those who could get some help from some of its practices are frightened away. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Love is defined as the whole, as a feeling, but not a single feeling. In it, life finds itself as a duplication of its self and as its unity. However, this love is frequently shattered by the resistance of the outside World, the social World of property, a World indeed which beings have created through their own labor and knowledge but which has become an alien, a dead World through property. Beings are alienated from themselves. Since we are here not Hegelian concept of alienation, which recognizes that the experience of alienation may be an undesirable aspect of consciousness’s existence, we may pass over the development of his concept. It is equally unnecessary for us here to develop fully Marx’s concept of alienation. For Marx it is the commodity that determines human activity, that is, the objects which are supposed to serve beings become the tyrant of the being. For according to Marx, humans are a universal being. If they recognize themselves in a World one has themselves made, then they are free. However, that does not happen. Since alienating labor alienates beings from nature, alienates one from themselves, one’s own active function, one’s life’s activity, it alienated one from one’s own species. The separation or labor from the object is thus for one a threefold one: beings are alienated from external nature, from one’s self, and from one’s fellow beings. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
The relationships of beings to one another are reified: personal relations appear as objective relations between things (commodities). Jesus said that the way to eternal life is straight and narrow. He could have added that it is also long and difficult. Yet the beginner should not let these things discourage one. There is help within and without. If the standards are set too high, love for it may not be strong enough to assist this attainment. If the ideal is too rigorous, its would-be followers will be too few. The achievement may seem too hard but it is not impossible. The best guarantee of that is the ever-presence within one of the divine soul itself. We must take care not to fall into the depressing belief that this is too be attained by masters only and that we cannot attain it. Beings, (not only the workers, since the process of alienation affects society as a whole) is thus a mutilated being. However, these theories of alienation are not adequate. While the principles developed by Hegel and Marx must be given up, these theories need supplementation and deepening. Their inadequacy consists in this, that they oppose universal or nearly universal beings to the mutilated beings of the modern World. However, there is no historical form of society in which beings have ever existed as universal beings; for slavery is not compatible with universality. If I distinguish three strata of alienation, my meaning may become clearer. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
In alienation, the stratum of psychology; that of society; and that of politics are the three strata. Only if we start with a clean separation of the three strata and concepts, in order to bring them together again, we can get at the problem of alienation, and this of anxiety in politics. Neither alienation nor anxiety is to be found only in modern society and only in modern beings, although the different structures of society and the state modify the forms of expression which alienation and anxiety take. The modifications are hard to determine, and I shall not attempt here to undertake a systematic analysis. However, I shall try to point up the problem and to make the theory somewhat more concrete by means of (more or less arbitrary) examples. Dr. Freud’s thesis in his Civilization and its Discontents is this: “The foal toward which the pleasure-principle impels us—of becoming happy—is not attainable”; because for Dr. Freud suffering springs from three sources: external nature, which we can never dominate completely, the susceptibility to illness and the mortality of the body, and social institutions. However, the statement that society prevents happiness, and consequently that every sociopolitical institution is repressive, does not lead to hostility toward civilization. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
For the limitation, which is imposed upon the libidinal as well as the destructive instincts, creates conflicts, inescapable conflicts, which are the very motors of progress in history. However, conflicts deepen with the progress of civilization, for Dr. Freud states that increasing technical progress, which in itself ought to make possible a greater measure of instinct gratification fails to do so. There arises here a psychological lag that grows ever wider—a formulation that I should like to borrow from the cultural lag of American sociology. Thus, every society is built upon the renunciation of instinctual gratifications. Dr. Freud fins that it is “not easy to understand how it can become possible to withhold satisfaction from an instinct. Nor is it by any means without risk to do so; if the deprivation is not made good economically.” To be sure, according to Dr. Freud it is conceivable “that a civilized community could consist of pairs of individuals (who love each other) libidinally satisfied in each other, and linked to all the others by work and common interests. If this were so, culture would not need to levy energy from sexuality.” However, the opposite is true and always has been true. For at bottom Dr. Freud does not believe in this conceivable ideal.” The differences between the different forms of society—which are decisive for us—do not play a decisive role for one. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
