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The Source of those Accusations Was a Committee of Demons Who Had Infested Her!
The infinite power of God to create is far beyond what we can grasp or understand. If the Almighty devoted so much of His Word to prophecy, it certainly benefits every believer to study it. The study of the prophetic scriptures and their fulfillment attests to the authority of the Word of God. Every soul has cost an infinite price, and how terrible is the sin of turning one soul away from Christ, so that for Him the Saviour’s love and humiliation and agony shall have been in vain. Contrary to popular opinion, New England’s record in regard to witchcraft is surprisingly good, as Governor Thomas Hutchinson pointed out in 1750: “more having been put to death in a single country in England from the first settlement until the present time.” Through most of the seventeenth century the record is really astonishing. While Europe hanged and burned literally thousands, executions in New England were few and far between. (Witches were burned on the Continent and in Scotland, where witchcraft was a heresy, but hanged in England and in New England, where it was a felony. Burning a witch seems not to have been motivated by the wish to inflict a particularly painful death; Scottish witches, for instance, were first garroted by the executioner, who then proceeded to burn the corpse and scatter its ashes. Most probably, burning was an attempt to prevent the resurrection of the body.) There are some fascinating accounts in New England that deal with cases of witchcraft before 1692, and we shall look at a few of these for they will illuminate some interesting aspects of the Salem witch trials. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
The first is that of Mrs. Anne Hibbins. Her husband, who died in 1654, had been a man of importance: Boston merchant, a Colonial Agent, and for several years one of the Assistants. Tradition has it that she was a sister of Governor Bellingham. She was apparently quarrelsome—quarrelsome enough so that her church censured her for it—and one quarrel was her undoing. She seems to have come upon two of her neighbours talking, to have told them she knew they were talking about her, and then to have reconstructed their conversation with enough fidelity to convince the she was possessed of “preternatural” knowledge (something Mrs. Sarah Winchester used to also have the ability to do, and a reason she dismissed so many staff members for gossiping). Nonetheless, Mrs. Hibbins was brought to trail in 1655, and the jury brought her in guilty. However, the presiding magistrates refused to accept the verdict, apparently believing her innocent, and their refusal automatically threw the case into the General Court. There again she was found guilty; the governor pronounced the required sentence of death; and in 1656 she was executed. We have seen that some of the magistrates were not satisfied of her guilt, and apparently the same were true of some of the clergy. To masses of people, death was a dread mystery; beyond was uncertainty and gloom. These people were seeking for truth, and to learn them the Spirit of Inspiration was imparted. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
A surviving letter tells us that the Reverend John Norton “once said at his own table” before the Reverend John Wilson and others that Mistress Hibbins “was hanged for a witch only for having more with than her neighbours. It was his very expression; she having, as he explained it, unhappily guessed that two of her persecutors, whom she saw talking in the street, were talking of her—which cost her her life, not withstanding all he could do to the contrary, as he himself told us.” The Hibbins case shows how slender and how circumstantial were the grounds necessary to bring an accusation of witchcraft against anyone with a reputation for malice. It also shows that the popular elements in society (the jury, and the people’s representatives in the General Court) were far more ready to believe in witchcraft than the leaders of society (the magistrates and ministers.) This latter conclusion is reinforced by the fact that before 1692 there were far more acquittals than convictions in New England; there were more people willing to charge their neighbours with witchcraft than magistrates willing to convict them. A case which took place in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1662 is known in rather more detail than that of Mrs. Hibbins. Anne Cole, “a person esteemed pious,” was taken with “strange fits.” As with the Salem girls, the fits were both violent and public. Extremely violent bodily motions she many times had, even to the hazard of her life in the apprehensions of those that saw them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
And very often great disturbances was given in the public worship of God by her and two other women who had also strange fits. Once in especial, on a day of prayer kept on that account, the motion and noised of the afflicted was so terrible that a godly person fainted under the appearance of it. In some of her fits strange voices came from her, voices that were clearly not her own. Such voices are now known to be a consequence of multiple personality, which is the extreme form of the hysterical fugue. However, the seventeenth-century observers of Anne Cole judged them to be the voices of demons who had entered into her, and that judgment was sensible enough in view of the fact that the voices seemed to be plotting ways in which Anne Cole might be further afflicted. Eventually, seeming to realize that they were being overheard, one of the voices announced, “‘Let us confound her language, [that] she may tell no more tales.’” For some time nothing came from her but “unintelligible mutterings”; then the conversation resumed in a Dutch accent, and this time names were mentioned, names of the witches who were responsible for these afflictions. When Anne Cole was out of her fits, she “knew nothing of those things that were spoken by her” during them, but she was understandably distressed to find she had been speaking things which, to the best of her knowledge, had never been in her mind; it was a “matter of great affliction to her.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
It must have been afflicting to the local magistrates as well; they now had accusations of witchcraft against several persons, but the source of these accusations was not Anne Cole; it was a committee of demons who had infested her. The magistrates investigated further, and imprisoned some (and perhaps all) of the accused on suspicion of witchcraft One of these, a “lewd, ignorant, considerably aged woman” named Rebecca Greensmith sent for the two clergymen who has taken down in writing the demonic conversation issuing from the mouth of Anne Cole. She had the transcript read to er, and then “forthwith and freely confessed those things to be true,” confirming the statement of the voiced “that she (and other persons named in the discourse) had familiarity with the Devil.” She confessed to a number of other things as well, including “that the Devil has frequent use of her body with much seeming (but indeed horrible, hellish) delight to her.” Reports of copulation with demons (including the unpleasantness of the experience) are common in the literature of Continental witchcraft, but this is one of the few known cases in New England. What is involved is apparently an erotic fit in which the woman actually goes through the motions of copulation and achieves a climax; similar fits have been observed in mental patients in the twenty-first century. Thus it appears that in the case of Anne Cole the confessor as well as the afflicted person was an hysteric. This pattern we shall see again at Salem. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Rebecca Greensmith was hanged in 1663. So was her husband Nathaniel, although we do not know the grounds for his conviction; according to Increase Mather he did not confess. “Most” of the other persons accused by the demonic voices “made their escape into another part of the country.” What happened to the others we do not know, but they were apparently not executed. And since at least one of those who made her escape had at first been imprisoned in suspicion of witchcraft (Judith Varlet, a relative of Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New York), it can be assumed that the authorities were reluctant to press the matter further. The evidence they had was, after all, highly suspect, coming from demonic voices on the one hand and a confessed witch on the other. (Confessors are a group of women with the power to make anyone they touch love them. This love, however, is more aptly described as a soul-destroying obsession whose objective is pleasing the Confessor in any way possible. Confessors were created by warlocks to travel Medieval lands and act as law enforcers. The Confessors could possess anyone and make them tell the truth in great detail. There were also a few male Confessors, but they became megalomanics and plunged the entire World into a dark age. As a result, after all the male Confessors were defeated and wiped out, the warlocks and female Confessors took up the tradition of killing all male Confessors shortly after birth.) In any event, after the “execution of some and escape of others” Anne Cole’s fits ceased, and did not return. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Twenty years later, in 1682, the Reverend John Whiting reported that “she yet remains maintaining her integrity.” This together with what the voices said, suggests that Anne Cole’s fits probably were caused by her fear of witchcraft and cured by the removal of the fear. A few other cases are remarkable for a number of reasons, one of them being the exemplary thoroughness with which the symptoms of the affiliated persons are described, which makes it possible to say without question that these were pathological cases of hysteria. The first took place in Groton, Massachusetts, in 1671-1671 and was recorded by the Reverend Samuel Willard, then minister of Groton (during the Salem trials he was a member of the Boston Clergy). On 30 October 1671, Elizabeth Knapp began to behave strangely: “In the evening, a little before she went to bed, sitting by the fire she cried out, ‘Oh! My legs!’ and clapped her hands on them; immediately, ‘Oh! My breast!’ and removed her hands thither; and forthwith, ‘Oh! I am strangled’ and put her hands on her throat.” The similarity to Janet’s twentieth-century description of the onset of a typical hysterical fit is unmistakable; it starts, he writes “with a pain or a strange sensation situated at such or such a point of the body…[It] often begins in the lower part of the abdomen [and] seems to ascend and to spread to other organs. For instance, it very often spreads to the epigastrium, to the breast, then to the throat. There it assumes rather an interesting form, which was for a very long time considered as quite characteristic of hysteria. The patient has the sensation of too big an object, as it were, a ball, rising in her throat and choking her.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The chocking sensation we shall find over and over again; it is the bolus hystericus and is related to the “lump in the throat” felt by normal people in moments of extreme stress. The normal person, like the hysteric, tries to relieve it by swallowing; this is why the comic-strip artist has one’s characters say “Gulp” when they are in trouble. The choking sensations in the throat was followed by “fits in which she was violent in bodily motions, leapings, strainings and strange agitations, scarce to be held in bound by the strength of three or four; violent also in roarings and screamings.” The fits continued until 15 January 1692, the date of Willard’s writings. Several of the details he recorded are worth noting. On 15 November, “her tongue was for many hours together drawn into a semicircle up to the roof of her mouth, and not to be removed, for some tried with the fingers to do it.” On 17 December her tongue was drawn “out of her mouth most frightfully, to an extraordinary length and greatness.” Devils appeared to her, and witches; “Oh,” she cried to one of them, “you are a rouge.” On 29 November she had a particularly grotesque hallucination, when she believed a witch in the shape of a dog with a woman’s head was strangling her. The hallucinations and the woman’s sufferings were terrifyingly convincing; Willard noted that when she thought the witch was strangling her, “she did often times seem to our apprehension as of she would forthwith be strangled.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Elizabeth Knapp’s case is strikingly similar to that of Ler—one of the best-known cases of J.-M. Charcot, the nineteenth-century psychologist. Her fits, he wrote, “are characterized in the first stage by epileptiform and tetaniform convulsions; after this come great gesticulations of a voluntary character, in which the patient, assuming the most frightful postures, reminds one of the attitudes which history assigns to the demoniacs…At this stage of the attack, se is a prey to delirium, and raves evidently of the events which seem to have determined her first seizures. She hurls furious invectives against imaginary individuals, crying out, “villains! robbers! brigands! fire! fire! O, the dogs! I’m bitten!”—Reminiscences, doubtless, of the emotions experienced in her youth.” When the convulsive portion of Ler—’s attack was over other symptoms usually followed, including “hallucination of vision: the patient beholds horrible animals, skeletons, and specters” and “lastly, a more or less marked permanent contracture of the tongue.” Charcot drew this contracture of the tongue; it is quite appalling. Willard was not exaggerating in calling it frightful. Elizabeth Knapp displayed still other symptoms are identifiably hysterical, including loss of speech on some occasions, and on others speaking in voices other than her own; once “she barked like a dog, and bleated like a calf.” Willard noted that her fits did not seem to do her any permanent physical damage: “She hath no ways in body or strength by all these fits, though so dreadful, but gathered flesh exceedingly, and hath her natural strength when her fits are off, for the most part.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
This is typical; as Janet remarks, the “hysteric patient, after howling for several hours, feels rather comfortable; she experiences, as it were, a relaxation, and declares she is out of her fits has often raised the question of whether they are genuine. Willard thought they must be, if only for their violence: “such a strength is beyond the force of dissimulation.” (It should be noted that hysterics are not always well in the intervals between their fits. Some, for instance, lose their appetites and starve themselves. It is probably such cases who are referred to in the statue of James I against witchcraft as being “wasted, consumed, pined.) On 1 November, Elizabeth Knapp named one of her neighbour as the probable cause of her afflictions. The accused woman was sent for, and entered the house while the afflicted girl was in a fit. Her eyes were closed, as they usually were in her fits, yet she could distinguish this neighbour’s touch from all others, “though no voice was uttered.” That would have been quite enough to convict the neighbour in many witchcraft cases. However, fortunately she was permitted to pray with the afflicted girl, and at the conclusions Miss Knapp “confessed that she believed Satan had deluded her.” Willian was happy that “God was pleased to vindicate the case and justify the innocent,” and reported that Miss Knapp never again complained of any “apparition or disturbance from this neighbour.” Instead, she turned to accusing the Devil, who had, she said, been offering her a covenant for several years, a covenant she had frequently been tempted to sign. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
The dark shadow that Satan has cast over the World grew deeper and deeper. About a month later Miss Knapp accused another person of witchcraft, this time during a period of hallucinations. Her father brought the woman to the house, and Willard, who had been asked to be present, noted that her fit became particularly violent when this woman entered. However, Willard, wrote, “we made nothing of it” since her fits had been as violent on other occasions. Instead they inquired carefully into the mater and found “two evident and clear mistakes” in the accusation. This was enough to exonerate the second accused woman. Satan had implanted this principle. Wherever it was held, people had no barrier against sin. Elizabeth Knapp was still having fits when Willard wrote about her, and all he could be certain of was that “she is an object of pity.” He did not think she was bewitched, but he did believe she was possessed (that is, that Devils has entered into her). This remained his opinion (and that of most others) when the case was remembered in 1692. He also believed that the girl’s terrible afflictions provided an occasion for the community to examine its collective conscience. Therefore he admonished his congregation in a sermon, “Let us all examine by this Providence [id est, this event] what sins they have been, that have given Satan so much footing in this poor place.” Satan was seeking to shut out from humans a knowledge of God, to turn their attention from the temple of God, and to establish His own kingdom. His strife for supremacy had seemed to be almost wholly successful. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
They robbed God of His glory, and defrauded the World by a counterfeit of the gospel. They had refused to surrender themselves to God for the salvation of the World, and they became agents of Satan for its destruction. They were doing the work Satan designed them to do, taking a course to misrepresent the character of God, and cause the World to look upon Him as a tyrant. The convulsive fits which played so prominent a part in most witchcraft cases, and continued to be one of the most common symptoms of hysteria through the earl years of the twentieth century, have no become relatively rare in Western civilization. D.W. Abse reports fits occurred in only six out of one hundred and sixty-one cases of hysteria treated at a British military hospital during World War II, but that they were the most common symptom among Indian Army hysterics treated at Delhi during the same period. There are a number of possible explanations for this curious fact. Hysterics are notoriously suggestible, so the change may be ascribable to nothing more than the refusal of our culture to give the hysterical fit the respectful and awed attention it used to command. In any case, it seems clear that abnormal behaviour varies with time and place just as normal behaviour does. However, since this particular variation occurred so recently, after the classic studies of hysteria had been completed, it is possible to identify the seventeenth-century Massachusetts fits for what they were. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Mr. William Wirt Winchester, while we were attending lectures, purchased three or four old houses in California, one of which was unoccupied. He resided in the country, and he proposed that he wanted his wife and myself to take up our abode in the untenanted house, so long as it should continue unlet; a move which we would accomplish the double end of settling us nearer alike to our lecture-rooms and to our amusements, and of relieving us from the weekly charge of rent for our lodgings. Our furniture was very scant—our whole equipage remarkably modest and primitive; and in short, our arrangements pretty nearly as simple as those of a bivouac. Mrs. Sarah Winchester’s new plan was, therefore, executed almost as soon as conceived. The front drawing-room was our sitting-room. I had the bedroom over it, and Mrs. Winchester had the back bedroom on the same floor, which nothing could have induced me to occupy. The house to begin with was an incomplete, three-story farm house with a basement. It was very old. Dated back to the sixteenth century, I believe. It had nothing modern about it. The agent who looked into the property titles for Mrs. Winchester told her it was originally sold, along with much other forfeited property in 1702; and it had belonged to John Conduit, whose wife was the niece of Sir Isaac Newton, a father of modern science, although keenly interested in the occult. How old it was then, I cannot say; but, at all events, in had seen years and changes enough to have contracted all the mysterious and saddened air, at once exciting and depressing, which belongs to most old mansions. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
There had been very little done in the way of modernizing details and, perhaps, it was better so; for there was something queer and by-gone in the very walls and ceilings—in the shape of doors and windows—in the odd diagonal site of the chimney-pieces—in the beams and ponderous cornices—not to mention the singular solidity of all the woodwork, from the bannisters to the window-frames, which hopelessly defined disguise, and would have emphatically proclaimed their antiquity through any conceivable amount of modern finery and varnish. An effort had, indeed, been made, to the extent of papering the drawing-rooms; but somehow, the paper looked raw and out of keeping. This woman said, old Judge Sir James Hales (who, having earned the reputation of a particularly ‘hanging judge’, ended by hanging himself, as the corner’s jury found, under an impulse of ‘temporary insanity’, with a child’s skipping-rope, over the massive old bannisters) resided there, entertaining good company, with fine venison and rare old port. In those halcyon days, the drawing-rooms were hung with gilded leather, and, I dare say, cut a good figure, for they were really spacious rooms. The bedrooms were wainscoted, but the front one was not gloomy; and in it the cosiness of antiquity quite overcame its somber associations. However, the back bedrooms, with its two queerly-placed melancholy windows, staring vacantly at the foot of the bed, and with the shadowy recess to be found in most old houses in Dublin, like a large ghostly closet, which, from congeniality of temperament, had amalgamated with the bedchamber, and dissolved the partition. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
At the night-time, this “alcove”—as our “maid” was wont to call it—had, in my eyes, a specially sinister and suggestive character. Mrs. Winchester’s distant and solitary candle glimmered vainly into its darkness. There it was always overlooking her—always itself impenetrable. However, this was only part of the effect. The whole room was, I cannot tell, how repulsive to me. There was, I supposed, in its proportions and features, a latent discord—a certain mysterious and indiscernible relation, which jarred indistinctly upon some secret sense of the fitting and the safe, and raised indefinable suspicious and apprehensions of the imagination. On the whole, as I began saying, nothing could have induced me to pass a night alone in it. We have not been very long in occupation of our respective chambers, when I began to complain of uneasy nights and disturbed sleep. I was, I suppose, the more impatient under this annoyance, as I was usually a sound sleeper, and by no means prone to nightmares. It was not, however, my destiny, instead of enjoying my customary repose, every night to “sup full of horrors.” After a preliminary course of disagreeable and frightful dreams, my troubles took a definite form, and the same vision, without an appreciable variation in a single detail, visited me at least (on average) every second night of the week. Now, this dream, nightmare, or infernal illusion—which you please—of which I was the miserable port, was on this wise: I saw, or thought I saw, with the most abominable distinctness although at the time in profound darkness, every article of furniture and accidental arrangement of the chamber in which I lay. This, as you know, is incidental to ordinary nightmare. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Well, while in this clairvoyant condition, which seemed but the lighting up of the theatre in which was to be exhibited the monotonous tableau of horror, which made my nights insupportable, my attention invariably became, I know not why, fixed upon the windows opposite the foot of my bed; and, uniformly with the same effect, a sense of dreadful anticipation always took slow but sure possession of me. I became somehow conscious of a sort of horrid but undefined preparation going forward in some unknown quarter, and by some unknown agency, for my torment; and, after an interval, which always seemed to me of the same length, a picture suddenly flew up the window, where it remained fixed, as if by an electrical attraction, and my discipline of horror then commenced, to last perhaps for hours. The picture this mysteriously glued to the window-panes, was the portrait of an old man, in crimson flowered silk dressing-gown, the folds of which I could now describe, with countenance embodying a strange mixture of intellect, sensuality, and power, but withal sinister and full of malignant omen. His nose was hooked, like the beak of a vulture; his eyes large, grey, and prominent and lighted up with a more than mortal cruelty and coldness. The features were surmounted by a crimson velvet cap, the hair that peeped from under which was white with age, while the eyebrows retained their original blackness. Well I remember every line, hue, and shadow of that stony countenance, and well I may! The gaze of this hellish visage was fixed upon me, and mine returned it with the inexplicable fascination of nightmare, for what appeared to me to be hours of agony. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
At last—the cock he crew, away then flew, the fiend who had enslaved me through the awful watches of the night and, harassed and nervous, I rose to the duties of the day. I had—I cannot say exactly why, but it may have been from the exquisite anguish and profound impressions of unearthly horror, with which this strange phantasmagoria was associated—an insurmountable antipathy to describing the exact nature of my nightly troubles to Mrs. Winchester. Generally, however, I told her I was haunted by abominable dreams; and, true to the imputed materialism of medicine, we put our heads together to dispel my horrors, not by exorcism, but by a tonic Vin Mariani. However, the evil spirit, who enthralled my senses in the shape of that portrait, may have been just as near me, just as energetic, just as malignant, though I saw him not. Everybody knows how contagious is fear of all sort, but more especially that particular kind of fear under which poor Mrs. Winchester was at that moment labouring. I would not have heard, nor I believe would she have recapitulated, just at that moment, for half the World, the details of the hideous vision which had so unmanned her. “I was sitting in my room,” said Mrs. Winchester “by my fireplace, the door locked when I heard a step on the flight of stairs descending from the attics. It was two o’ clock, and the streets were as silent as a churchyard—the sounds were, therefore, perfectly distinct. There was slow, heavy tread, characterized by the emphasis and deliberation of age, descending by the narrow staircase from above; and, what made the sound more singular, it was plain that the feet which produced it were perfectly bare measuring a descent with something between a pound and a flop, very ugly to hear. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“I knew quite well that you and my attendant had gone away many hours before, and that nobody but myself has any business in the house. It was quite plain also that the person who was coming down stairs had no intention whatever of concealing his movements; but, on the contrary, appeared disposed to make even more noise, and proceed more deliberately, than was at all necessary. When the step reached the foot of the stairs outside my room, it seemed to stop; and I expected every moment to see my door open spontaneously, and give admission to soul killed by the Winchester rifle. I was, however, relieved in a few second by hearing the descent renewed, just in the same manner, upon the stair case leading down to the drawing-rooms, and thence, after another pause, down the next flight, and so on to the hall, whence I heard no more. Now, by the time the sound had ceased, I was wound up, as they say, to a very unpleasant pitch of excitement. I listened, but there was not a stir. I screw up my courage to a decisive experiment—opened my door, and in a stentorian voice bawled over the banisters, ‘Who’s there?’ There was no answer but the ringing of my own voice through the empty old house—no renewal of the movement; nothing short, to give my unpleasant sensations a definite direction. There is, I think, something most disagreeably disenchanting in the sound of one’s own voice under such circumstances, exerted in solitude, and in vain. It redoubled my sense of isolation, and my misgivings increased on perceiving that the door, which I certainly thought I had left open, was closed behind me. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
“In a vague alarm, lest my retreat should be cut off, I got again into my room as quickly as I could, where I remained in a state of imaginary blockade, and very uncomfortable indeed, till morning. Next night brought no return of my barefooted fellow-lodger; but the night following, being in my bed, and in the dark—somewhere, I supposed, about the same hour as before, I distinctly heard the old fellow again descending from the garrets. This time I jumped out of bed, clutched the poker as I passed the expiring fire, and in a moment was upon the lobby. The sound had ceased by this time—the dark and chill were discouraging; and, guess my horror, when I saw, or thought I saw, a monster, whether in the shape of a man or a bear I could not say, standing, with its back to the wall, on the lobby, facing me, with a pair of great greenish eyes shinning dimly out. Now, I must be frank, and confess that the cupboard which displayed our plates and cups stood just there, though at that moment I did not recollect it. At the same time I must never could satisfy myself that I was made the dupe of my own fancy in this matter; for this apparition, after one or two shiftings of shape, as if in the act of incipient transformation, began, as it seemed on second thoughts, to advance upon me in its original form. From an instinct of terror rather than of courage, I hurled the poker, with all my force, at its head; and to the music of a horrid crash made my way into my room, and double-locked the door. Then, in a minute more, I heard the horrid bare feet walk down the stairs, till the sound ceased in the halls, as on the former occasion. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“In a vague alarm, lest my retreat should be cut off, I got again into my room as quickly as I could, where I remained in a state of imaginary blockade, and very uncomfortable indeed, till morning. Next night brought no return of my barefooted fellow-lodger; but the night following, being in my bed, and in the dark—somewhere, I supposed, about the same hour as before, I distinctly heard the old fellow again descending from the garrets. This time I jumped out of bed, clutched the poker as I passed the expiring fire, and in a moment was upon the lobby. The sound had ceased by this time—the dark and chill were discouraging; and, guess my horror, when I saw, or thought I saw, a monster, whether in the shape of a man or a bear I could not say, standing, with its back to the wall, on the lobby, facing me, with a pair of great greenish eyes shinning dimly out. Now, I must be frank, and confess that the cupboard which displayed our plates and cups stood just there, though at that moment I did not recollect it. At the same time I must never could satisfy myself that I was made the dupe of my own fancy in this matter; for this apparition, after one or two shiftings of shape, as if in the act of incipient transformation, began, as it seemed on second thoughts, to advance upon me in its original form. From an instinct of terror rather than of courage, I hurled the poker, with all my force, at its head; and to the music of a horrid crash made my way into my room, and double-locked the door. Then, in a minute more, I heard the horrid bare feet walk down the stairs, till the sound ceased in the halls, as on the former occasion. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
“If the apparition of the night before was an ocular delusion of my fancy sporting with the dark outlines of our cupboard, and if tis horrid eyes were nothing but a pair of inverted teacups, I had, at all events, the satisfaction of having launched the poker with admirable effect, and in true ‘fancy’ phrase, ‘knocked its two daylights into one,’ as the commingled fragments of my tea-service testified. I did my best to gather comfort and courage from these evidences; but it would not do. And then what could I say of those horrid bare feet, and the regular tramp, tramp, tramp, which measured the distance of the entire staircase through the solitude of my haunted dwelling, and at an hour when no good influence was stirring? Confound it!—the whole affair was abominable. I was out of spirits, and dreaded the approach of night. It came, ushered ominously in with a thunderstorm and dull torrents of depressing rain. Earlier than usual the streets grew silent; and by twelve o’clock nothing but the comfortless patterning of the rain was to be heard. I made myself as snug as I could. I lighted two candles instead of one. I forswore bed, and held myself in readiness for a sally, candle in hand; for, coute qui coute, I was resolved to see the being, if visible at all, who troubled the nightly stillness of my mansion. I was fidgety and nervous and, tried in vain to interest myself with my books. I walked up and down my room, whistling in turn martial and hilarious music, and listening ever and anon for the dreaded noise.” #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Do not Grieve. Anything you lose comes around in another form. The child weaned from mother’s milk now drinks cranberry juice. God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed. As roses, up from ground. Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish, now a cliff covered with vines, now a horse being saddled. It hides within these, till one day it cracks them open. There is the light gold of wheat in the sun, and the gold of bread made from wheat. I have neither, I am only talking about them as a town in the desert looks up to stars on a clear night. The Son of God, looking upon the World, beheld suffering and misery. With pity He saw how humans had become victims of satanic cruelty. He looked with compassion upon those who were being corrupted, murdered, and lost. They had chosen a ruler who chained them to his carriage as captives. God’s glory pervades the Universe; His ministering Angels inquire of one another: Where is the place of His glory? In response they give praise: Praised be the glory of the Lord from His Heavenly abode. From His Heavenly abode may He turn in mercy and bestow grace unto the people who, reciting the Shema evening and morning, twice daily, proclaim in love the unity of His name, saying: Hear, O America: the Lord our God, the Lord is One. He is our God; He is our Father, our sovereign and our Deliverer. In His mercy He will make known in presence of all the living that He will be your God. “I am the Lord your God.” As it is written in holy Scripture: The Lord shall reign forever; Thy God, O America, shall be Sovereign unto all generations. Hallelujah. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Winchester Mystery House
Ghostly tales are bountiful at Sarah Winchester’s Mystery House. What have you experienced? Photos are encouraged!
