Home » husband (Page 41)

Category Archives: husband

If they Come in the Form of to-die-for Clay Dinnerware, I Guess Monday Blues are Okay!

October 23, 2019 1:40 am

Can you not smell that coffee perking on the stove? You sit right down. You are not driving off without some grits and biscuits and scrambled eggs. I got bacon and ham on the stove. The alienating conditions we have described in the past pervade modern society and touch vast numbers of men and women—factory workers, white-collar workers, organization men, voters, audiences, the seniors, and various ethnic grounds and cultures. Although alienated, their responses—except in times of severe crisis—and subdued; theirs are the lives of quiet desperation. However, we are now going to investigate people who do not sit and take it: they rebel, retreat, or deviate in some significant way from ordinary behavior. In grouping together artistic rebels, juvenile delinquents, addicts, sexual deviants, psychotics and suicides, we most certainly do not mean to suggest that they are similar in nature or that there is any simple explanation for them. Nor is this intended to be a catalogue of “maladjustment” or “social disorganization.” Rather, it is a sampling of a number of major types of alienated behavior, each one of which deserves and often receives whole volumes of treatment. These people are alike only in that they feel cut off or have cut themselves off from the main stream of community life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

By using reason alone beings can progress to higher forms. This underground being scorns reason (or science), planning and progress; he or she derides or would destroy their works to preserve his or her freedom—even a freedom underground. Juvenile delinquency in America is not merely a reflection of personality difficulties, slums and broken homes, but is directly related to the structure of our society and its prevailing values. Thus while delinquency is not exclusively working-class in origin, it may be interpreted in large part as the frustrated and violent responses of those at the bottom to middle-class values which school and other institutions seek to impose but which—given the obstacles to social advancement—they are unable to achieve. Isolated from the community, working-class boys can achieve status or recognition chiefly in their gangs, which offer a solution. It is in the nature of that solution to reject the middle-class values which society tries to impose and to sanction that rejection. The same value system, impinging upon children differently equipped to meet it, is instrumental in generating both delinquency and respectability. That delinquency may have sinister political and racial overtones. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

If delinquents are clearly rebellious, no simple statement can be made about addicts, the next group described or discussed here. Some may be rebellious and others escapist or retreatist; but all are victims of a chemical compulsion whereby alcohol or drug becomes the master. Neuroses unquestionably lie at the root of addictions, but alone cannot explain why people drown in drink or drugs. Evidence shows that physiological factors and nutritional elements are also involved. Nevertheless, addictions have serious psychological and social consequences; the addict’s behavior is generally unacceptable; society is hostile; and the victim responds with feelings of guilt and remorse, and further undesirable behavior. The heavy drinker often becomes isolated from family and community as a result of his condition. It is a measure of the intricacy of the problem that while psychotherapy alone has been notoriously unsuccessful in curing alcoholics, combined with diet and drugs it has often proved helpful. Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), a quasi-religious movement, has scored notable successes in restoring alcoholics to community life. While alcoholism is serious enough; drug addiction is perhaps more terrible still—especially in the United States, where the non-medical use of narcotics is a criminal offense and the public is violent in disapprobation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

Furthermore, while alcoholic may find solidarity in a movement such as A.A., narcotics addicts huddle together for mutual protection while under the influence. Theirs is truly a league of the damned. William Burroughs, himself a former addict, tells us, “Nothing ever happens in the junk World.” Nothingness, however, is precisely what many addicts and alcoholics seek, as Elmer Bendiner shows in his description of the “Bowery men.” Here in this brotherhood of the beaten and defeated, men find a perfect hiding place from the World, find what so many citizens of the modern World seek and never find—an escape from tensions. In this respect, at least, as Bendiner observes, they have something in common with the organization of man. However, while he fails to achieve tranquility, they succeed. Bowery men are deviants in that they reject the drive for status. However, what of those who deviate in that most sensitive area of human experience, pleasures of the flesh? Are they also alienated—either by choice or because of society’s hostility? Donald Cory, an acknowledged homosexual, offers an interesting description of homosexuals as a minority group. Like other minorities seeking a place in the community which has been denied them, they wage a grim struggle against society’s rejection. And as in the case of other minorities, part of their fate is to “internalize” the contempt of the majority. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Another kind of outcast is represented by the anonymous and gifted English lady of the evening who wrote “Streetwalker.” For her there is no in-group to offer defense against a hostile World. Instead of fighting back, she welcomes her rootlessness. Her choice is homelessness: “The slight security I would be able to enjoy, by allowing myself to pretend that my personality was contained in something more than the shell of my body, would make the nights—which hold no safety of my body, would make the nights—which hold no safety and in which I must be constantly alert, constantly rootless—even more desolate.” Streetwalker has chosen alienation as a way of life (until at last she decides to make a fresh start). However, others, more properly described as psychotic, have no opportunity to make a choice. For them the ties have snapped. They most certainly snapped for “Joey” as described in Bruno Betelheim’s remarkable case study of a schizophrenic child who “converted himself into a ‘machine’ because he did not dare be human.” One must not read too much into Joey’s mechanical fantasy World; after all, most of us are not schizophrenic. However, our society produced him, and his delusion is only an extreme form of escape. Still, Denmark, which has the most comprehensive system of social security still has one of the highest suicide rates in the World. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Often times, suicide is linked to early upbringing, in which the Danish child’s dependence on one’s mother is encouraged, aggression is strictly checked, and the arousal of guilt feelings is used as a disciplinary technique. As a result, aggressive feelings are turned inward. This alone does not explain suicide. Among the other factors involved is a fairly common belief in the idea of reunion after death with a lost loved one. Competitiveness, often associated with suicide elsewhere, has little bearing on Danish suicide. Danish and American character traits are quite different. Differences in personality traits may explain why we are half as likely to kill ourselves as the Danes. May it also explain why we are ten times more likely to kill each other? I do not believe that any conflict between desires and fears could ever account for the extent to which a neurotic is divided within oneself and for an outcome so detrimental that it can actually ruin a person’s life. A psychic situation implies that a neurotic retains the capacity to strive for something wholeheartedly, that one merely is frustrated in these strivings by the blocking actions of fears. The source of the conflict revolves around the neurotic’s loss of capacity to wish for anything wholeheartedly because one’s very wishes are divided, that is, go in opposite directions. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

The fundamental conflict is more disruptive. The basic neurotic conflict does not necessarily have to arise in the first place and is possible of resolution if it does arise—provided the sufferer is willing to undergo the considerable effort and hardship involved. This difference is not a matter of optimism or pessimism but inevitably results from the difference in our premises. There is a conflict between constructive and destructive forces in human beings. However, these opposites can sometimes be complementary—the goal is to accept both and thereby approximate the ideal of wholeness. The neurotic is a person who has been stranded in a one-sided development. In the law of complements, the opposite tendency contains complementary elements neither of which can be dispensed with in an integrated personality. However, these are already outgrowths of neurotic conflicts and are so tenaciously adhered to because they represent attempts at solution. If, for instance, we regard a tendency toward being introspective, withdrawn, more concerned with one’s own feelings, thoughts, or imagination that with other persons’ as an authentic inclination—that is, constitutionally established and reinforced by experience. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

The effective therapeutic procedure would be to show the person one’s hidden “extravert” tendencies, to point out the dangers of one-sidedness in either direction, and encourage one to accept and live out both tendencies. If, however, we look upon introversion (or, as I prefer to call it, neurotic detachment) as a means of evading conflicts that arise in close contact with others, the task is not to encourage more extraversion but to analyze the underlying conflicts. The goal of wholeheartedness can be approximated only after these have been resolved. The basic conflict of the neurotic in the fundamentally contradictory attitude one has acquired toward other persons. Let me call attention to the dramatization of such a contradiction in the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We see him on the one hand delicate, sensitive, sympathetic, helpful, and on the other brutal, callous, and egotistical. I do not, of course, mean to imply that neurotic division always adheres to the precise line of this story, but merely to point to a vivid expression of basic incompatibility of attitudes in relation to others. To approach the problem genetically we must go back to what I have called basic anxiety, meaning by this feeling a child has of being isolated and helpless in a potentially hostile World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

A wide range of adverse factors in the environment can produce this insecurity in a child: direct or indirect domination, indifference, erratic behavior, lack of respect for the child’s individual needs, lack of real guidance, disparaging attitudes, too much admiration or the absence of I, lack of reliable warmth, having to take dies in parental disagreements, too much or too little responsibility, overprotection, isolation from other children, injustice, discrimination, unkept promises, hostile atmosphere, and so one. The only factor to which I should like to draw special attention in this context is the child’s sense of lurking hypocrisy in the environment: his or her feeling that the parents’ love, their Christian charity, honesty, generosity, and so on may be only pretense. Part of what the child feels on this score is really hypocrisy; but some of it may be just one’s action to all the contradictions one senses in the parents’ behavior. Usually, however, there is a combination of cramping factors. They may be out in the open or quite hidden, so that in analysis one can only gradually recognize these influences on the child’s development. Harassed by these disturbing conditions, the child gropes for ways to keep going, ways to cope with this menacing World. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

Despite one’s own weakness and fears one unconsciously shapes one’s tactics to meet the particular forces operating in one’s environment. In doing so, one develops not only ad hoc strategies but lasting character trends which become part of one’s personality. I call these neurotic trends. When new forms of governing the city-states, new laws, and new interpretations of gods are emerging, all give new psychological power. In such a period of change and growth, emergence is often experienced by the individual as emergency with all its attendant stress. It is no accident that shrines and popular stars become important in chaotic times, as for some they serve as a god of proportion and balance the citizens seek assurance and it gives meaning and purpose behind the seeming chaos. We appreciate more of the rich meaning and light that culture brings into our lives. It is a light of mind, light of reason, light of insight. When we are at peace and feel uplifted and safe, our conscious intentions and our deeper intentionality will be already committed to the event about to take place. For the ones who participates in harmony, it carries its own healing power. Thinking and self-creating are inseparable. When become aware of all the fantasies in which we see ourselves in the future, pilot ourselves this way or that, and this becomes obvious. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

How a person lives his or her life attests to the awareness in the experience of the race that the individual does have some responsibility for how he or she lives. Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. Clearly self-creating is actualized by our hopes, our ideals, our images, and all sorts of imagined constructs that we may hold from time to time in the forefront of our attention. These “models” function consciously as well as unconsciously; they are shown in fantasy as well as in overt behavior. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain,” reports Exodus 20.7. If the second commandment tries to protect it as the other commandments try to protect life, honor, property there must be something extraordinary about the name. Of course, God need not protect Himself, but He does protect His name, and so seriously that He adds to this single commandment a special threat. This is done because, within the name, that which bear the name is present. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

In ancient times, one believed that one held in one’s power the being whose hidden name one knew. One believed that the savior-god conquered the demons by discovering the mystery of the power embodied in their names, just as we today try to find out the hidden names of the powers that disrupt our unconscious depths and drive us to mental disturbances. If we gain insight into their hidden striving, we break their power. Beings have always tried to use the divine name in the same way, not in order to break its power, but to harness its power for their own uses. Calling on the name of God in prayer, for instance, can mean attempting to make God a tool for our purposes. A name is never an empty sound; it is a bearer of power; it gives Spiritual Presence to the unseen. This is the reason the divine name can be taken in vain, and why one may destroy oneself by taking it in vain. For the invocation of the holy does not leave us unaffected. If it does not heal us, it may disintegrate us. This is the seriousness of the use of the divine name. This is the danger of religion, and even of anti-religion. For in both the name of God is used as well as misused. Let us now consider the danger of the use of the word God, when it is both denied and affirmed, and of the sublime embarrassment that we feel when we say “God.” We may distinguish three forms of such embarrassment: the embarrassment of tact, the embarrassment of doubt, and the embarrassment of awe. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Some people do not find a higher truth: they reaffirm the ancient and eternal truth. It could not be that is it were subject to change. However, each reaffirms it in one’s own way, according to one’s own perceptions and as one’s environment requires. This accounts for part of the differences in its presentation, where it has been really attained. The other part is accounted for by there being varying degrees of attainment. It is a mistake to believe that mystical adepts all possess the same supernormal powers. On the contrary, they manifest such powers or powers as are in consonance with their previous line of development and aspiration. One who has come along an intellectual line of development, for instance, would most naturally manifest exceptional intellectual powers. The situation has been well put by Saint Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: “Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministries but the same Lord. And there are diversities of working but the same God who worketh all in all.” When the Overself activates the newly made adept’s psyche, the effect shows itself in some part or faculty; in another adept it produces a different effect. Thus the source is always the same but the manifestation is different. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

The undiscerning often believe that because some great saints have been fools in Worldly affairs, a stain who is always clever cannot be great. Yet, the spiritual aspirations which diminish a being’s desire for Worldly activities do not therefore diminish one’s competence for them. One who is born a fool usually remains so; one who is born clever usually stays so; and both cases are unaffected by the attachment of the heart to God. We must not think that every mystic who has been blessed with the light of the Overself stands on the same spiritual peak of vision and consciousness, of being and knowledge. Some are still only on the way to the summit of this peak. There are definite differences between them. If they all share alike the consciousness of a higher Self, they do not share it in the same way or to the same degree. The saints and mystics serve a high purpose in remining humanity of that diviner life which must one day flower in human evolution, but they do not serve as perfect exemplars of its final growth. The sages alone can do that. Healing powers are like intellectual power, one may be a realized person and yet not possess much intellect. Similarly, one may not possess healing power. Realization does not endow one with encyclopedic knowledge with all the talents. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

We must make a difference between the Messenger, who is sent to communicate a teaching through writing or speech, and the Master, who comes to embody the teaching and who alone possesses the power to bless others with one’s Grace. This difference is not so clearly understood among some beings, a lack which leads to confused ideas and unjustified customs. Having reached this stage one is free to continue one’s personal life as before, to accept the load of new responsibilities one one’s shoulders, or to retire wholly from the World. To work for humanity in public is one thing, to work for it in secrecy is another, while to enjoy the freedom and privacy of complete retirement is a third and very different thing. Naturally and inevitably any public appearance will soon turn one into a lightning rod, attracting the aspirations and yearnings of many spiritual seekers. As your mundane consciousness begins to merely attempt to grasp what God has to say, your own consciousness begins to expand. The result of this is a much improved intellectual capacity in this corporeal plane. Evocation of God is a means to exercise the mind. I have come to understand that communing with God increases the rate at which neurons fire off in the physical brain. If you are living righteously, God will sway others toward your will. He can get into the minds of others and help them benefit you. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

If one has really found one’s inner freedom, one must necessarily be free to stay in the World and do the World’s work. One does not have to retire into isolation, although one is free to do that. However, whatever one decides to do, one will henceforth be an impersonal channel for higher forces, which one will obey, and whose directions one will follow, whether one remains in the World or not. As God speaks to you in these inverted words of power the sounds begin to transform you on a very subtle level transmuting your communication into something more powerful. The intent of your words will be made very clear and concise. After time working with and communicating with God, it will seem as if you can command reality. Conveying power through words is only the surface of God’s power. Conflict may seem to simply dissipate from within your reality as all things become an opportunity for ascent through His guidance. It is not the conflict being removed, but the altering of your perception of it. On this physical plane your physical life will begin to reflect this growth and change as you become more spiritually refined with lightning speed. Once summoned, God acts as a familiar spirit helping to guide your thoughts, words, and deeds in this plane to gain strength and power within your soul. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

It is necessary to give certain terms often but wrongly used interchangeably, and hence confusedly, a sharper definition. The Saint has successfully carried out ascetic disciplines and purificatory regimes for devotional purpose. The Prophet has listened for God’s voice, heard and communicated God’s message of prediction, warning, or counsel. The Mystic has intimately experienced God’s presence while inwardly rapt in contemplation or has seen a vision of God’s cosmogony while concentrated in prayer. The Sage has attained the same results as al these three, has added a knowledge of infinite and eternal reality thereto, and has brought the whole into balanced union. The Philosopher is a sage who has also engaged in the spiritual education of others. There is a third type of illumined being, besides the Teacher and the Saint. One is the Messenger. One renders service not by dealing with persons and their problems but by stating truths and principles in general. Your whole perception of the experience will morph, and you will begin to cut through opposition as a hot knife through butter. Your momentum toward becoming will gain an almost severe momentum. Through evocation of God, one can gain the wisdom of experience that a being who has lived a thousand years would accumulate. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

The masses are controlled by anger. One should learn how to use and control it without allowing it to be a mere reactive response to external forces. Anger implies a lack of power. God will increase your psychic empathy so that adept can become aware of when they may use their tools to better expression their motives. God, we thank you for your presence within this World of creation. We have offered you our lives, in hopes of salvation, and as a gateway to your manifestation within this realm before us! You are the Lord of creation, whom has brought forth the mountains to the plains! You have brought forth the beasts to the field and the creatures to the night! God, with your infernal blessing I ask that you would bring forth the baneful powers of the Heavenly Angels to fil us with their essence, as a gateway to empower them to act within this World according to your will and purpose. We know that much work must be performed so that we may be found worthy of this blessing. This work will be unique to the individual and we must take care to stay centered in self through these assignments. Please allow of to assimilate your power. Cast off the limits of garb of flesh into the refining Sun to be clothed with the powers of divine light eternal. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

Cresleigh Homes

Who does not love a pop of color! 💚💛 @HUBApts is conveniently located within walking distance of intel! Click the link below to find out more and give us a call today!

linktr.ee/hubapts

#ApartmentsForRent
#LuxuryApartments
#Folsom
#HUBApts
#CresleighHomes

Stop and Consider Life is but a Day—A Lovely Tale of Human Life We Will Read!