The renunciation of instinctual gratification and the cultural tendency toward the limitation of love operate at all levels of society. It is these renunciation and limitations which we characterize as psychological alienation of beings, or perhaps even better as alienation of the ego from the dynamics of instinct. It is unhelpful to put this goal on some Everest-like peak far beyond human climbing. If many are called but few are chosen, it is their own weakness which defers the time of being chosen. In the end, and with much patience, they too will find the way beyond the struggle into peace. It is not enough to find an ideal to help one’s course in life: it should also be based on truth, not fancy. The aspiration must not only be a desirable one, it must also be attainable. There is always a valid reason for disparity between the sought-for objective and the actual performance. Those who begin hopefully and enthusiastically but find themselves disappointed and without results, ought to look first to their understanding of the Quest and correct it, to their picture of the Goal and redraw it. If you want to find out why so many fail to reach the Quest’s objective and so few succeed in doing so, first find out what the Quest really is. Then you will understand that the failures are not failures at all; that so large a project to change human nature and human consciousness cannot be finished in a little time. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
It is only of limited help to the modern being, living under very different conditions as one is, to offer one the saint as a type of imitate or to quote the pastor as an example to follow. One will not waste time in seeking the unattainable or striving for the impossible. For truth, not self-deception, is one’s goal; humility, not arrogance, is one’s guide. That the Overself not only is, but is attainable, is the premise and promise of true philosophy. If the goal is really unattainable, then the Quest is futile. If it is no more than approachable then surely the Quest is well worthwhile. However, in fact the foal is both attainable and approachable. Every being may awaken to the presence of Christ-consciousness within one’s self and thus step out of the merely animal and nominally human existence. It will then be a divinely human one. Immediately after the hanging of Billy Budd, in the cinema version of Melville’s novella, the sailors on this British man-of-war suddenly see a French warship coming around the promontory several miles to port. They all cheer. Why the cheer? These men know that they are going into battle, into the grime and cruelty and death that war represents, yet they cheer. True, a minor part of the cause can be seen as an outlet for the pent-up emotions that have been engendered silently and oppressively as the sailors experienced the hanging of their favorite comrade. However, there is more basic a reason. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
We turn, then, to another area, the most difficult of all with which to come to terms, that of the violence in war. On the rational level practically everyone rejects and abhors war. When I was in college before World War II, I recall how take aback I was when a professor of English literature remarked that he was fairly sure there would be more wars. If ever such existed, this professor was a soften-spoken, sensitive, unwarlike type; but I silently looked at him as though he were a pariah. How could a man entertain such a thought? Was not it clear that we must refrain from thinking of or believing in war—and certainly from predicting it—if we were to ever attain peace? Several other hundred thousand fellow collegians and I, who were pacifists, were under the illusion that if we only believed in peace strongly enough, we could that much more insure international peace. We have no idea of how close our attitude came to superstition—do not think of the devil or her will already be in your midst. We are so engrossed in blotting war out of everybody’s mind that we completely ignored the points in William James’s provocative essay “The Moral Equivalent of War.” Written because of his detestation of our “squalid war with Spain,” William James delivered this as a lecture in 1907. It still presents the central problem penetratingly, even if its answers are no longer cogent. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
“In my remarks, pacifist though I am,” says James, “I will refuse to speak of the bestial side of the war-regime (already done justice by many writers).” He cautions then against the belief that describing the horrors of war will act as a deterrent: “Showing war’s irrationality and horror is of no effect. The horrors make the fascination. When [it is a] question of getting the extremest and supremist out of human nature, talk of expense sounds ignominious. Pacifists ought to enter more deeply into the aesthetical and ethical point of view of their opponents.” Now for all our opposition to war, we cannot escape the obvious fact that we have been notoriously unsuccessful in our efforts to curtail it. I believe our lack of success is due, at least in part, to our having ignored the central phenomenon: “the horrors make the fascination.” In this century—which began arrogantly as a “century of peace”—we have seen the steady change from a state of relative tranquility to that of revolutions and violence. At this moment we find half a dozen wars going on around the globe, including that war in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the American army has changed from a draft to a volunteer army. Why have we, who are opposed to war, been so ineffectual? It is not time to inquire whether there is something wrong in our approach to this