The Winchester mansion is 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
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“Whoever shadows my every move will not lose me in the dark.” At least that is what Christ says, or what the Evangelist John heard Him say (8.12). He tells us to walk on, through the darkness, with Christ as our only torch. That way, when we mayn’t have gained a step, but we won’t have lost one either. And on into the day we must pursue with dogged tread the life of Jesus Christ. Is this the secret to Mrs. Winchester’s 7-11 staircase?
This is the Beginning, When People Will Be Opening their Eyes!
Nothing is quite as funny as the unintended humour of reality. The original position is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that is to be adopted in our reasoning about fundamental principles of justice. In taking up this point of view, we are imagining ourselves in the position of free and equal persons who jointly agree upon and commit themselves to the principles of social and political justice. The main distinguishing feature of the original position is “the veil of ignorance”: to insure impartiality of judgment, the parties are deprived of all knowledge of their personal characteristics and social and historical circumstances. The two principles of justice guarantee the equal basic rights and liberties needed to secure the fundamental interests of free and equal citizens and to pursue a wide range of conceptions of good. The second principle provides fair equality of education and employment opportunities enabling all to fairly compete for powers and positions of office; and it secures for all a guaranteed minimum of the all-purpose means (including income and wealth) that individuals need to pursue their interests and to maintain their self-respect as free and equal persons. Persons in the original position give pride of place to their interest in the equal freedoms. The intuitive idea behind the precedence of liberty is that if the persons in the original position assume that their basic liberties can be effectively exercised, they will not exchange a lesser liberty for an improvement in the economic well-being, at least not once a certain level of wealth has been attained. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
It is only when social conditions do not allow the effective establishment of these rights that one can acknowledge their restriction. Only if it is necessary to enhance the quality of civilization so that in due course the equal freedoms can be enjoyed by all can the denial of equal liberty can be accepted. The lexical ordering of the two principles is the long-run tendency of the general conception of justice consistently pursued under reasonably favourable conditions. Eventually there comes a time in the history of a well-ordered society beyond which the special form of the two principles takes over and holds from then on. What must be shown then is the rationality of this ranking from the standpoint of the parties in the original position. Clearly the conception of goodness as rationality and the principles of moral psychology have a part in answering this question. Now the basis for the priority of liberty is roughly as follows: as the conditions of civilization improve, the marginal significance for our god of further economic and social advantages diminishes relative to their interests of liberty, which become stronger as the conditions for the exercise of the equal freedoms are more fully realized. Beyond some point it becomes and then remains irrational from the standpoint of the original position to acknowledge a lesser liberty for the sake of greater material means and amenities of office. This is so because as the general level of well-being raises (as indicated by the index of primary goods the less favoured can expect) only the less urgent wants remain to be met by further advances, at least insofar as human’s wants are not largely created by institutions and social forms. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
At the same time the obstacles to the exercise of the equal liberties decline and a growing insistence upon the right to pursue our spiritual and cultural interests assert itself. Increasingly it becomes more important to secure the free internal life of the various communities of interests in which persons and groups seek to achieve, in modes of social union consistent with equal liberty, the ends and excellences to which they are drawn. In addition humans come to aspire to some control over the laws and rules that regulate their association, either by directly taking part themselves in its affairs or indirectly through representatives with whom they are affiliated by ties of culture and social situation. To be sure, it is not the case that when the priority of liberty holds, all material wants are satisfied. Rather these desires are not so compelling as to make it rational for the persons in the original position to agree to satisfy them by accepting a less than equal freedom. The account of the good enables the parties to work out a hierarchy among their several interests and to note which kinds of ends should be regulative in their rational plans of life. Until the basic wants of individuals can be fulfilled, the relative urgency of their interest in liberty cannot be firmly decided in advance. It will depend on the claims of the least favoured as seen from the constitutional and legislative stages. However, under favourable circumstances the fundamental interest in determining our plan of life eventually assumes a prior place. One reason for this I have discussed in connection with liberty of conscience and freedom of thought. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
And a second reason is the central place of the primary good of self-respect and the desire of human beings to express their nature in a free social union with others. Thus the desire for liberty is the chief regulative interest that the parties must suppose they all will have in common in due course. The veil of ignorance forces them to abstract from the particulars of their plans of life, thereby leading to this conclusion. The serial ordering of the two principles then follows. Now it might seem that even though the desire for an absolute increase in economic advantages declines, human’s concern for their relative place in the distribution of wealth will persist. In fact, if we suppose that everyone wishes a greater proportionate share, the result could be a growing desire for material abundance all the same. Since each strives for an end that cannot be collectively attained, society might conceivably become more and more preoccupied with raising productivity and improving economic efficiency. And these objectives might become so dominant as to undermine the precedence of liberty. Some have objected to the tendency to equality on precisely this ground, that it is thought to arouse in individuals an obsession with their relative share of social wealth. However, while it is true that in a well-ordered society there is most likely a trend to greater equality, its members take little interest in their relative position as such. As we have seen, they are not much affected by envy and jealousy, and for the most part they do what seems best to them as judged by their own plan of life without being dismayed by the greater amenities and enjoyments of others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Thus there are no strong psychological propensities prompting them to curtail their liberty for the sake of greater absolute or relative economic welfare. The desire for a higher relative place in the distribution of material means should be sufficiently weak that the priority of liberty is not affected. Of course, it does not follow that in a just society everyone is unconcerned with matters of status. The account of self-respect as perhaps the main primary good has stressed the great significance of how we think others value us. However, in a well-ordered society the need for status is met by the public recognition of just institutions, together with the full and diverse internal life of the many free communities of interest that equal liberty allows. The basis for self-esteem in a just society is not then one’s income share but the publicly affirmed distribution of fundamental rights and liberties. And this distribution being equal, everyone has a similar and secure status when they meet to conduct the common affairs of the wider society. No one is inclined to look beyond the constitutional affirmation of equality for further political ways of securing one’s status. No one is inclined to look beyond the constitutional affirmation of equality for further political position from a strategic point of view. It would also have the effect of publicly establishing their inferiority as defined by the basic structure of society. This subordinate ranking in the public forum experienced in the attempt to take part in political and economic life, and felt in dealing with those who have a greater liberty, would indeed be humiliating and destructive of self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
And so by acquiescing in a less than equal liberty one might lose on both counts. This is particularly likely to be true as society becomes more just, since equal rights and public attitudes of mutual respect have an essential place in maintaining a political balance and in assuring citizens of their own worth. Thus while the social and economic differences between the various sectors of society, the noncomparing groups as we may think of them, are not likely to generate animosity, the hardships arising from political and civic inequality, and from culture and ethnic discrimination, cannot be easily accepted. When it is the position of equal citizenship that answers to the need for status, the precedence of equal liberties becomes all the more necessary. Having chosen a conception of justice that seeks to eliminate the significance of relative economic and social advantages as supports for human’s self-confidence, it is essential that the priority of liberty be firmly maintained. So for this reason too the parties are led to adopt a serial ordering of the two principles. In a well-ordered society then self-respect is secured by the public affirmation of the status of equal citizenship for all; the distribution of material means is left to take care of itself in accordance with the idea of pure procedural justice. Of course doing this assumes the requisite background institutions which narrow the range of inequalities so that excusable envy does not arise. Now this way of dealing with the problem of status has several noteworthy features which may be brought out as follows. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Suppose to the contrary that how one is valued by others depends upon one’s relative place in the distribution of income and wealth. In this case, having a higher status implies having more material means than a larger fraction of society. Thus not everyone can have the highest status, and to improve one person’s position is to lower that of someone else. Social cooperation to increase the conditions of self-respect is impossible. The means of status, so to speak, are fixed, and each human’s gain is another’s loss. Clearly this situation is a great misfortune. Persons are set at odds with one another in the pursuit of their self-esteem. Given the preeminence of this primary good, the parties in the original position surely do no want to find themselves so opposed. If not impossible, it would tend, for one thing, to make the good of social union difficult to achieve. Moreover, if the means of providing a good are indeed fixed and cannot be enlarged by cooperation, as mentioned in the discussion of envy, then justice seems to require equal shares, ceteris paribus. However, an equal division of all primary gods in irrational in view of the possibility of bettering everyone’s circumstances by accepting certain inequalities. Thus the best solution is to support the primary good of self-respect as far as possible by the assignment of the basic liberties that can indeed be made equal, defining the same status for all. At the same time, distributive justice as frequently understood, justice in the relative shares of material means, is relegated to a subordinate place. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Thus we arrive at another reason for factoring the social order into two parts as indicated by the principles of justice. While these principles permit inequalities in return for contributions that are for the benefit of all, the precedence of liberty entails equality in the social bases of esteem. Now it is quite possible that this idea cannot be carried through completely. To some extent human’s sense of their own worth may hinge upon their institutional position and their income share. If, however, the account of social envy and jealousy is sound, then, with the appropriate background arrangements, these inclinations should not be excessive, at least not when the priority of liberty is effectively upheld. However, if necessary, theoretically we can include self-respect in the primary goods, the index of which defines expectations. Then in applications of the difference principle this index can allows for the effects of excusable envy; the expectations of the less advantaged are lower the more severe these effects. Whether some adjustment for self-respect has to be made is best decided from the standpoint of the legislative stage where the parties have more information about social circumstances and the principle of political determination applies. Admittedly this problem is an unwelcome complication. Since simplicity it itself desirable in a public conception of justice, the conditions that elicit excusable envy should if possible be avoided. Expectations of the less advantaged can be understood so as to include the primary good of self-esteem. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Now some may want to object to this account of the priority of liberty that societies have other ways of affirming self-respect and of coping with envy and other disruptive inclinations. Thus in a feudal or in a caste system each person is believed to have one’s allotted station in the natural order of things. One’s comparisons are presumably confined to within one’s own estate or caste, these ranks becoming in effect so many noncomparing groups established independently of human control and sanctioned by religion and theology. Humans resign themselves to their position should it ever occur to them to question it; and since all may view themselves as assigned their vocation, everyone is held to be equally fated and equally noble in the eyes of providence. This conception of society solves the problem of social justice by eliminating in thought the circumstances that give rise to it. The basic structure is aid to be already determined, and not something for human beings to affect. On this view, it misconceives human’s place in the World to suppose that the social order should match principles which they would as equals consent to. Now to this idea, parties re to be guided in their choice of a conception of justice by a knowledge of the general facts about society. They take for granted than that institutions are not fixed but change overtime, altered by natural circumstances and the activities and conflicts of social groups. The constraints of nature are recognized, but humans are not powerless to shape their social arrangements. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
This assumption is likewise part of the background of the theory of justice. It follows that certain ways of dealing with envy and other aberrant propensities are closed to a well-ordered society. For example, it cannot keep them in check by promulgating false or unfounded beliefs. For our problem is how society should be arranged if it is to conform to principles that rational persons with true general beliefs would acknowledge in the original position. The publicity condition of requires the parties to assume that as members of society they will also know the general facts. The reasoning leading up to the initial agreement is to be accessible to public understanding. Of course, in working out what the requisite principles are, we must rely upon current knowledge as recognized by common sense and the existing scientific consensus. However, there is no reasonable alternative to doing this. We have to concede that as established beliefs change, it is possible that the principles of justice which it seems rational to choose may likewise change. Thus when the belief in a fixed natural order sanctioning a hierarchical society is abandoned, assuming here that this belief is not true, a tendency is set up that points in the direction of two principles of justice inertial order. The effective protection of the equal liberties becomes increasingly of first importance. When God wants to punish people, he gives the unjust leaders. So the answer is for the people to repent, turn from their ways, be converted, and seek God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Some people only care about power and what they can do with power. May the Lord come down to protect our people. Democracy is not prescribed in the Bible, and Christians can and do live under other political systems. However, Christians can hardly fail to love democracy, because of all systems it best assures human dignity, the essence of our creation in God’s image. If a candidate wins by cheating, he or she can only be forgiven by God if one renounced the office one has obtained by fraud. There will be no divine forgiveness for this act of injustice without a previous decision to repay the damage done. However, apparently God’s forgiveness is unimportant to some ruling. When politicians rig the vote, it means all the passion for democracy and all the prayers of the people are meaningless. A government that assumes or maintains power through fraudulent means has no moral basis. If it does not of itself freely correct the evil it has inflicted on the people, then it is our serious moral obligation as a people to make it do so. Nonetheless, there is enormous sin attached to fratricidal strife. As moral outrage grows, it is important to study the Bible. God has ordained government to preserve order, but even a bad government is better than no government—which results in chaos. Government’s authority comes from God; it is a delegation. Therefore, governments—all governments—whether they acknowledge it or not, rule under God. However, does God give an unrestricted delegation? Certainly not. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
As Jesus Christ made clear with the coin, there are two realms—and Caesar is not to usurp what belongs to God. Any government that violates the law that is higher than its own is exceeding the legitimate authority God has granted. Government must always be respected, otherwise anarchy results; but the nation may attempt to venerate a culture or race. “When the state is made to serve the aspirations of race or nation instead of the cause of justice for all, it becomes a demonic state warranting resistance and rejection by the Christian faith,” reports Donald Bloesch, Crumbling Foundations (Grand Paris, Mich.: Zondervan, 1984), 183. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “If government persistently and arbitrarily violates its assigned task, then the divine mandate lapses.” In that case the state becomes evil incarnate, as in Nazi Germany. Instead of acting as God’s instrument for preserving life and order, it does the reverse, destroying life and order. Then the church must resist. Though as argued earlier, the church’s primary function is evangelization and ministering to spiritual needs; as the principle visible manifestation of the Kingdom of God, it must be the conscience of society, the instrument of moral accountability. Richard Neuhaus eloquently wrote that “the church can and should subject to moral questioning every political agenda or cause, thus keeping the entirety of human politics under the transcendent judgement of God.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
The church’s first duty then would be to publicly expose the state’s immorality. The government should not be involved in corruption, oppression, the deprivation of civil liberties, nor the taking of innocent lives. As a second step the church should refuse to have any part in the state’s immorality. The church must take the next more severe measures of resistance lest its words be rendered hollow. The great evangelist Charles Finney refused communion to slave-holders. Others organized the underground railroad and rescued fugitive slaves from prison. Many ministers broke the law, were arrested, and some imprisoned. However, that state’s evil, even as egregious as slavery, does not give an unrestricted license to disobey any law; only the unjust law can properly be contested. While active resistance may succeed, as it did with slavery and the Civil-Rights Movement, it may not, however, be enough in the face of the raw power modern totalitarian states have achieved. So, when all peaceable means fail, what does the Christian do? Is revolution ever justified? Scottish reformation theologians like John Knox and Samuel Rutherford believed they could be, advocating the right of Christians to rise up against ungodly rulers. Many ministers in the colonies agreed as well; when they preached that the people had the authority to resist the king when the king violated God’s commands, they were setting the stage for the American Revolution. After dumping tea in Boston Harbour the next step of resistance was the musket. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
A Boston preacher said that for a people to “arise unanimously and resist their prince, even to dethrone him, is not criminal but a reasonable way of vindicating their liberties and just rights.” John Adams observed, “The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.” Some Christian activists today loosely call for a new American Revolution just as the young radical youth movements did in the sixties. However, history reveals, revolution most often results, after the bodies are buried, in one form of tyranny replacing another. G.K. Chesterton summed it up well: “The real case against revolution is this: That there always seems to be much more to be said against the old regime than in favour of the new regime.” So for the Christian, revolution is never to be lightly regarded. It is the most extreme form of disobedience. It could only be contemplated on the same justification as a just war; that is, that there must be a better alterative as a result of the revolution. Its advantages must outweigh the suffering, and the evil employed in the revolution must prevent a far greater evil than the status quo. This was the reasoning that caused Albert Einstein to abandon his pacifism in the face of a dictator’s rise to power. “To prevent the greater evil, it is necessary that the lesser—the hated military—be accepted for the time being,” Einstein contended. It was this reasoning the caused Bonhoeffer to patriciate in the plot to assassinate this dictator. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
For Christians to justify participation in revolution, therefore, they would have to be convinced that the state had become totally opposed to the purposes of God for the state and there was no other recourse to prevent massive evil. The Exodus from Egypt is often cited as a model for political action by liberation theologians, but they ignore the fact that in the Exodus, God did not overthrow the political system in Egypt. He extracted His own people from that system, taking them to Mount Sinai that they might worship Him. In the light of this, then, what about America? What lessons are to be drawn from it? We must be aware to prevent a regime’s refusal to allow free elections, the suspensions of civil liberties, the massive corruption of the governmental process, the trampling of human rights, and a leader’s own blasphemous, at times messianic pretensions, which give the church a mandate to act. The church should be mobilized to say no to evil. The first stage of an individua approach should be entirely biblical. By preaching repentance and conversion, one can encourage outbreaks of spiritual revival all across America. One should call for people to pray for their country. A courageous cardinal and ordinary citizens can open a crack of light in the dark canopy that envelops so much of planet Earth. Through peaceful actions and resistance to evil, the Kingdom of God will be made visible again. The Late Francis Schaeffer once wrote, “If here is no place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the living God.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
The belief that government is autonomous, the ultimate repository of power, the solution to all of society’s ills, is the greatest imposter of the twenty-first century. Christians and the church have no higher calling than to expose it by every legitimate means. To some people the great trouble about any argument for the Supernatural is simply the fact that argument should be needed at all. If so stupendous a thing exists, ought it not be obvious as the sun in the sky? It is not intolerable, and indeed incredible, that knowledge of the most basic of all Facts should be accessible only by wire-drawn reasonings for which the vast majority of humans have neither leisure nor capacity? I have great sympathy with this point of view. However, we must notice two things. When you are looking at a garden from a room upstairs it is obvious (once you think about it) that you are looking through a window. However, if it is the garden that interests you, you may look at it for a long time without thinking of the window. When you are reading a book, it is obvious (once you attend to it) that you are using your eyes: but unless your eyes begin to hurt you, or the book is a text book on optics, you may read all evening without once thinking of eyes. When we talk we are obviously using langue and grammar: and when we try to talk a foreign language we may be painfully aware of the fact. However, we are talking English, we do not notice it. When you shout from the top of the stirs, “I am in half a moment,” you are usually conscious that you have made the singular am agree with the singular I. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
There is indeed a story told about a Native American who, having learned several other languages, was asked to write a grammar of the language used by his own tribe. He replied, after some thought, that it had no grammar. The grammar he had sued all his life had escaped his notice all his life. He knew it (in once sense) so well that (in another sense) he did not know it existed. All these instances show that the fact, and through which alone you have access to all the other facts, may be precisely the one that is most easily forgotten—forgotten not because it is so remote or abstruse but because it is so near and so obvious. And that is exactly how the Supernatural has been forgotten. The Naturalists have been engaged in thinking about Nature. They have not attended to the fact that they were thinking. The moment one attends to this it is obvious that one’s own thinking cannot be merely a natural event, and that therefore something other than Nature exists. The Supernatural is not remote and abstruse: it is a matter f daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing. Denial of it depends on a certain absent-mindedness. However, this absent-mindedness is in on way surprising. You do not need—indeed you do not wish—to be always thinking about windows when you are looking at gardens or always thinking about eyes when you are reading. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
In the same way the proper procedure for all limited and particular inquiries is to ignore the fact of your own thinking, and concentrate on the object. It is only when you stand back from particular inquiries and try to form a complete philosophy that you must take it into account. For a complete philosophy must get in all the facts. In it you turn away from specialized or truncated thought to total thought: and one of the facts total thought must think about is Thinking itself. There is thus a tendency in the study of Nature to make us forget the most obvious first of all. And since the Sixteenth Century, when Science was born, the minds of humans have been increasingly turned outward, to know Nature and to master her. They have been increasingly engaged on those specialized inquiries for which truncated thought is the correct method. It is therefore not in the least astonishing that they should have forgotten the evidence for the Supernatural. The deeply ingrained habit of truncated thought—what we call the “scientific” habit of mind—was indeed certain to lead to Naturalism, unless this tendency were continually corrected from some other source. However, no other source was at hand, for during the same period humans of science were coming to be metaphysically and theologically uneducated. That brings me to the second consideration. The state of affairs in which ordinary people can discover the Supernatural only by abstruse reasoning is recent and, by historical standards, abnormal. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
All over the World, until quite modern times, the direct insight of the mystics and the reasonings of the philosopher percolated to the mass of the people by authority and tradition; they could be received by those who were no great reasoners themselves in the concrete form of myth and ritual and the whole pattern of life. In the conditions produced by a century or so of Naturalism, plain humans are being forced to bear burdens which plain humans were never expected to bear before. We must get the truth for ourselves or go without it. There may be two explanations for this. It might be that humanity, in rebelling against tradition and authority, has made a ghastly mistake; a mistake which will not be less fatal because the corruptions of those in authority rendered it very excusable. On the other hand, it may be that the Power which rules our species is at this moment carrying out a daring experiment. Could it be intended that the whole mass of the people should now move forward and occupy for themselves those heights which were once reserved only for the sages? Is the distinction between wise and simple to disappear because all are now expected to become wise? If so, our present blunderings would be but growing pains. However, let us make no mistake about our necessities. If we are content to go back and become humble plain humans obeying a tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. However, the human who will neither obey wisdom in others nor adventure for her oneself is fatal. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
A society where the simple many obey the few seers can live: a society where all were seers could live even more fully. However, a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can achieve only superficiality, baseness, ugliness, and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death. One other point that may have raised doubt or difficulty is the advanced reasons for believing that a supernatural element in present in every rational human. The presence of human rationality in the World is therefore a Miracle. Human Reason an Morality have been mentioned not as instances of Miracle (at least, not of the kind of Miracle you wanted to hear about) but as prods of the Supernatural: not in order to show that Nature ever is invaded but that there is a possible invader. Whether you choose to call the regular and familiar invasion by human Reason a Miracle or not is largely a matter of words. Its regularity—the fact that it regularly enters by the same door, human pleasures of the flesh—may incline you not to do so. It looks as if it were (so to speak) the very nature of Nature to suffer this invasion. However, then we might later find that it was the very nature of Nature to suffer Miracles in general. Fortunately the course of our argument will allow us to leave this question of terminology on one side. We are going to be concerned with other invasions of Nature—with what everyone would call Miracles. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Our question could, if you liked, be put in the form, “Does Supernature every produce particular results in space and time except through the instrumentality of human brains acting on human nerves and muscles?” I have said “particular results” because, on our view, Nature as a whole is herself one huge result of the Supernatural: God created her. God pierces her wherever there is a human mind. God presumably maintains her in existence. The question is whether He ever does anything else to her. Does God, beside all this, ever introduce into her events of which it would not be true to say, “This is simply the working out of the general character which God gave to Nature as a whole in creating her”? Such events are what are popularly called Miracles: and it will be in this sense only that the word Miracle will be used from now on. Do not stand at my grace and weep, I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a though rays of light that glow. I am the diamond glint on snow. I am the moonlight on the shinning sea. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you wake in the morning hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush or quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft starlight at night. Do not stand at my grace and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. Our God and God of our fathers, we thank Thee for Thy Torah, our priceless heritage. May the portion we have ready today inspire us to do Thy will and to seek further knowledge of Thy word. Thus our minds will be enriched and our lives endowed with purpose. May we take to heart Thy laws by which humans truly live. Happy are all who love Thee and delight in Thy commandments. Amen. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Wise Humans, Good Humans, Patriotic Humans are to be Found in All Communities!