October 17, 2019 1:29 am

Not twenty minutes has passed since you left me here in the café, since I said No to your request, that I would never write out for you the story of my mortal life. Now here I am with your notebook open, using one of the sharp pointed eternal ink pens you left me, delighted at the sensuous press of the black ink into the expensive and flawless white paper. Naturally, David, you would leave me something elegant, an inviting page. This notebook bound in dark varnished leather, is it not, tolled with a design of rich roses, thornless, yet leafy, a design that means only Design in the final analysis but bespeaks an authority. What is written beneath this heavy and handsome book cover will count, sayeth this cover. The thick pages are ruled in light blue—you are practical, so thoughtful, and you probably know I almost never put pen to paper to write anything at all. Even the sound of the pen has its allure, the sharp scratch rather like the finest quills in ancient Rome when I would put them to parchment to write my letters to my Father, when I would write in a diary my own laments…ah, that sound. The only think missing here is the smell of the ink, but we have the fine plastic pen which will not run out for volumes, making as fine and deep a black mark as I choose to make. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

I am thinking about your request in writing. You see you will get something from me. I find myself yielding to it. The questions of social isolation and loneliness in senior years will be discussed here. A distinction is made between the two: to be socially isolated is to have few contacts with family and community; to be lonely is to have an unwelcome feeling of lack or loss of companionship. The one is objective, the other subjective and, as we shall see, the two do not coincide. The poorest people, socially as well as financially, were those most isolated from family life. Social isolation needs to be measured by reference to objective criteria. The problem is rather like that of measuring poverty. “Poverty” is essentially a relative rather than an absolute term, and discovering its extent in a population is usually divided into two stages. Most people agree on the first stage, which is to place individuals on a scale according to their income; they often disagree about the second, which involved deciding how far up the scale the poverty “line” should be drawn. They task of measuring isolation can also be divided in this way by placing individuals on a scale according to their degree of isolation and by drawing a line at some point on the scale so that those below the line would, by common consent, be called “isolated.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

There were 20 people who were very isolated. Their ages ranged from 64 to 83. They comprised two married women, two widowers, eight widows, five spinsters and three bachelors. Thirteen of them lived alone; 12 had no children and half of the rest had sons only. It is worth examining their circumstances, taking first those with children. Four of the eight with surviving children had daughters. One was a widow living with her only daughter, unmarried; she had few other relatives and all lived outside London. The second was a widow who had come with her only daughter from Scotland after the war, leaving friends and relatives behind. They were together until the housing authorities of her daughter’s children lived with her but she saw the rest of the family once a week or less. The third was a very infirm widow whose only daughter was married to a naval officer, obliged to live near Portsmouth; she lived in the same house as a widowed and childes sister and saw her every day but infirmity prevented other social contacts. The fourth was a widower of 80 who said his daughter and son living in Bethnal Green visited him twice a week to see he was all right but did not spend much time with him, now his wife was dead; he had a drink with a friend twice a week but infirmity precluded other activities. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

The other four very isolated people with children had sons only. One was a married woman whose only son had moved into his wife’s home district outside London; she and her husband had only one relative in Bethanl Green, the wife’s unmarried sister, who was seen each week, and they had no friends or outside social activities, largely because the husband could not walk. Another was a widower, living with an unmarried son, who saw two married sons about once a week; he had no other surviving relatives. The two remaining people were both widows living alone. One had three sons living outside London, two of them visited her once a week; she saw a sister and two mature aunts in Bethnal Green every week but she spent much of her time on her own. The other had two illegitimate sons but no other relatives; she saw these sons occasionally. There remained the childless and the unmarried. Most were in a worse position. The 10 most isolated people of the 203 interviewed were all unmarried or childless. The circumstances of two are summarized below. Miss Paley, 67 years of age, lived in a one bedroom flat. It was a large airless room with dismal orange-brown wallpaper peeling off in huge strips. Two or three mats, ingrained with dirt, covered the floor. There was an old iron bedstead propped up in the middle by two bits of wood and on this was a heap of gray and brown blankets. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

An ancient iron mangle stood in a corner and there was a gas stove, a gas mantel for lighting, three or four wooden chairs and a table with a flat-iron propping up one of its legs. Miss. Paley wore a pair of stockings, extensively patched and tied around her knees, and a ramshackle navy-blue skirt and slip. Her skin had the whiteness of someone who rarely went out and she was very shy of her appearance, particularly the open sores on her face. She said she suffered from blood poisoning, but had not seen her doctor since the war. (This was confirmed by the doctor.) She was the only child of parents who had been street traders and who had died when she was young, in the 1880s, “I was with my aunt until I was nearly 40. She was 85 when she died. I had cousins in the street traders and who had died. I had cousins in the street but they were my aunt’s children. In the war they got scattered. They all had families to bring up and I have not met them since the war. I do not know where they are. I do my work in my own way. They would not have the patience with me.” Persistent questioning failed to reveal a singe relative with whom she has any contact. She did not g to the cinema, to a club or to church, and had no radio. She had spent Christmas on her own and had never had a holiday away from home. She sometimes made conversation with her neighbors in the street but because of her appearance did not go into their homes or hers. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

She had only one friend, a young woman who “used to live in the street where I lived,” and they visited one another about once a week. Her answer to a question about membership of a club was typical of much she said. “No, I cannot be shut in. I do not go to those clubs. They had been too much excitement for me.” At one point she said she went to bed about 8pm and got up between 10am and 11am the next day. I also found she had an hour or two in bed in the afternoons.” Mr. Fortune, 76 years of age, lived alone in a two-room council flat. There were two wooden chairs, an orange box converted into a cupboard, a gas stove, a table covered with newspaper, a battered old pram with tins and boxes inside, a pair of wooden steps and little else in the sitting-room. There was no fire, although the interview took place on a cold February morning. Mr. Fortune had been a cripple from birth and he was partly deaf. He was unmarried and his give siblings were dead. An older widowed sister-in-law lived about a mile away with an unmarried son and daughter. These three and two married nieces living in another East London borough were seen from once a month to a few times a year. Asked how often he saw his sister-in-law Mr. Fortune said, “Only when I go there. It is a hard job to walk down there in the Winter time and I have not seen her for three of four months.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

Asked about a gentleman’s club Mr. Fortune said, “No. I am simply as I am now. I should not like to join. Walking is such a painful job for me. I cannot get any amusement out of it.” He spoke to one or two of the neighbors outside his flat but he had no regular contact with any of them. He had one regular friend, living a few blocks away, who came over to see him on a Sunday about once a month, “more when there is fine weather.” He was not a churchgoer, never went to a cinema, rarely went to a pub because he could not afford a drink, had never had a holiday in his life and spent Christmas on his own. “My nephew came down for an hour. He gave me a little present, a Digital Storm Lynx Gaming PC, and the Canon EOS 6D Digital SLR Camera. No, I did not get any cards.” He received a non-contributory pension and supplementary assistance through the National Assistance Board, which recently arranged for him to have a woman home-help for two hours a week. Her regular call was the main event of the week. “I sit here messing about. Last week I was making an indoor aerial. I made those steps over there. I like listening to the wireless and making all manners of things. My time is taken up, I can tell you, with that and cooking and tidying-up.” The most striking fact about the most isolated people was that they had few surviving relatives, particularly near relatives of their own or of succeeding generations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

This lent special significance to familiar references to fathers having weaker ties with children than mothers, to sons being drawn into their wives’ families, and to distant relatives being lost sight of after the death of “connecting” relatives. The isolated included a comparatively high number of unmarried and childless people, of those possessing sons but not daughters and of those without siblings. Rarely did they have friends, become members of clubs or otherwise participate in outside social activities in compensation. Nearly all of them where retired and most were infirm; some were why of revealing to others how ill or poverty-stricken they were or how they have “let themselves go.” They had little or no means of regular contact with the younger generation, and for one reason or another could not be brought into club activities. One of the most striking results of the whole inquiry was that those living in relative isolation from family and community did not always say they were lonely. Particular importance was attached during the interviews to “loneliness.” The question was not asked until most of an individual’s activities had been discussed and care was taken to ensure as serious and as considered a response as possible. One difficulty had to be overcome. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

A few people liked to let their children think they were lonely so the latter would visit them as much as possible. If children were present, this meant they were not inclined to give an honest answer. In an early interview one married woman, asked whether she ever got lonely, said, “Sometimes I do when they are all at work.” However, she hesitated before answering and looked at two married daughters, who were in the room. When this woman was alone, on a subsequent call, she told me she was “never lonely really, but I like my children to call.” When interviewed, a widow who was along, said she was never lonely. In fascinating contrast to this was a statement of one of her married daughters, who was interviewed independently. “She is not too badly off. The most she complains of is loneliness. She is always wanting us to go up there.” When the senior was alone, care was therefore taken to ask about loneliness so far as possible, and to check any answer which seemed doubtful. Some people living at the center of a large family complained of loneliness and some who were living in extreme isolation repeated several times with vigor that they were never lonely—such as Miss Paley and Mr. Fortune, described above. Despite there being a significant association between isolation and loneliness about a half of the isolated and rather isolated said they were not lonely; over a fifth of the first group said they were. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

Spirituality is something that can keep people from being lonely. When it liberates one from the yoke of the commandments to the freedom of the Spirit, the work of the Spiritual Presence in a being reaches its height. This is like a release from the sentence of death to a new life. A tremendous experience lies behind such words, an experience in which we all can share, but one that is rare in its full depth, and is then a revolutionary power that, through beings like Paul and Augustine and Luther, changes the Spiritual World, and, through it, the history of humankind. Can we, you and I, share in such an experience? First, have we not all felt the deadening power of the written code, written not only in the ten commandments and their many interpretations in the Bible and history, but also with the authoritative pen of parents and society into the unconscious depths of our being, recognized by our conscience judging us by what we do and, above all, by what we are? Nobody can flee from the voice of this written code, written internally as well as externally. And if we try to silence it, to close our ears against it, the Spirit itself frustrates these attempts, opening our ears to the cries of our true being of that which we are and ought to be in the sight of eternity. We cannot escape this judgment against us. The Spirit itself, using the written code, makes this impossible. For the Spirit does not give life without having led us through the experience of Hell. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

And certainly, the written code in its threatening majesty has the power to kill. It kills the joy of fulfilling our being by imposing upon us something we feel as hostile. It kills the freedom of answering creatively what we encounter in things and beings by making us look at a table of laws. It kills our ability to listen to the calling of the moment, to the voiceless voice of others, and to the here and now. It kills our courage to act through the scruples of our anxiety-driven conscience. And among those who take it most seriously, it kills faith and hope, and throws them into self-condemnation and despair. There is no way out from the written code. The Spirit itself prevents us from becoming compromisers, half fulfilling, half defying the commandments. The Spirit itself calls us back when we try to escape into indifference, or lawlessness, or (most usually) average self-righteousness. However, when the Spirit calls us back, it does so not in order to hold us within the written code, but in order to give us life. How can we describe the life that the Spirit gives us? I could use many words, well known to everybody, spoken by Paul himself, and after him by the great preachers and teachers of the church. I could say that the work of the Spirit, liberating us from the law, is freedom. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

Or I could say that its work is faith, or that its work is grace, and above all, that the Spirit creates love, the love in which all laws are confirmed and fulfilled and at the same time overcome. However, if I used such words, the shadow of the absent God would appear and make you and me aware that we cannot speak like this today. If we did, freedom would be distorted into willfulness, faith into belief in the absurd, hope into unreal expectations, and love—the word I would like most to use for the creation of the Spirit—into sentimental feeling. The Spirit must give us new words, or revitalize old words to express true life. We must wait for them; we must pray for them; we cannot force them. However, we know, in some moments of our lives, what life is. We know that it is great and holy, deep and abundant, ecstatic and sober, limited and distorted by time, fulfilled by eternity. And if the right words fail us in the absence of God, we may look without words at the image one in whom the Spirit and the Life are manifest without limits. One responds to the inner call according to one’s capacity, history, one’s circumstances and perspective. There was a British doctor, George Pickering, who wrote a book called Creative Malady, subtitled “Illness in the Lives and Minds of Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Mary Baker Eddy, Sigmund Freud, Marcel Proust, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

In this book, the successful people we listened are covered, but the author could have added Mozart, Chopin, and Beethoven—these were all writers and musicians who had a malady, and George Pickering, the author, points out that each one suffered severe illness and met it constructively in creativity and in contribution to our culture. Pickering speaks of his own arthritic hips as “an ally,” and he “put them to bed,” he said, “when they become painful.” In bed he cannot attend committee meetings; cannot see patients or entertain visitors. He adds, “These are the ideal conditions for creative work—freedom from intrusion, freedom from the ordinary chores of life.” Now you have many questions in your mind about what I am saying, and I certainly had, and have, many questions also. Otto Rank, as a matter of fact, wrote a whole book, Art and Artist, on [these ideas]…Overcoming neurosis and creating art are identical things in Rank’s work. What I am doing tonight is challenging our whole view of health in our culture. We keep people living day after day because we think it is simply the number of days you live. We struggle to invent ways to live longer, as though infirmary were the ultimate enemies. Our health is our only priority. If we obey the dying nurse, whose constant care is not to please, but to remind of ours, and Adam’s curse and that to be restored, our we must heal and grow better. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

These are tremendously significant things—if you can take them in. When we think about Adam’s curse, this is referring to the fact that we are all the ultimate children of the myth of Adam—this is called in words that do not sound very nice anymore—this is called original sin, and the whole idea is that life is not a question of how long you live. It is not a question of how many days you can add. Many people would much prefer to go when their work is finished—to die—but what this verse is trying to say is that disease and illness mean something quite different from what most people in our Faustian civilization take then to mean. As alienating as illness is, it can also be a connecting of ourselves with new others on a new and deeper level. We see this in compassion. Creativity is one of the products of the right relationship between nature and infinity within us. We see also another gift which Fromm Reichmann certainly had, which Abe Maslow had, which Harry Stack Sullivan had—the gift of compassion, the ability to feel with other people, the ability to understand their problems—this is the other quality that makes a good psychiatrist. The experience of degeneration and of chaos is, I hope, temporary, but this can often be used as a way of reforming or reorganizing ourselves on a higher level. The Gods return in our charity. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

It is fair for each of us to ask ourselves what do we bring to the quest: what equipment, qualities, and virtues to entitle me to ask for the results I seek? When the sublime light of the Ideal shines down upon one and one has the courage to look at one’s own image by it, one will doubtless make some humiliating discoveries about oneself. One will find that one is worse than one believed and not so wise as one thought oneself to be. However, such discoveries are all to the good. For only then can one know what one is called upon to do and set to work following their pointers in self-improvement. However deep one’s commitment to the quest may be, one will have to reckon with one’s own frailties and one’s environmental pressures. The great being knows one has limitations, one knows one’s defects and faults—but one is not afraid of them. Paint me as I am, lips and all. All do not start with equal capacities for the quest. Each is qualified to go only a certain distance upon it. Those who exaggerate their capacities harm themselves by the presumption. Those who underrate them practise a false modesty. It is an error either to deceive oneself about one’s aspirations or to deter oneself unduly. Hope is good for beings: it confers endurance, spurs beneficial attitudes, and urges endeavour upon one. However, if its base is ungrounded fancy and extravagant wishes, one is hurt rather than benefited by it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

Begin by admitting that one knows really little or nothing about your deeper mind. That is better than learned tall talk. It is much easier to set oneself a discipline than to keep it. This will engage one’s own creative faculties through application, and will further unite physical and spiritual discipline in order to create a dynamic of synergy which will assist in tearing the veil between physical and spiritual realms. Powerful changes will begin to take place within you and your life experience as you start to integrate and merge with these spiritual forces. When the inner blessings spills from the crown into outer darkness then mold and shape the energy of the spirit as a clear vision of what you want to achieve or accomplish through your process of prayer. The energy of God is then grounded by reversing negativity and moving more spiritual harmony in your being. Our faith feeds and grows in power as our consciousness expands. Every human being is an emanation of the void and unlimited possibility. As out consciousness expands, we unite and the knowledge of all and eternity becomes ours once again. We are simply taking back infernal wisdom which was ours to begin with. “Hear and know the commandments of God, and stir them up in remembrance of the oath which they have made,” reports Mosiah 6.3. However, when a being turns belief in the superior knowledge of the guide into belief in the virtual omniscience of the guide, it is dangerous. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

(The photos are from a furnished model home very similar to the house featured.)

Cresleigh Homes

#RocklinTrails Lot 55 is the final home for sale located in this beautiful community in Rocklin! 🏡 Residence 1 floor plan, fully landscaped backyard, move-in ready and quick-close… What are you waiting for?

Contact us to learn more and schedule a tour! Open by appointment only. Get in touch via email. | rocklintrails@cresleigh.com

https://cresleigh.com/new-homes-in-rocklin-california-rocklin-trails/

It Will Not be Enough to Show them the Path—One Must Also Keep them Steadfast on the Path!

October 14, 2019 2:20 am

Now let me take up the point again. Do not be destroyed in the first years. It happens with too many. There is so much danger all around you. It is easy to despair. It is easy to succumb to bitter hatred of yourself. It is easy to feel that the World no longer belongs to you, when nothing is further from the truth. It is all yours and the passage of the years is yours. And now you must simply and plainly live up to it. When people regard others as unfriendly, the comparisons they implicitly make are with the community of Bethnal Green. We have already discussed the reasons why people living in the borough considered that a friendly place. They and their relatives had lived there a long time, and consequently had around them a host of long-standing friends and acquaintances. At Greenleigh they neither share long residence with their fellow tenants nor as a rule have kin to serves as bridges between the family and the wider community. These two vital interlocked conditions of friendliness are missing, and their absence goes far to explain the attitude we have illustrated here. It also accounts for the astringency of the criticism. Migrants, to the Untied States of America or to housing estates, always take part of their homeland, with them, our information like everyone else. They take with them the standards of Bethnal Green, derived from a close community of kindred and neighbors. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

Friends, within and without the kindship network, were the unavoidable accompaniment of the kind of life they led—too much so for devotees of quiet and privacy. They grew up with their friend, they met them at auntie’s, for tens years for tea and animal crackers or hot chocolate, they walked down the street with them to work. They are used to friendliness, and, their standards in this regard being so high, they are all the more censorious about the other tenants of the County Council. They are harsh in their comment, where someone arriving from a less settled district, or from another and even newer housing estate, might be accustomed to the standoffishness, and, by one’s canons, even impressed by the good behavior, of the same neighbors. If they had an established community, it would not matter quite so much people being newcomers. The place would then already have been crisscrossed with tires of kinship and friendship, and one friend made would have been an introduction to several. However, Greenleigh was built in the late 1940s on ground that had been open fields before. The nearest substantial settlement, a few miles away at Barnhurst, is the antithesis of East London, an outer suburb of privately-owned houses, mainly built between the wars for the rising middle classes of the time. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

The distance between the estate and its neighbor is magnified by the resentment, real and imagined, of the old residents of Barnhurst at the intrusion of rough East Enders into the rides of Essex and, what is worse, living in houses not very unlike their own put up at the expense of the taxpayer. “People at Barnhurst look down on us. They treat us like dirt. They are a different class of people. They have money.” “It is not so easy for the girls to get boys down here. If people from the estate go to the dance hall at Barnhurst they all look down on them. There is a lot of class distinction down here.” These, the kind of thoughts harbored by the ex-Bethnal Greeners, do nothing to make for ease of communication between the two places. So there is no tradition into which the newcomers can enter. If Barnhurst has any influence upon Greenleigh, it is to sharpen the resentment of the estate against its environment and to stimulate the aspiration for material standards as high. Nor would it matter quite so much if the residents of Greenleigh all had the same origin. No doubt if they all came from Bethnal Green, they would get on much better than they do: many of them would have known each other before and, anyway, at least have a background in common. As it is, they arrive from all over London, though with East Ender predominant. Such a vast common origin might be enough to bind together a group of Cockneys in the Western Desert Western Essex is to near for that. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

When all are from London, no one is from London: they are from one of the many districts into which the city is divided. What is then emphasized is far more their differences than their sameness. The native of Bethnal Greens feels oneself different from the native of Stepney or Hackney. One of our informants, who had recently moved into Bethnal Green from Hackney, a few minutes away, told us “I honestly do not like telling people that I live in Bethnal Green. I come from Hackney myself, and when I was a child living in Hackney, my parents would not let me come to Bethnal Green. I thought it was something terrible.” These distinctions are carried over to Greenleigh, where it is no virtue in a neighbor to have come from Stepney, rather the opposite. Mr. Abbot summed it up as follows: “You have not grown up with them. They come from different neighborhoods, they are different sorts of people and they do not mix.” We had expected that, despite these disadvantages, people would, in the course of time, settle down and make new friendships, and our surprise was that this had not happened to a greater extent. The informants who had been on the estate longest had no higher opinion than others of the friendliness of their fellows. Four of the 18 coupes who had been there six or seven years judged other people to be friendly, as did six of the 23 couples with residence for five years or less. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