ultimate form of aggression and violence? I propose that we ask directly: What is the allure, the fascination, the attraction of war? #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Many veterans who are honest with themselves will admit, I believe, that the experience of communal effort in battle even under the altered conditions of modern war, has been a high point in their lives which they would not want to have missed. For anyone who has not experienced it one’s self, the feeling is hard to comprehend, and for the participant, hard to explain to anyone else. Millions of men and some times children (who change their age to participate) in or day—like millions before us—have learned to live in war’s strange element and have discovered in it a powerful fascination. The Emotional environment of war has always been compelling; it has drawn most beings under its spell. Reflection and calm reasoning are alien to it. When the signs of peace were visible, the purgative force of danger which makes beings coarser but perhaps more human will soon be lost and the first months of peace will make some of us yearn for the old days of conflict. What are the sources of war’s allure? One is the attraction of the extreme situation—that is, the risking all in battle. This is the same element that catches people beyond desires. A second is the strengthening effect of being part of a tremendous organization, which relieves a person of individual responsibility and guilt. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The declaration of war is thus important as a moral statement, as a moral justification, and enables the soldier to give over one’s moral responsibility to one’s outfit. This point is generally cited in criticism of the war machine; and no one can have the slightest doubt that war does erode individua responsibility and the autonomy of conscience. The My Lai massacre and the Lt. William Calley case prove this in a horrible way. However, what is generally overlooked is that a being has a desire to avoid freedom as well as to seek it; that freedom and choice are also a burden—as Dostoevsky and countless others have known throughout history; and that to give one’s conscious over to the group, as one does in war time, is also a source of great comfort. This is why the great determinism of history—such as Calvinism and Marxism—have also demonstrated great power not only to form people into ranks but to inspire in the degree of active devotion that other movements may not find available. Closely related to this is the feeling of comradeship in the feeling of comradeship in the ranks—that I am accepted not because of any individual merit on my part, but because I am a fellow in the ranks. I can trust my fellow soldier to cover my retreat or my attack because of the role given to me. My merit is the role, and the limits the role places on me give me a species of freedom. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
The breaking down of this capacity to feel as if one were part of the larger whole is the explanation of how soldiers overcome fear. Indeed, physical courage in whatever scene—judging from my experience in psychotherapy–seems to hinge on whether the individual can feel one is fighting for others as well as one’s self, assuming a bond with one’s fellow, which means one will come to their assistance as they will to one’s. The source of this physical courage appears to be possessed originally in the relationship between the infant and its mother, specifically one’s trust in one’s solidarity with her and, consequently, with the World. Physical cowardice, on the other hand, even in avoiding physical fights as a child, seems to come from an early rejection, and early feeling that the mother will not support her child and may even turn against one in one’s fights; so that henceforth every effort the youngest makes, one makes on one’s own. Such a person finds it inconceivable that others would support one and that one is also fighting for them, and it takes a conscious decision for one to take up their part. This latter type of person may have great moral courage, which one has developed as a loner; but what one lacks is physical courage or courage in the group. There is in ecstasy of violence, furthermore, the lust for destruction. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Remember there was a man named Mark, recall his comment: “All my life I’ve wanted to smash a BMW.” There seems to be a delight in destruction in beings, the atavistic urge to break things and to kill. This is increased in neurotics and others in despair; but it is an increase of a trait that is there anyway, and centuries of the veneer of civilization cannot hide it. It could also be that soldiers know that in their death, they could be saving the lives of others. Anyone who has watched people on the battlefield at work with artillery, or looked into the eyes of the veteran killers fresh from slaughter, or studied the descriptions of bombardiers’ feelings while smashing their targets, find it hard to escape the conclusion that there is a delight in destruction. This evil appears to surpass mere human evil, and to demand explanation in cosmological and religions terms. In this sense, human beings can be devilish in a way animals can never be. In this lust for destruction, the soldier’s ego temporarily deserts one, and one is absurd in what one experiences. It is a deprivation of self for a union with objects that were hitherto foreign. This is technical language for what is referred to in the mystic experience of ecstasy: the ego is dissolved, and the mystic experiences a union with the “Whole,” be it called light or truth or God. Through violence we overcome self-centeredness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