If Americans could be made to believe that their sufferings were for some remote, high sacrificial end, perhaps it would be possible for them to become reconciled to their plight; but sharing the culture that condemns them, and seeing that lust for trash is what blinds the nation to their claims, is what sets storms rolling in the soul of America. The United State of America is so unique from other nations because it is a nation of laws, not a nation of humans. A nation of laws means that legal decrees, not people rule. Whether it be the most common American members or members of Congress, high-ranking bureaucrats or the president of the United States of America, everyone is governed by the same laws, regardless of their station. All must be held to the just laws of America. America’s founds extolled a nation of laws, for they knew that only a fairly enforced legal system could protect liberty and property against corruption and tyranny. God is in fact the author of liberty and to retain it, the inhabitant of the land must be protected by His might hand. There is no other power that can protect that liberty. In order for us to enjoy this protection of His might, we must accept God as our God and keep His commandments. “Behold, this America is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under Heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ,” reports Ether 2.12. The God of this land is also the King of the land. And this is true. #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
Manifest Destiny is a phenomenon. Jesus spoke here in America, and He proclaimed, “This lad shall be a land of liberty, and there shall be no kings upon it. For I, the Lord, the king of Heaven, will be their king, and I will be light unto them forever, that hear my words. For it is a choice land, saith God, wherefore I will have all humans that dwell thereon that they shall worship me,” reports 2 Nephi 10.11-19. The alternative to enjoying this liberty and happiness through acceptance of and obedience to Jesus Christ is made clear by Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny is a tangible blessing from God that has created American history. It is a systematic body of concepts and beliefs that powers American life and culture. The right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development and great creation of liberty and federative development of self government entrusted to us is a promise that we shall flourish. “Whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when hey are ripened in iniquity,” reports Ether 2.8-9. It is as a right that we serve God and obey the laws as that of the tree to the space of air and the Earth be suitable for the full expression of its principle and destiny of growth. When people follow the guidance of God of the land, they reach great heights. The Lord in the very beginning revealed to Adam a perfect form of government for the benefit of humans. We believe that governments are instituted of God. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Individual freedom is necessary. No law shall be passed that takes away from a human the right of free choice. Free agency is fundamental as law of human conduct. Humans have a right to obey or disobey that laws as they please, and take the consequences. That government is best which has as its aim the administration of justice, social well-being and the promotion of prosperity among its members. We must recognize that property rights are essential to human liberty. The individual has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to one’s life, the right to one’s liberty, and the right to one’s property. The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a human one’s life, but to deny one one’s liberty, is to take from one all that makes life worth living. To give one liberty, but take from one the property which is the fruit and badge of one’s liberty, is to still leave one a slave. Laws are enacted for the protection of society, and have no value except when they are administered in righteousness and justice. If dishonest humans occupy administrative offices, laws cannot be so administered in righteousness and justice. The Lord says, “When the wicked rule, the people mourn.” Wise humans, good humans, patriotic humans are to be found in all communities, in all political parties, among all creeds. None but such humans should be chosen. Without beneficent laws, righteously administered, the foundations of civilization crumble, anarchy reigns, decay and dissolution follow. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
We call upon all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout the World to honour the laws of God, and obey and uphold the law of the land; and we appeal to good humans everywhere, regardless of creed, party affiliation, race, culture, or condition to join with us in an effort to put into operation the words of President Lincoln, the great emancipator, that our country may continue to be a light to the World, a loyal, law-abiding, God-fearing nation. We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience; and allow all humans the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. However, we claim absolutely no right, no prerogative whatever, to interfere with any other people. A good government must secure for every citizen the free exercise of conscience. Matters of belief or religious practice should not be interfered with, unless they oppose laws formulated for the common good. There should be no mingling of religious influence with the civil governments. We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honouring, and sustaining the laws. The main psychological root of the liability to envy is a lack of self-confidence in our own worth combined with a sense of impotence. Our way of life is without zest and we feel powerless to alter it or to acquire the means of doing what we still want to do. This creation the notion of resentment. By contrast, someone sure of the worth of one’s plan of life and one’s ability to carry it out is not given to rancor nor is one jealous of one’s good fortune. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
Even if one could, one has no desire to level down the advantages of others at some expense to oneself. This hypothesis implies that the least favoured tend to be more envious of the better situation of the more favoured the less secure their self-respect and the greater their feeling that they cannot improve their prospects. Similarly the particular envy aroused by competition and rivalry is like to be stronger the worse one’s defeat, for the blow to one’s self-confidence is more severe and the loss may seem irretrievable. It is general envy, however, that mainly concerns us here. There are three conditions that encourage hostile outbreaks of envy. The first of these is the psychological condition we have just noted: persons lack a sure confidence in their own value and in their ability to do anything worthwhile. Second (and one of two social conditions), many occasions arise when this psychological condition is experienced as painful and humiliating. The discrepancy between oneself and others is made visible by the social structure and style of one’s society. The less fortunate are therefore often forcibly reminded of their situation, sometimes leading them to an even lower estimation of themselves and their mode of living. And third, they see their social position as allowing no constructive alternative to opposing the favoured circumstances of the more advantaged. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
To alleviate their feelings of anguish and inferiority, they have no choice but to impose a loss on those better placed even at some cost to themselves, unless of course they are to relapse into resignation and apathy. Now, if not to present these conditions, many aspects of a well-ordered society of to mitigate. It is clear that, although it is a psychological state, social institutions are a basic instigating cause. However, the contract conception of justice supports the self-esteem of the citizens generally more firmly than other political principles. In the public forum each person is treated with the respect due to a sovereign equal; and everyone has the same basic rights that would be acknowledged in an initial situation regarded as fair. The members of the community have a common sense of justice and they are bound by ties of civic friendship. Obedience implies a higher attitude than mere submission, for obedience has its root in good intent; submission may spring from selfishness or meanness of spirit. Though obedience and submission both imply restraint on one’s own will, we are obedient only from a sense of right; submissive from a sense of necessity. Honour expressed an act or attitude of an inferior towards a superior. When applied to things it is taken in the sense of holding honour. Thus, in honouring the law, we look upon it as something which is above selfish desires or indulgences. To sustain signifies to hold up; to keep from falling. To sustain the law, therefore, is to refrain from saying or doing anything which will weaken it or make it ineffective. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
We obey the law from a sense of right. We honour the law because of its necessity and strength to society. We sustain law by keeping it in good repute. This is in our connection with stability. The greater advantages of some are in return for compensating benefits for the less favoured; and no one supposes that those who have a larger share are ore deserving from a moral point of view. Happiness according to virtue is rejected as a principle of perfection: regardless of the excellences that persons or associations display, their claims to social resources are always adjudicated by principles of mutual justice. For all these reasons the less fortune have no cause to consider themselves inferior and the public principles generally accepted underwrite their self-assurance. The disparities between themselves and others, whether absolute or relative, should be easier for them to accept than in other forms of polity. Turning to the second condition, both the absolute and the relative differences allowed in a well-ordered society are probably less than those that have often prevailed. Although in theory the difference principle permits indefinitely large inequalities in return for small gains to the less favoured, the spread of income and wealth should not be excessive in practice, given the requisite background institutions. Moreover the plurality of associations in a well-ordered society, each with its secure internal life, tends to reduce the visibility, or at least the painful visibility, of variations in human’s purposes. For we tend to compare our circumstances with others in the same or in a similar group as ourselves, or in positions that we regard as relevant to our aspirations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
The various associations in society tend to divide it into so many noncomparing groups, the discrepancies between these divisions not attracting the kind of attention which unsettles the lives of those less well placed. And this ignoring of differences in wealth and circumstances is made easier by the fact that when citizens do meet one another, as they must in public affairs at least, the principles of equal justice are acknowledged. Moreover in everyday life the natural duties are honoured so that the more advantaged do not make an ostentatious display of their higher estate calculated to demean the condition of those who have less. After all, if the disposing conditions for envy are removed, so probably are those for jealousy, grudgingness, and spite, the converses of envy. When the less fortunate segments of society lack the one the more fortunate will lack the other. Taken together these features of a well-ordered regime diminish the number of occasions when the less favoured are likely to experience their situation as impoverished and humiliating. Even if they have some liability to envy, it may never be strongly envoked. Finally, considering the last condition, it would seem that a well-ordered society as much as any other offers constructive alternatives to hostile outbreaks of envy. The problem of general envy anyway does not force us to reconsider the choice of the principles of justice. As for particular envy, to a certain extent it is endemic to human life; being associated with rivalry, it may exist in any society. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
The more specific problem for political justice is how pervasive are the rancor and jealousy aroused by the quest for office and position, and whether it is likely to distort the justice of institutions. It is difficult to settle this latter in the absence of the more detailed knowledge of social forms available at the legislative stage. However, there sees to be no reason why the hazards of particular envy should be worse in a society regulated by justice as fairness than by any other conception. The principles of justice again seems relatively stable. A question has been asked man times. In the case of a conflict between requirements made by the law revealed by the word of God, and those imposed by the secular law, which of these authorities would members of the Church be bound to obey? The word of God is to come first. So essentially, God should be in and influence the government because the number one rule of God is to be honest and if one cannot honestly enforce the law, they have no right in government. In all civilized nations the people are accorded the right to pray, and this right is assured by what maybe properly called a common law of humankind. No earnest soul is cut off from communion with one’s God; and with such an open channel of communication, relief from burdensome laws and redress from grievances may be sought from the power that holds control of nations. “Bad laws, if they exist, should be repleaded as soon as possible; still, while they continue in force, they should be religiously observed,” reports President Abraham Lincoln. This is the view of the Church. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
While there are many forms of equality, and egalitarianism admits of degrees, there are conceptions of justice that are recognizably equalitarian, even though certain significant disparities are permitted. The two principles of justice fall under this heading. The different conception of equality which they define is acknowledged on the supposition that envy does not exist. For behold, you should not fear humans more than God, you should be faithful and God will extend His arm, and He will be with you in every time of trouble. Children of God are chosen to do the work of the Lord. Repent of that which thou hast done, and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the world. Except thou doest this, thou shalt become as other humans, and have no more gift. When thou delivers up that which God has given thee sight and power to translate thou delivers up that which is sacred into the hands of a wicked human who depends upon one’s own judgment, and boasts in one’s own wisdom; and this is the reason that thou will lose thy privileges for a season. Nevertheless, God’s work shall go forth, for, inasmuch as the knowledge of the Saviour has come unto the World, through the testimony of the Jewish people, even so shall the knowledge of a Saviour come unto our people, and to the Americans through the testimony of their fathers. And this testimony shall come to the knowledge of all. For this very purpose are these plates preserved that the promises of the Lord might be fulfilled, which He made to His people. And the Americans might come to the knowledge of their fathers, and they might know the promise of the Lord. And they may believe the gospel and rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ, and be glorified through faith in his name and through their repentance they might be saved. I cancel every demonic assignment against you and your purpose. The plans of the enemy will not prevail. In Jesus’ name, Amen. #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
Joseph Smith was very sorry he had been unfaithful, and he humbled himself before God, determining to try harder to keep all of the Lord’s commandments. Later, within a month, the gift and the plates were returned to Joseph, but he was not allowed to translate the same record again. By revelation Joseph was told that wicked people had the lost manuscript. The Lord, Jesus Christ said; Behold, Satan, has put it into their hearts to alter the words, because they have altered the words, they read contrary from that which you translated and caused to be written. On this wise the Devil has sought to lay a cunning plan, the he may destroy this work. Verily I say unto you, that I will not suffer that Satan shall accomplish his evil design in this thing. Behold, they say and think in their hearts, We will see if God has given him power to translate, if so, he will also give him power again; and if he bringeth forth the same words, behold, we have the same with us, and we have altered them. Therefore, they will not agree, and we will say that he has lied in his words, and that he has no gift, and that he has no power; therefore, we will destroy him, and also the work. Behold, I say unto you, that you shall not translate again those words which have gone forth out of your hands. For, behold, if you should bring forth the same words, they will say that you have contradicted yourself. And, behold, they will publish his, and Satan will harden the hearts of the people to stir them up to anger against you, that they will not believe my words. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
The Lord told Joseph that the part of the record he had translated which had been lost (about one hundred and sixteen pages) was a shorted story of the Nephite record; and that the golden plates also contained the complete story. Joseph was told he should translate the full record rather than the shortened one he had previously translated: the Lord said: I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will show unto them that y wisdom is greater than the cunning of the Devil. Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I came unto my own, and my own received me not. I am He who said, Other sheep have I which are not of this fold, unto my disciples, and many there were that understood me not. And I will show unto this people, that I had other sheep, and I will also bring to light my gospel, which was ministered unto them. And this I do, that I may establish my gospel, that there may not be so much contention. Yea, Satan doth stir up the hearts of the people to contention, concerning the points of my doctrine; and in these things they do err, for they do wrest the Scriptures, and do not understand them. Therefore, I will unfold unto them this great mystery; for behold, I will gather them as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, if they will not harden their hearts. Behold, this is my doctrine: Whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church Whosoever is of my church, and endureth of my church to the end, one will I establish upon my Rock. And now, remember the words of your Redeemer, your Lord, and your God. Amen. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
The important of separating envy from the moral feelings can be seen from several examples. Suppose first that envy is held to be pervasive in poor less affluent societies. The reason for this, it may be suggested, is the general belief that the aggregate of social wealth is more or less fixed, so that one person’s gain is another’s loss. The social system is interpreted, it might be said, as a naturally established and unchangeable zero-sum game. Now actually, if this belief were widespread and the stock of goods were generally thought to be given, then a strict opposition of interests would be assumed to obtain. In this case, it would be correct to think that justice requires equal shares. Social wealthy is not viewed as the outcome of mutually advantageous cooperation and so there is no fair basis for an unequal division of advantages. What is said to be envy may in fact be resentment which might or might not prove to be justified. Dr. Freud’s speculations about the origin of the sense of justice suffer from the same defect. He remarks that this sentiment is the outgrowth of envy and jealousy. As some members of the social group jealously strive to protect their advantages, the less favoured are moved by envy to take them away Eventually everyone recognizes that they cannot maintain their hostile attitudes toward one another without injury to themselves. Thus as a compromise they settle upon the demand of equal treatment. The sense of justice is a reaction-formation: what was originally jealousy and envy is transformed into a social feeling, the same sense of justice that insists upon equality for all. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
Dr. Freud believes that this process is exemplified in the nursey and in many other social circumstances. Yet the plausibility of one’s account assumes that the initial attitudes are correctly described. With a few changes, the underlying features of the example he depicts correspond to those of the original position. That persons have opposing interests and seek to advance their own conception of the god is not at all the same thing as their being moved by envy and jealousy. As we have seen, this sort of opposition gives rise to the circumstances of justice. Thus if children compete for the attention and affection of their parents, to which one might say they justly have an equal claim, one cannot assert that their sense of justice springs form jealousy and envy. Certainly children are often envious and jealous; and no doubt their moral notions are so primitive that the necessary distinctions are not grasped by them. However, waiving these difficulties, we could equally well say that their social feelings arise from resentment, from a sense that they are unfairly treated. And similarly one could say to conservative writers that it is mere grudgingness when those better circumstances reject the claims of the less advantaged to greater equality. However, this contention also calls for careful argument. None of these charges and countercharges can be given credence without first examining the conceptions of justice sincerely held by individuals and their understanding of the social situation in order to see how far these claims are indeed founded on these motives. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
None of these remarks is intended to deny that the appeal to justice is often a mask for envy. What is said to be resentment may really be rancor. However, rationalizations of this sort present a further problem. In addition to showing that a person’s conception of justice is not itself founded on envy, we must determine whether the principles of justice cited in one’s explanation are sincerely held as this is shown in their being applied by one to other cases in which one is not involved, or even better, in which one would suffer a loss from their being followed. Dr. Freud means to asset more than the truism that envy and jealousy, and that without this energy, there would be no (or much less) desire to give justice. Conceptions of justice have few attractions for us other than those deriving from these and similar feelings. It is claim that is supported by erroneously conflating envy and resentment. Unhappily the problem of the other special psychologies must go untouched. They should in any case be treated in much the same way as envy. One tries to assess the configuration of attitudes toward risk and uncertainty, domination and submission, and the like, that just institutions are likely to generate, and then to estimate whether they are likely to render theses institutions unworkable or ineffective. We also need to ask whether, from the point of view of the persons in the original position, the conception chosen is acceptable or at least tolerable whatever our special proclivities may turn out to be. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
The most favourable alternative is that which allows a place for all these different tendencies insofar as they are likely to be encouraged by a just basic structure. There is a division of labour so to speak between persons with contrary inclinations. Of course some of these attitudes may earn a premium in the way that certain trained abilities do, as for example the willingness to be adventuresome and to take unusual risks. However, if so, the problem is o all fours with the return to natural assets and it is covered by the discussion of distributive shares. What a social system must not do clearly is to encourage propensities and aspirations that it is bound to repress and disappoint. So long as the pattern of special psychologies elicited by society either supports its arrangements or can be reasonably accommodated by them, there is no need to reconsider the choice of a conception of justice. I believe, though I have not shown, that the principles of justice as fairness pass this test. When people can measure the extent of their freedom in two or three paces, and realize for the first time in their lives they have nothing else to do, but sit on a bunk, as they say passes into night and they continue to sit there because they are in prison—that is when it dawns on them how important freedom is. Even the children of a wealthy family, children of charismatic, gregarious politicians may suddenly find themselves stripped of everything that has propped up their egos. All their plans, friends, their busy work schedule, all their carefully cultivated followers will be gone, and replaced by the sheer loneliness and boredom of the prison cell and the venomous hostility of their guards. And they will keep waiting for justice, for a deal. Surely the United States Constitution could not simply leave them to rot in prison! #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
Imagine half a year going by before you are confronted with any charges. Then a fraudulently concocted murder case is brought, and a rigged military court condemns you to death. This is a bad dream, for the real reason for your imprisonment is the President is a communist and has lust for money and greed for power. Then imagine within his or her two-term limit as president due to expire in a few short weeks, the president declares martial law, granting him or herself almost unlimited powers. Then he or she can have you and other political opponents thrown into prison. The president may never intend to leave office—and may be determined never to let a popular rival out to silence him or her. Prison has the bewildering effect on many, which causes them to lose all sense of direction and perspective. One may become better not only at the president, but at the World, even at God. Injustice causes some to hate everyone and their prison guard may goad on an individual. Imagine if sometimes they put your dinner plate on the ground and let a mongrel dog wolf part of it down; then, kicking the dog aside, they give you what and left, and if you do not eat it, you get placed on suicide watch. In a matter of weeks, this could cause an individual to lose forty pounds, suffer two heart attacks. And when you are not longing for revenge, you want to die. However, much like Joseph Smith, if you keep your faith in God, He will show you that such losses are not in vain as you find your true life in Christ. What is this suffering is what draws you closer to the Lord and saves you from a life of eternal flames in the pits of hell? Therefore, continue to search for meaning in life. Find great inspiration in the Holy Bible to motivate your life and struggle for your country. Then, even if your prison is physical, or only in your mind, kneel in your jail cell and give your life to Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
Even if you are overcome with grief for your anger towards God, please beg for forgiveness. There is a close connection between frequent and solid spiritual experiences between us and the development of faith in the elaborate and creative purposes of God. This is derived from the close connection between Father and child because we are here with God now, needing Him and He says, “I am thinking of you,” and even though we may not be able to see God, we are having Him as part of our current experience, even when we are unaware. The fortune individual will have had many times when one was with God but not are of Him except for the security of knowing that He was there when needed. We are fortune because our environment is fulfilling one of the essentials needed if one is to have highly developed creativity. Because we have somehow had God there when He was not an obvious part of our experience, one can discover the Lord after we think He is absent (from experience) for a while. The individual will have had the experience of tolerating God’s absence without having to feel the terror that He might be lost forever. As we build our faith our experience will flicker between “God here when He is not here,” and “God not here when He is here.” One has thereby discovered that one can hold on to a concept—the symbol—which stands for the available God—has become pleasantly and interestingly established. We can play peekaboo with it. We can make the symbol happen while waiting for God to come along. The symbol can fill the interval of waiting, a small space of time. #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
The symbol stands for God—it stands for “You who normally come soon after I realize that I need You. Something arouses in my mind, an anticipation, a phantasy of something good. Then there is a small gap an absence, an interval of time. Then You came.” All one’s viewpoints, one’s life, most of all one’s bitterness—all will change. One will have a sense that life has suddenly moved into a different channel with another purpose. It is for our doubting hearts to believe that spiritual power—which is peaceful, prayerful, humane, forgiving, willing to suffering on the side of the poor and oppressed—can change society. We know that the gospel affects the lives of individuals, but can it make an impact on institutions and governments, where the heartless realities of power pierce like a knife? It is hard to fathom this. Nevertheless, it can happen. It does happen. One can never quite calculate how one conversation in a mental or physical prison cell may set in motion a train of events to shake a nation. Many people in prisons want to die. However, when they find Christ, they acquire a new maturity, and, though one may also retain their natural ebullience, a relative serenity that have never had before manifests. Some people will sense an individual has undergone something like a religious conversion as a result of years of injustice inflicted in a cell or in their own community. And indeed they have, but it will take away none of their heartfelt concern for their nation. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
In countries that suffer from communism, the president uses martial law as a cover while they rape the country. Leaders and their business cronies have been known to bleed nations dry, making huge profits through monopoly powers and putting the money into New York real estate and Swiss banks. Meanwhile, half the working population cannot find jobs. The ugly scabs of the slums, many without running water or flushing toilets, spread across Sacramento and other cities. Marxist guerrillas are quickly gaining around, and the some in positions of authority, riven by corruption, seem unable to stop them. They may find it easier to savage poor peasants than to fight the Communists. Things may even reach a pint where anyone who helps the poor will be under suspicion. Army units have arrested, killed, and tortured even Catholic priests and nuns who have chosen to work with the desperately poor in other countries. While in America, some people, even the rich and famous, are given bonuses and jobs to help extort those suffering injustices. A few Catholics have, it is true, take the side of the Marxists, but the vast majority simply minister in the name of Jesus to those in need. Between the Marxist insurgency and a president who becomes a dictator, there is little room in the middle. Some people, even many in America, have seen the ruthless side of communism—after all they suffer and lose their lives just because of who they are. It is true, one can fight hatred with a greater hatred, but it is more effective to fight hatred with greater Christian love. #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
Do much soul searching and pursue your freedom struggle through the path of nonviolence, fully cognizant that this ay be the longer and more arduous road. And you may suffer solitary confinement once again, and possibly death. However, by taking the road of revolution, how many lives, other then one’s, will have to be sacrificed? Humans are ordained to eternal life through the providence of God, it likewise is part of that providence to permit some to fall away from that end; this is called reprobation. Thus, as predestination is a part of providence, in regard to those ordained to eternal salvation, so reprobation is a part of providence in regard to those who turn aside from that end. Hence reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin, and to impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin. Symbols can stand for what will come. However, equally, they can stand for what may come, what may not come, or what will not come again. All kinds of conceptual processes can fill the interval between the moment when we have phantasy of something and the moment of finding something. Transitional objects and other symbols appear where there had been either nothing, or an experience of something not there. God loves all humans and all creatures, inasmuch as He wishes them all some good; but He does not wish every good to them all. So far, therefore, as He does not wish this particular good—namely, eternal life—He is said to hate or reprobate them. Reprobation different in its causality from predestination. This atter is the cause of what is expected in the future life by predestined—namely, glory—and of what is received in this life—namely grace. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
Reprobation, however, is not the cause of what is in the present, namely sin; but it is the cause of abandonment by God. It is the cause, however, of what is assigned in the future—namely, eternal punishment. However, guilt proceeds from the free-will of the person who is reprobated and deserted by grace. In this way, the word of the prophet is true—namely, “Destruction is thy own, O Israel.” Reprobation by God does not take away from the power of the person reprobated. Hence, when it is said that the reprobated cannot obtain grace, this must not be understood as implying absolute impossibility: butt only conditional impossibility: as was said above does not do away with the liberty of choice. Whence, although anyone reprobated by God cannot acquire grace, nevertheless, that one falls into this or that particular sin comes from the use of one’s free will. Hence is rightly imputed to one as guilt. It is as if it were illuminated through a succession of continuously changing filters. You discover that the first phase of your involvement was no more than a prelude or an overture before the curtain vanished. You come to see that sin began by enticing you with an illusion—the illusion of a light-filled hedonistic joy, evil disguised by sun-drenched window—and to accept that what you are in fact confronted with is nothing more or less than the successive layers of the thinnest of honey-comb marks laid down gently in whispers of lies upon the canvas surface. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
However, when the curtain has risen and the any the painting of lies continues to such your eyes into itself, it will engulf your soul with its entertainment. The uniform skin of God’s grace evaporates in part because in tenuous existence came about only through the adhering to God’s commandments and your organization of forms of faith, which was a shimmering ray of love inviting the Holy Ghost in your temple. However, as this shimmer disintegrates, it gives way to billowing and boundless hazes of black smoke, to seemingly limitless vistas of your soul space. It is the duty of citizens of any country to remember that they have individua responsibilities, and that they must operate within the law of the country in which they have chosen to live. No member of the Church can be accepted as in good standing whose way of life is one of rebellion against the established order of decency and obedience to law. We cannot be in rebellion against the law and be in harmony with the Lord, for He has commanded us to “be subject to the powers that be, until He reigns whose right it is to reign,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 58.22. And one of these days He is going to come. The exception to this principle would be when the Lord directs His people through His prophets to take an opposing stand to government. Otherwise they recognize the established authority of government. Remember that the Lord holds all of us responsible for our conduct here. He held our father Adam responsible for his conduct, but no more than He does us, in proportion to the station we hold. #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
The kings of the Earth will have to give an account to God, for their conduct in a kingly capacity. Kings are heads of nations, governors are heads of provinces; so are fathers or husbands governors of their own houses, and should act accordingly. Because some regard the theory and practice of one’s subject from the inside, they mystic can discuss it with a correctness and authority which most critics do not possess because they are outside it. They are largely in the dark about it—one is actually in the light. Those who has never felt it in themselves nor seen in demonstrated in others cannot understand the blessedness of such a state. Because they are unready for it, they cannot endure such an experience. The peace it imparts is too impersonal and would suffocate them. The detachment which it creates makes the Worldly life seem less important and is too frightening. The recognition that this experience does happen is increasingly rapidly in Western counties but in the East, it has never been doubted. The criticism that mystical experience is subjective and illusory is being dropped, as it ought to be Those who have never experienced this state yet venture to criticize it as illusory are dealing with mere words, not facts. If the ordinary human seldom gets these subtler experiences it is because one’s nature is too coarse, one’s mind too physically based, one’s focus too personal to permit one to receive them. Deep within one’s own heart, hidden within one’s own consciousness, every person carries all the evidence for the truth of these teachings that one is ever likely to need. #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
That arrogance which denies Heaven to the unorthodox does not trouble the mystic. One finds Heaven here in this life, now before the transition of death. At such times, unexpected and unsought though they are, one feels the nearness of God, the love of God, the reality of God. Whoever ventures to call them delusions s oneself deluded. Those who are dead are never gone: they are there in the shimmering light. The dead are not under the Earth: they are there in the blue sky, they are in the clouds that drift above, they are in the rain that falls, they are in the sun that shines, they are in the moon the beams, they are in the trees that provide shade, they are in the crowd, the dead are not dead. Those who are dead are never gone, they are in your heart, they are in the eyes of an innocent child, they are in the flames in your fireplace. They are in the forest, they are in the house, they are not dead. When the Ark rested, Moses said: Mayest Thou, O Lord, dwell among the myriads of the families of America. Arise, O Lord, unto Thy sanctuary, Thou, and the Ark of Thy strength. Let Thy priest be clothed with salvation; and Thy faithful ones exult. For the sake of David, Thy servant, reject not Thine anointed. I have given your good teaching; forsake not My Torah. It is a Tree of Life to them that hold fast to it, and everyone who upholds it is happy. Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace. Turn us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall return; renew our days as of Heaven. This nation and all nations, together with president, queens, kings, emperors, judges, and all humans, righteous and wicked, have go to go into the spirit World and stand before the bar of God. They have got to give an account of the deeds done in the body. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Even the Truth Can Spread and Not Only the Popular Lie!