Mr. Oliver was one who commented on how long it was taking time for its wonders to perform. “They are all Londoners here but they get highbrow when they get here. They are not so friendly. Coming from a tuning like the one where we lived, we knew everyone. We were bred and born amongst them, like one big family we were. We knew all their troubles and everything. Here they are all total strangers to each other and so they are all wary of each other. It is question of time, I suppose. However, we have been here four years and I do not see any change yet. It does seem to be taking a very long while to get friendly.” One reason it is taking so long is that the estate is so strung out—the number of people per acre at Greenleigh being only one-fifth what it is in Bethnal Green—and low density does not encourage sociability. In Bethnal Green your pub, and your shop is a “local.” There people meet their neighbors. At Greenleigh they are put off by distance. They do go to the pub because it may take 20 minutes to walk, instead of one minute as in Bethnal Green. They do not go to the shops, which are grouped into specialized centers instead of being scattered in converted houses through the ordinary streets, more than they have to, again because of the distance. And they do not go so much to either because when they get there, the people are gathered from the corners of the estate, instead of being neighbors with whom they already have a point of contact. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

The pubs and shops of Bethnal Green serve so well as “neighborhood centers” because there are so many of them: they provide the same small face-to-face groups with continual opportunities to meet. Where they are few and large, as at Greenleigh, they do not serve this purpose so well. The relatives of Bethnal Green have not, therefore, been replaced by the neighbors of Greenleigh. The newcomers are surrounded by strangers instead of kin. Their lives outside the family are no longer centered on the people; their lives are centered on the house. This change from a people-centered to a house-centered existence is one of the fundamental changes resulting from the migration. It does some way to explain the competition for status which is in itself the result of isolation from kin and the cause of estrangement from neighbors, the reason why coexistence, instead of being just a state of neutrality—a tacit agreement to live and let live—is frequently infused with so much bitterness. When we asked what in their view had made people change since they moved from East London, time and time again our informants gave the same kind of suggestive answers—that people had become, as they put it, “toffeensed,” “big-headed,” “high and mighty,” “jealous,” “a cut above everybody else.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

“It is like a strange land in your own country,” said Mrs. Ames. “People are jealous out here. They are made to be much quitter in a high-class way, if you know what I mean. They get snobbish, and when you get snobbish you are not sociable any more.” “I am surprised,” said Mr. Tonks, “at the way people vote Conservative at Greenleigh when the L.C.C. built these houses for them. One has a little car or something and so one thinks oneself superior. People seem to think only of themselves when they get here.” “The neighbor runs away with the idea that she is a cut above everybody else, but when you get down to brass tacks,” which Mrs. Berry proceeded to do, “she is worse off than you will ever be. She is one of those people, you know what I mean, she is very toffee-nosed. There are some people down here who get like that.” Conflict play an infinitely greater roe in neurosis than is commonly assumed. To detect them, however, is no easy matter—partly because they are essentially unconscious, but even more because the neurotic goes to any length to deny their existence. What, then, are the signals that would warrant us to suspect underlying conflicts? We usually can find their presence was indicated by a few factors, both fairly obvious. One is the resulting symptoms—fatigue, boredom, jealousy, and stealing. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

The fact is that every neurotic symptom points to an underlying conflict; that is, every symptom is more or less direct outgrowth of a conflict. We shall see gradually what unresolved conflicts do to people, how they produce states of anxiety, depression, indecision, inertia, detachment, and so on. An understanding of the causative relation here helps direct our attention from the manifest disturbances to their source—though the exact nature of the source will not be disclosed. The other signal indicating that conflicts were in operation was inconsistency. When person is convinced of a procedure being wrong and a injustice being done to him or her, or when a person who has highly valued friendship is turned to stealing money from a friend, sometimes the person will be aware of such inconsistencies; more often one is blind to them even when they are blatantly obvious to an untrained observer. Inconsistences are as definite an indication of the presence of conflicts as a rise in body temperature is of physical disturbance. To cite some common ones: A girls wants above all else to marry, yet shrinks from the advances of any man. A mother oversolicitous of her children frequently forgets their birthdays. A person always generous to others is cheap about expenditures for himself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

Another who longs for solitude never manages to be alone. One forgiving and tolerant toward most people is oversevere and demanding with oneself. Unlike the symptoms, the inconsistencies often permit of tentative conflict. An acute depression, for instance, reveals only the fact that a person is caught in a dilemma. However, if an apparently devoted mother forgets her children’s birthdays, we might be inclined to think that the mother was more devoted to her ideal of being a good mother than to the children themselves. We might also admit the possibility that her ideal collided with an unconscious sadistic tendency to frustrate them. Sometimes a conflict will appear on the surface—that is, be consciously experienced as such. This would seem to contradict my assertion that neurotic conflicts are unconscious. However, actually what appears is a distortion or modification of the real conflict. Thus a person may be torn by a conscious conflict when, in spite of one’s evasive techniques, well-functioning otherwise, one finds oneself confronted with the necessity of making a major decision. One cannot decide now whether to marry this woman or that one or whether to marry at all, whether to take this or that job, whether to retain or dissolve a partnership. He will then go through the greatest torment, shutting from one opposite to the other, utterly incapable of arriving at any decision. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

He may in his distress call upon an analyst, expecting him to clarify the particular issues involved. And one will necessarily be disappointed, because the present conflict is merely the point at which the dynamite of inner frictions finally exploded. The particular problem distressing him now cannot be solved without taking the long and tortuous road of recognizing the conflicts hidden beneath it. In other instances the inner conflict may be externalized and appear in the person’s conscious mind as an incompatibility between oneself and one’s environment. Or, finding that seemingly unfounded fears and inhibitions interfere with his wishes, a person may be aware that the crosscurrents within oneself issue from deeper sources. The more knowledge we gain of a person, the better able we are to recognize the conflicting elements that account for the symptoms, inconsistencies, and surface conflicts—and, we must add, the more confusing becomes the picture, through the number and variety of contradictions. So we are led to ask Can there be a basic conflict underlying all these particular conflicts and originally responsible for all of them? Can one picture the structure of conflict in terms, say, of an incompatible marriage, where an endless variety of apparently unrelated disagreements and rows over friends, children, finances, mealtimes, servants, all point to some fundamental disharmony in the relationship itself? #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

A belief in a basic conflict within the human personality is ancient and plays a prominent role in various religions and philosophies. The powers of light and darkness, of God and the devil, of good and evil are some of the ways in which this belief has been expressed. In modern psychology, Dr. Freud, on this score as on many others has done pioneer work. His first assumption was that the basic conflict is one between our instinctual drives, with their blind urge for satisfaction, and the forbidding environment—family and society. The forbidding environment is internalized at an early age and appears from then on as the forbidding superego. What remains, then, is the contention that the opposition between primitive egocentric drives and our forbidding conscience is the basic source of our manifold conflicts. My belief is that though it is a major conflict, it is a secondary and arises of necessity during the development of a neurosis. If we could actually see that God was satisfied with the fruits of our labor, imagine what a stimulus it would be to our own efforts today. Again we come back to the natural genius of primitive beings, who provided themselves with what beings need most: to know daily that one is living right in the eyes of God, that one’s workaday action has cosmic value—no, even that it enhances God Himself! #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

For early beings emanations of light and heat from the Sun were the archetypes of all miraculous power: the Sun shines from afar and by its invisible touch cases life to unfold and expand. We cannot say much more about this mystery even today. The individual Sun-Being was the focus of a cosmology of invisible energy, like the modern computer and atomic reactor, and one aroused the same hopes and yearning the arouse for the perfectly ordered, plentifully supplied life. Like the reactor, too, one reflected back energy-power on those around one: just the right amount and they prospered; too much and they withered into decay and death. Just as in traditional society, we tend to vote for the person who already represents health, wealth, and success so that some of it will rub off on us. Whence the old adage “Noting succeeds like success.” This attraction is also especially strong in certain religious cults of the Father Divine type: the followers want to see wealthy flaunted in the person of their leader, hoping that some of it will radiate back to them. How can we unite the message of the Spiritual Presence with the experience of the absent God? Let me say something about the absent God, by asking—what is the cause of His absence? We may answer—our resistance, our indifference, our lack of seriousness, our honest or dishonest questioning, our genuine or cynical doubt. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

All these answers have some truth, but they are not final. The final answer to the question as to who makes God is absent is God Himself! It is the work of the Spirit that removes God from our sight, not only for some beings, but sometimes for many in a particular period. We live in an era in which the God we know is the absent God. However, in knowing God as the absent God, we know Him; we feel His absence as the empty space that is left by something or someone that once belonged to us and has now vanished from our view. God is always infinitely near and infinitely far. We are fully aware of Him only if we experience both of these aspects. However, sometimes, when our awareness of God has become shallow, habitual—not warm and not cold—when He has become too familiar to be exciting, too near to be felt in His infinite distance, then He becomes the absent God. The Spirit has not ceased to be present. The Spiritual Presence can never end. However, the Spirit of God hides God from our sight. No resistance against the Spirit, no indifference, no doubt can drive the Spirit away. However, the Spirit that always remains present to us can hide itself, and this means that it can hide God. Then the Spirit shows us nothing except the absent God, and the empty space within us which is His space. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

The Spirit has shown to our time and to innumerable people in our time the absent God and the empty space that cries in us to be filled by Him. And then the absent one may return and take the space that belongs to Him, and the Spiritual Presence may break again into our consciousness, awakening to us to recognize what we are, shaking and transforming us. This may happen like the coming of a storm, the storm of the Spirit, stirring up the stagnant air of our Spiritual life. The storm will then recede; a new stagnancy may take place; and the awareness of the present God may be replaced by the awareness of the empty space within us. Life in the Spirit is ebb and flow—and this means—whether we experience the present or the absent God, it is the work of the Spirit. A constitutional fatalism continuously adjusts itself to the ever-changing present. A pervasive alarmism greets every advance. For two thousand years we have been getting “out of hand.” This derives of course from our susceptibility to viewing the “now” ad the End Time, an Apocalyptic obsession that has endured since Christ ascended into Heaven. We must stop this! We must perceive that we are at the dawn of a sublime age! Enemies will no longer be conquered. They will be devoured, and transformed. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

However, here is the point I really want to make: Modernism and Materialism—elements that the Church has feared for so long—are in their philosophical and practical infancy! Their sacramental nature is only just being revealed! Never mind the infantile blunders! The electronic revolution has transmuted the industrial World beyond all predictive thinking of the twenty first century. We are still having birth pangs. Get into it! Work with it! Play it out. Daily life for millions in the developed countries is not only comfortable but a compilation of wonders that borders on the miraculous. And so new spiritual desires arise which are infinitely more courageous than the missionary goals of the past. There will be mountains and obstacles in your life to overcome and this will breed achievement. There will be beasts in our field of existence so that you may grow in cunning and might. This breeds victory. You must stand alone and endure as a warrior and usurp the power. Do not focus so much on politics and the news, as this keeps us from focusing on the power we have within. The power to destroy and create anew. It keeps us from seeing that we are our own God and we are our own Devil. We must constantly work toward achieving our goals through creating doorways of manifestation of desire through action in the World. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

The spell is just the seed which plants possibility. The spell is the blessing conveyed through proclamation of taking the path to become a person of power by becoming self to the fullness of what its potential may be. By doing this we can then act out that power within the World to enrich our lives. We have to have the power to take control of this life experience. Conflict puts the masses in a constant state of personal sacrifice so that they will never attain their full potential and unite the various aspects of consciousness to become whole. As a result, we are cattle to be consumed. As one becomes more lucid or awake in the moment, reality begins to reveal to us, it is like clay to be molded and shaped by will and intent. The strength to do this can only be attained by reuniting with those parts of self we are taught to shun and war against. This must be done with caution through strategic alchemical advancement. It is our goal to bring the energy of creation through the crown and usurp it. This force will awaken various levels of consciousness to once again merge them together, forging the adept as a microcosmic emanation of the void, as their potential for power increase. “And the Lord said unto him: Write these things and seal them up; and I will show them in mine own due time unto the children of men,” reports Ether 3.27. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

Thee for Enlivening All the Cheerful Eyes that Glance so Brightly at the New Sun-Rise!

October 13, 2019 12:13 am

All my life I had believed in Heaven and Hell. Did Heaven look down upon this metamorphosis? We have described some of the effects of migration. People’s relatives are no longer neighbors sharing the intimacies of daily life. Their new neighbors are strangers, drawn from every part of the East End, and they are, as we have seen, treated with reserve. In point of services, neighbors do not make up for kin. Our informants were so eager to talk about their neighbors, and generally about their attitude to other residents on the estate, that we feel bound to report them. They frequently complained of the unfriendliness of the place, which they found all the more mysterious because it was so different from Bethnal Green. Why should Greenleigh be considered so unfriendly? The prevailing attitude is expressed by Mr. Morrow. “You cannot get away from it, they are not so friendly down here. It is not ‘Hello, Joe,’ ‘Hello, mate.’ They pass you with a side-glance as though they do not know you.” And by Mr. Adams. “We all come from the slums, not Park Lane, but they do not mix. In Bethnal Green you always used to have a little laugh on the doorstep. There is none of that in Greenleigh. You are English, but you feel like a foreigner here, I do not know why. Up there you had lived for years, and you knew how to deal with the people there. People here are different.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

And by Mr. Prince. “The neighbors round here are very quiet. They all keep themselves to themselves. They all come from the East End but they all seem to chance when they come down here.” Of the 41 couples, 23 considered that other people were unfriendly, eight were undecided one way or another and ten considered them friendly: the recorded opinions are those of the couples because in no interview did husband and wife appear to hold strongly different view. How does this majority who consider their fellow residents unfriendly feel about themselves? Do they also label themselves unfriendly? No one admits it, some indignantly deny it. If they are hostile themselves, they do not acknowledge it, but attribute the feelings to others. Yet they mostly reveal that their own behavior is the same as they resent in others; that (since others are unfriendly) to withdraw will avoid trouble and keep the peace; that coexistence is safer, because more realistic, than cooperation. “The policy here is do not have a lot to do with each other, then there will not be any trouble,” says Mr. Chortle succinctly. Neurotic conflicts may be concerned with the same general problems as perplex the normal person. However, they are so different in kind that the question has been raised whether it is permissible to use the same term for both. I believe it is, but we must be aware of the differences. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

This attitude is supported by reference to the skirmishes and back-biting which have resulted from being “too friendly” in the past. “It is better if you just talk to neighbors and do not get too friendly,” concludes Mr. Sandeman from his past experience. “You stop friends if you do not get to know them well. When you get to know then you are always getting little troubles breaking out. I have had too much of that and so I am not getting too friendly now.” Mr. Young told his wife, “When I walk into these four walls, I always tell her ‘Do not make too many friends. They turn out to be enemies.’” And one experience had turned Mr. Yule into a recluse. “We do not mix very well in this part of the estate. At first I used to lend every Tom, Dick, and Harry all my tools or lawn mower or anything. Then I had $1,000 pinched from my wallet. Now we do not want to know anyone—we keep ourselves to ourselves. There is a good old saying—the Englishman’s home is his castle. It is very true.” Usually the troubles are shadowy affairs which have always happened to people other than oneself. “We are friendly,” says Mr. Oliver in the usual style, “But we do not get too involved, because we have found that causes gossip and trouble. We have seen it happen with other people, so we do not want it to happen to us. Now we keep ourselves to ourselves.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

Whatever the justification, the result is the same. People do not treat others either as enemies or friends. They are wary, though polite. They pass the time of day in the road. They have an occasional word over the fence or a chat at the garden gate. They nod to each other in the shops. Neighbors even borrow and lend little things to each other, and when this accommodation is refused, it is a sign that acquaintance has turned into enmity. Mrs. Chortle has broken off trading as well as diplomatic relations with one of her neighbors. “These people are very dirty,” she said, “and I have told the I do not want to borrow or lend.” So has Mrs. Morrow, for the different reason that “Just because they have got a couple of ha’pence more than you they do not want to know you. In Bethnal Green it was different—neighbors were more friendly.” Even where relations have not been served, there is little of the mateyness so characteristic of Bethnal Green. Mr. Stirling summed it up by remarking, “I do not mind saying hello to any of them, or passing the time of say with them, but if they do not want to have anything to do with me, I do not want to have anything to do with them. I am not bothered about them. I am only interested in my little family. My wife and my two children—they are the people that I care about. My life down here is my home.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

Women feel the lack of friends, as of kin, more keenly than their menfolk. Those who do not follow their husbands into the society of the workplace—and loneliness is one of the common reasons for doing so—have to spend their day alone, “looking at ourselves all day,” as they say. In one interview the husband was congratulating himself on having a house, a garden, a bathroom and a TV—“the tellie is a bit of a friend down here”—when his wife broke in to say,” It is all right for you. What about the time I have to spend here on my own?” This difference in their life may cause sharp contention, especially in the early years. “When we first came,” said Mrs. Haddon, “I have just had the baby and it was all a misery, not knowing anyone. I sat on the stairs and cried my eyes out. For the first two years we were swaying whether to go back. I wanted to and my husband did not. We used to have terrible arguments about it. I use to say, “It is all right for you. I have to sit here all day. You do get a break.’” Not that all women resent it. A few, like Mrs. Painswick, actually welcome seclusion. She had been more averse to the quarrels amongst the “rowdy, shouty” Bethnal Greeners than appreciative of the mateyness to which quarrels are the counterpart, and finds the less intense life of Greenleigh a pleasant contrast. “In London people had more squabbles. We have not seen neighbors out here having words.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

What, then, are the characteristics of neurotic conflicts? A somewhat simplified example by way of illustration: An engineer working in collaboration with others at mechanical research was frequently afflicted by spells of fatigue and irritability. One of these spells was brought about by the following incident. In a discussion of certain technical matters his opinion were less well received than those of his colleagues. Shortly afterward a decision was made in his absence, and no opportunity was given him subsequently to present his suggestions. Under these circumstances, he could have regarded the procedure as unjust and put up a fight, or he could have accepted the majority decision with good grace. Either reaction would have been consistent. However, he did neither. Though he felt deeply slighted, he did not fight. Consciously he was mere aware of being irritated. The murderous rage within him appeared only in his dreams. This repressed rage—a composite of his fury against the others and of his fury against himself for his own meekness—was mainly responsible for his fatigue. His failure to react consistently was determined by a number of factors. He had built up a grandiose image of himself that required deference from others to support. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

This self-inflated image was, of course, unconscious at the time: he simply acted on the premise that there was nobody as intelligent and competent in his field as he was. Any slight could jeopardize this premise and provoke rage. Furthermore, he had unconscious sadistic impulses to berate and humiliate others—an attitude so objectionable to him that he covered it up by overfriendliness. To this was added an unconscious drive to exploit people, making it imperative for him to keep in their good graces. The dependence on others was aggravated by a compulsive need for approval and affection, combined as it usually is with attitudes of compliance, appeasement, and avoidance of fight. There was thus a conflict between destructive aggression—reactive rage and sadistic impulses—on the one hand, and on the other the need for affection and approval, with a desire to appear fair and rational in his own eyes. The result was inner upheaval that went unnoticed, while the fatigue that was its external manifestation paralyzed all action. Looking at the factors involved in the conflict, we are struck first by their absolute incompatibility. It would be difficult indeed to imagine more extreme opposites than lordly demands for deference and ingratiating submissiveness. Second, the whole conflict remains unconscious. The contradictory tendencies operating in it are not recognize but are deeply repressed. Only slight bubbles of the battle raging within reach the surface. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