All of these are elements in the ecstasy of violence. There is a joy in violence that takes the individual out of one’s self and pushes one toward something deeper and more powerful than one has previously experiences. The individual “I” passes insensibly into a “we”; “my” becomes “our.” I give myself to it, let myself go; as I feel my old self slipping away, lo and behold, a new consciousness, a higher degree of awareness, becomes present, a new self, more extensive than the first. Now when we consider contemporary beings—insignificant, lonely, more isolated as mass communication becomes vaster, one’s ears and sensitivities dulled by ever-present transistor radios and by thousands of word hurled at one by TV and newspapers, aware of one’s identity only to the extent that one has lot it, yearning for community but feeling awkward and helpless as one finds it—when we consider this modern being, who will be surprised that one yearns for ecstasy even of the kind that violence and war may bring? We must also face the fact that, to most people, violence is fun. We watch it on television and in the movies regularly. The barroom fight in a western movie is almost always a matter of comedy or semicomedy. Football players are armored and padded like medieval knights so that they can provide violence with the least damage to themselves. Wrestling, the acting out of violence, commands a wide audience. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
The rollerderbies attract fanatic follwers who look on, not to watch expert rollerskating, but to exult in the fights and near-fights, the elbowing and the falls. Ice hockey is a game in which we simply conceded that fights are a part of the sport. Conflict is a problem that faces not only psychologist, but ever human being everywhere. It is one thing to proclaim, as some psychologist do, that violence is not instinctive in human nature. It is another to demonstrate ways in which aggression can be controlled and eliminated and replaced by cooperation. Consider this being in society—living year after year in the anonymous anxiety that something might happen; aware of enemy countries that one can destroy in one’s imagination, a fantasy to which one resorts when one is fed up with one’s day-to-day life; existing with a dread that one feels somehow ought to be translated into action but hanging in abeyance, lured on by secret promises of ecstasy and violence, feeling that continuing the vague dread is worse than giving in to the allure, fascination, and attraction of action—is it any wonder that this being goes along with a declaration of war in apparent sheeplike fashion? For the first time in my life I can now, for example, understand the American Legon. That organization has always been, for me, a negative conscience—whatever it was for, I was against, and whatever I was for, it was against. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
When I did not have time to figure out on which side justice was, this worked quite well as a pro tempore device. However, I never could understand the motives of the legionnaries or other veterans’ organizations in their saberrattling and their stretching the hunting-under-every-bed-for-Communists to absurd lengths. Now, however, I see that these groups had originally been, by large, young men and women who had held insignificant jobs pouring gasoline into Buicks, Fords, and Chevrolets when they were called to war. In France they became heroes, the pride of the women; flowers were strewn in their paths, every honor thrust upon them. They were significant, possibly for the first time in their lives. Returning to this country, some could find only the same jobs pouring gasoline into Buicks, Chevrolets, and Fords, and those who found better jobs may have experienced a similar despair in the empty life of peacetime. No wonder they hand together, out of their ennui, to recreate the closest experience to that of the war, such as the “search and destroy” anti-communist mission. They hark back in their yearning to find something that will give their lives a significance it intrinsically lacks. That wonderful time when one can look straight into one’s self, through ego to Overself, awaits one’s endeavours. The goal is far-off, it is true; but nevertheless it is reachable by those who will make the requisite effort to overcome self. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Despite all setbacks, the outcome of this endeavour can be only the fulfilment of hope. For that is God’s will. Even if the goal seems too far off, the attainment too high up for their limited capacities, even if it seems that one would have to be far better than ordinary to have any chance at all, that does not mean they should not embark on this quest. For even if they are able to travel only a modest part of the way the efforts involved are still well worthwhile. “And may the Lord bless your soul, and receive you at the last day into his kingdom, to sit down in peace,” reports Alma 38.15. The history of the Universe is a history of cycles: of birth, development, disintegration, death, and rest endlessly repeated on higher and higher levels. The energy impulses which rise from the Void and accumulate as electrons, only to disperse later, reproduce the same cycles through which the entire Universe itself passes. Do as or as little as you can to advance. If you lack the strength to go all the way then go some of the way. Your spiritual longings and labors will influence your afterlife. Nothing will be lost. If you deserve them, higher capacities and more favorable circumstances will then be yours. Every virtue deliberately cultivated leads to a pleasanter rebirth. Every weakness remedied leads to the cancellation of an unpleasant one. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18