It is easy enough to praise humans for the courage of their convictions. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the bravery of this confusion. The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any. We all learn by experience but some of us have to go to summer school. The malignant forms of aggression—sadism and necrophilia—are not innate; hence, they can be substantially reduced when the socioeconomic conditions are replaced by conditions that are favourable to the full development of human’s genuine needs and capacities: to the development of human self-activity and human’s genuine need and capacities: to the development of human self-activity and human’s creative power as its own end. Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality; they cripple human self-activity and all factors that make humans into a psychic cripple turn one also into a sadist or a destroyer. Humans, have in our day become a source of suspicion and distrust of all against all. Credulity is one our worst enemies, but that is the makeshift the neurotic always resorts to in order to quell the doubter in one’s own heart or to conjure one out of existence. The result is that modern humans know oneself only in so far as one can become conscious of oneself—a capacity largely dependent on environment conditions, knowledge and control of which necessitated of suggested certain modifications of one’s original instinctive tendencies. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Their consciousness therefore orients itself chiefly by observing and investigating the World around one, and it is to the latter’s peculiarities that one must adapt one’s psychic and technical resources. This task is so exacting, and its fulfilment so profitable, that one forgets oneself in the process, losing sight of one’s instinctual nature and putting one’s own conception of oneself in place of one’s real being. In this way one slips imperceptibly into a purely conceptual World where the products of one’s conscious activity progressively take the place of reality. The Communist revolution has debased humans far lower than collective psychology has done, because it robs one of one’s freedom not only in the social but in the moral and spiritual sphere. Aside from the political difficulties, this entailed a great psychological disadvantage for the West that had already made itself unpleasantly felt in the days of German Nazism: we can now point a finger at the shadow. Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair. If one truly responds to humans and their future, id est, concernedly and “responsibly,” one can respond only by faith or by despair. Rational faith as well as rational despair are based on the most thorough, critical knowledge of all the factors that are relevant for the survival of humans. The basis of rational faith in humans is the presence of a real possibility for one’s salvation; the basis for rational despair would be the knowledge that no such possibility can be seen. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
Most people are quite ready to denounce faith in human’s improvement as unrealistic; but they do not recognize that despair is often just as unrealistic. It is easy to say: “Humans have always been killer.” However, the statement nevertheless is not correct, for it neglects to take into account the intricacies of history of destructiveness. It is equally easy to say, “The desire to exploit others is just human nature”; but again, the statement neglects (or distorts) the facts. In brief, that statement, “Human nature is evil,” is not a bit more realistic than the statement, “Human nature is good.” However, the first statement is much easier to make; anyone who wants to prove human’s evilness finds followers most readily, for one offers everybody an alibi for one’s own sins—and seemingly risks nothing. Yet the spreading of irrational despair is in itself destructive, as all untruth is; it discourages and confuses. Preaching irrational faith or announcing false Messiahs is hardly destructive—it seduces and then paralyzes. The attitude of the majority is neither that of faith nor that of despair, but, unfortunately, that of complete indifference to the future of humans. With those who are not entirely indifferent, the attitude is that of “optimism” or of “pessimism.” They are accustomed to identifying human achievement with technical achievement, human freedom with freedom from direct coercion and the consumer’s freedom to choose between many allegedly different commodities. The dignity, cooperativeness, kindness of the primitive do not impress them; technical achievement, wealth, toughness do. Centuries of rule over technically backward people of different colour have left their stamp on the optimists’ minds. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
How could a “savage” be human and equal, not to speak of superior, to the humans who can fly to the moon—or by pushing a button, destroy millions of living beings? The optimists live well enough, at least for the moment, and they can afford to be “optimists.” Or at least that is what they think because they are so alienated that even the threat to the future of their grandchildren does not genuinely affect them. The “pessimists” are really not very different from the optimists. They live just as comfortably and are just as little engaged. The fate of humanity is as little their concern as it is the optimists’. They do not feel despair; if they did, they would not, and could not, live as contentedly as they do. And while their pessimism functions largely to protect the pessimists from any inner demand to do something, by projecting the idea that nothing can be done, the optimists defend themselves against the same inner demand by persuading themselves that everything is moving in the right direction anyway, so nothing needs to be done. To have faith means to dare, to think the unthinkable, yet to act within the limits of the realistically possible; it is the paradoxical hope to expect the Messiah every day, yet not to lose heart when He has not come at the appointed hour. This hope is not passive and it is not patient; on the contrary, it is impatient and active, looking for every possibility of action within the realm of real possibilities. Least of all is it passive as far as the growth and the liberation of one’s own person are concerned. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
There are several limitations to personal development determined by the social structure. However, those alleged radicals who counsel that no personal change is possible or even desirable within present-day society use their revolutionary ideology as an excuse for their personal resistance to inner change. The situation of humankind today is too serious to permit us to listen to the demagogues—least of all demagogues who are attacked to destruction—or even to the leaders who use only their brains and whose hearts have hardened. Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality humans are endowed with—the love of life. Hate, as a relation to objects is older than love. It derives from the narcissistic ego’s primordial repudiation of the external World. It really seems as though it is necessary for us to destroy some other thing or person in order not to destroy ourselves, in order to guard against the impulsions to self-destruction. A sad disclosure indeed for the moralist! Humans are looked upon as an isolated system, driven by two impulses: one to survive (ego instinct) and one to have pleasure by overcoming the tensions that in turn were chemically produced within the body and localized in the “erogenous zones.” However, there is no need for psychoanalysis to be ashamed to speak of love, for religion itself said: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” This, however, is more easily said than done. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
Emotional bonds are means of identification. Whatever leads humans to share important interests produces this community of feeling, these identifications. And the structure of human societies is to a large extent based on them. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” It is known throughout the World and is undoubtedly older than Christianity, which puts it forward as its proudest claim. Yet it is certainly not very old; even in historical times it was still strand to humankind. Let us adopt a naïve attitude towards it, as though we were hearing it for the first time; we shall be unable then to suppress a feeling of surprise and bewilderment. Why should we do it? What good will it do us? However, above all, how shall we achieve it? How can it be possible? My love is something valuable to me which I ought not to throw away without reflection It imposes duties on me for whose fulfillment I must be ready to make sacrifices. If I love someone, one must deserve it in some way. (I leave out of account the use one may be to me in important ways that I an love myself in one; and one deserves it if one is so much more perfect than myself that I can love my ideal of my own self in one. Again, I have to love one if one is my friend’s son, since the pain my friend would feel if any harm came to one would be my pain too—I should have to share it. However, if one is a stranger to me and if one cannot attract me by any worth of one’s own or any significance that one may already have acquired for my emotional life, it would be for hard for me to love one. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Indeed, I should be wrong to do so, for my love is valued by all my own people as a sign of my preferring them, and it is an injustice to them if I put a stranger on a par with them. However, I am to love one (with this universal love) merely because one, too, is an inhabitant of this Earth, like an insect, and Earth-worm or a grass-snake, then I fear that only a small modicum of my love will fall to one’s share—not by any possibility as much as, by the judgment of my reason, I am entitled to retain for myself. The contradiction between death instinct and Eros (fundamental and creative love) confronts humans with a real and truly trading alternative. A real alternative because one can decide to attack and wage war, to be aggressive, and to express one’s hostility because one prefers to do this rather than to be sick. That this alternative is a tragic one hardly needs to be proven. And now we are struck by the significance of the possibility that the aggressiveness may not be able to find satisfaction in the external World because it comes up against real obstacles. If this happens, it will perhaps retreat and increase the amount of self-destructiveness holding sway in the interior. Holding back aggressiveness is in general unhealthy and leads to illness. However, science and learning to control the environment and making is more palatable for habitation and cultivation of agriculture, along with religion and psychology is good for humans. Humans are freed from the tragic choice between destroying either others or oneself, because the energy of destructive instinct is used for the control over nature. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
However, we must ask, can this really be so? Can it be true that destructiveness becomes transformed into constructiveness? What can “control over nature” mean? Taming and breeding animals, gathering and cultivating plants, weaving cloth, building huts, manufacturing pottery, and many more activities including the construction of machines, railroads, airplanes, and skyscrapers. All these acts of constructing, building, unifying, synthesizing, and, indeed, if one wanted to attribute them to one of the two basic instincts, they might be considered as being motivated by Eros rather than by the death instinct. With the possible exception of the killing animals for their consumption and killing humans in war, both of which could be considered as rooted in destructiveness, control, and mastery over nature is not destructive but constructive. The death instinct turns into the destructive instinct when, with the help of special organs, it is directed outwards, on to objects. However, civilization leads to the holding back of aggressiveness and results in physical illness, and this is why so many people go to church, are in therapy, and on psychotropic drugs. Many human beings want to deal with their aggression in health ways and have a peaceful, well-behaved community. The forlorn state of consciousness in our World is due primarily to loss of instinct, and the reason for this lies in the development of the human mind over the past aeon. The more power humans have over nature, the more one’s knowledge and skill went to one’s head, and the deeper became one’s contempt for the merely natural and accidental, for all irrational data—including the objective psyche, which is everything that consciousness in not. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
The Church recommends, in order to maintain society, that we develop more faith. Faith is a gift of grace and depends on human’s good will and pleasure. The seat of one’s faith, however, is not consciousness but spontaneous religious experience, which brings the individual’s faith into immediate relation with God. Here each of us must ask: Have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God, and hence that certainty which will keep me, as an individual, from dissolving in the crowd? To this question there is an optimistic answer only when the individual is willing to fulfil the demands of rigorous self-examination and self-knowledge. If one does this, one will not only discover some important truths about oneself but will also have gained a psychological advantage: one will have succeeded in deeming oneself worthy of serious attention and sympathetic interests. One will have set one’s hand, as it were, to a declaration of one’s own dignity and taken the first step towards the foundations of one’s consciousness—that is, towards the unconscious, the only available source of religious experiences. This is certainly not to say that what we call the unconscious is identical with God or is set up in His place. It is simply the medium from which religious experience seems to flow. As to what the further cause of such experience may be, the answer to this lies beyond the range of human knowledge. Knowledge of God is a transcendental problem. When it comes to answering the crucial question that hangs over our time like a threat, the religious person enjoys a great advantage. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
The religious person has a clear idea of the way one’s subjective existence is grounded in one’s relation to “God.” God is an anthropomorphic idea whose dynamism and symbolism are filtered through the medium of the unconscious psyche. Anyone who wants to can at least draw near to the source of such experiences, no matter whether one believes in God or not. Exotic races have ceased to be peepshows in ethnological museums. They have become our neighbours, and what was yesterday the private concern of the ethnologist is today a political, social, and psychological problem. We may hope for humans of understanding and humans of good will, and must therefore not grow weary of reiterating those thoughts and insights which are needed. Even the truth can spread and not only the popular lie. Only a fool can permanently disregard the conditions of one’s own nature. In fact, this negligence is the best means of making one an instrument of evil. Harmless and naivete are as little helpful as it would be for a cholera patient and those in one’s vicinity to remain unconscious of the contagiousness of the disease. One the contrary, they lead to the projection of the unrecognized evil in the “other.” This strengthens the opponent’s position in the most effective way, because the projection carries the fear which we involuntarily and secretly feel for our own evil over to the other side and considerably increases the formidableness of one’s threat. What is even worse, our lack of insight deprives us of the capacity to deal with evil. Here, of course, we come up against ne of the main prejudices of the Christian tradition, and one that is a great stumbling block to our policies. We should, so we are told eschew evil and, if possible, neither touch for mention it. For evil is also the thing of ill omen, that which is tabooed and feared. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
This apotropaic attitude toward evil, and the apparent circumventing of it, flatter the primitive tendency in us to shut our eyes to evil and drive it over some frontier or other, like the Old Testament scapegoat, which was supposed to carry the evil into the wilderness. However, if one can no longer avoid the realization that evil, without human’s ever having chosen it, is lodged in human nature itself, then it bestrides the psychological stage as the equal and opposite partner of good. This realization leas straight to a psychological dualism, already unconsciously prefigured in the political World schism and in the even more unconscious dissociation in modern humans. The dualism does not come from this realization; rather, we are in a split condition to begin with it. It would be an insufferable thought that we had to take personal responsibility for so much guiltiness. We therefore prefer to localize the evil in individual criminals or groups of criminals, while washing our hands in innocence and ignoring the general proclivity to evil. This sanctimoniousness cannot be kept up in the long run, because the evil, as experience shows, lies in humans—unless, in accordance with the Christian view, one is willing to postulate a metaphysical principle of evil. The great advantage of this view is that it exonerates human’s conscience of too heavy a responsibility and foists it off on the devil, in correct psychological appreciation of the fact that humans are much more the victims of their psychic constitution than its inventor. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Considering that the evil of our day puts everything that has ever agonized humankind in the deepest shade, one must ask oneself how it is that, for all our progress in the administration of justice, in medicine and in technology, for all our concern with life and health, monstrous engines of destruction have been invented which could easily exterminate the human race. No one will maintain that the atomic physicists are a pack of criminals because it is to their efforts that we owe that peculiar flower of human ingenuity, the hydrogen bomb. The vast amount of intellectual work that went into the development of nuclear physics was put forth by humans who dedicated themselves to their task with the greatest exertion and self-sacrifice, and whose moral achievement could therefore just as easily have earned them the merit of inventing something useful and beneficial to humanity. However, even though the first step along the road to a momentous invention may be the outcome of a conscious decision, here, as everywhere, the spontaneous idea—the hunch or intuition—plays an important part. In other words, the unconscious collaborates too and often makes decisive contributions. So it is not the conscious effort alone that is responsible for the result; somewhere or other the unconscious, with its barely discernible goals and intentions, has its finger in the pie. If it puts a weapon in your hand, it is aiming at some kind of violence. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19
Knowledge of the truth is the foremost goal of science, and if in pursuit of the longing for light we stumble upon an immense danger, then one has the impression more of fatality than of premeditation. It is not that present-day humans are capable of greater evil than the humans of antiquity or the primitive. One merely has incomparably more effective means with which to realize one’s propensity to evil. As one’s consciousness has broadened and differentiated, so one’s moral nature has lagged behind. That is the great problem before us today. Reason alone no loner suffices. If only because of their dangerousness, in theory, in lies within the power of reason to desist from experiments of such hellish scope as nuclear fission. However, fear of evil which one does not see in one’s own bosom but always in somebody else’s checks reason every time although everyone knows that the use of this weapon means the certain end of our present human World. The fear of universal destruction may spare us the worst, yet the possibility of it will nevertheless hang over us like a dark cloud so long as no bridge is found across the World-side psychic and political split—a bridge as certain as the existence of the hydrogen bomb. It is in the nature of political bodies always to see evil in the opposite group, just as the individual has an ineradicable tendency to get rid of everything one does not know and does not want to know about oneself by foisting it off on somebody else. The perfect have no needs of others, but weakness has, for it seeks support and does not confront its partner with anything that might force one into an inferior position and even humiliate one. When high idealism plays too prominent a role, this humiliation may happen only too easily. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
Whenever unjust is uncertain and police spying an terror are at work, human beings fall into isolation, which, of course, is the aim and purpose of the dictator State, since it is based on the greatest possible accumulation of depotentiated social units. To counter this danger, the free society needs a bond of an affective nature, a principle of a kind like caritas, the Christian love of your neighbour. However, it is just this love for one’s fellow humans that suffers most of all from the lack of understanding wrought by projection It would therefore by very much in the interest of the free society to give some thought to the question of human relationship from the psychological point of view, for in this resides its real cohesion and consequently its strength. Where love stop, power begins, and violence, and terror. What our age thinks as the “shadow” and inferior part of the psyche contains more than something merely negative. The very fact that through self-knowledge, that is, by exploring our own souls, we come upon the instincts and their World of imagery should throw some light on the powers slumbering in the psyche, of which we are seldom aware so long as all goes well. We are living in what the Greeks called the right moment for a metamorphosis of the gods, of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious within us who is changing. If humanity is not to destroy itself through the might of its own technology and science, coming generations will have to take to account of this momentous transformation. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
As at the beginning of the Christian era, so again today we are faced with the problem of general moral backwardness which has failed to keep pace with our scientific, technical, and social progress. So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of modern humans. Are they capable of resisting the temptation to use their powers of the purpose of staging a World conflagration? Are humans conscious of the path they are treading, and what the conclusions are that must be drawn from the present World situation and their own psychic situation? Do they know that they are on the point of losing the life-preserving myth of the inner human which Christianity has treasured up for one? Does one realize what lies in store should this catastrophe ever befall one? Is one even capable of realizing that this would in fact be a catastrophe? And finally, does the individual know that one is the makeweight that tips the scales? Happiness and contentment, equability of mind and meaning—fulness of life—these can be experienced only by the individual and not by a State, which, on the one hand, is nothing but a convention agreed to by independent individuals and, on the other, continually threatens to paralyse and suppress the individual. The psychiatrist is one of those who know most about the conditions of the soul’s welfare, upon which so infinitely much depends in the social sum. The social and political circumstances of the time are certainly of considerable significance, but their importance for the weal or woe of the individual has been boundlessly overestimated in so far as they are taken for the sole deciding fact. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
In this respect all our social goals commit the error of overlooking the psychology of the person for whim they are intended and—very often—of promoting only one’s illusions. I hope, therefore that a psychiatrist, who in the course of a long life has devoted oneself to the causes and consequences of psychic disorders, may be permitted to express one’s opinion, in all the modesty enjoined upon one as an individua, about the questions raised by the World situation today. I am neither spurred on by excessive optimism nor in love with high ideals, but am merely concerned with the fate of the individual human being—that infinitesimal unit on whom a World depends, and in whom, if we read the meaning of the Christian message aright, even God seeks His goal. Testimony to the existence and reality of the glimpse will be found in the literatures of all peoples through all times. It is not a newly manufactured idea, nor a newly manufactured fancy. A human who denies it is foolish so to limit one’s own possibilities, but one may learn better with time. These glimpses cannot rightly be dismissed by the scientist as merely self-suggested or wholly hallucinatory. Nor can they properly be regarded by the metaphysician as valueless for truth. As human beings we live by experience, and they are personal experiences which help to confirm the truth of the impersonal bases underneath them and which encourage us to continue on the same path. The Overself is a living reality. If the quest were merely an intellectual conception or an emotional fancy, nobody would waste one’s years, one’s endeavours, and one’s energies it. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
The Overself is not only a necessary conception of logical thought. It is also a beautiful fact of persona experience. There are three signs, among others, of the Soul’s presence in a Soul-denying generation. They are: moral conscience, artistic imagination, and metaphysical speculation. Criticism which knows only sensuous and intellectual experience can be litter valid here if, indeed, it is not entirely irrelevant. When a human confuses the nature of the mind with its own thoughts, when one is unable properly to analyse consciousness and memory, when one has never practised introspection and meditation successfully, one can know nothing of the soul and may well be sceptical of its existence. That the Overself is not the product of an inflated imagination but has a real existence, is a truth which any human who has the required patience and submits to the indispensable training may verify oneself. It is not a dim abstraction but a real presence. Not a vauge theory but a vital fact. To the human of insight there is something strange, ironic, and yet pathetic in the spectable of those who turn the consciousness and the understanding derived from the Overself against the acknowledgement of Its existence. If one can shed the mummy wrappings of acquired notions, complacent bigotries, and superstitious customs, and look at a problem with fresh eyes, one is more likely to succeed in one’s quest for truth. If one can re-examine the whole meaning of it as though it were a newly discovered problems, one is more likely to move towards it correct solution. If one will refuse to be intimidated by dietary precedent, and begin to rethink the whole matter of eating’s why and wherefore, one will reach astonishing results. For much nonsense about diet has come down to us by ignorant tradition and unthinking inheritance. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
As one draws closer to the soul of things, one comes more into harmony with Nature. And if one is true to one’s instincts, one will eat one’s food more and more as Nature herself produces it. Inferior and even harmful foods have been eaten for so long that most people have become addicted to them and, through habitual use, come to like them. It is true that several of these food have been part of a civilized diet for generations, but the duration of an error does not make it less an error, and does not justify its continuance. It is a fact worthy speculating upon that many groups of early Christians were mystical and had a special diet. Had they not been ousted by the Emperor Constantine—whose imperialistic political purpose they did not serve—from the official Christianity which he (and not Jesus) established, we might today have seen half the Christian World holding a faith in mystical beliefs and eating special diets. The France of Louis XII saw some remnants of those early sects, such as the Albigenses, Montanists, and Camisards—and no less than one third of total population of the country—living on special diets. Luigi Cornaro lived to a hundred in Italy on a strictly limited daily quantity of food. Dr. Josiah Oldfield was nearing his hundred year when I last visited England and attributed the fact to avoiding eating too much, which he termed “the great evil.” He is also an enthusiastic advocate of special diets. In the moment when you feel that actual contact with the One Infinite Life-Power has been made, draw it into the body and let it permeate every part, every organ, and every atom. It will tend to dissolve sickness and drive out disease. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
Healing powers are like prayers, they can cross oceans and traverse continents as readily and as speedily as can radio waves or thought. Telepathy is a fact and the basis of this operation. The ministrations of absent healing are most successful when the individual is passive and receptive to them. Hence the work of its power is most effective when the sufferer is sleeping or relaxing. I am the family of the Universe, and with all of us together I do not fear being alone; I can reach out and touch a rock or a hand or dip my feet in water Always there is some body close by, and when I speak I am answered by a plane’s roar or the bird’s whistling or the voice of others in conversation far apart from me When I lie down to sleep, I am in the company of the dark and the starts. Breathe to me, sheep in the meadow. Sun and moon, my father and my fathers brother, shine your light on me. My sister, Earth, hold me up to be blessed. Sun and moon, I smile at you both and spread my arms in affection and lay myself down at full length of the Earth to know I love it too and am never to be separated from it In no way shall death part us. Life up your heads, O ye gates, yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Life up your hears, O ye gates, yes, lift the up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who then is the King of glory? The Lord of hosts; He is the King of glory. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
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Bear in Mind that Even Impossibility is Often Temporary!