The emotional factors are rationalized: it is an injustice; it is a slight; my ideas were better. Third, the tendencies in both directions are compulsive. Even if he had some intellectual perception of his excessive demands, or of the existence and the nature of his dependence, he could not change these factors voluntarily. To be able to change them would require considerable analytical work. He was driven on either hand by compelling forces over which he had no control: he could not possibly renounce any of the needs acquired by stringent inner necessity. However, none of them represented what he himself really wanted or sought. He would want neither to exploit nor to be submissive; as a matter of fact he despised these tendencies. Such a state of affairs, however, has a far-reaching significance for the understanding of neurotic conflicts. It means that no decision is feasible. A further illustration presents a similar picture. A free-lance designer was stealing small sums of money from a good friend. The theft was not warranted by the external situation; he needed the money, but the friend would gladly have given it to him as he had on occasion in the past. That he should resort to stealing was particularly striking in that he was a decent fellow who set great store by friendship. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

The following conflict was at the bottom of it. The man had a pronounced neurotic need for affection, especially a longing to be taken care of in all practical matters. Alloyed as this was with an unconscious drive to exploit others, his technique was to attempt both to endear and intimidate. These tendencies by themselves would have made him willing and eager to receive help and support. However, he had also developed an extreme unconscious arrogance which involved a correspondingly vulnerable pride. Others should feel honored to be of service to him: it was humiliating for him to ask for help. His aversion to having to make a request was reinforced by a strong craving for independence and self-sufficiency that made it intolerable for him to admit he needed anything or to place himself under obligation. So he could take, but not receive. The content of this conflict differs from that of the first example but the essential characteristics are the same. And any other example of neurotic conflict would show like incompatibility of conflicting drives and their unconscious and compulsive nature, leading always to the impossibility of deciding between the contradictory issues involved. Allowing for an indistinct line of demarcation, the difference, then, between normal and neurotic conflicts is possessed fundamentally in the fact that the disparity between the conflicting issues is much less great for the normal person than for the neurotic. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

The choices the former has to make are between two modes of action, either of which is feasible within the frame of a fairly integrated personality. Graphically speaking, the conflicting directions diverge only 90 degrees or less, as against the possible 180 degrees confronting the neurotic. In awareness, too, the differences is one of degree. Real life is far too multifarious to be portrayed by merely exhibiting such abstract contrast as that between a despair which is completely unconscious, and one which is completely conscious. We can say this much, however: a normal conflict can be entirely conscious; a neurotic conflict in all its essential elements is always unconscious. Even though a normal person may be unaware of one’s conflict, one can recognize it with comparatively little help, while the essential tendencies producing a neurotic conflict are deeply repressed and can be unearthed only against great resistance. The normal conflict is concerned with an actual choice between two possibilities, both of which the person finds really desirable, or between convictions, both of which one really values. It is therefore possible for one to arrive at a feasible decision even though it may be hard on one and require a renunciation of some kind. The neurotic person engulfed in a conflict is not free to choose. One is driven by equally compelling forces in opposite directions, neither of which one wants to follow. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

One is driven by equally compelling forces in opposite directions, neither of which one wants to follow. Hence a decision in the usual sense in impossible. One is stranded, with no way out. The conflict can only be resolved by working at the neurotic trends involved, and by so changing one’s relations with others and with oneself that one can dispense with the trends altogether. These characteristics account for the poignancy of neurotic conflicts. Not only are they difficult to recognize, not only to they render a person helpless, but they have as well a disruptive force of which one has good reason to be afraid. Unless we know these characteristics and keep them in mind, we shall not understand the desperate attempts at solution which the neurotic enters upon, and which constitute the major part of a neurosis. Murder rarely fits the stereotype of an unsuspecting, helpless, passive victim stalked by a cold, calculating killer. Most homicides are preceded by angry quarrels in which the victim plays an active part in bringing about one’s own death. Can innocence, once it becomes involved in action, escape murder? This troublesome question confronts us with renewed sharpness after the events of the past years, especially after the Orlando nightclub shooting 12 June 2016. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

However, it is a question that has troubled beings ever since the dawn of consciousness and the forming, in our forefathers’ minds, of the legend of the Garden of Eden. When we take an endeavor to resolve the knotty question, we wonder does the victim, for example, have anything to do with making oneself the victim? The question takes us into the very heart of the meaning of innocence. Does the virgin herself, beyond flirting, constitute the challenge to the man to end her virginity? Is not innocence curiously bound up with murder in the ritual of sacrifice in practically all cultures? What is the meaning of the phenomenon to be found in the dim beginnings of human history and coming down to this very hour of sacrificing virgins and youths to the Cretan Minotaur or the Moloch of modern walfare? When we push the question of innocence and murder to the furthest reaches of human consciousness, we may find it to be one of those perdurable problems that we cannot answer satisfactorily via intellect alone but must live the questions now. Perhaps you will then live along some distant day into the answer. However, in our endeavor to think it through, we can expect new light to be thrown on the mainsprings of violence. Most important of all, an analysis of the problem of innocence and murder foreshadows the emergence of new ethics for the coming age. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

Innocence is generosity, especially in children, who can still believe and trust since they have yet to experience that betrayal which leads to cynicism. Innocence has to do with the heart in that it is a feeling state, a way of perceiving life rather than a calculation. It is “virgin” in that it is before the awakening to the vast possibilities in life for sensuality, tenderness, exploitation, and betrayal. The lack of experience in pleasures of the flesh has historically been taken for the symbol of innocence, although it should be remembered that it is a symbol and not the content. Innocence is, in addition, a condition of powerlessness. One of our problems, as we discuss innocence, will be to establish the extent to which this powerlessness is capitalized on by the innocent person. The question is: How far is innocence used as a strategy of living? When we reflect on the shooting at Kent State in 1970, we immediately see a demonstration of part of our thesis. This is possessed in the fact that two of the four students killed were not involved in the protest at all. One was dressed in his Reserve Officer raining Corps (ROTC) uniform and was going across that campus to take a test in war tactics, and another was on her way to music class. The moral of this is clear: there are no bystanders anymore. This implies something about the solidarity of human beings—the fact that we are all part of the tragic event. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

Without a surrender of one’s own consciousness, no one today can draw one’s own moral skirts about him and claim an immunity from these events. Television, social media, and mass communication are only symptoms of a basic participation in the events of importance to the human race. To breathe is to judge. We can be confident that we shall find that this awareness of our own involvement is not at all the excuse for masochistic breast-beating or quietist withdrawal from the struggles. It can lead us rather to a new sharpening of our own ethical sensitivity and a discovery, though it be only partial, of the basis on which a lasting and effective struggle for racial integration or a relief from the compulsive hold of warfare may be founded. As a representative of these four students and their innocence, I shall choose one of them, Allison Krause, who was reported to have dropped a flower the day before the shooting into the barrel of one of the guardsmen’s rifles saying: “Flowers are better than bullets.” She is pictured in a poem by Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, which, despite its tendency toward sentimentality, reveals some important points: Nineteen-year-old Allison Krause, you were killed because you loved flowers. Bullets, pushing out the flower…let all the apple trees of the World, not in white—but in mourning be clothed. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

So far we see only the event as it occurred that day: four victims of murder, the whole event summed up in the ironic and cruel trajectory of stray bullets. However, Yevtushenko knows that this simple innocence has only touched the surface. In the succeeding lines we see the complexity of innocence and of evil: “But a Vietnam girl—the same age as Allison—taking in her hand a gun, is an armed flower, the wrath of the people.” I take both the phrase “armed flower” and “thorny flower of protest,” a phrase that appears later on in the poem, as referring to the dimension of experience added to the original purity of innocence. We now have wrath as the basic motivation. Yevtushenko is now talking about a different kind of innocence—an armed flower, no longer the product of a childlike powerlessness but the power of wrath. The Vietnamese girl knows the flower grows on a thorny bush and has to be handled with care. She has an innocence that does not avoid evil and that there is, in the depth of the human soul as well as in human history, no such thing as pure evil or pure good. Yevtushenko’s juxtaposition of flower and armed reminds us of the phrase used by Jesus in the Gospel according to Saint Mark with which He adjured His disciples as He sent them out into the World: “Be ye wise as serpents but harmless as doves.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

This is, again, a curious juxtaposition of innocence and experience, which, it was hoped, would become the foundation for effective social action in the work of the disciples. Now, when I speak of trusting our religious demands, just what do I mean by “trusting”? Is the word to carry with it license to define in detail an invisible World, and to anathematize and excommunicate those whose trust is different? Certainly not! Our faculties of belief were not primarily given us to make orthodoxies and heresies withal; they were given us to live by. And to trust our religious demands means first of all to live in the light of them, and to act as if the invisible World which they suggest were real. It is a fact of human nature, that beings can live and die by the help of a sort of faith that does without a single strict and rigid doctrine or definition. The bare assurance that this natural order is not ultimate but a mere sign or vison, the external staging of a many-storied Universe, in which spiritual forces have the last word and are eternal,–this bare assurance is to such beings enough to make life seem worth living in spite of every contrary presumption suggested by its circumstances on the natural plane. Destroy this inner assurance, however, vague as it is, and all the light and radiance of existence is extinguished for these persons at a stroke. Often enough the wild-eyed look at life—the suicidal mood—will then set in. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

In the same way the Spirit is always present, a moving power, sometimes in stormy ecstasies of individuals and groups, but mostly quiet, entering our human spirit and keeping it alive; sometimes manifest in great moments of history or a personal life, but mostly working hiddenly through the media of our daily encounters with beings and World; sometimes using its creation, the religious communities and their Spiritual means, and often making itself felt in spheres far removed from what is usually called religious. Like the wind the Spirit blows where it wills! It is not subject to rule or limited by method. Its ways with beings are not dependent on what beings are and do. You cannot force the Spirit upon yourself, upon an individual, upon a group, or even upon a Christian church. Although one who is the foundation of the church was oneself of the Spirit, and although the Spirit as it was present in one is the greatest manifestation of Spiritual Presence, the Spirit is not bound to the Christian church or any one of them. The Spirit is free to work in the spirits of beings in every human situation, and it urges beings to let Him do so; God as Spirit is always present to the spirit of beings. It is through this spirit that more specific powers can be extracted for the sake of communication and personal empowerment. “Yea, say unto them, except they repent to the Lord God will destroy them,” reports Alma 8.16. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

The Miracles of Genius Breed Doubt as Well as Faith so that We Feel Uplifted from the World!

September 23, 2019 12:56 am

At first reality appears mere sensuous indulgence, a kind of poetic luxury—ripe strawberries, almond blossoms, and white-shouldered nymphs still more or less imaginary. However, we must bid these joys farewell for a nobler life, a more heroic kind of story, involving the agonies, the strife of human hearts. One becomes a lonely voyager across a perilous sea—it is an inescapable part of every being’s soul-making. Through feeling and suffering in a thousand diverse ways, the merely intelligent or sentient being is fortified and altered, and the spirit becomes aware of its own nature and part in the World, and thus achieves an identity or soul. If I should die, said I to myself, I have left no immortal work behind me—nothing to make my friends proud of my memory—but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had time I would have made myself remembered. The life of self-creation, of soul-making, is not complete. I have no identity because I have not made up my mind about everything. To show beauty in the face of death, with eternal lids apart with planetary eyes, in the age-long suffering of humankind grants one passage to part the veils, a face—a scene which strangely evokes the terror of this boy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

When I awake, I lay quiet for an hour, weak and keenly in pain, I had been sleeping like a fallen angel on the red taffeta. So bad was the pain, in fact, that sleep seem preferable to wakefulness, and I dreamt of things long ago, times when Meghan and I had been together and when it had not seemed possible that we would ever part. What finally jarred me from my uneasy slumber was the sounds of Aaliyah screaming. Over and over in terror she screamed. I rose, somewhat stronger than the night before, and then once I was certain that I had my gloves and mask in place, I crouched beside her body and called out to her. At first she could not hear me, so loud were her frantic screams. However, at last, she grew quiet in her desperation. And there it was, an open face of Heaven, returning home at evening with an ear catching the notes of “Rock the Boat,”—and eye watching the sailing cloudlet’s bright career. We mourned that day so soon as it was glided by evening with the passage of an angel’s tear that falls through the clear ether silently. I gazed awhile, and felt as light, and free as though the fanning wing of Mercury had played upon my heels: I was light-hearted, and many pleasures to my vision started. “And behold, the Holy Spirit of God did come down from Heaven, and did enter into their hearts, and they were filled as if with the fire, and they could speak forth marvelous words,” reports Helaman 5.45. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

The air was cooling, and so very still, and caught from the early sobbing of the morn with solemn sound—“Aaliyah,” I said, “You will be remembered for making pleasing music, and not wild uproar.” She replied, “It is my soul’s pleasure; and it must be almost the highest bliss of human-kind, when to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.” What then has the Christian message to say about human’s predicament in this World? The eighth Psalm, written hundreds of years before the beginning of the Christian era, raises the same question with full clarity and great beauty. It points, on the one hand, to the infinite smallness of beings as compared to the Universe of Heavens and stars, and, on the other hand, to the astonishing greatness of beings, one’s glory and honor, one’s power over all created things, and one’s likeness to God Himself. Such thoughts are not frequently in the Bible. However, when we come across them, they sound as though they had been written today. Ever since the opening of the Universe by modern science, and the reduction of the great Earth to a small planet in an ocean of Heavenly bodies, beings have felt real vertigo in relation to infinite space. One has felt as though one had been pushed out of the center of the Universe into an insignificant corner in it, and has asked anxiously—what about the high destiny claimed by beings in past ages? #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

What about the idea that the divine image is impressed in one’s nature? What about one’s history that Christianity always considered to be the point at which salvation for all beings took place? What about the Christ, who in the New Testament, is called the Lord of the Universe? What about the end of history, described in Biblical language as a cosmic catastrophe, in which the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars are perhaps soon to fall down upon the Earth? What remains, in our present view of reality, of the importance of the Earth and the glory of beings? Further, since it seems possible that other beings exist on other Heavenly bodies, in whom the divine image is also manifest, and of whom God is mindful, and also whom He has crowned with glory and honor, what is the meaning of the Christian view of human history and its center, the appearance of the Christ? These questions are not merely theoretical. They are crucial to every being’s understanding of one’s self as a being placed upon this star, in an unimaginably vast Universe of stars. And they are disturbing not only to people who feel grasped by the Christian message, but also to those who reject it but who share with Christianity a belief in the meaning of history and the ultimate significance of human life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

Again, the eighth Psalm spears as though it had been conceived today—“Thou hast made him little less than God; thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands.” It gives, as an example, being’s dominion over the animals; but only since modern technology subjected all the spheres of nature to being’s control has the phrase “little less than God” revealed its full meaning. The conquest of time and space has loosened the ties that kept beings in bondage to one’s finitude. What was once imagined as a prerogative of the gods has become a reality of daily life, accessible to human technical power. No wonder that we of today feel with the psalmist that beings are little less than God, and that some of us feel even equal with God, and further that others would not hesitate to state publicly that humankind, as a collective mind, has replaced God. We therefore have to deal with an astonishing fact: the same events that pushed beings from their place in the center of the World, and reduced one to insignificance, also elevated one to a God-like position both on Earth and beyond! It there an answer to this contradiction? Listen to the psalmist: one foes not say that humans have dominion over all things or that beings are little less than God; he says—“Thou hast given one dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast made one a little less than God.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

This means that neither being’s smallness nor one’s greatness emanates from oneself, but that there is something above this contrast. Being, together with all things, comes from God Who has put all things under being’s feet. Beings are rooted in the same Ground in which the Universe with all its galaxies is rooted. It is this Ground that gives greatness to everything, however small it may be, to atoms as well as planets and animals; and it is this that makes all things small, however great—the Stars as well as beings. It gives significance to the apparently insignificant. It gives significance to each individual being, and to humankind as a whole. This answer quiets our anxiety about our smallness, and it quells the pride of our greatness. It is not a Biblical answer only, nor Christian only, nor only religious. Its truth is felt by all of us, as we become conscious of our predicament—namely, that we are not of ourselves, that our presence upon the Earth is not of our own doing. We are brought into existence and formed by the same power that bears up the Universe and the Earth and everything upon it, a power compared to which we are infinitely small, but also one which, because we are conscious of it, makes us great among creatures. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

Primitives were frank about power, and in a spiritual cosmology power is relatively undisguised: it comes from the pool of ancestors and spirits. In our society power resides in technology, and we live and use the artifacts of technology so effortlessly and thoughtlessly that it almost seems we are not beholden to power—until, as said earlier, something goes wrong with an airplane, a generator, a telephone line. Then you see our religious anxiety come out. Power is the life pulse that sustains beings in every epoch, and unless the student understands power figures and power sources one can understand nothing vital about social history. The history of man’s fall into stratified society can be traced around the figures of one’s heroes, to whom one is beholden for the power one wants most—to persevere as an organism, to continue experiencing. Again we pick up the thread from the very beginning of our argument and see how intricately it is interwoven in being’s career on this planet. If primitive being was not in bondage to the authority of living persons, one at least had some heroes somewhere, and these—as said—were the spirit powers, usually of the departed dead, the ancestors. The idea seems very strange to most of us today, but for the primitive it was often the dead who has the most power. In life the individual goes through ritualistic passages to states of higher power and greater importance as a helper of life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

For many primitives death is the final promotion to the highest power of all, the passage into the invisible World from their new abode. This, however, is not universal among primitives by any means. Some tribes fear the dead for only a little while immediately after death, and then they are thought to become weak. Some tribes fear especially those spirits who represent unfinished and unfulfilled life, spirits of persons who died prematurely and would be envious of the living, and so on. The dead are feared because they cannot be controlled as well as when they are alive. Many people have argued that primitives do not fear death as much as we do; but we know that this equanimity is due to the fact that the primitive was usually securely immersed in one’s particular cultural ideology, which was in essence an ideology of life, of how to continue on and to triumph over death. It is easy to see the significance of power for the human animal; it is really the basic category of one’s existence, as the organism’s whole World is structed in terms of power. No wonder that that Thomas Hobbes could say that man was characterized by “a general inclination, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

One of the first things a child has to learn is how much power one has and how much exits in others and in the World. Only if one learns this can one be sure of surviving; one has to learn very minutely what powers one can count on to facilitate one’s life and what powers one has to fear and avoid in order to protect it. So power becomes the basic category of being for which one has, so to speak, a natural respect: if you are wrong about power, you do not get a chance to be right about anything else; and the things that happen when the organism loses its powers are a decrease of vitality and death. Little wonder, then, that primitive beings had a right away to conceptualize and live according to hierarchies of power and give them one’s most intense respect. Anthropology discovered that the basic categories of primitive thought are the ideas of mana and taboo, which we can translate simply as power and danger or watch out (because of power). The study of life, people, and the World, then, broke down into an alertness for distributions of power. The more mana you could find to tap, the more taboo you could avoid, the better. However, power is an invisible mystery. It erupts out of nature in storms, volcanoes, meteors, in springtime and newborn babies; and it returns into nature as ashes, winter, and death. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