When you look directly at an insane person, all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that one is insane, which is not to see one at all. To see one, you must see what one saw. In a World of accelerant change, next year is nearer to us than next month was in a more leisurely era. This radically altered fact of life must be internalized by decision-makers in industry, government and elsewhere. Their time horizons must be extended. To plan for a more distant future does not mean to tie oneself to dogmatic programs. Plans can be tentative, fluid, subject to continual revision. Yet flexibility need not mean shortsightedness. To transcend technocracy, our social horizons must reach decades, even generations, into the future. This requires more than a lengthening of our formal plans. It means an infusion of the entire society, from top to bottom, with a new socially aware future-consciousness. One of the healthiest phenomena of recent years has been the sudden proliferation of organizations devoted to the study of the future. This recent development is, in itself, a homeostatic response of society to the speed-up of change. Within a few year we have seen the creation of future-oriented think tanks like the Institute for the Future; the Commission on the Year 2000, and the Harvard Program on Technology and Society; the appearance of futurist journals in England, France, Italy, Germany and the United States of America; the spread of university courses in forecasting and related subjects; the spread of university courses forecasting and related subjects; the convocation of international futurist meetings in Oslo, Berlin, and Kyoto; the coalescence groups like Futuribles, Europe 2000, Mankind 2000, the World Future Society. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Future centers are to be found in West Berlin, in Prague, in London, in Moscow, Rome and Washington, in Caracas, even in the remote jungles of Brazil at Belem and Belo Horizonte. Unlike conventional technocratic planners whose horizons usually extend no further than a few years into tomorrow, these groups concern themselves with change fifteen, twenty-five, even fifty years in the future. Every society faces not merely a succession of probable futures, but an array of possible futures, and a conflict over preferable futures. The management of change is the effort to convert certain possibilities into probables, in pursuit of agreed-on preferables. Determining the probably calls for science of futurism. Delineating the possible calls for an art of futurism. Defining the preferable calls for a politics of futurism. The Worldwide futurist movement today does not yet differentiate clearly among these functions. Its heavy emphasis is on the assessment of probabilities. Thus in many of these centers, economists, sociologists, mathematicians, biologist, physicists, operations researchers and others invent and apply methods for forecasting future probabilities. At what date could aquaculture feed half the World’s population? What are the odds that electric cars will supplant gasoline automobile in the next fifteen years? What changes are most probably in leisure patterns, urban governments, race relations? Stressing the interconnectedness of disparate events and trends, scientific futurists are also devoting increasing attention to the social consequences of technology. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The Institute for the Future is, among other things, investigating the probable social and culture effects of advanced communications technology. The group at Harvard is concerned with social problems likely to arise from bio-medical advances. Futurists in Brazil examine the probable outcomes of various economic development policies. The rationale for studying probable futures is compelling. It is impossible for an individual to live through a single working day without making thousands of assumptions about the probable future. The commuter who calls to say, “I will be home at six” bases one’s prediction on assumptions about the probability that the train will run on time. When mother sends Johnny to school, she tacitly assumes the school will be there when he arrives. Just as a pilot cannot steer a ship without projecting its course, we cannot steer our personal lives without continually making such assumptions, consciously or otherwise. Societies, too, construct an architecture of premises about tomorrow. Decision-makers in industry, government, politics, and other sectors of society could not function without them. In periods of turbulent change, however, these socially-shaped images of the probable future become less accurate. The breakdown of control in society today is directly linked to our inadequate images of probable futures. Of course no one can “know” the future in any absolute sense. We can systematize and deepen our assumptions and attempt to assign probabilities to them. Even this is difficult. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Attempts to forecast the future inevitably alter it. Similarly, once a forecast is disseminated, the act of dissemination (as distinct from investigation) also produces a perturbation. Forecasts tend to become self-fulfilling or self-defeating. As the time horizon is extended into the more distant future, we are forced to rely on informed hunch and guesswork. Moreover, certain unique events—assassinations, for example—are, for all intents and purposes, unpredictable at present (although we can forecast classes of such events). Despite all thus, it is time to erase, once and for all, the popular myth that the future is “unknowable.” The difficulties ought to chasten and challenge, not paralyze. We should admit into our thinking the idea of approximations, that is, that there are varying degrees of accuracy and inaccuracy of estimate. A rough idea of what lies ahead is better than none, and for many purposes extreme accuracy is wholly unnecessary. We are not, therefore, as helpless in dealing with future probabilities as mist people assume. The British social scientist Donald G. MacRae correctly assert that “modern sociologists can in fact make a number of comparatively short term and limited predictions with a good deal of assurance.” Apart from the standard methods of social science, however, we are experimenting with potentially powerful new tools for probing the future. These range from complex ways of extrapolating existing trends, to the construction of highly intricate models, games and simulations, the preparation of detailed speculative scenarios, the systematic study of history for relevant analogies, morphological research, relevance analysis, contextual mapping and the like. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
In comprehensive investigation of technological forecasting, Dr. Erich Jantsch, formerly a consultant to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and a research associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has identified scores of distinct new techniques either in use or in the experimental stage. The Institute for the Future in Middletown, Connecticut, a prototype of the futurist think tank, is a leader in the design of new forecasting tools. One of these is Delphi—a method largely developed by Dr. Olaf Helmer, the mathematician-philosopher who is one of the founders of the IFF. Delphi attempts to deal with very distant futures by making systematic use of the “intuitive” guesstimates of large numbers of experts. The work Delphi has led to a further innovation which has special importance in the attempt to prevent future shock by regulating the pace of change. Pioneered by Theodore J. Gordon of the IFF, and called Cross Impact Matrix analysis, it traces the effect of one innovation on another, making possible, for the first time, anticipatory analysis of complex chains of social, technological and other occurrences—and the rates at which they are likely to occur. We are, in short, witnessing a perfect extraordinary thrust toward more scientific appraisal of future probabilities, a ferment likely, in itself, to have a powerful impact on the future. It would be foolish to oversell the ability of science, as yet, to forecast complex events accurately. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Yet the danger today is not that we will overestimate our ability; the real danger is that we will under-utilize it. For even when our still-primitive attempts at scientific forecasting turn out to be grossly in error, the very effort helps us identify key variables in change, it helps clarify goals, and it forces more careful evaluation of policy alternatives. In these ways, if no others, probing the future pays off in the present. If we are to shift the planner’s time horizon and infuse the entire society with a greater sense of tomorrow, anticipating probably futures, however, is only part of what needs doing. For we must also vastly widen our conception of possible futures. To the rigorous discipline of science, we must add the flaming imagination of art. Today as never before we need a multiplicity of visions, dreams and prophecies—images of potential tomorrows. Before we can rationally decide which alternative pathways to choose, which cultural styles to pursue, we must first ascertain which are possible. Conjecture, speculation and the visionary view thus become as coldly practical a necessity as feet-on-the-floor “realism” was in an earlier time. This is why some of the World’s biggest and most touch-minded corporations, once living embodiment of presentism, today hire intuitive futurists, science fiction writers and visionaries as consultants. A gigantic European chemical company employs a futurist who combines a scientific background with training as a theologian. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
An American communications empire engages a future-minded social critic. A glass manufacturer searches for a science fiction writer to imagine the possible corporate forms of the future. Companies turn to these “blue-skyers” and “wild birds” not for scientific forecasts of probabilities, but for mind-stretching speculations about possibilities. Corporations must not remain the only agencies with access to such services. Local government, schools, voluntary associations and others also need to examine their potential futures imaginatively. One way to help them do so would be to establish in each community “imaginetic centers” devoted to technically assisted brainstorming. These would be places where people noted for creative imagination, rather than technical expertise, are brought together to examine present crises, to anticipate future crises, and to speculate freely, even playfully, about possible futures. What, for example, are the possible futures of urban transportation? Traffic is a problem involving the movement of humans and objects through spaces? To speculate about this question, an imaginetic center might enlist artists, sculptors, dancers, furniture designers, parking lot attendants, and a variety of other people who, in one way or another, manipulate space imaginatively. Such people, assembled under the right circumstances, would inevitably come up with ideas of which the technocratic city planners, the highway engineers and transit authorities have never dreamed of. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Musicians, people who live near airports, jackhammer people and subway conductors might well imagine new ways to organize, mask or suppress noise. Groups of young people might be invited to ransack their minds for previously unexamined approaches to urban sanitation, crowding, ethic conflict, care of the aged, or a thousand other present and future problems. In any such effort, the overwhelming majority of ideas put forward will, of course, be absurd, funny or technically impossible. Yet the essence of creativity is a willingness to play the fool, to toy with the absurd, only later submitting the stream of ideas to harsh critical judgment. The application of the imagination to the future thus requires an environment in which it is safe to err, in which novel juxtaposition of ideas can be freely expressed before being critically sifted. We need sanctuaries for social imagination. While all sorts of creative people ought to participate in conjecture about possible futures, they should have immediate access—in person or via telecommunications—to technical specialists, from acoustical engineers to zoologists, who could indicate when a suggestion is technically impossible (bearing in mind that even impossibility is often temporary). Scientific expertise can employ skilled specialists not to predict the future, but examine alternative futures to show the choices open. An appropriate model, for example, could help a group of imagineers visualize the impact on a city if its educational expenditures were to fluctuate—how this would affect, let us say, the transportation system, the theaters, the occupational structure and healthy of the community. Conversely, it could show how changes in these other factors might affect education. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The rushing stream of wild, unorthodox, eccentric or merely colorful ideas generated imagination must, after they have been expressed, be subjected to merciless screening. Only a tiny fraction of them will survive this filtering process. These few, however, could be of the utmost importance in calling attention to new possibilities that might otherwise escape notice. As we move from poverty toward affluence, politics changes from what mathematicians call a zero sum game into a non-zero sum game. In the first, if one player wins another must lost. In the second, all players can win. Finding non-zero sum solutions to our social problems requires all the imagination we can muster. A system for generating imaginative policy ideas could help us take maximum advantage of the non-zero opportunities ahead. If congruence fails for a well-ordered society, it seems bound to fail everywhere. On the other hand, it is by no means a foregone conclusion even in this instance that the right and the good are congruent. For this relation implies that the members of a well-ordered society, when they appraise their plan of life by the principles of rational choice, will decide to maintain their sense of justice as regulative of their conduct toward one another. The requisite match exists between the principles of justice that would be agreed to in the absence of information and the principles of rational choice that are not chosen at all and applied with full knowledge. Principles accounted for in strikingly different ways nevertheless fit together when those of justice are perfectly realized. Of course, this congruence has its explanation in how the contract doctrine is set up. However, the relation is not a matter oof course and its basis needs to be worked out. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
When we reflect on their psychological origins, we sometimes doubt the soundness of our moral attitudes. Thinking that these sentiments have arisen in situations marked say by submission to authority, we may wonder whether they should not be rejected altogether. Since the argument for the good of justice depends upon the members of a well-ordered society having an effective desire to act justly, we must allay these uncertainties. Imagine then that someone experiences the promptings of one’s moral sense as inexplicable inhibitions which for the moment one is unable to justify. Why should one not regard them as simply neurotic compulsions? If it should turn out that these scruples are indeed largely shaped an accounted for by the contingences of early childhood, perhaps by the course of our family history and class situation, and that there is nothing to add on their behalf, then there is surely no reason why they should govern our lives. However, of course to someone in a well-ordered society there are many things to say. One can point out to one the essential features of the development of the sentiment of justice and how eventually the morality of principles is to be understood. Moreover one’s moral education itself has been regulated by the principles of right and justice to which one would consent in an initial situation in which all have equal representation as moral persons. As we have seen, the more conception adopted is independent of natural contingencies and accidental social circumstances; and therefore the psychological process by which one’s moral sense has been acquired conform to principles that one oneself would choose under conditions that one would concede are fair and undistorted by fortune and happenstance. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Nor can someone in a well-ordered society object to the practices of moral instruction that inculcate a sense of justice. For in agreeing to principles of right the parties in the original position at the same time consent to the arrangements necessary to make these principles effective in their conduct. Indeed, the adaptability of these arrangements to the limitations of human nature is an important consideration in choosing a conception of justice. Thus no one’s moral convictions are the result of coercive indoctrination. Instruction is throughout as reasoned as the development of understanding permits, just as the natural duty of mutual respect requires. None of the ideals, principles, and precepts upheld in the society takes unfair advantage of human weakness. A person’s sense of justice is not a compulsive psychological mechanism cleverly installed by those in authority in order to insure one’s unswerving compliance with rules designed to advance their interests. Nor is the process of education simply a casual sequence intended to bring about as an end result the appropriate moral sentiments. As far as possible each stage foreshadows in its teaching and explanations the conception of right and justice at which it aims and by reference to which we will later recognize that the moral standards presented to us are justified. These observations are evident consequences of the contract doctrine and the fact that its principles regulate the practices of moral instruction in a well-ordered society. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
Following the Kantian interpretation of justice as fairness, we can say that by acting from these principles persons are acting autonomously: they are acting from principles that they would acknowledge under conditions that best express their nature as free and equal rational beings. To be sure, these conditions also reflect the situation of individuals in the World and their being subject to the circumstances of justice. However, this simply means that the conception of autonomy is that fitting for human beings; the notion suited to superior or inferior natures is most likely different. Thus moral education is education for autonomy. In due course everyone will know why one would adopt the principles of justice and how they are derived from the conditions that characterize one’s being an equal in a society of moral persons. It follows that in accepting these principles on the basis we are not influenced primarily by tradition and authority, or the opinions of others. However necessary these agencies may be in order for us to reach complete understanding, we eventually come to hold a conception of right on reasonable grounds that we can set out independently for ourselves. Now on the contract view the notions of autonomy and objectivity are compatible: there is no antinomy between freedom and reason. Both autonomy and objectivity are characterized in a consistent way by reference to the original position. The idea of the initial situation is central to the whole theory and other basic notions are defined in terms of it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Thus acting autonomously is acting from principles that we would consent to as free and equal rational beings, and that we are to understand in this way. Also, these principles are objective. They are the principles that we would want everyone (including ourselves) to follow were we take up together the appropriate general point of view. The original position defines this perspective, and its conditions also embody those of objectivity: its stipulations express the restrictions on arguments that force us to consider the choice of principles unencumbered by the singularities of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. The veil of ignorance prevents us from shaping our moral view to accord with our own particular attachments and interests. We do not look at the social order from our situation but take up a point of view that everyone can adopt on an equal footing. In this sense we look at our society and our place in its objectively: we share a common standpoint along with others and do not make our judgments from a personal slant. Thus our moral principles and convictions are objective to the extent that they have been arrived at and tested by assuming this general standpoint and by assessing the arguments for them by the restrictions expressed by the conception of the original position. The judicial virtues such as impartiality and considerateness are the excellences of intellect and sensibility that enable us to do these things well. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
If it moves the minds and hearts of an increasing number of humans, Christian faith may work wonders. However, if professed Christians forsake Heaven as their destination and come to fancy that the state may be converted into the terrestrial paradise—why they are less wise than Marx. Christians in politics can make a difference. Human plant, and God, using many people, brings the crop. In recent years many Christians have urged a more direct approach for bringing needed social change: simply elect Christians to political office. One spokes persons has even suggested a religious version of affirmative action; if, for example, 24 percent of the people are born again, then at least 24 percent of the officeholders should be born again. Others have argued that Christians should “take dominion” over government, with those in public office speaking “for God as well as for the American people.” On the surface this shortcut might seem to some an appealing answer to America’s declining morality. It is, however, simplistic and dangerous triumphalism. To suggest that electing Christians to public office will solve all public ills is not only presumptuous and theologically questionable, it is also untrue. Today’s misspent enthusiasm for political solutions to the moral problems of our culture arises from a distorted view of both politics and spirituality—too low a view of the power of a sovereign God and too high a view of the ability of humans. The idea that human systems, reformed by Christian influence, pave the road to the Kingdom—or at least, to revival—has the same utopia n ring that one finds in Marxist literature. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
This idea about human systems, which are reformed by Christian influence being the path to the Kingdom of God also ignores the consistent lesson of history that shows that laws are most often reformed as a result of powerful spiritual movements. I know of no case where a spiritual movement was achieved by passing laws. In addition, history puts the lie to the notion that just because one is devout, one will be a just and wise ruler. Take the nineteenth-century leader who forged a unified Germany from a cluster of minor states. Otto von Bismarck-Schonhausen was a committed Christian who regularly read the Bible, spoke openly of his devotion to God, and claimed divine guidance in response to prayer. “If I were no longer a Christian, I would not serve the king another hour,” he once declared. Yet Mr. Bismarck was also the ruthless architect of Deutaschland Uber Alles (Germany Over All), a Worldview that allegedly started two World wars. Historians describe Mr. Bismarck as a Machiavellian master of political duplicity who specialized in blood and iron. Power can be just as corrupting—or confusing—to the Christian as to the non-Christian. And the results in some ways are more horrible when power corrupts men or women who believe they have a divine mandate. Their injustices are then committed in God’s name. This is why an eminent conservative historian has suggested that “religious claims in politics should vary inversely with the power or prospects for power one has.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
It is a fair distinction: Prophets should make religious claims. Political leaders should not—otherwise they can become ayatollahs. So the first test for public office should not be a spiritual one. The celebrated claim that “the ability to hear from God should be the number one qualification of U.S. presidency” is dangerously misguided. The Church’s mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, not to elect politicians. The Church is neutral in matters of party politics. This applies in all of the many nations in which it is established. The Church encourages its members to play a role as responsible citizens in the communities, including become informed about issues and voting in elections. It expects its members to engage in the political process in an informed and civil manner, respecting the fact that members of the Church come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences and may have differences of opinion in partisan political matters. Request candidates for office not to imply that their candidacy or platforms are endorsed by the Church, and reserves the right as an institution to address, in a nonpartisan way, issues that it believes have significant community or moral consequences or that directly affect the interest of the Church. Politicians, like those in any other specialized field, should be selected on the basis of their qualifications and abilities as well as on their moral character. Even in Israel’s theocracy, Jethro advised Moses to select “capable men…who fear God,” to help in governing the Jewish nation. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Mr. Jethro’s advice makes sense. If terrorists were to take control of an airport, would we want police officers who were merely devout Christians handling the situation, or would we choose those who had specialized training in hostage negotiations? Luther had it right when he said he would rather be ruled by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian. The triumphalist mindset also fails to make the crucial distinction between a Christian’s function as a private citizen and as an officeholder. As private citizens, Christians are free to advocate their Christian view in any and every form. In American that is a fundamental constitutional right. Christian citizens should be activists about their faith, striving by their witness to “Christianize” their culture—not by the force of the sword, but by the force of their ideas. However, Christians elected to public office acquire a different set of responsibilities. Now they hold the power of the sword, which God has placed with government to preserve order and maintain justice. Now they act not for themselves but for all whom they serve. For this reason, they cannot use their office to evangelistically “Christianize” their culture. Their duty is to ensure justice and religious liberty for all citizens and beliefs. This does not mean they can compromise their faith or their first allegiance to God; they should speak freely of their Christian faith and witness Christian values in their lives. However, they cannot use their offices to seek a favoured position for Christianity of the church. “We have this treasure in Earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us,” reports 2 Corinthians 4.7. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The Christian state is one that gives no special public privilege to Christian citizens but seeks justice for all as a matter of principle. At the turn of the century a towering Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper, was elected prime minister of the Netherlands. His opponents voiced fears of theocratic oppression. Instead, his administration was a model of tolerance and public pluralism as Kuyper affirmed proportional representation, that the legitimate rights of all be fully represented. If we Christians today understood this distinction between the role of the private Christians citizen and the Christian in government, they might sound less intimidating. If secularists understood correctly the nature of Christian public duty they would not fear, but welcome responsible Christian political involvement. If they keep the commandments of the Lord, I believe many of today’s adults will be active participants in temporal blessings. With prosperity will come a unique challenge—a test that will try many to their spiritual core. As you step into this new World of property and engage in converting your education and skills into financial success, you will always have to distinguish between wants and needs. You will have two choices. Will your motivation to build and acquire the blessings of the Lord be for personal gratification, for the recognition of humans, and for power, influence, and self-aggrandizement? Or will your motivation be to glorify God, to work to help usher in the growth and expansion of His Church? #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The Lord is not telling us that we should not be prosperous or that prosperity is a sin. On the contrary, He has always blessed His obedient children However, He is telling us that we should seek prosperity only after we seek, find, and serve Him. Then, because our hearts are right, because we love Him first and foremost, we will choose to invest our resources wisely in preparing for the Kingdom of God. If you choose to seek riches for the sake of riches, you will fall short. You will never be satisfied. You will be empty, never finding true joy and lasting happiness. The trial of your faith in the next few years will likely not be that you lack the material things of this World. Rather it will be in choosing what to do with the temporal blessing you receive. Every situation in human life can be approached from two possible points of view. The first is the limited one and is that of the personal self. The second is the larder one and is that of Universal Self. The larger and longer view always justifies itself in the end. Each Overself is like a circle whose center is in some individual but whose circumference is not in any individual. We must not imagine that the subordination of this personal identity leads to any loss of consciousness—rather the reverse. Humans become more, not less, for one emerges into the fullness and freedom of one Universal life. One thinks of oneself as: “I, A. B., am a point within the Overself,” whereas before one only thought: “I am A.B.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
The higher self keeps the same kind of individuality without being separate that each facet of diamond keeps. The light which shines through it shines equally through all facets alike, remaining one and the same. The individuality is beyond personality—its level is higher. The one must prompt while the other must watch the pitiless destruction of its wishes and hopes, its values and desires, until only the pure being of individuality is left. It is a kind of impersonal being but it is not utterly devoid of all individuality. As a wave sinks back into the sea, so the consciousness which passes out of the personal self sinks back into its higher individuality. This is the general mind being our small personal minds, the one behind the many. God has saved for the final inning some of His strongest children, who will help bear off the Kingdom triumphantly. Birds nest in my arms, on my shoulder, behind my knees, by my heart there are quail, they must think I am a tree. The swans think I am a fountain, they all come down and drink when I walk. When sheep stroll by, they pass over me, and perched on my fingers, the sparrows eat, the ants think I am the Earth, and humans think I am nothing. Believers shall declare the glory of Thy Kingdom, and talk of Thy might; to make known to the sons of man His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His Kingdom. Thy Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generation. The Lord upholdeth all who fall, and raiseth up all who are bowed down. God will put you on the heart of someone to restore you and bless you big time, in the name of Jesus Christ! Amen. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Ethics are Responsibility without Limit Towards All that Lives!