The only way we know is it there is to see it in action. And so the idea of mana, or special power erupting from the realm of the invisible and the supernatural, can only by spotted in the usual, the surpassing, the excellent, that which transcends what is necessary or expected. From the very beginning, the child experiences the awesomeness of life and one’s problems of survival and well-being in other people; and so persons comes to be the most intimate place where one looks to be delighted by the specialness of mysterious life, or where one fears to be overwhelmed by powers that one cannot understand or cope with. It is natural, then, that the most immediate place to look for the eruptions of special power is in the activities and qualities of persons; and so, as we saw, eminence in hunting, extra skill and strength, and special fearlessness in warfare right away marked those who were thought to have an extra charge of power or mana. They earned respect and special privileges and had to be handled gently because they were both an asset and a danger: in their very persons they were an open fount between two Worlds, the visible and invisible, and power passed through them as through an electric circuit. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Now, I do not hesitate frankly and sincerely to confess to you that this real and genuine discord seems to me to carry with it the inevitable bankruptcy of natural religion naively and simply taken. There were times when Leibnitzes with their heads buried in monstrous wig could compose Theodicies, and when stall-fed officials of an established church could prove by the valves in the heart and the round ligament of the hip-joint the existence of a “Moral and Intelligent Contriver of the World.” However, those times are past; and we of the twenty first century, with our evolutionary theories and our mechanical philosophies, already know nature too impartially and too well to worship unreservedly any God of whose character one can be an adequate expression. Truly, all we know of good and duty proceeds from nature; but none the less so all we know of evil. Visible nature is all plasticity and indifferences,–a moral multiverse, as one might call it, and not a moral Universe. To such a harlot we own no allegiance; with one as a whole we can establish no moral communion; and we are free in our dealing with one several parts to obey or destroy, and to follow no law but that of the prudence in coming to terms with such of one particular features as will help us to our private ends. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

If there be a divine Spirit of the Universe, nature, such as we know her, cannot possibly be its ultimate word to beings. Either there is no Spirit revealed in nature, or else it is inadequately revealed there; and (as all the higher religions have assumed) what we call visible nature, or this World, must be but a veil and surface-show whose full meaning resides in a supplementary unseen or other World. I cannot help, therefore, accounting it on the whole a gain (though it may seem for certain poetic constitutions a very sad loss) that the naturalistic superstition, the worship of the God of nature, simply taken as such, should have begun to loosen its hold upon the educated mind. In fact, if I am to express my personal unreservedly, I should say (in spite of its sounding blasphemous at first to certain ears) that the initial step towards getting into healthy ultimate relations with the Universe is the act of rebellion against the idea that such a God exists. Such a rebellion essentially, like a coward, dost thou forever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trembling? Despicable biped! Hast thou not a heart; canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee? Let it come, then; I will meet it and defy it! And as I so thought, there rushed like a stream of fire over my whole soul; and I shook base fear away from me forever. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

Thus had the Everlasting No pealed authoritatively through all the recesses of my being, of my Me; and then was it that my whole Me stood up, in native God-created majesty, and recorded its Protest. Such a Protest, the most important transaction in life, may that same Indignation and Defiance, in a psychological point of view, be fitly called. The Everlasting No has said: “Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine;” to which my whole Me now made answer: “I am not thine, but Free, and forever hate thee!” From that hour I began to be a man. Who is most wretched in this dolorous place? I think myself; yet I would rather be my miserable self than He, than He who formed such creatures to his own disgrace. The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou from whom it had its being, God and Lord! Creator of all woe and sin! Abhorred, malignant and implacable! I vow that not for all Thy power furled and unfurled, for all the temples to Thy glory built, would I assume the ignominious guilt of having made such beings in such a World. There is no democratic equality here. If such a being speaks, others are entitled only to whisper! There never yet has been a time, however thinned out their ranks may be, when those who know have faded out from this World—and there never will be such a time. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

For it is an inexorable duty laid upon them to hand down to us from the light to posterity. And thus a chain of teacher and taught has been flung down to us from the dimmest epochs of antiquity right into this noisy, muddled twenty first century of ours. Through such illumined beings there has been constant expression of truth, and through this individual expression it has been able to survive socially. Those who are out of centre, eccentric and different from others because they are unbalanced mentally and uncontrolled emotionally, will not heed what conventional society demands from them. However, there exists a second group of persons who are likewise different and heedless of conventions, although often in other ways. This group is what it is by reason of its being a pioneer one which has advanced farther along the road of evolution than the herd behind. From it are drawn the great reformers and their followers, those who stand firmly by moral principle and factual truth. It is they who try to lift up society and put right its abuses and cruelties, its wrongs and superstitions. They are daring champions who do not stop to count the cost of their service but, enduring ridicule, persecution, or even crucifixion, go ahead unfalteringly where others draw back. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

Whoever will take the trouble to search for them, as I once did, may find that several records have been left behind for posterity by beings who successfully penetrated to the inside of Truth and made themselves at home there. The lands in which they lived were wide apart and included continents all over the globe. For such beings Truth was not a theory but a living experience. There has not yet manifested itself one outstanding personality who merges the simple mystic in the wise sage, who speaks the mind of truth for our time, and who is willing to enlighten or lead us without reference to local or traditional beliefs. Such a being will certainly be heard; one may even be heeded. If the fullest degree of perfection seems so far off as to depress one, the first degree is often so near that it should cheer one. Few imagine their capacity extends to such a lofty attainment and so few seek it. Most of those who engage on this quest have a modest desire—to get somewhere along the way where they have more control over their mind and life than their unsatisfactory present condition affords. If one knew at the beginning that it was so far and so long, and so troubled a journey, would one have embarked on a quest at all? That depends on the nature of the being oneself, on the nature of one’s impelling motive, and on the strength behind it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

The attitude of greediness, with all its variations and subsequent inhibitions, is called an oral attitude and as such has been well described in analytical literature. While the theoretical preconceptions underlying this terminology have been valuable, in so far as they have permitted the integration of hitherto isolated trends into syndromes, the preconception that all these trends originate in oral sensations and wishes is dubitable. It is based on the valid observation that greediness frequently finds its expression in demands for food and in manners of eating, as well as in dreams, which may express the same tendencies in a more primitive way, as for example in cannibalistic dreams. These phenomena do not prove, however, that we have here to do with originally and essentially oral desires. It seems therefore a more tenable assumption that as a rule eating is merely the most accessible means of satisfying the feeling of greediness, whatever its source, just as in dreams eating is the most concrete and primitive symbol for expressing insatiable desires. The assumption that the oral desires or attitudes are libidinal in character also needs substantiation. There is no doubt that an attitude of greediness may appear in the sphere of pleasures of the flesh, in actual instability of pleasures of the flesh as well as in dreams that identify pleasures of the flesh with swallowing or biting. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

However, it appears just as well in acquisitiveness concerning money or clothes, or in the pursuit of ambition and prestige. All that can be said in favor of the libidinal assumption is that the passionate intensity of greediness is similar to that of drives in the pleasures of the flesh. Unless one assumes, however, that every passionate drive is libidinal, it still remains necessary to prove that greediness as such is a pleasure of the flesh—pregenital—drive. The problem of greediness is complex and still unsolved. Like compulsiveness it is definitely promoted by anxiety. The fact that greediness is conditioned by anxiety may be fairly evident, as is frequently the case, for example, in excessive masturbation or excessive eating. The connection between the two may also be shown by the fact that greediness may diminish or vanish as soon as the person feels reassured in some way: feeling loved, having a success, doing constructive work. A feeling of being loved, for instance, may suddenly reduce the strength of a compulsive wish to buy. A girl who had been looking forward to each meal with undisguised greediness forgot hunger and mealtime altogether as soon as she started designing dresses, an occupation which she greatly enjoyed. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

On the other hand, greediness may appear or become reinforced as soon as hostility or anxiety is heightened; a person may feel compelled to go shopping before a dreaded performance, or compelled to eat greedily after feeling rejected. There are many persons, however, who have anxiety and yet do not develop greediness, a fact which indicates that there are still some special factors involved. Of these factors all that can be said with a fair degree of certainty is that greedy persons distrust their capacity to create anything of their own, and thus have to rely on the outside World for the fulfillment of the needs; but they believe that no one is willing to grant them anything. Those neurotic persons who are insatiable in their need for affection usually show the same greediness in reference to material things, such as sacrifices of time or money, factual advice in concrete situations, factual help in difficulties, presents, information, and gratifications of pleasures of the flesh. In some cases these desires definitely reveal a wish for proofs of affection; in others, however, that explanation is not convincing. In the latter case one has the impression that the neurotic person merely wants to get something, affection or no affection, and that a craving for affection, if present at all, is only a camouflage for the extortion of certain tangible favors or profits. “Peace, peace by unto you, because of your faith in my Well Beloved, who was from the foundation of the World,” Helaman 5.47. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH

Rancho Cordova, California in United States of America | GRAND OPENING!

Now Selling!

Brighton Station at Cresleigh Ranch is Cresleigh Home’s newest solar home community in Rancho Cordova. Offering four distinct floorplans with unique exterior elevations, homeowners will have their choice of both single and two-story layouts ranging from three to five bedrooms.

Located off Douglas Road and Rancho Cordova Parkway, the residents of Cresleigh Ranch will enjoy, being just minutes from shopping, dining, and entertainment, and quick access to Highway 50 and Grant Line Road providing a direct route into Folsom. Residents here also benefit from no Home Owner Association (HOA) fees, two community parks and the benefits of being a part of the highly-rated Elk Grove Unified School District.

https://cresleigh.com/brighton-station/

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!

September 21, 2019 1:57 am

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

Only a Being Who Has Overcome the Lower Nature Oneself May Help Others to Overcome it in their Turn!

September 20, 2019 12:49 am

Ah, but you have worked it all so well. It was easier for you in old Rome, was it not? However, what a palace you have here. There are kings who would envy you. Master, long years ago, or so they seem to me, in some far-away place, where I lived before I came to you, I was what they called a Fool for God. I do not remember it clearly and never will as both of us well know. But a Fool for God was a man who gave himself over to God completely and did not care what happened, whether it was mockery, or starvation, or endless laughter, or dreadful cold. That much I remember, that I was a Fool for God in those times. Whatever I did I was a Fool for God. A Fool for God in some miserable monastery painting the sacred pictures, convinced my life would mean nothing unless it was a life of sacrifice and pain. And now, in your magic I see some similar burning purity. And I turned away from all the riches of life in Venice for that burning purity; I turned away from all that a human may have. “When I look at thy Heavens, the work of thy fingers, the Moon and the Stars which thou hast dost care for him? Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet,” Psalms 8.3-6. Sometime ago representative of the World of science demanded a new line of research. They called it a “science of survival.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 17

The science of survival did not mean the survival of individuals or social groups, of nations or of races—that would not be new—but the survival of civilized humankind, or of humankind as a whole, or even life altogether on the surface of this planet. Such a proposition is a sign that we have reached a stage of human history that has only one analogy in the past, the story of the “Great Flood,” found in the Old Testament and also among the myths and legends of many nations. The only difference between our situation and that of the Flood is that in these stories the gods or God brings about the destruction of life on Earth because beings have aroused divine anger. As the book of Genesis describes it: “The Lord was sorry that he had made humans on Earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man, whom I have created, from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” In the next verse, the story answers the questions of possible survival—“But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Through him, we read, not only man but also a pair of each species of animal was to make possible the survival of life upon Earth. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17

Today, the destruction and survival of life have been given into the hands of beings—men and women and children. Beings who have dominion over all things, according to the psalm, has the power to save or destroy them, for they are little less than God. How do beings react to this new situation? How do we react? How should we react? “The Earth and we” has ceased to be merely a subject for human curiosity, artistic imagination, scientific study, or technical conquest. It has become a question of profound human concern and tormenting anxiety. We make desperate attempts to escape its seriousness. However, when we look deep into the minds of our contemporaries, especially those of the younger generation, we discover a dread that permeates their whole being. This dread was absent a few decades ago and is hard to describe. It is the sense of living under a continuous threat; and although it may have many causes, the greatest of these is the imminent danger of a universal and total catastrophe. Their reaction to this feeling is marked either by a passionate longing for security in daily life, or an exaggerated show of boldness and confidence in being, based on one’s conquest of Earthly and trans-Earthly space. Most of us experience some of these contradictory reactions in ourselves. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17

Our former naïve trust in the “motherly” Earth and her protective and preserving power has disappeared. It is possible that the Earth may bear us no longer. We ourselves may prevent her from doing so. No Heavenly sign, like rainbow given to Noah as a promise that there would not be a second flood, has been given to us. We have no guarantee against human-made floods, that destroy not by water but by fire and air. Such thoughts give rise to the question—what has it to say about the significance of the Earth, the scene of human history, in view of the vastness of the Universe? What about the short span of time allotted to this planet and the life upon it, as compared to the unimaginable length of rhythms of the Universe? Such questions have been rarely asked in Christian teaching and preaching. For the central themes of Christianity have been the drama of the creation and fall, of salvation and fulfillment. However, sometimes peripheral questions move suddenly into the center of a system of thought, not for any theoretical reason, but because such questions have become, for many, matters of life and death. This is the kind of movement has very often occurred in human history as well as in Christian history. And whenever it has occurred, it has changed being’s view of oneself in all respects, as it has changed the understanding of the Christian tradition on all levels. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17

It may well be that we are living in such a moment, and that being’s relation to the Earth and the Universe will, for a long time, become the point of primary concern for sensitive and thoughtful people. Should this be the case, Christianity certainly cannot withdraw into the deceptive security of its earlier questions and answers. It will be compelled forward into the more daring inroads of the human spirit, risking new unanswered questions, like those we have just asked, but at the same time pointing in the direction of the eternal, the source and goal of beings and this World. For a moment, let us imagine what thinking must have been like for the first people who were aware that they were aware. Science cannot explain why the World makes scientific sense. It cannot explain why we are here, or, now that we are here, what we should do about it. The first people had no words to describe the World they were experiencing. Because we think in symbols, it is difficult for us to imagine what those early people, who had no symbols, thought, but we can try. The first aware people began to collect information about the World. They saw a large, bright object move across the Sky. It has a profound effect upon their bodies. While it was there, they felt warm, and they could see. In its absence, the World became dark and cold. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17

As it passed, those first human beings saw the trees drop their leaves and die. Then, magically, the trees came back to life in brilliant colors and alluring smells. Finally, those trees produced an object that was good to eat. Then the trees appeared to die, only to return to give birth again and again. Try to imagine how awed early people must have been by these simple events. The first humans were becoming aware. However, they had no word-symbols to express that awareness in thought or speech. Then perhaps one day two human beings both made a similar sound while grabbing for the same apple. They walked on apart, but perhaps one of these people heard yet another person make the same sound, and, magically, the picture of the apple appeared in the mind of this early human being. It was probably through random events such as this that people began the process of naming object and understanding their World. Many primitive people probably believed that everything was controlled by some sort of spirit. If there was a storm, the reason must be that the gods were angry. People also assumed that forces or spirits controlled all their behavior. Our predicament has been brought about chiefly by the scientific and technical development of our century. It is as foolish as it is futile to complain of this development. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17

There it is possessed before us—a realm created by humans quite beyond the realm that was given one by nature when one first emerged from earlier forms of life. There it is, changing our lives and thoughts and feelings in all dimensions, consciously, and even more, unconsciously. Today’s students are not what students of the preceding generations were. Today’s hopes and anxieties are strange and often unintelligible to the older among us. And if we compare our two generations with any in earlier centuries, the distance separating us from them becomes really immense. Since this sudden thrust forward has been brought about by science and its application, must not science itself have the last word about beings, their Earth and the Universe? What can religion add? Indeed, has not religion, whenever it did try to explore these subjects, interfered with scientific development, and therefore been pushed aside? This certainly happened in the past, and is happening again today. However, it is not religion in itself that interferes; it is the anxiety and fanaticism of religious people—laymen as well as theologians—marked by a flight from serious thought and an unwillingness to distinguish the figurative language of religion from the abstract concepts of scholarly research. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17

In many sections of the Christian World, however, such distortions and misuse of religion have been overcome. Here one can speak freely of a being and their Earth in the name of religion, with no intention of adding anything to scientific and historical knowledge, or of prohibiting any scientific hypothesis, however bold. We imagine that the thought of the Sage is too far behind us; we left all that when we left the primitive and medieval ages. The philosophic quest is apparently something quite obnoxious to the modern matter-of-fact spirit. The reality is that thought of the Sage is too far ahead of us, and leaves the plain being panting. The Masters exist, not as a special community in far-off Rocklin Trails, but as scattered individuals in different parts of the World. They have their strange powers and enigmatic secrets, but these are not the theatrical and sensational things that imaginative occultists would have us believe. The spiritually stronger a being becomes, the less one needs to lean on other beings. Consequently advanced mystics have little or no need of joining any society, fraternity, or community. All talk of the adepts and masters themselves being members of such associations, living together in a Cresleigh Home in Rocklin Trails or elsewhere, is possible, but no one really knows. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17

It is an invisible spiritual order to which they belong, one which needs no visible organization because that could never express it but only limit its universality and falsify its insights. There is an aristocracy of time in a truer sense than that which we in the West usually give the word. It is formed from the aristocrats of the mind; a superior caste of men and women which was founded hundreds of thousands of years before our first European noble was given his accolade. Their breeding is not based on fleeting codes, but on the eternal laws of life. What is ethical to meaner mortals is aesthetical to them. I sought to tack down the truth about the Taltos, to determine whether they were pure myth or whether they were human beings. Here was a subject engulfed in superstition, misinformation, and wishful thinking—not only in the distant West but also in it own Old World homelands. After I discovered it, I then discovered that people did not know the most elementary facts about Taltos but preferred, in their mental picture, either to deprive them of all humanity or to turn them into overly sentimental all-too-human creatures. Some successful breeding occurred and the offspring gave rise both to ‘little people’ and Taltos with human genes of the Taltos. And centuries passed, all this became a matter of superstition and legend. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17

There were terrible wars and massacres and unspeakable bloodshed. The Taltos, being far less aggressive than human, lost out to the new species. The Taltos tend in their natural state to be extremely naïve and childlike. They are telepathic, curious by nature and hardwired with a tremendous amount of basic historical and intellectual knowledge. It is born knowing, as the say, all about the species itself, the island continent from which they came, and the place in the British Isles to which they migrated after the island was destroyed by the same volcano that created it. The rarity of such beings among us shows what anyone can quickly see—that their attainment is hard to realize. However, it also shows that most of them do not return to this Earth again. They pass on. However, the tradition is that they do not pass without initiating one other person at least. Such men and women are indeed the spiritual vanguard of the human race. In one sense, one is the loneliest of beings, for one rarely meets with others of one’s kind inhabiting the plant. However, in another sense one is not, for the extent and depth of the affection which one receives are out of the ordinary. Such beings are so few, their worth to society so great, the darkness around us gathering so thickly, that their presence among us is the greatest blessing. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17

According to our traditions the history of the World does not contain any period where there were not beings who had realized their higher nature. However, they were very very few. Is there anyone among those you know today, as well as all those you have known in the past, to whom you can point as a fully enlightened beings, as one conscious of one’s Overself? Your answer will reveal how rare this attainment is. The succession of saviours has existed as long as the human race itself as existed. The infinite power which shepherds its evolution can always be trusted to send these illumined beings as and when its own laws and human needs call for them. Beings who have entered into the fill glory of spiritual illumination, who have realized to the utmost their diviner possibilities, are rare in any age, rarer still in our own materialistic one. This deep union with the Overself occurs in the greatest secrecy. Nobody else knows what has happened to the being, much less understands. Nor will one let anyone know. Except in the case of a prophet sent on a public mission to humankind, people will have to discover it for themselves. The greater the being, the more one shriks from being made a show. The race of sages is nearly dead. There may be some hiding in the monasteries of Cresleigh Homes in Rocklin Trails or in the penthouses of New York City. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17