The concept of a united family that lives and progresses forever is at the core of Latter-day Saint doctrine. Within families led by a father and a mother, children develop virtues such as love, trust, loyalty, cooperation and service. We must rally to protect marriage, family, so we can strengthen our loved ones and protect their faith and freedom. There is a young and impressionable mind out there that is very hungry for information. Instead of fighting for freedom of the press, maybe we should be fighting for freedom from the press. I am worried about present-day journalism. The emphasis on negative happenings is much too strong. Not infrequently, news about events marking great progress is overlooked or minimized. It tends to make for a negative and discouraging atmosphere. If humans feel that very little happens to support that faith in the salvation of humanity, there is a danger that people may lose faith in the forward direction of Kingdom of God. And real progress is related to the belief that salvation and the Kingdom God will be established in our lifetime. Another hinderance to civilization today is the over-organization of our public life. While it is certain that a properly ordered environment is the condition and, at the same time, the result of civilization, it is developed at the expense of the spiritual life. Personality and ideas are often subordinated to institutions, when it is really thee which ought to influence the latter and keep them inwardly alive. Humans have lost the capacity to foresee and forestall. They will end by destroying the Earth. Simply investigating and apportioning responsibility after the fact is hardly sufficient. We must create an environmental screen to protect ourselves against dangerous intrusions as well as a system of public incentives to encourage technology that is both safe and socially desirable. This means governmental and private machinery for reviewing major technological advances before they are launched upon the public. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
So great was His love for the World, that God covenanted to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believe in Him should not peris, but have everlasting life. Lucifer has said, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. This was a voluntary sacrifice. Jesus might have retained the glory of Heaven, and the homage of the angels. However, He chose to give back the scepter into the Father’s hands, and to step down from the throne of the Universe, that He might bring light to the benighted, and life to the perishing. Over two thousand years, a voice of mysterious import was heard in Heaven, from the throne of God, “Lo, I come.” “Sacrifice and offering Thou would not, but a body has Thou prepared Me. Lo, I come (in the volume of the Book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God.” In these words is announced the fulfillment of the purpose that had been hidden from eternal ages. Christ was about to visit our World, and become incarnate. He says, “A body has Thou prepared Me.” Had He appeared with the glory that was His with the Father before the World was, we could not have endured the light of His presence. That we might behold it and not be destroyed, the manifestation of His glory was shrouded. His divinity was veiled with humanity—the invisible glory in the visible form. This great purpose had been shadowed forth in types and symbols. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
The burning bush, in which Christ appeared to Moses, revealed God. The symbol chosen for the representation of the Deity was a humble shrub, that seemingly has no attractions. This enshrined the Infinite. The all-merciful God shrouded His glory in a most humble type, that Moses could look upon it and live. So in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, God communicated with America, revealing to humans His will, and imparting to them His grace. God’s glory was subdued, and His majesty veiled, that the weak vision of finite humans might behold it. So Christ was to come in the body of our humiliation in the likeness of humans. In the eyes of the World He possessed no beauty that they should desire Him; yet He was the incarnate God, the light of Heaven and Earth. His glory was veiled, His greatness and majesty were hidden, that He might draw near to sorrowful, tempted men. God commanded Moses for America, “Let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them,” and he abode in the sanctuary, in the midst of His people. Through all their weary wandering in the desert, the symbol of His presence was with them. So Christ set up His tabernacle in the midst of our human encampment. He pitched His tent by the side of the tents of men, that He might dwell among us, and make us familiar with His divine character. “The Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.” Since Jesus came to dwell with us, we know that God is acquainted with out trials, and sympathizes with our griefs. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Every son and daughter of Adam may understand that our Creator is the friend of sinners. For in every doctrine of grace, every promise of joy, every deed of love, every divine attraction presented in the Saviour’s life on Earth, we see “God with us.” Satan represents God’s law of love as a law of selfishness. He declares that it is impossible for us to obey its precepts. The fall of our first parents, with all the woe that has resulted, he charges upon the Creator, leading humans to look upon God as the author of sin, and suffering, and death. Jesus was to unveil this deception. As one of us Jesus was to give an example of obedience. His life testifies that it is possible for us also to obey the law of God. By His humanity, Christ touched humanity; by His divinity, He lays hold upon the throne of God. As the Son of man, He gave us an example of obedience; as the Son of God, He gives us power to obey. “God with us” is the surety of our deliverance from sin, the assurance of our power to obey the law of Heaven. Christ revealed a character the opposite of the character of Satan. By His life and His death, Christ has achieved even more than recovery from the ruin wrought through sin. It was Satan’s purpose to bring about an eternal separation between God and man; but in Christ we become more closely united to God, like we had never fallen. In taking our nature, the Saviour has bound Himself to humanity by a tie that is never broken. Through the eternal ages He is linked with us. “God so loved the World, that he gave His only-begotten Son. He gave Him not only to bear our sins, and to die as our sacrifice; He gave Him to the fallen race. To assure us of His immutable counsel of peace, God gave His only-begotten Son to become one of the human family, forever to retain His human nature. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
This is the pledge that God will fulfill His Word. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder.” God has adopted human nature in the person of His Son, and has carried the same into the highest Heaven. It is the “Son of man” who shares the throne of the Universe. It is the “Son of man” who shares the throne of the Universe. It is the “Son of man” whose name shall be called, “Wonderful,” Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Heaven is enshrined in humanity, and humanity is enfolded in the bosom of Infinite Love. The exaltation of the redeemed will be an eternal testimony to God’s mercy. In the ages to come, God will show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. To the intent that unto the principalities and the powers in the Heavenly places might be made known the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purposes which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Through Christ’s redeeming work, the government of God stand justified. The Omnipotent One is made known as the God of love. Satan’s charges are refuted, and his character unveiled. Rebellion can never again arise. Sin can never again enter the Universe. Through eternal ages all are secure from apostasy. By love’s self-sacrifice, the inhabitants of Earth and Heaven are bound to their Creator in bonds of indissoluble union. The work of redemption will be complete. In the place where sin abounded, God’s grace much more abounds. The Earth itself, the very field that Satan claims as his, is to be not only ransomed but exalted. Our little World, under the curse of sin the one dark blot in His glorious creation, will be honoured above all other Worlds in the Universe of God. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Here, where the Son of God tabernacle in humanity; where the King of glory lived and suffered and died—here, when He shall make all things new, the tabernacle of God shall be with humans, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And through endless ages as the redeemed walk in the light of the Lord, they will praise Him for His unspeakable Gift—God with us. God has a word for us to release increase, multiplication, and miracles right now in our lives. Our obedience to His Word leads to restoration and authority like a rushing river. “If you love me, you will obey what I command,” reports John 14.15. If you have been asking God for a supernatural turnaround in your life, Miracles are coming! Increase is coming! Multiplication is coming! God works in seasons, cycles, patterns. Understanding His timing is key to activating His greatest blessing in your life! A season means a “set time.” When you do not discern the shift of a season, you will lack in some area of your life! It is possible to be in a season that you are not cooperating with and therefore you are experiencing scarcity! This will change with your obedience! No more missed moments in Jesus’ name! “And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God,” reports Luke 24.52-53. One hundred and twenty of them remined in prayer until the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) arrived, and then it did, they were he gathered together. “On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave this command: ‘Do not leave America, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have hear me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit,’” reports Acts 1.4-5. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
What we seem to forget is that, yes, the sun will continue to rise and set and the moon will continue to move across the skies, but humankind can create a situation in which the sun and moon can look down upon the Earth that has been stripped of all life. “They joined all together in constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty) and said, ‘Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the moth of David concerning Judas, who served as guide for those who arrested Jesus—he was one of our number and shared in this ministry,’” reports Acts 1.14-17. “When the day of the Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from Heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them,” reports Acts 2.1-4. Those who conduct an atomic war for freedom will die, or end their lives miserably. Instead of freedom, they will find destruction. Radioactive clouds resulting from a war between The Old World and the New World would imperil humanity. There would be no need to use up the remaining stock of atom and H-bombs. An atomic war is therefore the most senseless and lunatic act that could ever take place. At all costs, it must be prevented. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
Corporations might be expected to set up their own “consequence analysis staffs” to study the potential effects of the innovations they sponsor. They might, in some cases, be required not merely to test new technology in pilot areas but to make a public report about its impact before being permitted to spread the innovation through the society at large. Much responsibility should be delegated to industry itself. The less centralized the controls the better. If self-policing works, it is preferable to external, political controls. Where self-regulation fails, however, as it often does, public intervention may well be necessary, and we should not evade the responsibility. At one point, in the United States of America, Congressman Emilio Q. Daddario, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Science, Research and Development, had proposed the establishment of a technology Assessment Board with the federal government. And this might be a great idea with social media becoming so power that the owners of these platforms were censoring and banned the President from using their forums. Studies by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress, and by the science and technology program of the George Washington University are all aimed at defining the appropriate nature of such an agency. We may wish to debate its form; its need is beyond dispute. The society might also set certain general principles for technological advance. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Where the introduction of an innovation entails undue risk, for example, it might require that funds be set aside by the responsible agency for correction of adverse effects should they materialize. We might also create a “technological insurance pool” to which innovation-diffusing agencies might pay premiums. Certain large-scale ecological interventions might be delayed or prohibited altogether—perhaps in line with the principle that is an incursion on nature is too big and sudden for its effects to be monitored and possibly corrected, it should not take place. For example, it has been suggested that Aswan Dam, far from helping Egyptian agriculture, might someday lead to salinization of land on both banks of the Nile. This could prove disastrous. However, such a process would not occur overnight. Presumably, therefore, it can be monitored and prevented. By contrast, the plan to flood the entire interior of Brazil is fraught with such instant and imponderable ecological effects that it should not be permitted at all until adequate monitoring can be done and emergency corrective measures are available. At the level of social consequences, a new technology might be submitted for clearance to panels of behavioural scientists—psychologists, sociologist, economists, political scientists—who would determine, to the best of their ability, the probable strength of its social impact at different points in time. Where an innovation appears likely to entail seriously disruptive consequences, or to generate unrestrained accelerative pressures, these facts need to be weighed in a social cost-benefit accounting procedure. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
In the case of some high-impact innovations, the technology appraisal agency might be empowered to seek restraining legislation, or to obtain an injunction forcing delay until full public discussion and study is completed. In other cases, such innovations might still be released for diffusion—provided ample steps were taken in advance to offset their negative consequences. In this way, the society would not need to wait for disaster before dealing with its technology-induced problems. By considering not merely specific technologies, but their relationship to one another, the time lapse between them, the proposed speed of diffusion, and similar factors, we might eventually gain some control over the pace of change as well as its direction. Needless to say, these proposals are themselves fraught with explosive social consequences, and need careful assessment. There may be far better ways to achieve the desired ends. However, the time is late. We simply can no longer afford to hurtle blindfolded toward super-industrialism. The politics of technology control with trigger bitter conflict in the days to come. However, if the accelerative thrust is to be brought under control, conflict or no, technology must be tamed. And, if future shock is to be prevented, the accelerative thrust must be brought under control. In some cultures, people endure tattooing, stretching, cutting, and burning wit little apparent pain. How is such insensitivity achieved? Very likely the answer lies in four factors that anyone can use to reduce pain. These are anxiety, control, attention, and interpretation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
The basic sensory message of pain can be separated from emotional reactions to it. Fear or high levels of anxiety almost always increase pain. (Anxiety is a feeling of apprehension or uneasiness similar to fear, but based on an unclear threat.) A dramatic reversal of this effect is the surprising lack of pain displayed by soldiers wounded in battle. Being excused from further combat apparently produces a flood of relief. This emotional state leaves many soldiers insensitive to wounds tat would agonize a civilian. In general, unpleasant emotions increase pain and pleasant emotions decrease it. If you can regulate painful stimulus, you have control over it. A moment’s reflection should convince you that the most upsetting pain is that over which you have no control. Loss of control seems to increase pain by increasing anxiety and emotional distress. People who are allowed to regulate, avoid, or control a painful stimulus suffer less. In general, the more control one feels over a painful stimulus, the less pain experienced. Distraction can also radically reduce pain. As you recall, attention refers to voluntarily focusing on a specific sensory input. Pain, even though it is highly persistent, can be selectively “turned out” (at least partially), just like any other sensation. Subjects in one experiment were in intense pain experienced the greatest relief when they were distracted by the task of watching for signal lights to come on. Another example is provided by burn patients, who must undergo excruciating pain while their bandages are changed. Recently, video games and virtual reality have been used to distract them from their pain, which helps immensely. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
The Fountain of Youth and the Elixir of Life were dreams of the ancient mystics, and they are still dreams of today. However, to the soul that has found the, in most cases, they are divine realities. If humans were to learn that one can prolong one’s life on this Earth in youth and health for an indefinite period in which days and years are not counted, one could pass from one joy to another. Nobody has historically succeeded in robbing Nature of her power to inflict death. However, there is another aspect of this topic which throws some light on it. When the body of Father Charles de Foucald was exhumed, one year after burial, for transfer to another site, his friend General Laperrine was astonished to find that the body was without any break and the face quite recognizable, whereas of the two Arabian guards murdered at the same time and buried near him only a little dust remained. One of the native soldiers then said, “Why are you astonished that he is thus preserved, General? It is not astonishing, since he was a great marabout (holy man).” Father Foucald was a nineteenth-century Christian hermit of the Saharan desert, who sacrificed social position and fortune for an ascetic existence devoted to prayer, meditation, and service for the poor. Hs ascetic self-mortification was extremely severe. To this case there may be added the somewhat similar cases of Swami Yogananda of Los Angeles, and Sir Aurobindo of Pondicherry. The ancient hatha yoga texts promise the successful yogi “the conquest of death.” This does not mean he will not die, but that his flesh will not decay after death. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
We have so intimate a relation to the body in practical life that none of us need be blamed for calling it “me.” However, metaphysically that indicates an adolescent attitude. We advance towards maturity when we regard it as only a part of “me.” This domain of natural living, food reform, and hygiene is infested with cranks, fanatics, extremists, and one-idea devotees, just as the domain of mysticism is. The seeker must be warned against letting oneself be deceived by their wild intemperate enthusiasms. Have you ever temporarily forgotten about a toothache or similar pain while absorbed in a movie or book? As this suggests, concentrating on pleasant, soothing images can be especially helpful. Instead of listening to the whirr of a dentist’s drill, for example, you might imagine that you are lying in the sun at a beach, listening to the roar of the surf. At home, music can be a good distractor from chronic pain. So much may depend on so little! The condition of a single organ or of a half-centimeter of gland may curse a human’s whole life more than and sorcerer can. A physical feature may be so dislike by others that one’s ambitions are thwarted or one’s desire for love defeated. Some physical attributes may be unpleasant, undignified, and unfortunate for a human. However, they are well-countered by invisible compensations. The meaning of interpretation, you give a stimulus also affects pain. For example, if you make a funny face at a child while playing, you will probably get a burst of laughter. Yet that same face given as a punishment may bring tears. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
The effects of interpretation are illustrated by an experiment in which thinking of pain as pleasurable (denying the pain) greatly increased pain tolerance. Another study found that people who believe a painful procedure will improve their health feel less pain during the procedure. A physiognomist once told me that he considered the mouth more revealing of a human’s character than, as commonly believed, the eyes. Is this a fact? How important is it to remember that the fall of temperature in the evenings is an invitation to catch cold. Goethe complained while living in Rome of the care one had to take even in the middle of summer to prevent the realization of this possibility. The joy owning a physical body comes out most in physical activity, yet the person will feel disgusted with it under different circumstances and at a different time. The pain of owning a body comes out mostly in ill health, yet the same person may glory in it during a game or a sport. For as bats’ eyes are to daylight so is our intellectual eye to those truths which are, in their own nature, the most obvious of all. It must be clearly understood that the argument so far leads to no conception of “souls” or “spirits” (words I have avoided) floating about in the realm of Nature with no relation to their environment. Hence we do not deny—indeed we must welcome—certain considerations which are often regarded as proofs of Naturalism. We can admit, and even insist, that Rational Thinking can be shown to be conditioned in its exercise by a natural object (the brain). #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Rational Thinking is temporarily impaired by alcohol or a blow to the head. It wanes as the brain decays and vanishes when the brain ceases to function. In the same way the moral outlook of a community can be shown to be closely connected with its history, geographical environment, economic structure, and so forth. The moral ideas of the individual are equally related to one’s general situation: it is no accident that parents and schoolmasters so often tell us that they can stand any vice rather than lying, the lie being the only defensive weapon of most children. All this, far from presenting us with a difficulty, is exactly what we should expect. The rational and more element in each human mind is a point of force from the Supernatural working its way into Nature, exploiting at each point those conditions which Nature offers, repulsed where the conditions are hopeless and impeded when they are unfavourable. A human’s Rational thinking is just so much of one’s share in eternal Reason as the state of one’s brain allows to become operative: it represents, so to speak, the bargain struck or the frontier fixed between Reason and Nature at that particular point. A nation’s moral outlook is just so much of its share in eternal Moral Wisdom as its history, economics, et cetera, lets through. In the same way the voice of the Announcer is just so much of a human voice as the receiving set lets through. Of course it varies with the state of the receiving set, and deteriorates as the set wears out and vanished altogether if I throw a brick at it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
The voice of the announcer is conditioned by the apparatus but not originated by it. If it were—if we know that there was no human being at the microphone—we should not attend to the news. The various and complex conditions under which Reason and Morality appear are the twists and turns of the frontier between Nature and Supernature. That is why, if you wish, you can always ignore Supernature and treat the phenomena purely from the Natural side; just as a human studying on a map the boundaries of Cornwall and Devonshire can always say, “What you call a bulge in Devonshire is really a dent in Cornwall.” And in a sense, you cannot refute one. What call a bulge in Devonshire always is a dent in Cornwall. What we call a rational thought in a human always involves a state of the brain, in the long run a relation of atoms. However, Devonshire is none the less something more than “where Cornwall ends,” and Reason is something more than cerebral bio-chemistry. The practical method which is here presented differs radically from the method of the Christian Scientists, although a superficial reading my give the impression of similarity. The Christian Scientist asserts one’s inner nature to be divine and a part of God, but the assertion remains a mere intellectual statement unless one has previously opened up a channel to that inner nature with the tool of intersession, prayer, or aspiration. If one has done this, then the assertion rises into the realm of reality and may produce remarkable results; if one has not succeeded in doing this, then one’s assertion remains mere words, one thought out of the multitude which pass and repass through the brain of humans. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
Moreover, so long as one possess false notions of what constitutes “demonstration,” so long as one thinks that one is entitled to prosperity, good health, and other desirable Worldly things because of his spirituality, so long will one find—as so many Christian Scientists do find—that one’s successes alternate with startling failures. It would be an unpleasant task to illustrate this statement with instances of such failures, not in the rank and file, but in the foremost ranks of the Christian Scientists, and I shall not attempt it. These failures indicate that we must follow no narrow track of sect-ordained thought, but do some research on our own account. It is a dramatic fact that remedial changes may take place in the organs themselves under the influence of this healing force. The more one comes into harmony with the cosmic order, the more will one’s health and strength benefit, one’s thoughts and feelings become beneficial. However, this is not to say that one will be cured of existing maladies or be kept in perfect health. Harmony means that due regard and attention will be given to the body’s importance, hygiene, care, and correct feeding. It means that the thoughts and feelings will be constructive. If not obstructed by human’s foolish methods, nature’s healing power will do its own work upon that sick body. It is possible to direct the healing power of the white light, in imagination and with deep breathing, to any part of the body where pain is felt or to any organ which is not functioning properly. This does not instantly remove the trouble, but it does make a contribution towards the healing process. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
For moderate pain, it can make quite a difference to reduce anxiety, redirect attention, and increase control. When you can anticipate pain (during a trip to the doctor, dentist, and so on), you can lower anxiety by making sure that you are fully informed. Be sure that someone explains everything that will happen or could happen to you. Also, be sure to fully discuss any fears you have. If you are physically tense, you can use relaxation exercises to lower your level of arousal. Relaxation methods involve tensing and then releasing muscles in various parts of the body. Some dentists are now equipped to help you shift attention away from pain. Patients are actively distracted with video games and headphones playing music. In other situations, focusing on some external object may help you shift attention away from pain. Pick a tree outside a window, a design on the wall, or some other stimulus and examine it in great detail. Prior practice in meditation can be a tremendous assistant to such attention shifts. Research suggests that distraction of this type works best for mild or brief pain. For chronic or strong pain, reinterpretation is more effective. Is there any way to increase control over a painful stimulus? Practically speaking, the choices may be limited. You may be able to arrange a signal with a doctor or dentist tat will give you control over whether a painful procedure will continue. A second possibility is more unusual. Ronald Melzack’s gate control the sensory of pain suggest that sending mild pain messages to the spinal cord and brain may effectively close the neurological gates to more severe or unpredictable pain. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
Medical texts have been recognized this effect. Physicians have found that intense surface stimulation of the skin can control pain from other parts of the body. Likewise, a brief, mildly painful stimulates can relieve more severe pain. Such procedures, known as counterirritation, are evident in some of the oldest techniques used to control pain: applying ice packs, hot-water bottles, mustard packs, vibration, or massage to other parts of the body. These facts suggest a way to minimize pain that is based on increased control, counterirritation, and the release of endorphins. If you pinch yourself, you can easily create and endure pain equal to that produced by many medical procedures (receiving an injection, having a toot drilled, and so on). The pain does not seem too bad because you have control over it, and it is predictable. This fact can be used to mask one pain with a second painful stimulus that is under your control. For instance, if you are having tooth filled, try pinching yourself or digging a fingernail into a knuckle while the dentist is working. Focus your attention on the pain you are creating, and increase its intensity anytime the dentist’s work becomes more painful. This suggestion may not work for you, but casual observation suggests that it can be a useful technique for controlling pain in some circumstances. Generations of children have used it to take the edge off spanking. Although some people have found spiritual benefit from sickness because of the enforced retirement to bed or hospital which it demands, or because of the reflections which it brings about the limitations of bodily satisfactions and pleasures, it would be a gross misunderstanding to make this only way of gaining these insights. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
Other persons have become so embittered and resentful through sickness that they have suffered spiritual loss. Still other persons who have maintained good health have thereby been able to provide the proper circumstances for spiritual search, study, and meditation. The eye is the reflector of mind, the revealer of a human’s heart and the diagnose of one’s bodily health. With health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable. It follows that the greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness, whatever it may be—for gain, advancement, learning, or fame, let alone, then, for fleeting sensual pleasures. The Lord has commanded members to take care of their bodies and minds. They should obey the Word of Wisdom, eat nutritious food, exercise regularly, control their weight, and get adequate sleep. They should shun substances or practices that abuse their bodies or minds and that could lead to addiction. They should practice good sanitation and hygiene and obtain adequate medical and dental care. They should also strive to cultivate good relationships with family members and others. Maintaining the best possible physical health has been a gospel ideal throughout the ages—from the strict dietary laws of ancient America, with the example of Joseph Smith and his associates, to the Word of Wisdom in this dispensation and the counsel of today’s prophets and apostles. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
By maintaining good physical health, we become more self-reliant and are better prepared to progress personally, strengthen the family, and serve in the Church and community. Not long after the angel had disappeared the third time Joseph arose from his bed. He went about doing his daily work with his father in the field, but he soon found his strength was exhausted. His father noticed there was something wrong and sent his son home. Joseph went toward the house, but as he crossed a fence in the field his strength entirely failed him and he fell helpless to the ground. Joseph heard a voice call his nae and, looking up, he saw the same messenger, Moroni, standing over his head in a bright light. Again the angel repeated all the things he had told Joseph during the night and commanded him to tell his father of his vision. Joseph obeyed, going into the field to tell his father what had occurred. His father said he should obey the messenger from God. The young man went to find the place he had seen in his vision. Near Manchester, New York, a few miles from his farm home, Joseph found the hill had seen so clearly in his vision. On the west side of the hill, not far from the top, was a large stone which was thick and rounding in the middle of the upper side and thinner toward the edge. The middle part showed above the Earth, but the edges were covered. Joseph removed the Earth from the stone. With the assistance of a lever he raised the stone cover, and beneath it lay a stone box. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
In the box, which was made of stone set in a kind of cement, lay the golden plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate, exactly as the angel had said. The golden plates formed a book with pages of gold held together by three large rings, much like a modern loose-leaf notebook. As Joseph reached to take the things from the box, the angel forbade him. Joseph was told he should return each year on the same date, 22 September, and he would be given further instructions until it was time for him to take the plates. Joseph returned to the hill, which has been called “Hill Cumorah,” each of the following four years and was met by the same messenger. The angel taught him many things about the plans of the Lord, and how his kingdom was to be built in the last days. Four years after Moroni’s first visit to Joseph, on 22 September 1827—on Joseph’s fifth visit to the hill—Moroni gave him the golden book, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate. The angel cautioned him to guard them carefully, to allow no one to see them, and to do everything in his power to protect and keep them safely until the messenger should come for them. Joseph soon understood why he had been commanded so strictly to guard them carefully. Almost as soon as he had received the precious things, it became known throughout the countryside, and everyone wanted to see them. Many tried to take them away from him; but by hiding them Joseph was able to keep them safely. The excitement continued, and the people were determined to take the golden plates from him. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
Joseph soon realized that it would be impossible for him to do the work of translation at his home in New York. Joseph and his wife, Emma whom he had married in January, 1827, went to her parents’ home at Harmony, Pennsylvania. There in the home of Isaac Hale, during the early part of the year 1828, Joseph, by means of the Urim and Thummim, began the work of translation of the golden plates. In the mystery of these vestures of the Holy Ones, I gird up my power in the girdles of righteousness and truth in the power of the Most High: Ancor: Amacor: Amides: Theodonias: Anitor: let be might my power: let it endure for ever: in the power of Adonai, to whom the praise and the glory shall be; whose end cannot be. Earth mother, star mother, you who are called by a thousand names, may all remember we are cells in your body and dance together. You are the grain and the loaf that sustains us each day, and as you are patient with our struggles to learn so shall we be patient with ourselves and each other. We are radiant light and sacred dark—the balance—you are the embrace that heartens and the freedom beyond fear. Within you we are born, we grow, live, and die—you bring us around the circle to rebirth, within us you dance forever. May it be Thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, to renew unto us this coming month for our good and for blessing, of sustenance, of bodily vigour; a life marked by reverence for Thee and the dread of sin, a life free from shame and reproach, a life of abundance and honour, a life in which the love of the Torah and the fear of Heaven shall ever be with us, a life in which all desires of our hearts shall be fulfilled for our good. Amen. If the technology that is supposed to increase our leisure and make our lives easier, starts to control our lives, we are in danger of losing our souls. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
BRIGHTON STATION AT CRESLEIGH RANCH
Rancho Cordova, CA |
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Mr. William Wirt Winchester Believes in the Sanctity of Property Because He is a Millionaire!
The fine women of Salem had some extracurricular activities that were hardly orthodox. Men have been burned at the stake for speaking ill of the Christian creed. People fought, not only verbally but physically, over their religious beliefs. Most people of that day used alcohol liquors. In almost every home liquor could be found. If a man was drunk it was not considered indecent, nor was his reputation injured by such conduct. Ministers, as well as doctors, were given a drink whenever they made a call at a home. It was almost impossible for them to make their daily calls without becoming intoxicated. Wine was generously served at religious ceremonies–marriages, christenings, funerals, and ordinations. Joseph Smith might have noted the conduct of members in a revival meeting. People would come from miles around to attend these meetings, camping in cabins and tents. At daybreak a trumpet was sounded to awaken the people. Services were held almost all day long, scarcely allowing time to eat, and giving no time at all for recreation and play. Singing and shouting during sermons was common. Men, women, children often fell to the floor in trances, sometimes barking like dogs. Now and then some would get what was know as the “jerks” and their heads would jerk back and forth rapidly. There seemed no way to stop these “jerks” though persons would run, dance, pray to escape them. As they listened to the thundering voice of the evangelist, many would cry and scream. Some ministers believed that the wilder the crowd became the more successful was the revival. Meantime, the FBI could find no DNA material from the site which matched the material of any current missing persons. Nevertheless, they were deeply courteous about having been called in, and they did confirm that the DNA of several persons was present in the evil morass and that the whole resembled an antiquated but gruesome crime scene. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Were these some of the things which were displeasing in the sight of the Lord? Were these people drawing near to God with their lips but keeping their hearts from them. Undoubtedly these were puzzling questions of fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith. Listening to the bird’s sing on this cool spring morning, I was reminded of how excitement used to fill this time of the year because it was near the end of a school year, and ever closer to graduation and adult life. Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentations, laughter—to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the World of unrest to the World of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water. The work and the worry that fell to my lot through the practical interest I took in organ building, made me sometimes wish that I had never troubled myself about it, but if I do not give it up, the reason is that the struggle for the good organ is to me a part of the struggle for truth. An organ is like a cow; one does not look at its horns so much as its milk. God is with us. The light of the knowledge of glory of God is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. From the days of eternity, the Lord Jesus Christ was one with the father; He was the image of God, the image of His greatness and majesty, the outshining of His glory. It was it was to manifest this glory that He came into our World. To this sin-darkened Earth He came to reveal the light of God’s love–to be God with us. Therefore it was prophesied of Him. By coming to dwell with us, Jesus Christ was to reveal God both to humans and to angels. He was the Word of God—God’s thoughts made audible. If we are not grateful to God, we can never see the greatness in our lives. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
When we start to appreciate, we will begin to elevate! Some people regard logical thinking as the deadest and driest of our activities and may therefore be repelled by the privileged position. However, logical thinking—Reasoning—is valid and no one can deny it (philosophically speaking). You cannot, as we already know, prove that there are no proofs. However, if you wish to regard all human ideals as illusions and all human love as biological by-products, you can. That is, you can do so without running into flat self-contradiction and nonsense. Whether you can do so without extreme umplausibility—without accepting a picture of things which no one really believes—is another matter. Besides reasoning about matters of fact, humans also make moral judgments—“I ought to do this”—“I ought not to do that”—“This is good”—“That is evil.” Two views have been held about moral judgments. Some people think that when we make them we are not using our Reason, but are employing some different power. Other people think that we make them by our Reason. I myself hold this second view. That is, I believe that the primary moral principles on which all others depend are rationally perceived. We “just see” that there is no reason why my neighbour’s happiness should be sacrificed to my own, as we “just see” that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. If we cannot prove either axiom, that is not because the irrational but because they are self-evident and all proofs depend on them. Their intrinsic reasonableness shines by its own light. It is because all morality is based on such self-evident principles that we say to a human, when we would recall one to right conduct, “Be reasonable.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
However, this is by the way. For our present purposes it does not matter which of these two views you adopt. The important point is to notice that moral judgments raise the same sort of difficulty for Naturalism as any other thoughts. We always assume in discussions about morality, as in all other discussions, if they can be fully accounted for by some non-moral and non-rational cause, that the other human’s views are worthless. When two humans differ about good and evil we soon hear tis principle being brought into play. “Mr. William Wirt Winchester believes in the sanctity of property because he is a millionaire”—“He believes in Pacifism because he is a coward”—“He approves of corporal punishment because he is a necrophile.” Such taunts may often be untrue: but the mere fact that they are made by the one side, and hotly rebutted by the other, shows clearly what principle is being used. Neither side doubts that if they were true, they would decisive. No one (in real life) pays attention to any oral judgment which can be shown to spring from non-moral and non-rational causes. The Freudian and the Marxist attack traditional morality precisely on this ground—and with wide success. All humans accept the principle. However, of course, what discredits particular moral judgments must equally discredit moral judgments as a whole. If that fact that humans have such ideas as ought and ought not at all can be fully explained by irrational and non-moral causes, then those ideas are an illusion. The Naturalist is ready to explain how the illusion arose. Chemical conditions produce life. Life, under the influence of natural selection, produces consciousness. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
Conscious organisms which behave in one way live longer than those which behave in another. Living longer, they are more likely to have offspring. Inheritance, and sometimes teaching as well, pass on their mode of behaviour to their young. Thus in every species a pattern of behaviour is built up. In the human species conscious teaching plays a larger part in the building it up, and the tribe further strengthens it by killing individuals who to not conform. They also invent gods who are said to punish departures from it. Thus, in time, there comes to exist a strong human impulse to conform. However, since this impulse is often at variance with the other impulses, a mental conflict arises, and the human expresses it by saying “I want to do A but I ought to do B.” This account may (or may not) explain why humans do in fact make moral judgments. It does not explain how they could be right in making them. It excludes, indeed, the very possibility of their being right. For when humans say “I ought” they certainly think they are saying something, and something true about the nature of the proposed action, and not merely about their own feelings. However, if Naturalism is true, “I ought” is the same sort of statement as “I itch” or “I am going to be sick.” In real life when a human says “I ought” we may reply, “Yes. You are right. That is what you ought to do,” or else, “No. I think you are mistaken.: However, in a World of Naturalists (if Naturalist really remembered their philosophy out of school) the only sensible reply would be, “Oh, are you?” All moral judgments would be statements about the speaker’s feelings, mistaken by him for statements about something else (the real moral quality of actions) which does not exist. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
Such a doctrine, I have admitted, is not flatly self-contradictory. The Naturalist can, if one chooses, brazen it out. One can day, “Yes. I quite agree that there is no such thing as wrong and right. I admit that no moral judgment can be ‘true’ or ‘correct’ and, consequently, that no one system of morality can be better or worse than another. All ideas of good and evil are hallucinations—shadows cast on the outer World by the impulses which we have been conditioned to feel.” Indeed many Naturalists are delighted to say this. However, then they must stick to it; and fortunately (though in consistently) most real Naturalists do not. A moment after they have admitted that good and evil are illusion, you will find them exhorting us to work for posterity, to educate, revolutionise, liquidate, live and die for the good of the human race. A Naturalist like Mr. H. G. Wells spent a long life doing so with passionate eloquence and zeal. However, surely this is very odd? Just as all the books about spiral nebulae, atoms and cave men would really have led you to suppose that the Naturalists claimed to be about to know something, so all the books in which Naturalists tell us what we ought to do would really make you believe that they thought some ideas of good (their own, for example) to be somehow preferable to others. For they write with indignation like humans proclaiming what is good in itself and denouncing what is evil in itself, and not at all like humans recording that they personally like concentrated cranberry juice, but some people prefer sweetened cranberry juice. Yet if the “oughts” of Mr. Wells and, say, Franco are both equally the impulses which Nature has conditioned each to have and both tell us nothing about any objective right or wrong, whence is all the fervour? Do they remember while they are writing thus that when they tell us we “ought to make a better World” the words “ought” and “better” must, on their own showing, refer to an irrationally conditioned impulse which cannot be true or false any more than a vomit or a yawn? #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
My idea is that sometimes they do forget. That is their glory. Holding a philosophy which excludes humanity, they yet remain human. At the sight of injustice they throw all their Naturalism to the winds and speak like humans and like human of genius. They know far better than they think they know. However, at other times, I suspect, they are trusting in a supposed way of escape from their difficulty. It works—or seems to work—like this. They say to themselves, “Ah, yes. Morality”—or “bourgeois morality” or some such addition—“Morality is an illusion. However, we have found out what modes of behaviour we are pressing you to adopt. Pray, do not mistake us for moralists. We are under an entirely new management” …just as if this would help. It would help if only we grant, firstly, that life is better than death and, secondly, that we ought to care for the lives of our descendants as much as, or more than, for our own. And both these are moral judgments which have, like all others, been explained away by Naturalism. Of course, having been conditioned by Nature in a certain way, we do feel thus about life and about posterity. However, the Naturalists have cured us of mistaking these feelings for insights into what we once called “real value.” Now that I know that my impulse to serve posterity is just the same kind of thing as my fondness for cheese—now that its transcendental pretensions have been exposed for a sham—do you think I shall pay much attention to it? When it happens to be strong (and it has grown considerably weaker since you explained to me its real nature) I suppose I shall obey it. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
When it is weak, I shall put my money into cheese. There can be no reason for trying to whip up and encourage the one impulse rather than the other. Not now that I know what they both are. The Naturalists must not destroy all my reverence for conscience on Monday and expect to find me still venerating it on Tuesday. There is no escape along these lines. If we are to continue to make moral judgments (and whatever we say we shall in fact continue) then we must believe that the conscience of humans is not a product of Nature. Only if it is an offshoot of some absolute “on its own” and is not a product of non-moral, non-rational Nature. We must acknowledge the supernatural source for our ideas of good and evil. In other worse, we now know something more about God. If you hold that moral judgment is a different thing from Reasoning you will express tis new knowledge by saying “We now know that God has at least one other attribute than rationality.” If, like me, you hold that moral judgment is a kind of Reasoning, then you will say, “We now know more about the Divine Reason.” And with this we are almost ready to begin our main argument. However, before doing so it will be well to pause of the consideration of some misgivings of misunderstandings which may have already arisen. Happiness is related to good and bad life events, but the impact is smaller than you might imagine. The reason for this is that happiness tends to come from within a person. Subjective well-being is affected by our goals, choices, emotions, values, and personality. The way you perceive, interpret, and manage events is as important as the nature of the events themselves. People who are good a dodging the life’s rough, unsparing treatment (hard knocks) tend to create their own “luck.” As a result, they are happier and seem to negotiate life’s demands more smoothly. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
It is tempting to think that wealth brings happiness. However, does it? To a small degree wealthier people are happier than poorer people. Yet, the overall association between money and happiness is weak. In fact, people who win lotteries are often less happy than they were before, and imagine how much unhappier ill begotten gain might make them. Instant riches usually bring new stresses into a person’s life that tend to cancel out any beneficial effects of wealth. Essentially, money can make it possible to buy the good things in life, but money cannot buy a good life. Happiness usually must become from other sources More educated people tend to be a little happier than the less educated. However, this is most likely just another way of saying that there is a small connection between wealth and happiness. Higher education generally results in higher income and more social status. As education levels rise, more parents ae intellectually equipped to assume some responsibilities now delegated to schools. With the move toward knowledge-based industy and the increase of leisure, we can anticipate a small but significant tendency for highly educated parents to pull their children at least partway out of the public education systems, offering them home instruction instead. This trend will be sharply encouraged by improvements in computer-assisted education, Cisco Telepresence, electronic video recording, holography and other technical fields. Parents and students might sign short-term “learning contracts” with the nearby school, committing them to teach-learn certain courses or course modules. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
Students might continue going to school for social and athletic activities or for subjects they cannot learn on their own or under the tutelage of parents or family friends. Mobile education is also a proposal, which would take students out of the classroom not merely to observe but to participate in significant community activity. Curricula would be shaped by students and community groups as well as professional educators. The former United States Commissioner of Education, Harold Howe, II, has also suggested the reverse: bringing the community into the school so that local stores, beauty parlors, prints shops, architecture firms, be given free space in the schools in return for free lessons by the adults who run this. President Trump and other want to keep the schools and class rooms open, so children are being supervised by adults during work hours, which allows the parents to work and the kids to get an education. This reduces crime rates and helps increase income earnings in the future for students. School also serves as a nice social club for children where they make life long friends and memories. Also, school provides nutrition for students and proper nutrition helps to raise the IQ of students and keeps them healthy. Children also learn how to respect authority figures and learn that behaviour has bad consequences, whereas good behaviour and hard work is rewarded. People who live in the age of information must have new skills in three crucial areas: learning, relating, and choosing. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
Students will need an enhanced human adaptability. By instructing students how to learn and unlearn and relearn, a powerful new dimension can be added to education. Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the person who cannot read; one will be the human who has not learned how to learn. By speeding the turnover of people in our lives, we allow less time for trust to develop, less time for friendships to ripen. Thus we witness a search for ways to cut through the polite “public” behaviour directly to the sharing of intimacy. Presented with numerous alternatives, an individual chooses the one most compatible with one’s values. As overchoice deepens, the person who lacks a clear grasp of one’s own values (whatever these may be) is progressively disabled. Worse yet, students are seldom encouraged to analyze their own values and those of their teachers and peers. Millions pass through the education system without once having been forced to search out the contradictions in their own value systems, to probe their own life goals deeply, or even to discuss these matters candidly with adults and peers. Students hurry from class to class. Teachers and professors are harried and grow increasingly remote. Even the “bull session”—informal, extra-curricular discussion about pleasures of the flesh, politics, or religion that helps participants identify and clarify their values—grown less frequent and less intimate as transience rises. Married people report a greater happiness than people who are divorces, separated, or single. It could be that happiness people are simply more likely to get married than to remain sleepless in Seattle. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
However, better explanation for this association is that marriage partners can act as emotional and economic buffers against the hardships of life and a faithful marriage also helps keep people chaste in the eyes of the Lord, in most cases, as long as you are not sleeping with the enemy. There is a beneficial association between happiness and holding spiritual beliefs. Religious beliefs may add to feelings of purpose and meaning in life, resulting in greater happiness. Marriage between partners is a vital part of God’s plan. The Lord has said, “Whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God, for marriage is ordained of God unto man,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 49.15. Since the beginning, marriage has been a law of the gospel. Marriages are intended to last forever, not just for our mortal lives. Adam and Eve were married by God before there was any death in the World. They had an eternal marriage. They taught the law of eternal marriage to their children and their children’s children. As the years passed, wickedness entered the hearts of the people and the authority to perform this sacred ordinance was taken from the Earth. Through the Restoration of the gospel, eternal marriage has been restored to Earth. Many people in the World consider marriage to be only a social custom, a legal agreement between two people in love together. However, to Latter-day Saints, marriage is much more. Our exaltation depends on marriage, along with other principles and ordinances, such as faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the gift of the holy Ghost. We believe that marriage is the most sacred relationship that can exist between two loving people. This sacred relationship affects our happiness now and in the eternities. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
Heavenly Father has given us the law of eternal marriage so we can become like Him. The Lord has said: “In the celestial glory there are three Heavens or degrees: and in order to obtain the highest, a human must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; and if one does not, one cannot obtain it,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 131.1-3. Another possibility is that church membership may simply provide social support that softens that impact of life’s negative events. Incubation is the term applied to the sleeping in a temple—usually a special shrine or sanctuary used for healing and healing-dreams and dream-oracles alone—as a means of healing. This was practiced by ancient Greek and Babylonians. It was also frequently practiced in ancient Egypt at the temples of Isis and Serapis with effects similar to those of hypnotism. Five hundred years before Christ at the temple of Epidaurus, where the inspiring spirit or god was Aesculapius (the patron saint of modern medicine still), sick patients were put to sleep by priests at the foot of the Aesculapius’ statue. In many cases, they awoke suddenly cured. That the real effectiveness of incubation was not the work of a departed spirit but of Nature in the sleep state combined with the sufferer’s faith, was shown by the custom which still prevails in Greece. Here sleep in a temple of Aesculapius was simply replaced by sleep in the church associated with a Christian saint. Consider a cut had and how Nature at once sets to work to repair the damage. The anatomist tells us that the leucocytes in the blood automatically build a bridge of tissue over the wound’s surface. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
However, what orders the leucocytes to make the needed adjustments? What shows them how to make it? There is obviously an intelligence behind them, a mind within the body outside and apart from the conscious mind. There are miracles in Nature, and at this time, happenings to which science possesses no key. The human consciousness, for instance, is capable of manifesting power which contradict psychological knowledge, just as the human body is capable of manifesting phenomena which contradict medical knowledge. Both powers and phenomena may seem miraculous, but they really issue forth from the hidden laws of human’s own being. The process take pace in the dark only to us. This life-force, this invisible energy, is behind and within, around and above the physical body. Under certain circumstances its rea can be seen and traced out and its recuperative healing power drawn upon. It forms an aura, the etheric or vital body of light, but not the still more elusive and subtle divine body of Light nor the aura of various colours, the astral body. The stereotype of the crotchety antiquated person who id dissatisfied with everything is inaccurate. Life satisfaction and happiness generally do not decline with age. People are living longer and staying healthier, which has greatly delayed age-related declines. When declines do occur, mature people seem better able to cope with them. The hindrances which wrong bodily regimes put in one’s Quest are not only physical but also psychic, emotional, and mental. The condition of a human’s health, the medical state of one’s body, may contribute to one’s spiritual outlook, may enfeeble or enliven one’s faith. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
If union with the Overself-consciousness is to be achieved, or progress to that goal made, the body ought also to share in the benefits received. It too ought to be freer from discordant elements, organs, or operations. The wise student will recognize that one gains more than one loses by such sacrifices as this discipline of the body calls for. The benefits of resisting custom’s dominance are both disproportionate and durable, with a value so high as to make the discipline bearable and the sacrifices smaller. Wen one hears about these ascetic-sound regimes a chill sets in. However, what is it that rebels against them? It is the ego, the weakness of human will. Yet the rebellion is ill-founded, for the body is not tortured by being brought under control—only its perverted, exaggerated, or enslaving appetites suffer by doing so. The regimes themselves are sensible and are not fantastical fads. They are simply indication of the quester’s need to live more carefully than other people, and to change habits which are bad. They are hygienic recommendations offered to those who want to advance their spiritual journey more quickly. The bodily cells are so pervaded with toxic materials, clogged with them, so contaminated by them, that this purificatory work is an essential preliminary to the mystical work, proper for most aspirants except those who have the inborn capability of quickly rising to an intense concentration which frees the cells from such poisons. There is a mass of improperly digested, half-decayed food material lying in the intestines in a fermenting condition, while farther on here are accumulated deposits of petrified impurities on the lining of the colon and the membrane of the bowels. These substances are rejected by they body, which suffers by their presence but is unable to free itself from the without conscious and willing co-operation on the part of its owner. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
The body’s physiological processes are clogged and encumbered by them and its nervous system and brain organ polluted by the inferior blood brought to nourish them. To achieve this aim, a certain preparation as well as purification of the body is required. The spine must be cleared of adhesions, congestions, distortions, shrinkings, and nerve branch pressures. The tissues and blood have to be cleansed of the toxic material accumulated in them. The salvation which frees a human from enslavement to one’s lower nature is necessary and good, but it goes only part of the way to fulfilling one’s needs. One’s fleshly body also requires salvation. It ought to be freed from its poisoned, clogged, and unnatural condition. If it is saturated wit destructive acids or clogged wit decaying material, the body cannot respond so freely to the subtle forces, nor can the brain and nervous system respond so freely if they are stupefied by alcohol or drugs. As the consciousness evolves to a higher level, so the body it functions through must become more refined in quality and purified in nature. Mental equilibrium, deep prayer, cannot be attained without changing the habits which obstruct it. Even if the requisite purification of the body’s cells and blood from all toxins has been achieved, a human must still refrain from starting on those ways which caused toxemia. There is a common error that drugs and medicines are enough to keep us in good health. They are not. The only things that can do so are correct living habits, righting thinking habits, and proper eating habits. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
A knowledge of personal hygiene will keep us in better health than a hundred boxes of pills. We must learn to conform to the laws of hygienic living—mental and physical—if we want to achieve a sound mind in a should body. We may not break those laws with impunity, nor believe that because we have been spiritually healed once we are exempt from the always. The desire to gain purity must provide the power to follow the regimes needed for it. The sediment of egotism in the mind and animality in the flesh cannot be cleared out unless this desire grows strong and remains enduring. The mental courage to cast out those wrong habits of living which unenlightenment of spiritual hygiene has allowed one to pick up, must show itself. People who are satisfied with their jobs tend to be happier, but the association is weak. If fact, it probably just reflects the fact that job satisfaction is a large part of greater life satisfaction. With respect to happiness and personality, it may be fair to paraphrase Paris Hilton, “I am a star and I was born to shine. I am happy, powerful, strong and confident.” To a degree, some people are more temperamentally disposed to be happy, regardless of life events. In general, happier people also tend to be extraverted (outgoing), optimistic, and worry-free. This combination probably influences the balance of beneficial and negative emotions. In general, if they are meeting their personal goals, people tend to be happy. If you feel you are making progress, on a day-to-day basis, on smaller goals that relate to long-term, life goals, this is especially true. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
However, achieving one’s goals does not always lead to happiness. Consider the highly successful person who is absorbed in one’s accomplishments. All it may take is a crisis, like a child’s illness or the death of a friend, to make life feel meaningless. However, if the person begins to act with integrity, meaning can be restored and the crisis resolved. Thus, optimal human functioning involves integrity as well as an ability to accomplish goals. “Doing well,” they say, is associated with happiness. In contrast, “being yourself” is associated with leading a meaningful life. In short, if we are to live with integrity, the goals we purse must express our core interests and values. Examples of the kinds of personal projects (short-term goals) and long-term goals that occupy us: for architect’s the job is usually spent on location. When a project is located nearby, architect may leave the office periodically to stop by the project site. Some short-term goals involved checking in with building developers and engineers to ensure the client’s objectives are met, review projects, and check on any potential obstacles in construction. Many architects believed that if they did great work, somehow society would recognize the contributions and value they were making to the World and reward them with an endless stream of passion projects to grow their firm. However, the truth when it comes to long term goals, running an architecture firm is exactly the same as running any other business. You have to work just as hard to win business as you do to deliver it. An important long-term goal to remember is that your costs of running a business increase over the years. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
Your money goals should define the revenues and profits you will need to accommodate these increased costs, and support the growth you want. Also another long-term goal should be to become innovative and sometimes that requires a history lesson. For an architecture firm, stepping back into the past the Victorian America and seeing what was popular back them, like butler’s pantries, multiple parlors, patio spaces, and yards with green spaces, mixed with some modern style designs is a long-term way to stay relevant. People goals typically focus on who you want to work with. This can include the employees you want on your staff, and it may also include the type of clients you want to attract. Sometimes working with non-profits has provided some firms with not only a great sense of fulfillment but also a deeper connection to their local community. Working with one firm allowed the nonprofit client to connect with an ideal prospect and close a $6,000,000 group up non-profit project, at the height of the COVID-19 crisis pandemic. Who we work with can greatly affect our enthusiasm and motivation on the job, so setting goals around who we choose to work with can have an immense impact on our attitude towards our work. Such goals are crucial because overall well-being is a combination of happiness and meaning. Pursuing goals that are inconsistent with personal interests and values can leave a person feeling uneasy, bothered, and uncomfortable. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
Happier persons tend to be married, comfortable with their work, extraverted, religious, optimistic, and generally satisfied with their lives. They also are making progress toward their goals. However, attain goals that do not express our deeper interests and values may add little to happiness. When, then, makes a good life? Purpose and meaning are important sources of well-being at any point in life. As we have seen, a good life is one that is happy and meaningful. We are most likely to experience a meaningful life when we act with integrity. It is interesting that while achievement and external goals may preoccupy younger persons, integrity becomes increasingly important later in life. “To thine own self be true” may seem like a cliché, but it is actually not a bad place to begin a search for a happy and a satisfying life. “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. Let all things be done decently and in order,” reports 1 Corinthians 14.33 and 40. Our little World is the lesson book of the Universe. God’s wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which “angels desire to look,” and it will be their study throughout endless ages. Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love. In the light from Calvary it will be seen that the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for Earth and Heaven; that the love which “seeketh not her own” has its source in the heart of God; and that in the meek and lowly One is manifested the character of Him who dwelleth in the light which no human can approach unto. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
Sometimes, when a bird cries out, or the wind sweeps through a tree, or an angel whispers in a far-off farm, I hold still and listen a long time. My World turns and goes back to the place where, a thousand forgotten years ago, the bird and the blowing wind were like me, and were my brothers. My soul turns into a tree, and an animal, and a cloud bank. Then changed and odd it comes home and asks me questions. What should I reply? Faithful art Thou, O Lord our God, and faithful are Thy words, for no word of thine shall remain unfulfilled. Thou art a faithful and merciful God and King. Blessed art Thou, O Lord God, who art faithful in fulfilling Thy words. Please be merciful unto America, for it is the fountain of our life, and mayest Thou soon in our day deliver Zion that is grieved in spirit. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who makest America rejoice with her children. Make us rejoice, O Lord our God, with Elijah the prophet, Thy servant, and with the kingdom of the house of David, Thine anointed. Soon may Elijah come and bring joy to our hearts. May no stranger occupy David’s throne and may no usurper inherit his glory. For by Thy holy name Thou hast promised unto one that one’s light will never be extinguished. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the Shield of America. We give Thee thanks and bless Thee, O Lord our God, for the Torah, and for the worship of this day and for the prophets, as well as for this Sabbath day which Thou, O Lord our God, hast given us for holiness and for rest, for glory and delight. Evermore may Thy name be continually praised by every living being. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hallowest the Sabbath. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
Winchester Mystery House
It’s May 1st which means it’s halfway to Halloween! We are hard at work dreaming up a new experience for Halloween 2021 that will feature a projection mapped show on the front of the mansion. Stay tuned for more details coming soon!