It remains what it always was—a very small inconspicuous minority although some individuals among it, gifted with talent or singled out by destiny, have become personally conspicuous at times. Where are they do few, these sages, these serene and urbane self-realized ones? Nature works very hard and only attains her aim once in a multitude of throws. In humankind is she created one sage in a human million people, she may well be contended. It is indeed difficult to find beings whose lives are thus touched with Truth. They stand supreme but solitary in the mystic battlefield of life, but when they enter the public arena the World becomes aware that a star of unwonted brilliance is blazing it its firmament. There was either a longer past or a loftier planet than our own behind these great masters. It is true that most people believe that they cannot like the sages or live like the saints and that it is useless to entertain any further thought about them. They look at the World around them and see the events which are taking place or read about them and they believe that this is not the kind of World with which sages and saints could cope and that therefore they have little value to us today. However, here they are not altogether right. A study of history from the earliest times will show that whenever sages and saints have appeared there were great evils in the World of their time and they were always exception figures among their peoples. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17

The memories of them have remained carefully kept and guarded by those who know the importance of right values. That importance reminds today and what these figures of eminent wisdom and holiness have to tell us about the higher laws of life and the higher nature of beings is still as true as ever it was. Creativity occurs in an act of encounter and is to be understood with this encounter as its center. I see a tree. I see it in a way no one else has ever seen it. I experience it, and no doubt have been grasped by that tree. The arching grandeur of the tree, the mothering spread, the delicate balance as the tree grips the Earth—all these and many more characteristics of the tree are absorbed into my perception and are felt throughout my nervous structure. These are part of the vision I experience. This vision involved an omission of some aspects of the scene and a greater emphasis on other aspects and the ensuing rearrangement of the whole’ but it is more than the sum of all these. Primarily it is vision that is now not tree, but Tree; the concrete tree I looked at is formed into the essence of tree. However, original and unrepeatable my vision is, it is still a vision of all trees triggered by my encounter with the particular one. The painting that issues out of this encounter between a human being, I, and an object of reality, the tree, are literally new, unique and original. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17

Something is born, comes into being, something that did not exist before—which is as good as a definition of creativity as we can get. Thereafter everyone who looks at the painting with intensity of awareness and lets it speak to one will see the tree with the unique powerful movement, the intimacy between the tree and the landscape, and the architectural beauty which literally did not exist in our relation with trees until I experienced and painted them. I can say without exaggeration that many have never really seen a tree until they have seen and absorbed beautiful paintings of them. Think about it, trees are alive, they have souls, they give birth, grow and die. And to deprive a tree of water and making it endure the hot Summer days is probably about as painful as branding a human with a hot comb. “And there was no inequality among them; the Lord did pour out his Spirit on all the face of the land to prepare the minds of the children of beings, or to prepare their hearts to receive the word which should be taught among them at the time of his coming—that they might night be hardened against the word, that they might not be unbelieving, and go on to destruction, but that they might receive the word with joy, and as a branch be grafted into the true vine, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord their God,” reports Alma 16.16-17. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17

We must take care not to fall into the depressing belief that this is to be attained by masters only and that we cannot attain it. It is unhelpful to put this goal on some Everest-like peak far beyond the 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 of falsity. 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 result, ought to look first to their understanding of the Quest and correct it, to their picture of the Goal and redraw it. The existentialists teach that both [creatureliness and godlikeness] are defining characteristics of human nature…And any philosophy which leaves out either cannot be considered to be comprehensive. 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 no failures at all; that so large a project to change human nature and human consciousness cannot be finished in a little time. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17

B.F. Skinner’s experiments are not concerned with the goals of the conditioning. The animal or the human subject is conditioned to behave in a certain way. What one is conditioned to is determined by the decision of the experimenter who sets the foals for the conditioning. Usually the experimenter in these laboratory situations is not interested in what he or she is condition an animal or human subject for, but rather in the fact that one can condition them to the goal of one’s choice, and in how one can do it best. However, serious problems arise when we turn from the laboratory to realistic living, to individual or social life. In this case the paramount questions are: to what are people being conditioned, and who determines these goals? In seems that when Skinner speaks of culture, he still has his laboratory in mind, where the psychologist who proceeds without value judgments can easily do so because the goal of the conditioning hardly matters. At least, that is perhaps one explanation why Skinner does not come to grips with the issue of goals and values. For example, he writes, “We admire people who behave in original or exceptional ways, not because such behavior is itself admirable, but because we do not know how to encourage original or exceptional behavior in any other way.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 17

This is nothing but circuitous reasoning: we admire originality because we can condition it only by admiring it. But why we do we want to condition it if it is not a desirable goal in itself? The degree of originality and creativity that is desirable in various classes and occupational groups in a given society varies. Scientists and top managers, for instance, need to have a great deal of these qualities in a technological-bureaucratic society like ours. For blue-collar workers to have the same degree of creativity would be a luxury—or a threat to the smooth functioning of the whole system. I do not believe that this analysis is a sufficient answer to the problem of the value of originality and creativity. There is a great deal of psychological evidence that striving for creativeness and originality are deeply rooted impulses in beings, and there are some neurophysiological evidence for the assumption that the striving for creativity and originality is built in the system of the brain. It may be that such beings are vanishing from the World scene, that their successors today are second and third rate, possessors of a shallower enlightenment and a narrow perception. These beings are not just abnormal variations of the human species but glorious harbingers of its future development when its own times arrives. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17

FIND YOUR NEW CRESLEIGH HOME

The Great Mystery Remains Where it Always Has Been—Untouched by Being’s Feelings and Undefined by One’s Thoughts!

September 19, 2019 2:12 am

And once again, I saw a clear image of the boy lying on a stone floor. And I heard the boy’s prayers: “Deliver me.” And I saw the Face of Christ in gleaming egg tempera. I saw the jewels set into the halo. I saw the egg and pigment mixing. “Deliver me.” “Can’t you understand me?” I asked. “I told you what I wanted. I want that boy, the one who won’t do wat you try to force him to do.” Heaven had cast down upon this stone floor an abandoned angel, of auburn curls and perfectly formed limbs, of fair and mysterious face. I reached down to take him by the arms and I lifted him, and I looked into his half-opened eyes. His soft reddish hair was loose and tangled. His flesh was pale and the bones of his face only faintly sharpened by his Slavic blood. “Amadeo,” I said, the name springing to my lips as though the angels willed it, the very angels whom he resembled in his purity and in his seeming innocence, starved as he was. It is perhaps an irony of history that one of the very first and most influential tracts of modern revolutionaries, a tract that gave the antistatists their clarion call to end the abuses of expropriation and inequality, itself rests on the personal, psychological reasons for the very first step in the origin of inequality. Social imbalances occur because of differences in personal merit and the recognition of that merit by others. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

Social inequality was relatively absent on primitive levels because property was comparatively absent. In the most egalitarian primitive societies, those whose economy is based on hunting and gathering, there is no distinction of rank, little or no authority of one individual over another. Possessions are simple and there is no real difference in wealth; property is distributed equally. Yet even on this level individual differences are recognized and already make for real social differentiation. If there is little or no authority to coerce others, there is much room for influence, and influence always stems from personal qualities: extra skill in hunting and warfare, in dealing with spirits in the invisible World, or simply physical strength and endurance. Being a senior citizen can often have an influence. If a person has outlived others, especially when so many die prematurely, one is often thought to have special powers. Skilled hunters and warriors could actually display these special powers in the form of trophies and ornamental badges of merit. The scalps of the slain enemies and teeth, feathers, and other ornaments were often loaded with magical power and served as protection. If a being wore a large number of trophies and badges showing how much power one had and how great were one’s exploits, one became a great mana figure who literally struck terror into the heats of one’s enemies. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

Today, many people use the media and their political authority to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies, or the general public. The conspiratorial theory is particularly appealing to individuals who have feelings of powerlessness and normlessness because it accounts for the absence of power and the lowering of values in a simple and easily understood fashion. The individual who projects sees one’s self as powerless because sinister forces have successfully conspired to destroy the traditional political rules in such a way that one is excluded from exercising one’s rights. This kind of thinking frequently occurs when political and social antagonisms are sharp. Certain audiences are especially susceptible to it—particularly, those who have obtained a low level of education, whose access to information is poor, and who are so completely shut out from access to the centers of power that they feel deprived of self-defense and subjected to unlimited manipulation by those who wield power. In primitive culture, the elaborate decorations of the warrior and hunter were not aimed to make one beautiful, but to show off one’s skill and courage and so inspired fear and respect. This gave one automatic social distinction; by wearing the tokens of one’s achievements, the visible memories of one’s bravery and excellence, one could flaunt one’s superiority in the eyes of everyone who could not make similar displays. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

The Sioux could announce by certain decorations on one’s moccasins how many horses one had captured, enemies killed, whether the warrior oneself had been wounded, and so forth; similar things were conveyed by the feathers one wore and the color they were dyed. Among other tribes, war exploits entitled the warrior to mark oneself with certain scarifications and tattoos. Each warrior was literally a walking record of one’s military campaigns: the “fruit salad” on the chest of today’s military beings is a direct descendant of those public announcement of “see who I am because of where I have been and what I have done; look how accomplished I am as a death dealer and death defier.” It is of course less concrete and living than actual facial and shoulder scars or the carrying of scalps which included the forehead and eyes. However, it gives the right to the same kind of proud strutting and social honor and the typical question that the primitive warrior asks: “Who are you that you should talk? Where are your tattoo marks? Whom have you killed that you should speak to me?” These people, then, are honored and respected or feared, and this is what gives them influence and power. Not only that, it also gives them actual benefits and privileges. Remember that as children we not only deferred to the outstanding boy in the neighborhood but also gave him large chunks of our candy. Primitives who distinguished themselves by personal exploits got the thing that grown men want most—wives. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

They got these wives more easily than did others, and often, especially if they were skilled hunters, they took more than one wife. In some cases, too, a noted hunter would claim as his special hunting preserve a piece of land that was common property of the tribe. And so on. I do not intend to even try to sum up the theoretical details from the vast literature on the growth of hereditary privilege and private accumulation. Besides, there is little agreement on how exactly class society came into existence. There is general agreement on what preclass society was, but the process of transformation is shrouded in mystery. Many different factors contributed, and it is impossible to pull them apart and give them their proper weight. Also, the process would not have been uniform or unilinear—the same for all societies in all areas. If we add psychological factors to materialist ones, we must also now add ecological and demographic factors such as population density and scarcity of resources. I do not want to pop my head into the argument among authorities lest it get neatly sliced off. So I would like to sidestep the argument while still remaining focused on what is essential, which, I think must be possessed in human nature and motives. Another mechanism for deal with feelings of political alienation is identification with a charismatic leader. This is the attempt of an individual to feel powerful by incorporating within one’s self the attitudes, beliefs, and actions held by a leader whom one perceives as powerful. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

Charismatic refers to an extraordinary quality of a person regardless of whether this quality is actual, alleged, or presumed. In taking over the attributes of a charismatic leader, the individual may enter into activity one would otherwise abhor. German bourgeoisie who identified with Hitler approved of and too part in behavior their consciences would otherwise not allow them to do. Rational activism is behavior based on logical reasoning and an undistorted perception of political realities. Withdrawal may be a rational response in some situations and an irrational, affective response in other circumstances. The mechanisms of projection resulting in conspiratorial thinking and identification with a charismatic leader are irrational, affective responses. They are also regressive, in that they are more characteristic of a child’s than of an adult’s handline of a problem. When feelings of political alienation are widespread, individuals will adopt one or more of the mechanisms we have described to handle the frustration and anxiety associated with them. The political behavior or each individual will be affected by the particular mechanism or mechanisms one selects. The most sensitive students of the past 200 years would agree that rank and stratified societies came into being without anyone really noticing; it just happened, gradually and ineluctably. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

The vital question, then, it seems to me, is not exactly how it happened but why it was allowed to happen, what there was in human nature that went along so willingly with the process. The answers to this question seems to me remarkably straightforward. I have said that primitive beings recognized differences in talent and merit and already deferred to them somewhat granted them special privileges. Why? Because obviously these qualities helped to secure life, to assure the perpetuation of the tribe. Exploits in the danger of hunting and war were especially crucial. Why? Because in these activities certain individuals could single themselves out as adept at defying death; the tokens and trophies that they displayed were indications of immortality power or durability power, which is the same thing. If you identified with these persons and followed them, then you got the same immunities they had. This is the basic role and function of the hero in history: one is the one who gambles with one’s very life and successfully defies death, and beings follow one and eventually worship one’s memory because one embodies the triumph over what they fear most, extinction and death. One becomes the focus of the peculiarly human passion play of the victory over death. We can now see how fanciful the idea is that in the state of nature humans are free and only becomes unfree later on. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

Humans never were free and cannot be free from one’s own nature. One carries within one the bondage that one needs in order to continue to live. Some do not understand human nature in the round, they are not able to see that every human being is also equally unfree, that is, we are born in need of authority and we even create out of freedom, a prison. This insight is the fruit of the outcome of modern psychoanalysis. It penetrates to the heart of the human condition and to the principal dynamic of the emergence of historical inequality. We have to say that primitive religion starts the first class distinction. That is, the individual gives over the aegis of one’s own life and death to the spirit World; one is already a second-class citizen. The first class distinction, then, was between mortal and immortal, between feeble human powers and special superhuman beings. Once things started off on this footing, it was only natural that class distinction should continue to develop from this first impetus: those individuals who embodied supernatural powers, or could somehow plug into them or otherwise use them when the occasion demanded, came to have the same ability to dominate others that was associated with the spirits themselves. The anthropologist Robert Lowie was a specialist on those most egalitarian of all primitives peoples, the Plains Indian tribes. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

Even these fiercely independent Indians, he tells us, gave up their equalitarian attitudes of everyday life on raiding parties. A Crow Indian would organize a raid only when prompted by one’s supernatural guardian spirit, and so all those who followed one deferred to one and to one’s spirit. Again, the overlordship of the invisible World as embodied in certain human personages made temporary slaves of their fellows. I suggest that the awe which surrounded the protégé of supernatural powers formed the psychological basis for more complex political developments. The very same beings who flout the pretensions of a fellow-brave grovel before a darling of the gods, render him implicit and obedience and respect. We have described the forms of political alienation and the mechanisms by which they may be expressed. When political alienation is widespread, it may be a major factor in determining the outcome of an election. The astute politician is aware of this; consequently one’s strategy takes these factors into account. The election we have analyzed took place in a community where feelings of political alienation, frustration, and disillusionment with the political process are widespread. When this situation exists, the voting behavior of the electorate is less predictable than otherwise, since a decision is likely to arise from negative rather than from beneficial convictions and may change on the basis of minor issues, fleeting incidents, or gut reactions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

The analysis of the statements of the individuals we interviewed shows that they hold an image of the political structure which is similar to that developed by modern political science. They perceive the hierarchical arrangements of power and influence, and they relate various power groupings to each other. They are aware of the uses and abuses of political office; and they know that their role is not one that the grammar-school version of democratic theory taught them. They have, however, greatly exaggerated their lack of power and, perhaps, the extent of corruption. The election, after all, resulted in the downfall of the group associated with one candidate and the elevation to power of another group which probably did not believe it had a serious chance of winning. All the money that was given to the group which lost the election and all the promises that may have been made to the contributors have been to no avail, for the personnel now in power are different. The antagonisms built up during the campaign may mean that the outs are really out of City Hall in the near future. The election upset was to a large extent a response to feelings of political alienation. Senator Powers followed the time-honored rules of campaigning. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

One spent large amounts of money on advertising which portrayed one as a devoted public servant and friend of the people, shook as many hands as possible, attended numerous house parties, recounted one’s experience, contributed to charities of all faiths, was photographed with prominent religious leaders, attacked one’s opponent, and emphasized the support of the municipal, state, and national politicians; but although one may have 54 percent more votes the primary, an individual can still fail to win. This has shaken politicians’ faith in the traditional vote-getting techniques. Although there can be many more reasons why some lost elections, it is clear that one of the most important was the fact that one presented one’s self as a powerful professional politician—a serious mistake in a community where a considerable amount of political alienation exists. The alienated are not absolutely disposed toward those whom they identify as powerful. Under these circumstances, the candidate must reevaluate antiquated methods, reformulate one’s strategy, and experiment with new techniques. A number of countervailing strategies are available to one. The candidate may create a strong sense of identity with the electorate by presenting one’s self as the underrepresented in a struggle against a power elite. Whether one does this or not, one certainly should not emphasize a background of power to the massive support of other political figures who may also be associated with the powerful. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

Since an elaborate campaign is viewed as collusion with the powerful, the candidate must avoid the appearance of an opulent campaign. Of course, a candidate may appeal to regressive mechanisms of projection and identification with a charismatic leader. For instance, President Trump successfully appealed to those who tend to think in conspiratorial terms (a form of projection) via his slogan, “Stop power politics, elect a hands-free president, Make American Great Again,” and such techniques as his essay contest on a definition of “power politics.” The electorate, however, did not view Trump as a charismatic leader. He came off more like a saucy demon and holds for like a dictator with a mannish voice, which makes people fear and respect him. As a result the nation feels safe that they are being lead by someone who is not soft nor afraid to hold his ground and the economy is booming. The professional politicians may court popular esteem by throwing the support of the organization behind a clean amateur; that is, some well-know citizen who has not had contact with the politicians and therefore does not share their stigma. The stigma which is attached to the politician by the alienated is not likely to rub off on such an individual, at least during the beginning of the campaign. The difficulty with procedure, from the point of view of the organization, is that such a candidate may be unreliable. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

Therefore, it is important to grow slowly into the discovery and realization of what one really is deep, deep, inside. Coming to know it is hard enough but impregnating the moment-to-moment daily life with this knowledge is harder still. The aspirant of today may be the adept of tomorrow, but the course is interminably long, the goal reached only through innumerable experiences and efforts. After the optimists have had their say and the Advaitins have preached, the hard fact will be echoed back by experience: the goal is set so far, one’s powers so limited, that one has to call on the quality of patience and make it one’s own. So far as history tells us, full enlightenment cannot be got in the span of a single lifetimes, except among the notable few. Yet history has too many undiscovered secrets, and enlightenment is too subtle a matter to correct judgment upon. The attainment of realization of the Overself is extremely rare, and the aspirant should not expect to do so in one limited lifetime. However, since its Grace is unpredictable, no one can say that it is impossible in a particular case. If the recent scientific computation of the Earth’s age as four thousand million years be correct, we get some idea how long it take to make a human. How much longer then to make a superhuman? That which is cheaply bought is often lightly esteemed. We shall rate Truth more highly when we pay a high price for it. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

Even a lifetime is not too long a period to devote toward gaining such a great objective. What we give must be commensurate with what we want to receive. Moreover the effort required, being worthy in itself and necessary to attain the full development of adulthood, is its own reward whether there is any other or nor. Why then should anyone relax one’s efforts or fall into despair because one has been able to make only little or limited progress toward the goal? The illumination is possible for all beings because they are incarnate in human and not animal forms. However, all beings are not willing to pay its price in mental control and emotional subjugation. If the reader finds such a task too fatiguing one should remember that the reward is nothing less than enlightenment. How few are those who have realized their aspiration to merge into the higher self. How rare an event is. It is obvious from the rarity of its historic realization that this ideal was always too ice-mantled a peak of perfection to be climbable by most beings. Nevertheless we gain nothing by ignoring it, and it is at least well to know towards what goal humankind is so slowly and so unconsciously moving. This truth may seem unsympathetic to natural human feelings, far too impersonal. It is not for the multitude who demand from religions satisfaction of desires, consolation and comfort, answer to prayers. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

Thee adepts seems so immeasurably aloof from us, their attainments so superhuman, that we may well ask of what use to most beings is the offering of such a quest. One feels intuitively that there is, or ought to be, some elusive element, principle, purpose, or Deity behind all life and all Nature—but is it possible for a human being to become acquainted with IT? Such a goal may be unappealing to many, held by their attachments as they are; but it is fascinating and alluring to a few old souls, much experiences after a long series of Earthly lives, whose values have been altered, whose glamours and illusions have been eliminated. They feel like wanderers returning home. The goal set up by this teaching may seem too foolish and perhaps even too fatuous for persons who pride themselves on their reasonability and practicality. This judgement may be the result of a slight acquaintance with the subject; it could not be the result of a full and satisfactory knowledge of it. The outside observer will not be able to see what is happening to one, and to that extent will not be able to share in it. However, if the latter is associated with one in some way and is at all sensitive, one will be able secretly to affect the subconscious mind of the observer. The name “Rishee” was bestowed in ancient, as well as modern, Indian on the being who had reached the peak of spiritual knowledge; literally it means “seer.” What is it that one sees? One is a see-er of reality, and though illusion. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

People form quaint and queer notions of what constitutes an illuminate. They would divest one of all human attributes, makes one a being who never even sneezes or yawns! In one the high power manifests itself and through one it follows for the inspiring of others. If people tell 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. Jesus said that they way to eternal life is straight and narrow. One 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 standard is set too high, love for it may not be strong enough to assist its 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. “And the people began to repent of their iniquity; and inasmuch as they did the Lord did have mercy on them,” reports Ether 11.8. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

Cresleigh Homes

PSA 📢 #RocklinTrails will now be open by appointment only. Contact us via email to learn more and book an appointment. | rocklintrails@cresleigh.com

https://cresleigh.com/new-homes-in-rocklin-california-rocklin-trails/

The First Great Truth is that a Supreme Mind Minds the Universe!

September 18, 2019 12:29 am

Once again I marveled at the pure resistance of Christianity, that it seemed to feed upon disaster as it had fed upon persecution, and as it prospered during interludes of peace. I also marveled at the resilience of the old Patricians, who as I said, did not withdraw from public life, but strove to inculcate the old values as best they could. Everywhere one saw barbarians with mustaches, wearing crude trousers, their hair greasy and unkempt. Many were Arian Christians, holding different ceremonies from their “orthodox” Catholic brothers and sisters. In municipal politics another source of meaninglessness is likely to be present in the nature of the city government. In theory, and to a large extent in practice, there are no issues in a controversial sense. Indeed, in the usual textbook version, a city government is a “bundle of services.” In practice the political choices available to the administrators of a city government are severely circumscribed by economic realities and by state law. There exist only a small number of ways in which revenue can be raised and these are generally exploited to their fullest. At the same time the services which the city must maintain the standards of a going social system. Therefore the minimal facilities which a city must provide to maintain its viability tend to be not much less than the maximal facilities it can available funds. The municipal public official necessarily operates within a narrow range of alternate programs. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14

Municipal elections therefore tend to center around the inefficiency or dishonesty of the administration, not its program. Consequently, the “honesty” of the candidate is often the variable about which most information is demanded by voters who wish to make a “meaningful” decision. However, information concerning the honesty of the candidate is difficult to secure because corrupt and dishonest activities are carefully hidden from the public. It is precisely the absence of information of this problem which brings about feelings of meaninglessness. Under these circumstances an individual who feels alienated in the “meaningless” sense will tend either not to vote, to believe one’s vote makes no difference, or to make one’s decision in terms of what one believes are inadequate standards. Since relevant factors are absent, many voting decisions are based on “gut reactions”—intuitive emotional responses to the candidate’s physical appearance, voice, and personality. “Don’t like his looks,” “tough,” “ugly looking,” “smug—looks crooked,” “something about his eyes.” Feelings of political meaninglessness give rise to a low sense of confidence among many voters that their voting decision was correct: that their candidate would be a better mayor. When relevant facts are not available, voters cannot predict the future course of political action with any sense of certainty. This also contributes to feelings of powerlessness. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14

Feelings of political alienation may also be experiences in the sense of the lowering of an individual’s political ethics. This occurs when standards of political behavior are violated in order to achieve some goal. This is likely to occur when the political structure prevents the attainment of political objectives through institutionally prescribed means. An example of this would be an individual who believes that paying off a public official is illegitimate, yet does so. The fact that the individual may be reluctant to bribe a public official does not alter the fact that one is lowering one’s standards of political ethics. When individuals believe that corrupt practices are the only ways to achieve political goals and when they feel that corruption is widespread, there will be a greater tendency to resort to it. If the corruption becomes the generally accepted method of dealing with public officials, the stigma attached to it tend to disappear and the political community becomes normless, for instance, anomic. Political estrangement refers to the inability of an individual to find direct satisfactions in political activity itself, that is, gratification from fulfilling one’s obligations as a responsible citizen. Both politically active and politically inactive individuals may be politically estranged. If their activity is motivated by goals of personal monetary gain rather than a sense of their obligation as citizens, political activists are estranged. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14

Individuals who do have a sense of community responsibility are like to find other community activities, such as support of a symphony orchestra, charities, or clubs, a more rewarding way of fulfilling this obligation than being politically active. This is political estrangement. Four aspects of political alienation—powerlessness, meaninglessness, the lowering of norms, and estrangement—have been distinguished. The extent to which a particular individual is affected by any one of these forms can be related to such variables as social class, age, and religion. Separation of population according to income tends to include separation according to education and occupation as well. Data on income were obtained in this survey and will be used as a gross measure of social-class difference. The majority of the Sacramento electorate, who are elementary or high-school graduates, employed in blue-collar or white-collar jobs, and in the lower-income group, might be expected to feel alienated primarily in the sense of powerlessness. It is this group which is in fact furthest removed from the seats of political power. They have relatively little contact with the city as compared to home owners and business men and women, and when they do have contact, they lack the economic means to participate in the “business” of politics. Steinberg’s major campaign appeal was directed to those who feel powerless. His campaign slogan was “Fight Trump,” and he presented himself as leading the battle against President Trump. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14

Johnson’s prolific use of political endorsements did not hinder the image Steinberg was creating. The data collected in our survey shows that the lower-income groups switched from Johnson to Steinberg in larger proportions than did the middle- or upper-income groups. This implies that feelings of powerlessness were greater in the lower-income groups. In contrast to the lower-income groups, the upper-income groups, who have more economic power, might be expected to experience political alienation in the forms of meaninglessness, lowering of norms, and estrangement more than in the form of powerlessness. Upper-income groups have more education, which tends to develop more rigorous standards of clarity of information on which to base decisions. The data show that this group had greater interest in political programs and expressed fewer “gut reactions” than did lower-income groups. With higher standards of clarity there are likely to be stronger feelings of political meaninglessness. The upper-income groups include business men and women and property owners who necessarily have more contact with the city because they may require licenses of various kinds, tax abatements, and building inspection certificates. Since they have economic power, they are in a position to purchase special political consideration. Those who do this will experience political alienation in the form of lowering of political norms. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14

Upper-income groups include some individual with a sense of community responsibility. Because of the disjunction of their political values and the political structure, they are likely to be active in nonpolitical civic activities such as charities or service organizations. Age is another variable related to political alienation. Senior citizens, who have lived in Sacramento for many years and have observed the political structure over a long time, might be expected to show greater feelings of alienation. This age group had the largest proportion of individuals who thought that the being they supported would be no better than one’s opponent. Having observed more elections, they seem to feel more strongly that the effect of their vote makes little difference in the long run. Religion is another sociocultural variable to be considered. Since Sacramento is a strongly Catholic, Christian and Mormon city, it might be expected that Protestants and Jewish people, having less political power, would have stronger feelings of political alienation. In support of this are the facts that a smaller percentage of Protestants and Jewish people voted than did Catholics, Christians, and Mormons and that a greater portion voted for Steinberg, whose campaign was largely an appeal to the political alienated. Feelings of political alienation may be expressed through rational activism, withdrawal, projection, or identification with a charismatic leader. These are conscious or unconscious mechanisms by which an individual may handle the uncomfortable feelings of political alienation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14

Some forms of alienation lead to specific mechanisms, for example, feelings of estrangement inevitably lead to withdrawal because gratification is found only in nonpolitical activity. Other forms may result in one or more of several mechanisms, for example, feelings of powerlessness may lead to political activism or to projection and identification with a charismatic leader. Rational activism is political action based on a realistic evaluation of the political situation, the object of which is to promote a political structure consonant with political values. The frustration arising from political alienation can be a spur to rational activism; feelings of powerlessness can lead to increased political activity. Feelings of meaninglessness can lead to demands for more information rather than withdrawal or “blind” voting. And guilt, resulting from normlessness, can result in activity directed toward raising political standards. Mature individuals, who re those able to tolerate frustration and to act on their beliefs, are those most likely to handle their feelings of political alienation through rational activism. This activity may occur within existing political institutions or it may be directed toward the creation of a new set of political institutions. When individuals believe that their activity has a reasonable chance of bringing about a change, rational activism is more likely to be the response to feelings of political alienation. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14

If there is a class which has nothing to lose but its chains, the chains that bind it are self-imposed, sacred obligations which appear as objective realities with all the force of a neurotic delusion. Political withdrawal is the removal of an individual’s interest and activity from politics. This may occur as a result of a conscious rational decision based on a realistic estimate of the political situation or as an affective, unconscious response. In the latter case the anger and resentment of political alienation may be internalized within the individual rather than expressed outwardly. When the individual feels that any political effort on one’s part has little chance of producing an effect, this mechanism is more likely to occur. Although an individual may have withdrawn from political interests, one is not likely to escape entirely from politics. Municipal problems of education, traffic, housing, and taxes may affect one personally, or one may note the recurrent exposure of corruption in newspapers. Consequently, additional mechanisms of expression of political alienation are likely to be used. There may be projection, identification with a charismatic leader, or rational activism. Feelings of anger and resentment which arise from political alienation may be projected on to some other individual or group. This group is seen as participating in a hostile conspiracy. Political leaders may use this mechanism because it establishes a sense of identity between them and the voters to whom they are appealing. #RandolphHarris 8 of 14

The origin of inequality among beings! This was the question that excited thinkers of the eighteenth century as they combed the globe trying to find humanity in an uncorrupted state. From the early voyages and early anthropology they already saw that primitive society was fairly egalitarian, that compared to the civilized World of that time primitives lived what seemed an unspoiled, undriven sort of life, and one that took very little toll on the World around them. It was the same kind of World that Levi-Strauss set out to find in the Amazon a couple of centuries later and for which he wrote the same kind of epitaph as the earlier observers had: A World on the Wane. Nobody was very happy with the way history and civilization had turned out, and many thinkers of that time supposed that if the first steps in the process of the oppression of beings by beings could be pinpointed, then the decay of civilization might be arrested and even reversed. They believed that if a being could be shown how one got into one’s deplorable condition, one would make every intelligent, scientific effort to get out of it. They supposed too that there was nothing naturally evil in being’s nature that would prevent one from being able to build a new social World, once one understood the reasons for the mess one was in. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14

The great Rousseau, with his uncanny intuition of what was significant, began it all with his famous “Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men” (1755). In that essay he reasoned out how man had gradually fallen from his primitive state of innocence into the conflicts of classes and states. The whole story of the influence of Rousseau’s ideas is well known and I am not going to repeat it here. All I want to do is to remind the reader that Rousseau failed to bring about what he hoped for, and so too did the whole tradition which followed him; and I want to sum up why it failed. The Marxist tradition seized on Rousseau’s work because it was exactly what the Marxists needed: the accusation that the state acted tyrannically to hold beings in bondage, deprived them of the fruits of their labors, and distributed these fruits mostly among the elite. They attempted to remind society of a being’s concern for one’s fellows before the exploitation began and said that once a being understood that one had the right to enjoy the fruits of meaningful labor, one would rise up and break the shackles which enslaved one. This was the message of the great Manifesto, the authority for the massive revolutions of this century. However, the great disillusionment of our time is that none of this has led to the liberation of beings. Masses of people are still being treated like masses instead of persons, still being sent off like puppets to war, and still slaving all day for purposes they did not fashion or control. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14

In a word, the great revolutions of our time, directed against the state as a structure of domination, have not led to the disappearance of the state, and so they have not led to human equality and freedom. What went wrong? Obviously something with the plans on the original drawing board; Rousseau’s answer to the question posed by the Academy of Dijon was not compete or was beside the mark. We have had to conclude that the question of the origin of inequality among beings was not answered by the Marxist tradition. This great historical realization is what prompted the work of the leading school of sociology of our time—the Frankfurt school—a work dedicated to going beyond Marx to a new synthesis: a merger of the materialist and psychological levels of explanation, “the union of Marx and Freud.” If it is not only power and coercion that enslaved beings, then there must be something in one’s nature that contributes to one’s downfall; since this is so, the state is not human’s first and only enemy, but one one’s self harbors an “enemy within.” We are here at one of the ultimate crossroads in social theory….If the cause of the trouble were force, to “expropriate the expropriators” would be enough. However, if force did not establish the domination of the master, then perhaps the slave is somehow in love with one’s own chains…a deeper psychological malady. The first person who, having fenced off a plot of ground, took it into one’s head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe one, was the true founder of society. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14

In other words, primitive equality was ended by private property, which led to the differential personal ownership of wealth. However, the point is the person did not take the land by force, but rather because of something in the minds of those around one. In Rousseau’s theory of inequality, wealth is at the last stage and personal qualities at the first stage: it is personal qualities that give rise to distinctions of rank and power, and wealth is the last to which they are reduced in the end. Personal qualities are the only ones which could attract consideration: The one who sang and danced the best, the handsomest, the strongest, the most adroit, or the most eloquent became the most highly considered and that was the first step toward inequality. Our sacred boos and traditions tell us of one God who made Heaven and Earth, and, looking on them, saw that they were good. Yet, on more intimate acquaintance, the visible surfaces of Heaven and Earth refuse to be brought by us into any intelligible unity at all. Every phenomenon that we would praise there exists cheek by jowl with some contrary phenomenon that cancels all its religious effect upon the mind. Beauty and hideousness, love and cruelty, life and death keep house together in indissoluble partnership; and there gradually steals over us, instead of the old warm notion of a man-loving Deity, that of an awful power that neither hates nor loves, but rolls all things together meaninglessly to a common doom. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14

This is an uncanny, a sinister, a nightmare view of life, and its peculiar unheimlichkeit, or poisonousness, likes expressly in in our holding two things together which cannot possibly agree,–in our clinging, on the one hand, to the demand that there shall be a living spirit of the whole; and, on the other, to the belief that there shall be a living spirit of the whole; and, on the other, to the belief that the course of nature must be such a spirit’s adequate manifestation and expression. It is in the contradiction between the supposed being of a spirit that encompasses and owns us, and wit which we ought to have some communion, and the character of such a spirit as revealed by the visible World’s course, that this particular death-in-life paradox and this melancholy-breeding puzzle reside. Carlyle expressed the result in that chapter of his immortal ‘Sartor Resartus’ entitled ‘The Everlasting No.’ “I lived, writes poor Teufelsdrockh, “in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive of I knew not what: it seemed as if all things in the Heavens and the Earth were but boundless jaws of a devouring monster, wherein I, palpitating, lay waiting to be devoured.” This is the first state of speculative melancholy. No brute can have this sort of melancholy; no being who is irreligious can becomes it prey. It is not the sick shudder of the frustrated religious demand, and not the mere necessary outcome of animal experience. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14

Teufelsdrockh himself could have made shift to face the general chaos and bedevilment of this World’s experiences very well, were he not the victim of an originally unlimited trust and affection toward them. If he might meet them piecemeal, with no suspicion of any whole expressing itself in them, shunning the bitter parts and husbanding the sweet ones, as the occasion served, and as the day was foul or fair, he could have zigzagged toward an easy end, and felt no obligation to make the air vocal with his lamentations. The mood of levity, of ‘I don’t care,’ is for this World’s ills a sovereign and practical anaesthetic. However, no! something deep down in Teufelsdrockh and in the rest of us tells us that there is a Spirit in things to which we own allegiance, and for whose sake we must keep up the serious mood. And so the inner fever and discord also are kept up; for nature taken on her visible surface reveals no such Spirit, and beyond the facts of nature are at the present stage of our inquiry not supposing ourselves to look. The Art of Self-Revelation is no tea-table philosophy, shaped and polished to beguile the tedium of the idle. Not many have attempted this path and fewer have completed it. For few find going easy. The fleshly World with its snares waits for us all, and the escape is only for the starred ones. “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength,” reports Nehemiah 8.10. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14

These Little Treasures—Your Family, Your Heritage, Your Cresleigh Homes Matter to Us Because they Matter to You!

August 29, 2019 12:46 am

God willed it. God willed that all edifices should crumble, all texts be stolen or burnt, all eyewitnesses to mystery be destroyed. Think on it. Think. Time has plowed under all those words written in the hand of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and Paul. Where is there one parchment scroll left which bears the signature of Aristotle? And Plato, would that we have one scrap he threw into the fire when feverishly working? It is the way of God, the way of His creation. Even what is writ in stone is washed away by time, and cities lie beneath the fire and ash of roaring mountains. I meant to say the Earth eats all. Modern beings have long since abandoned the ritual renewal theory of nature, and reality for us is simply refusing to acknowledge that evil and death are constantly with us. With medical science we want to banish death, and so we deny it a place in our consciousness. We are shocked by the vulgarity of symbols of death and the devil and pleasures of the flesh in primitive ruins. However, if your theory is to control by representation and imitation, then you have to include all sides of life, not only the side that makes you comfortable or that seems purest. There are two words which sum up very nicely what the primitive was up to with their social representation of nature: “microcosmization” and “macrocosmization.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

Although microcosmization and macrocosmization sound technically forbidding, they express quite simple complementary maneuvers. In macrocomization beings simply takes oneself or parts of oneself and blows them up to cosmic importance. Thus the popular ancient pastime of entrail reading or liver reading: it was thought that the fate of the individual, or a whole army or a country, could be discerned in the liver, which was conceived as a small-scale cosmos. The ancient Hindus, among others, looked at every part of a being as having a correspondence in the macrocosm: the head corresponded to the Sky, the Eye to the Sun, the breath to the Wind, the legs to the Earth, and so on. With the Universe reflected in one’s very body, the Hindu thus thought one’s life has the order of the cosmos. Microcosmization of the Heavens is merely a reverse, complementary movement. Beings humanizes the cosmos by projecting all imaginable Earthly things onto the Heavens, in this way again intertwining one’s own destiny with the immortal stars. So, for example, animals were projected onto the sky, star formations were given animal shapes, and the zodiac was conceived. By being’s transferring animals to Heaven all human concerns took on a timelessness and a superhuman validity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

The immortal stars came to preside over human destiny, and the fragile and ephemeral animal called human blew oneself up to superhuman size by making oneself the center of things. Campsites and buildings were all laid out according to some kind of astronomical plan which intertwined human space with the immortal spheres. The place where the tribe lived was conceived as the navel of the Universe where all creative powers poured forth. By means of micro- and macrocosmization beings humanized the Heavens and spiritualized the Earth and so melted sky and Earth together in an inextricable unity. By opposing culture to nature in these ways, beings allotted to oneself a special spiritual destiny, one that enabled one to transcend one’s animal condition and assume a special status in nature. No longer was one an animal who died and vanished from the Earth; one was a creator of life who could also give eternal life to oneself by means of communal rituals of cosmic regeneration. The central problem of primitive beings was overcoming death. They were trying to become immortal beings, but the stars are immortal because they live longer, much longer than humans, yet they are not eternal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

Eternal beings, such as God and his Angels and eternal places like Heaven never cease. Whereas immortality can come to an end, but things that are eternal cannot be destroyed. And so we have come full circle in our overview of the primitive World. We started with the statement that primitive beings used the dual organization to affirm one’s organismic self-feeling, and one of their principal means was the setting up of society in the form of organized rivalry. Now we can conclude that one in fact set up the whole cosmos in a way that allows one to expand symbolically and to enjoy the highest organismic creature all the way up to the stars. The Egyptians hoped that when they died they would ascend to Heaven and become stars and thus enjoy eternal significance in the scheme of things. This is already a comedown from what primitive social groupings enjoyed: the daily living of divine significance, the constant meddling into the realm of cosmic power. Primitive society was organized for contests and games, but these were not games as we now think of them. They were games as children play them: they actually aimed to control nature, to make things come out as they wanted them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

Ritual contest between moieties were a play of life against death, forces of light against forces of darkness. One side tried to thwart the ritual activities of the other and defeat it. However, of course the aide of life always contrived to win because by this victory primitive beings kept nature going in the grooves one needed and wanted. If death and disease were overtaking a people, then a ritually enacted reversal of death by a triumph of the life faction would, hopefully, set things right again. At the center of the primitive technics of nature stand the act of sacrifice, which reveals the essence of the whole science of ritual; in a way we might see it as the atomic physics of the primitive World view. The sacrificer goes through the motions of performing in miniature the kind of arrangement of nature that one wants. One may use water, clay, and fire to represent the sea, Earth, and Sun, and one proceeds to set up the creation of the World. If one does things exactly as prescribed, as the gods did them in the beginning of time, then one gets control over the Earth and creation. One can put vigor into animals, like into females, and even arrange the order of society into castes, and in the Hindu ritual. In the Hindu ritual and in coronation rituals, this is the point at which the contest came in. In order to control nature, beings must drive away evil—sickness and death. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

And so one must overcome demons and hostile forces. If one makes a slip in the ritual, it gives power to the demons. That is why Mormons say no premarital pleasures of the flesh, no pornography, no cursing, no drinking alcohol, no smoking, no using drugs, no nightclubs, no sinning. The ritual triumph is thus the winning of a contest with evil. When kings were to be crowned they had to prove their merit by winning out against the forces of evil; dice and chess probably had their origin as the way of deciding whether the kind really could outwit and defeat the forces of darkness. People in the New World did not understand this kind of technics and so many ridiculed it. Archaic beings believed that they could put vigor into the World by means of a ceremony, that they could create an island, an abundance of creatures, keep the Sun on its course, and so forth. The whole thing seemed ridiculous to many in the New World because they look only at the surface of it and do not see the logic behind it, the forces that were really at work according to the primitive’s understanding of them. The key idea underlying the whole thing is that as the sacrifice manipulates the altar and the victim, one becomes identified with them—not with them as things, but with the essences behind them, their invisible connection to the World of the gods and spirits, to the very insides of nature. And this too is logical. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

The primitive beings had a conceptualization of the insides of nature just as we do in our atomic theory. One saw that things were animated by invisible forces, that the Sun’s heat worked at a distance and pervaded the things of the Earth, that seeds germinated out of the invisible as did children, and so forth. All one wanted to do, with the technique of sacrifice, was to take possession of these invisible forces and use them for the benefit of the community. Even though North Korea currently may be building a submarine capable of launching nuclear missiles, primitive beings had no need for missile launchers and atomic reactors; sacrificial altars mounds served one’s purposes well. In a word, the act of sacrifice established a footing in the invisible dimension of reality; this permitted the sacrificer to build a divine body, a mystical, essential self that had superhuman powers. And perhaps this was possible of our ancestors, some thought Veronica’s Veil could not have been created by human hands. People believed in Faustian Body Switching. Perhaps this idea of primitive beings having superhuman powers is why Victorian houses were so creative and ornate, they were thought to have spiritual powers and represent a spiritual nexus. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

However, if in modern times we think this is so foreign to our own traditional ways of thinking, we should look closely at the Christian communion. “We have our beliefs and our traditions. It is common to be bad, to be greedy, to be corrupt and self-seeking. It is a rare thing to love. We love. Again, I had enjoyed our sense of purpose, our commitment—that we were the inviolate Talamasca, that we cared for the outcast, that we harbored the sorcerer and the seer, that we had saved witches from the stake and reached out even to the wandering spirits, yes, even to the shades whom others fear. We had done it for well over a thousand years. But these little treasures—your family, your heritage, they matter to us because they matter to you. And they will always be yours,” reports David Talbot in the novel Merrick by Anne Rice. By performing the prescribed rites the communicant unites oneself with Christ—the sacrifice—who is God, and in this way the worshiper accrues to oneself a mystical body or soul which has immortal life. Everything depends on the prescribed ritual, which puts one in possession of the power of eternity by union with the sacrifice. And in this universal Mind wherein one now dwells, one can find no mortal to be called one’s enemy, no being to be hated or despised. One is friendly to all beings, not as a deliberately cultivated attitude but as a natural compulsion one may not resist. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

When this consciousness of the Overself is attained and maintained, one’s mind becomes perfectly equable and one’s moral character perfectly unblemished. The tremendous tension of effort which makes the quest, with all the evanescent elations and despairs which it involves, comes at last to a welcome end. One’s submission to the divine will is henceforth spontaneous and innate; it is no longer the end product of a painful struggle. One is no longer able to will for oneself for the simple reason that some other entity has begun to will for one. Egoism in the human sense, sensualism in the animal sense, have both been eliminated from one’s heart. Selflessness of purpose is said to follow attainment of this high spiritual status. On this point there is some misrepresentation so that beginners get half-false, half-true notions. It does not mean that, as against other beings, an enlightened person must surrender one’s possessions, one’s position, or one’s service to them. One has one’s own rights still and does not automatically have to abandon them. A being may attain this union with the Overself and yet produce no great work of art, no inspired piece of literature as a result. This is because the union does not bestow technical gifts. It bestows inspiration but not the aesthetic talent which produces a painting a painting or the intellectual talent which produces a book. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

Henceforth one is to work knowingly and lovingly with the power behind one’s life. Henceforth one functions as the human instrument of a superhuman power. One result then comes, that what one does by instinct and what one does by choice are henceforth one and the same. These finer qualities will no longer appear only in momentary impulses. They will possess one’s whole character. One of the foremost features of enlightenment is the clarity it gives to the mind, the lucidity of understanding and luminosity which surrounds all problems. One who understands the Truth at long last, does so only because one becomes the Truth. All that one knows will be intensely lived, for one knows it with one’s whole being. One has come to the end of this quest. One’s discovery of truth has released the power of truth and conferred the peace of truth. The pieces of life’s mosaic are at last fitted neatly into place. One has attained complete understanding. The intellectual faculties will not be extinguished by this radiant exaltation, but their work will henceforth be passively receptive of intuitive direction. Freed from obsession with the past as well as anticipation of the future, one will regard each day as unique and live through it as if one were here for the first time. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

Changes in the functioning of a being’s mind could bring about such complete changes in one’s sense of time that one could veritably find oneself imbued with the sense of eternity. This continuous flux of time which to us seems to go on forever, to them is but an illusion produced by the succession of our thoughts. For them, there is only the Eternal Now, never-ending. The realized being does not look back constantly for memories of the past and does not consider them worth recapitulating, for they belong to the ego and they are blotted out with the blotting out of the ego’s tyranny. The only exception would be where one has to draw upon them to instruct others to help them profit intellectually, spiritually and emotionally by one’s experiences. Only what the mind gives one now is alive and real for one. One is not afraid to be outside the current of one’s time. This is because inwardly one is inside the Timeless. In recent years there has been a growing awareness on the part of some psychiatrists and psychologist that serious gaps exist in our way of understanding human beings. These gaps may well seem most compelling to psychotherapist, confronted as they are in clinic and consulting room with the sheer reality of persons in crisis whose anxiety will not be quieted by theoretical formulas. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

However, the lacunae likewise present seemingly unsurmountable difficulties in scientific research. Thus many psychiatrists and psychologist in Europe and others in this country have been asking themselves disquieting questions, and others are aware of gnawing doubts which arise from the same half-suppressed and unasked questions. Can we be sure, one such question goes, that we are seeing the patient as one really is, knowing one in one’s own reality: or are we seeing merely a projection of our own theories about one? Every psychotherapist, to be sure, has one’s knowledge of patterns and mechanisms of behavior and has at one’s fingertips the system of concepts developed by one’s particular school. If we are to observe scientifically, such conceptual system is entirely necessary. However, the crucial question is always the bridge between the system and the patient—how can we be certain that our system, admirable and beautifully wrought as it may be in principle, has anything whatever to do with this specific Mr. Lestat de Lioncourt, a living, immediate reality sitting opposite us in the consulting room? May not just this particular person require another system, another quite different frame of reference? And does not this patient, or any person for that matter, evade our investigations, slip through our scientific fingers like sea foam, precisely to the extent that we rely on the logical consistency of our own system? #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

Another such gnawing question is: How can we know whether we are seeing the patient in one’s real World, the World in which one lives and moves and has one’s being, and which is for one unique, concrete, and different from our general theories of culture? In all probability we have never participated in one’s World and do not know it directly. Yet, if we are to have any chance of knowing the patient, we must know it and to some extent must be able to exist in it. Such questions were the motivations of psychiatrists and psychologists in Europe, who later comprised the Daseinsanalyse, or existential-analytic, movement. The “existential research orientation in psychiatry, writes Ludwig Binswanger, its chief spokesman, “arose from dissatisfaction with the prevailing efforts t gain scientific understanding in psychiatry. Psychology and psychotherapy as sciences are admittedly concerned with beings, but not at all primarily with mentally ill beings, but with beings as such. The new understanding of beings, which we owe to Heidegger’s analysis of existence, has its basis in the new conception that beings are no longer understood in terms of some theory—but it a mechanistic, a biologic or a psychological one. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

If you are looking for truth, it is not enough to look only at your own country’s, your own religion’s statement of it, nor just this century’s. One need also to look elsewhere, to heed the wiser voices of other centuries and to feel free to move from the Old World to the New World or into B.C. as well as A.D. However, above all these things you must look into the mystery of your own consciousness. Uncover its layer after layer until you meet the Overself. All this is included in the Quest. Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus ask his followers to enter into a church but he does ask them, by implication, to enter within themselves. To the extent to that they stop looking outside themselves for the help and support and guidance they correctly feel they need, they will start looking inside and doing the needful inner work to come into conscious awareness of the power waiting there, the divine Overself. They themselves are inlets to it, never disconnected from it. Why did Jesus warn beings not to look for the Christ-self in the deserts or the mountain caves? It was for the same reasons that he constantly told them to look for in within themselves, and that he counselled them to be in the World but not of it. Do not expect to find more truth and meaning in the World outside than you can find inside yourself. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

Although the Infinite Spirit exists everywhere and anywhere, the paradox is that It cannot be found in that way before It has first been found in one’s own heart. Yet it is also true that to find It in its fullness in the self inside, we have to understand the nature of the World outside. One must start by believing that concealed somewhere within one’s mind there is the intuition of truth. The only being you need for this great work is yourself. Stop looking outside and look within, for there is not only the material to work upon but also the God within to guide you. We must find in our own inner resources the way to the blessed life. The people of the World drinks and dances; the mystics thinks and trances. Many beings cannot find the higher truth because they insist on looking for it where it is not. They will not look within, hence they get someone else’s idea of the truth. The other person may be correct but since this is to be known only by being it, the discovery must be made inside themselves. One cannot know anyone else so well as oneself. When we can know only oneself so deeply and truly, why then try to know so many people so superficially? The goal can be reached by using the resources in one’s own soul. One should create from within oneself and by one’s own efforts the strength, the wisdom, and the inspiration one need. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

The student must remember that success does not only come to one, it also comes from one. The plan of the road to achievement and the driving power to propel one along it must be found within oneself. Usually, it is by one’s own efforts alone—but not excluding the possibility of Grace, however—that one develops the needed objectivity with which to correctly study oneself and cultivate awareness. The truth will be given us: we shall not be left to starve for it. However, it will be given according to our capacity to receive it. There can be no doubt that in our culture the ways one protects one’s self against anxiety may play a decisive part in the lives of many persons. There are those whose foremost striving is to be loved or approved of, and who go to any length to have this wish gratified; those whose behavior is characterized by a tendency to comply, to give in and take no step of self-assertion; those whose striving is dominated by the wish for success or power or possession; and those whose tendency is to shut themselves off from people and to be independent of them. The question may be raised, however, whether I am right in declaring that these strivings represent a protection against some basic anxiety Are they not an expression of drives within the normal range of given human possibilities? #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

The mistake in arguing this way is putting the question in the alternative form. In reality the two points of view are neither contradictory nor mutually exclusive. The wish for love, the tendency to comply, the striving for influence or success, and the tendency to withdraw are present in all of us in various combinations, without being in the least indicative of a neurosis. Moreover, one or another of these tendencies may be a predominate attitude in certain cultures, a fact which would suggest again the possibility of their being normal potentialities in humankind. Attitudes of affection, of mothering care and compliance with the wishes of others are predominant in the Arapesh culture, as described by Margaret Mead; striving for prestige in a rather brutal form is a recognized pattern among the Kwakiutl, as Ruth Benedict has pointed out; the tendency to withdraw from the World is a dominant trend in the Buddhist religion. My concept is intended not to deny the normal character of these drives, but to maintain that all of them may be put to the service of affording reassurance against some anxiety, and furthermore, that by acquiring this protective function they change their qualities, becoming something entirely different. I can explain this difference best by an analogy. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

We may climb a tree because we wish to test our strength and skill and see the view from the top, or we may climb it because we are pursued by a wild animal. In both cases we climb the true, but the motives for our climbing are different. In the first case we do it for the sake of pleasure, in the other case we are driven by fear and have to do it out of a need for safety. In the first case we are free to climb or not, in the other we are compelled to climb by a stringent necessity. In the first case we can look for the tree which is best suited to our purpose, in the other case we have no choice but must take the first tree within reach, and it need not necessarily be a tree; it may be a flag pole, or a house if only it serve the purpose of protection. The difference in driving forces also results in a difference in feeling and behavior. If we are impelled by a direct wish for satisfaction or any kind of our attitude will have a quality of spontaneity and discrimination. If we are driven by anxiety, however, our feeling and acting will be compulsory and indiscriminate. There are intermediate stages, to be sure. In instinctual drives, like hunger and pleasures of the flesh, which are greatly determined by physiological tensions resulting from privation, the physical tension may be piled up to such an extent that satisfaction is sought with a degree of compulsion and indiscriminateness which is otherwise characteristic of drives determined by anxiety. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

Some people, even medical doctors assumes that observations about themselves and acquaintances are applicable to all beings. However, analogies drawn from the behavior of others or animals to another individual, scientifically speaking, such analogies prove nothing; they are suggestive and pleasing to other beings, not factual. They sometimes go together with a high degree of anthropomorphizing that some professionals indulge in. Precisely because the give the pleasant illusion to a person that one understands what another is feeling they become very popular. Who would not like to possess King Solomon’s ring? Analogous behavior can be observed in human beings. In the good old days when there was still a Hapsburg monarchy and there were still domestic servants, I used to observe the following, regularly predictable behavior in my widowed aunt. She never kept a maid longer than eight to ten months. She was always delighted with a new servant, praised her to the skies, and swore that she had at last found the right one. In the course of the next few months her judgment cooled, she found faults, then bigger ones, and toward the end of the stated period she discovered hateful qualities in the poor girl, who was finally discharged without a reference after a violent quarrel. After this explosion the antiquated lady was once more prepared to find a perfect Angel in her nest employee. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

It is not my intention to poke fun at my long-deceased and devoted aunt. I was able, or rather obliged, to observe exactly the same phenomenon in serious, self-controlled beings, myself included, once when I was a prisoner of war. So-called polar disease, also known as expedition choler, attacks small groups of men who are completely dependent on one another and are thus prevented from quarreling with strangers or people outside their own circle of friends. From this it will be clear that the damming up of aggression will be more dangerous, the better the members of the group know, understand, and like each other. In such a situations, as I know from personal experience, all aggression and intra-specific fight behavior undergo an extreme lowering of their threshold values. Subjectively this is expression by the fact that one reacts to small mannerisms of one’s best friends—such as the way in which they clear their throats or sneeze—in a way that would normally be adequate only if one had been hit by a drunkard. However, the personal experiences with my aunt, fellow prisoners-of-war, and myself do not necessarily say anything about the universality of such reactions. There are more complex psychological interpretations one might five for my aunt’s behavior, instead of the hydraulic one which claims that her aggression potential rose every eight to ten months to such a degree that it has to explode. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

From a psychoanalytic standpoint, one would assume that my aunt was very narcissistic, exploitative woman; she demanded that a servant should be completely devoted to her, have no interests of her own, and gladly accept the role of a creature who is happy to serve her. She approached each new servant with the phantasy that she is the one who will fulfill her expectations. After a short honeymoon during which my aunt’s phantasy is till sufficiently effective to blind her to the fact that the servant is not right—and perhaps also helped by the fact that the servant in the beginning makes every effort to please her new employer—my aunt wakes up to the recognition that the servant is not willing to live up to the role for which she has been cast. Such a process of awakening lasts, of course, some times until it is final. At this point my aunt experiences intense disappointment and rage, as nay narcissistic exploitative person does when frustrated. Not being away that the cause for this rage is possessed in her impossible demands as if she Those Who Must Be Kept (in total peace and quiet), she rationalizes her disappointment by accusing the servant. Since she cannot give up her desires, she fires the servant and hopes that a new one will be right. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

The same mechanism repeats itself until my aunt expresses what type of servant she truly wants or cannot get anymore servants. Such a development is by no means found only in the relations of employers and servants. Often the history of marriage conflicts is identical; however, since it is easier to fire a servant than to divorce, the outcome is often that of a lifelong battle in which each partner tries to punish the other for ever-accumulating wrongs. The problem that confronts us here is that of a specific human character, namely the narcissistic-exploitative character, and not that of an accumulated instinctive energy. Ideally, we learn the wisdom of life best, easiest, and most from teachers, from instruction by those who know the Way in its beginning and end. Actually, we have to learn it by ourselves, by our own experiences, by self-expression, all necessary and valuable, suffering as well as joy. Only when all of the mind—unconsciously evolved through the mineral, plant, animal, and lower human kingdoms—enters on the quest, does it consciously enter upon the development of its own consciousness. “And may the Lord bless you, and keep your garments spotless, that ye may at last be brought to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the holy prophets who have been ever since the World began, having your garments spotless even as their garments are spotless, in the kingdom of Heaven to go no more out,” reports Alma 7.25. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

Cresleigh Homes

Smiles all around when you live #RocklinTrails. There is only one home left and it happens to be fully-furnished! Even better!
.
Take advantage of this opportunity and gain access to our amazing community playground!
.
#CresleighHomes

https://cresleigh.com/new-homes-in-rocklin-california-rocklin-trails/

Randolph Harris II International Institute

Category Archives: husband

If they Come in the Form of to-die-for Clay Dinnerware, I Guess Monday Blues are Okay!

The First Great Truth is that a Supreme Mind Minds the Universe!

Post navigation