“Lord God,” said Mrs. Sarah Winchester, as the flames rose and the fire crackled. “We got a dead girl, a huge mansion that is too big to heat, too big to maintain, too expensive to sale, a bunch of weird books, and a regular tomb of gold with an empty iron coffin in it, and a half-ghost boy standing here. Now this translation just arrived. ‘Here sleeps Annie Winchester, whose mortal hands once made the most beautiful cameos, even for emperors and and kings. Guard me, ye gods and goddesses whose images I render so well. A curse on those who attempt to disturb my resting place.'”
Watch your step in the séance room! There are three exits in this room, The main door, a secret passageway leading into an unfinished closet, and this door that opens to an 8-ft drop into the kitchen below.
Self-Guided Mansion Tour:
👉 Link in bio. winchestermysteryhouse.com
Success Means Never Having to Admit You are Unhappy!
As one went to Europe to see the living past, so one must visit Southern California to observe the future. They say in Hollywood if you want messages, you go to Western Union. The doctors thought you should really stay a few centuries more to be sure we have stabilized your condition. I really do not recommend you leaving us at this time. In Hollywood, success is relative. The closer the relative, the greater the success. Many people are recommending that California comes with a warning sign of the city limits: WARNING! PROCEED NO FURTHER! WARD O FOR BIPLOAR CONDITIONS. OCCUPANTS MAY BE VIOLENT. THEY NEED VRAYLAR However, I am telling you to ignore that and come on in. Look, buddy, it is dangerous to get out of bed in the morning. Are you a mortal in a desperate situation or are you not? Then come in here. This is your last resort, babe. However, of course it is up to you. The primary insight is a human’s awareness that one’s destiny is not synonymous with one’s daily experiences. You who have been through so much suffering, have tasted this inner freedom from outward events. You know there have been times when, according to the rules, you should have been smashed to the ground by what occurred. In such moments you were surprised by yourselves. You have the feeling you were being lifted up inwardly, as though the spiritual were triumphing over the material. You recognized a sort of happiness—if it can be called that—a happiness which would have been hidden by an unbroken succession of good days. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
You began to understand what the apostle Paul meant when he said, “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” The peace of God begins when this fleeting experience can be preserved and turned into a permanent conviction. It is harder for us today to feel near God among the streets and houses of the city than it is for country folk. For them the harvested fields bathed in the autumn mists speak of God and His goodness far more vividly than any human lips. If we really want to labour in the true spirit, to hope, to keep silent, and to work alone—that is what we must learn to do. However, what exactly does it involve, this plowing? The plowman does not pull the plow. He does not push it. He only directs it. This is just how events move in our lives. We can do nothing but guide them straight in the direction which leads to our Lord Jesus Christ, striving toward him, and the furrow will plow itself. The paths into which God leads humankind are shrouded in darkness for us. There are only two ground rules. They go together, and each taken by itself is enigmatic. The first is that all sin requires atonement. The second is that all progress demands sacrifice, which has to be paid for by the lives of those chosen to be offered up. We sense this more than we understand. We do not subscribe to the belief that the divine soul has somehow gone astray and got enslaved by the terrestrial body. One’s higher self is not polluted by one’s own pollutions any more than sunlight is affected by the foul places in which it often shines. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
The natural kiss is the kiss which will be given if moral or prudential considerations do not intervene. In all the examples of Natures means what happens “of itself” or “of its own accord”: what you do not need to labour for; what you will get if you take no measures to stop it. The Greek work for Nature (Physis) is connected with the Greek verb “to grow”; Latin Natura, which the verb “to be born.” The Natural is what springs up, or comes forth, or arrives, or goes on, of its own accord: the given, what is there already; the spontaneous, the unintended, the unsolicited. The higher self affects the ego but is not affected by it. Its existence goes on quite independently of the serialized Earth appearances of the ego, and persists when the other ceases. The insensitive can never know it, and may roundly deny it, but the others sometimes receive unforgettable glimpses for which they give thanks to God for years after. Just as space is unaffected equally by evil deeds or virtuous actions of humans, so the Overself is unaffected by the character or conduct of the ego. It is neither made worse by the ego’s wrong-doing nor better by its righteousness. “I am the way, the Truth,” announced Jesus Christ. Who is this I? In the narrow and shallower sense, it is the master. In the broader and deeper sense, it is the Christ-self within the spiritual consciousness. Why did Jesus Christ say, “I am my Father are one,” but yet a little later add, “The Father is greater than I?” The answer is that Jesus the man had attained complete harmony with His higher Self and felt himself one with it, but the universal Christ-principle will always be greater than the man himself; the Overself will always transcend the person. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Although I is still identified with one, since it is one’s own mind at its best level, it is immensely grander, wiser, and nobler than one. It is an entity greater, nobler, wiser, and stronger than oneself yet mysteriously and inseparably linked to oneself; it is indeed one’s super-self. Our bodies are born at some point of time and somewhere in space but their essence, the Overself, is birthless, timeless, and placeless. This is a human’s true individuality, not that mentally constructed “I” (which deludes one into acceptance as such). It is never anything else than its own perfect self, never contrary to its own unique and infinite nature. It is true that we are but poor and faulty, sadly limited, and miserably shrunken expressions of the divine spirit. Nevertheless, we are expression of it. Thus no thoroughgoing Naturalist believes in free will: for free will would mean that humans beings have the power of independent action, the power of doing something more or other than what was involved by the total series of events. And any such separate power of originating events is what the Naturalist denies. Spontaneity, originality, actions “on its own,” is a privilege reserved for “the whole show,” which one calls Nature. The Supernaturalist agrees with the Naturalist that there must be something which exists in its own right; some basic Fact whose existence it would be nonsensical to try to explain because this Fact is itself the ground or starting-point of all explanations. However, one does not identify this Fact with “the whole show.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
There is a tendency of Christian Science to enter a region of misunderstanding the moment it attempts to apply its true principles to things of this Earth. There is a time in the far past of the human race, a time now lost in the dim mists of antiquity, when the life of humans was stretched to a number of years far in excess of hat it is today. That time has been hinted at by horary legends of a Golden Age and by biblical stories of a pre-Flood race. Such a time will return in the cyclic course of our planet’s history, but naturally it is far-off in the future. Nature herself is in no hurry. She has plenty of time to accomplish her purposes. And in those days humans will again have a normal life-span of maybe one thousand years. There exists in the Old World a certain ancient knowledge—which promises its votaries astonishing benefits in longevity. This age-old art is similar to alchemy of medieval Europe, when humans sought rigorously in experiments for the elixir of life. It is of such antiquity that those who hand it down tell us it was born just after the time when the legendary gods had ceased to walk this Earth. The exponents have almost disappeared from the World, but the tradition is so widespread throughout the Old World that solitary individuals still practise it in remote and unfrequented places. So difficult are the exercises which belong to this system, so labourious are its practices, so ascetic the self-discipline which it involves, that one can understand why it has almost faded out of existence. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
It performs strange feats such as reanimating dead bodies, stopping blood circulation and lung action, permitting knives and daggers to be run like skewers through living flesh without harming it and with an extremely rapid drying of blood (do NOT try this!), and even the burial alive of an enriched body beneath the ground and its safe resurrection several hours or some day later. The principal basis of these feats consists in making certain changes in the breath rhythm, changes which involve such risk to life and health that we are not prepared to assume the responsibility of describing here the exercises for the development of such powers. It is also necessary to live a celibate and chaste existence, to refrain from expending energy in Worldly work and business, and to reduce diet to an astonishing minimum. Because they demand a special and severely ascetic training which is the work of several years devoted wholly to this austere task, such feats are necessarily uncommon. The ordinary layperson could hardly be expected to find the time for such training, nor is there any necessity for one to do so. These displays are certainly spectacular but have primarily only scientific, medical, and theatrical values rather than a general one. Meanwhile, Nature has set her brief term to the human body, and those whose attachment to the body is not overweening will resignedly accept that terms while the others must do so unwillingly. However, this is a different matter—living in the flesh body for ever and ever, a notion which must seem insupportable to many who find the present brief term of human’s existence quite enough for them to cope with. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
If Nature cared so much to preserve the physical body of humans, she would not introduce Earthquakes, eruptions, hurricanes, famines, pestilences, and floods into the scheme of things. The fact that she does do so indicates rather that she regards one’s body as being only a fragment of the human, not as the full human oneself. Some had the idea, of course, that in ancient times, sin and sickness would also have disappeared from the World, so that our existence would be a halcyon one. It is a pretty picture, but human’s true home is not in the tabernacle of flesh; it is elsewhere. The fleshly body is but a temporary abiding place at best, and when humans have arrived at a state of perfect spirituality one will abandon it and use a vehicle more consonant with one’s higher condition, an electromagnetic body that will more easily and more faithfully represent one. Yes, death will be conquered, but not in the way that Christian Scientists imagine. It will be conquered firstly, by extending the duration of human life to a constantly increasing period; and secondly, by completely abandoning the physical body for a subtler one. The clear real inner human—one’s spiritual being—is undying and immortal. When many began to consider that inner being in relation to its transient Earthly tenement, the body, they become confused and misunderstand the nature of that relationship. The hour of every human’s death is fixed by a higher will than one’s own, by that power which some call destiny but which itself takes its rise out of the Infinite Power, and no Christian Science practitioner or ordinary physician has ever “saved” the life of anyone. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
A human’s own Overself fixes the dates of certain major events in one’s life prior to the moment when one utters one’s first cry as a babe, and the date of one’s death is but one of those appointed hours. Perhaps, if the choose, some people have the option to reschedule; others do not. At this point, not in the sky, nor in the depths of the ocean, nor by entering the caverns of the mountain, nowhere in the World can such a place be found where a human might dwell without being overpowered by death. However, “in those days humans will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them,” Revelation 9.6. We are as birds on the wheel of the Universe. For all our loud tweeting, it still rolls along on its own path. And yet these people confidently imagine they set the great Laws of Destiny at naught, and interfere with the workings of the Cosmic Plan. In that sense there might be several “Natures.” This conception must be kept quite distinct from what is commonly called “plurality of Worlds”—id est, different solar systems or different galaxies, “island Universes” existing in widely separated parts of a single space and time. These, however remote, would be parts of the same Nature as our own sun: it and they would be interlocked by being in relations to one another, spatial and temporal relations and causal relations as well. Ans it is just this reciprocal interlocking within a system which makes it what we call a Nature. Other Natures might not be spatio-temporal at all: or, if any of them were, their space and time would have no spatial or temporal relation to ours. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
It is just this discontinuity, this failure of interlocking, which would justify us in calling them different Natures. This does not mean that there would be absolutely no relation between them; they would be related by their common derivation from a single Supernatural source. They would, in this respect, be like different novels by a single author; the events in one story have no relation to the events in another except that they are invented by the same author. To find a relation to between them you must go right back to the author’s mind: there is no cutting across from anything. However, God might bring the two Natures into partial contact at some particular point: that is, He might allow selected events in the one to produce results in the other. There would thus be, at certain points, a partial interlocking; but this would not turn the two Natures into one, for the total reciprocity which makes a Nature would still be lacking, and the anomalous interlocking would arise not from what either system was in itself but from the Divine act which was brining them together. If this occurred each of the two Natures would be “supernatural” in relation to the other: but the fact of their contact would be supernatural in a more absolute sense—not as being beyond this or that Nature but beyond any and every Nature. It would be one kind of Miracle. The other kind would be Divine “interference” not by bringing together of two Natures, but simply. However, God may never interfere with the natural system He created. He may never cause His natural systems to impinge on one another. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
If the movements of the individual units are events “on their own,” events which do not interlock with all other evens, then these movements are not part of Nature. It would be, indeed, too great a shock to our habits to describe them as super-natural. I think we should have to call them sub-natural. However, all our confidence that Nature has no doors, and no reality outside herself for doors to open on, would have disappeared. There is apparently something outside her, the Subnatural; it is indeed from this Subnatural that all events and all “bodies” are, as it were, fed into her. And clearly if she thus has a back door (door to nowhere) opening on the Subnatural, it is quite on the cards that she may also have a front door opening on the Supernatural—and events might be fed into her at that door, too. The movements of individual units are permanently incalculable to us, not that they are in themselves random and lawless. All possible knowledge, then, depends on the validity of reasoning. Unless human reasoning is valid, no science can be true. To be caused is not to be proved. Wishful thinkings, prejucides, and delusions of madness, are all caused, but they are ungrounded. Indeed to be caused is so different from being proved that we behave in disputation as if they were mutually exclusive. The mere existence of causes for a belief is popularly treated as raising a presumption that it is groundless, and the most popular way of discrediting person’s opinion is to explain them causally—“You say that because (Cause and Effect) you are a capitalist, or a hypochondriac, or a mere man, or a woman.” This implication is that is causes fully account for a belief, then, since causes work inevitably, the belief would have had to arise wither it had grounds or not. We need not, it is felt, consider grounds for something which can be fully explained without them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
The Universal and Infinite cannot be packed into the personal and finite, your demand, natural though it be, is unreasonable. God Himself knows not what He is, for He is not a “what.” So why ask a mere human? Just as there is a sun hidden behind the sun, the divinity which animates it, so in the human being there is a Mind within the mind—and that is one’s Overself. The personality is always limited and chained, the higher individuality always infinite and free. Each human is the expression of this infinite life-power. One’s awareness of life in the five senses will rest upon another and inner awareness. A second and hidden self will thus seem to support one’s outer one. The true I yields quite a different feeling, experience, and consciousness from the familiar physical ego. There is a deeper level of every human’s mind which is not subject to one’s passions, not moved by one’s desires, not affected by one’s sense. It is not possible for the timeless, spaceless, formless Overself to be degraded into activity by its time-bound, space-tied, form-limited offspring the person. The essence of human beings is not one’s Earthly body. Nor is it the ghostly duplicate of that body, as many spiritists and some religionists think. The Overself is the Higher mind in humans, one’s divine soul as distinguished from one’s human-terrestrial nature. It is the same as Plato’s “nous.” The true unchanging self is apart from any historical era and is not dependent on outer changes of custom and form. The aim of the mystic is to know what one is, apart from one’s physical body, one’s lower emotion, one’s personal ego; it is to know one’s inner-most self. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
When this aim is successfully realized, one knows then with perfect certitude that one is a ray of the divine sun. How shall one know and understand that this very awareness, of which so small is the fragment that one experiences, is a limited and conditioned part of the Great Awareness itself, of God? The inhabitant of this fleshly body, including its accompanying invisible “ghost,” is a sacred one. There, within and yet behind one’s personal consciousness, is this other sphere of one’s own being into which one must one day be re-born as a Blue Jay from an egg. This is one’s best self; this is what one really is under all the defects. The relation between response and stimulus is utterly different from that between knowledge and truth known. Our physical vision is a far more useful response to light than that of the cruder organisms which have only a photo-sensitive spot. God is older than Nature, and from it the orderliness of Nature, which alone enables us to know her, is derived. The human mind in the acts of knowing is illuminated by Divine reason. It is set free, in the measure required, from the huge nexus of non-rational causation; free from this to be determined by the truth known. And, if there were any, the preliminary processes within Nature which led up to this liberation were designed to. At the frontier where the “outer World” ends and what I should ordinarily call “myself” begins, we find a great deal of traffic but it is all one-way traffic. It is a matter of daily experience that rational thoughts induce and enable us to alter the course of Nature—of physical nature when we use mathematic to build bridges, or of psychological nature when we apply arguments to alter our own emotions. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
We succeed in modifying physical nature more often and more completely than we succeed in modifying psychological nature, but we do at least a little to both. On the other hand, Nature is quite powerless to produce rational thought: not that she never modifies our thinking but that the moment she does so, it ceases (for that very reason) to be rational. The problem is whether you or I can be such a self-existent Reason. This question almost answers itself the moment we remember what existence “on one’s own” means. It means that kind of existence which Naturalists attribute to “the whole show” and Supernatiralists to God. Human minds, then, are not only supernatural entities that exist. They do not come from nowhere. Each has come into Nature from Supernature: each has its tap-root in an eternal, self-existent, rational Being, whom we call God. Each offshoot, or spearhead, or incursion of that Supernatural reality into Nature. It seems that human thought is not God’s but God-kindled. I must hasten, however, that we are considering miracles, not about everything. I am attempting no full doctrine of man: and I am not in the least trying to smuggle in an argument for the “immortality of the soul.” The earliest Christian documents give a casual and unemphatic assent to the belief that the supernatural part of a human survives the death of the natural organism. However, they are very little interested in the matter. What they are intensely interested in is the restoration or “resurrection” of the whole composite creature by a miraculous divine act: and until we have come to some conclusion about miracles in general, we shall certainly not discuss that. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
At this stage the supernatural element in humans concerns us solely as evidence that something beyond Nature exists. The dignity and destiny of humans has, at present, nothing to do with the argument. We are interested in humans only because their rationality is the little tell-tale rift in Nature which shows that there is something beyond or behind her. In a pond whose surface was completely covered with scum and floating vegetation, there might be a few waterlilies. And you might of course be interested in them for their beauty. However, you might also be interested in them because from their structure you could deduce that they had stalks underneath which went down to roots in the bottom. The Naturalist thinks that the pond (Nature—the great event in space and time) is of an indefinite depth—that there is nothing but water however far you go down. My claim is that some of the things on the surface (id est, in our experience) show the contrary. These things (rational minds) reveal, on inspection, that they at least are not floating but attached by stalks about the bottom. Therefore the pond has a bottom. It is not pond, pond for ever. Go deep enough and you will come to something that is not pond—to mud and Earth and then to rock and finally the whole bulk of Earth and the subterranean fire. God and Nature have come into a certain relation. They have, at the very least, a relation—almost, in one sense, a common frontier—in every human mind. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Reason saves and strengths my whole system, psychological and physical, whereas that whole system, by rebelling against Reason, destroys both Reason an itself. The military metaphor of a spearhead was apparently ill-chosen. The supernatural Reason enters my natural being not like a weapon—more like a beam of light which illuminates or a principle of organization which unifies and develops. Our whole picture of Nature being “invaded” (as if by a foreign enemy) was wrong. When we actually examine one of these invasions it looks much more like the arrival of a king among his own subjects or a mahout visiting his own elephant. The elephant may run amuck, Nature may be rebellious. However, from observing what happens when Nature obeys it is almost impossible not to conclude that it is her very “nature” to be a subject. All happens as if she had been designed for that very role. Not all help from the individual can, or necessarily should come from groups. In many cases, what the change-pressed person needs most is one-to-one counseling during the crisis of adaption. In psychiatric jargon a “crisis” is any significant transition It is roughly synonymous with “major life change.” Today, persons in traditional crisis turn to a variety of experts—doctors, marriage counselors, psychiatrists, the pastor, witches, warlocks, the spirits, God, Jesus Christ, vocational specialists and others—for individualized advice. Yet for many kinds of crisis there are no appropriate experts. Who helps the family or the individual faced with the need to move to a new city for the third time in five years? #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
Who is available to counsel a leader who is up- or down-graded by a reorganization of one’s club or community organization? Who is there to help the secretary just bounced back to the typing pool? People like these are not sick. They neither need nor should receive psychiatric attention, yet there is, by large, no counseling machinery available to them. Not only are there many kinds of present-day life transitions for which no counseling help is provided, but the invasion of novelty will slam individuals up against wholly new kinds of personal crises in the future. And as the society races toward heterogeneity, the variety of problems will increase. In slowly changing societies the types of crises faced by individuals are more unfirm and the sources of specialized advice more easily identifiable. Sometimes you just need to turn to God, Allah, Buddha, or whoever your peaceful, confident, all-loving and powerful Overself is for healing. The crisis-caught person went to one’s priest, Paris Hilton, one’s witch doctor or one’s local chief. Today personalized counseling services in the high technology countries have become so specialized that we have developed, in effect, second-layer advice-givers who do nothing but counsel the individual about where to seek advice. These referral services interpose additional red tape and delay between the individual and the assistance one needs. By the time help reached one, one may have already made a crucial decision—and done so badly. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
So long as we assume that advice is something that must come from evenmore specialized professionals, we can anticipate ever greater difficulty. Moreover, so long as we base specialties on what people “are” instead of what they are “becoming” we miss many of the real adaptive problems altogether. Conventional social service systems will never be able to keep up. The answer is a counterpart to the situational grouping system—a counseling set-up that not only draws on full-time professional advice givers, but on multitudes of lay experts as well. We must recognize that what makes a person an expert in one type of crisis is not necessarily formal education, but the very experience of having undergone a similar crisis oneself. To help tide billions of people over the difficult transitions they are likely to face, we shall be forced to “deputize” large numbers of non-professional people in the community—business people, students, teachers, workers, and others—to serve as “crisis counselors.” Tomorrow’s crisis counselor will be experts not in such conventional disciplines as psychology or health, but in specific transitions such as conventional disciplines as psychology or healthy, but in specific transitions such as relocation, job promotion, divorce, or subcult-hopping. Armed with their own recent experience, working on a volunteer basis or for minimal pay, they will set aside some small part of their time for listening to other people talk out their problems, apprehensions, and plans. In return, they will have access to others for similar assistance in the course of their own adaptive development. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
Once again, there is nothing new about people seeking advice from one another. What is new is our ability, through the use of computerized systems, to assemble situational groups swiftly, to match up individuals with counselors, and to do both wit considerable respect for privacy and anonymity. We can already see evidence of a move in this direction in the spread of “listening” and “caring” services. In Davenport, Iowa, lonely people can dial a telephone number and be connected with a “listener”—one of a rotating staff of volunteers who control the telephone twenty-four hours a day. The program, initiated by a local commission on the aging, is similar to, but not the same as, the Care-Ring service in New York. Care-Ring charges its subscribers a fee, in return for which they receive two check-in calls each day at designated times. Subscribers provide the service with the names of their doctors, a neighbour, their building superintendent, and a close relative. In the even they fail to respond to a call, the service tries again half an hour later. If they still do not respond, the doctor is notified and a nurse is dispatched to the scene. Care-Ring services are now being franchised in other cities. In both these services we see forerunners of the crisis-counseling system of the future. Under that system, the giving and getting of advice becomes not a “social service” in the usual bureaucratic, impersonal sense, but a highly personalized process that not only helps cement the entire society together in a kind of “love network”—an integrative system based on the principle of “I need you as much as you need me.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
Situational grouping, and person-to-person crisis counseling are likely to become a significant part of everyone’s life as we all move together into the uncertainties of the future. There is a powerful, life-changing revelation God wants you to understand! The Principle of Stewardship. Good stewardship will lead to health, favour, and responsibility that God desires to put into your hands for the Kingdom of God! May each of us chose to love the Lord and follow His paths to happiness. More than anything else, Heavenly Father desires our true and lasting happiness. Our happiness is the design of all the blessings God gives us—gospel, teachings, commandments, priesthood ordinances, family relationships, prophets, temples, the beauties of creation, and even the opportunity to experience adversity. He sent His Beloved Son to carry out the Atonement so we can be happy in this life and receive a fulness of joy in the eternities. People everywhere are looking for something. In their own way, what they are really looking for is happiness. As with truth itself, however, many are kept from happiness “because they know not where to find it,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 123.12. Because they do not know where to find true and lasting happiness, they look for it in things that actually bring temporary pleasure only—buying things, seeking honour and praise from the World through inappropriate behaviour, or focusing on physical beauty and attractiveness. Pleasure is often confused with happiness. It seems that the more people seek temporary pleasure, the less happy they become. Usually, pleasure endures for only a short time. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
You may get that transitory pleasure, yes, but you cannot find joy, you cannot find happiness. Happiness is found only along that well beaten track, narrow as it is, though straight, which leads to eternal life. Unfortunately for many, happiness is elusive. Scientists know that it is more than simply positive mode, happiness is a state of well-being that encompasses living a good life—that is, wit a sense of meaning and deep satisfaction. Research shows that happiness is not the result of bouncing from one experience to the next. Instead, achieving happiness typically involves a long-sustained effort for something more important in life. Happiness is determined by habits, behaviours, and thought patterns that we can directly address wit intentional actions. Much of our happiness is actually under personal control. God’s love speaks to us in our hearts and tries to work through us in the World. We must listen to it as to a pure and distant melody that comes across the noise of the World’s doings. Some say, “When we are grown up, we would rather think of other things.” However, the voice of love with which God speaks to us in the secret places of the heart, speaks to us when we are young so that our youth may be really youth, and that we may become the children of God. Happy are those who listen. Virtue, which is a pattern of thought and behaviour based on high moral standards. It encompasses chastity and moral purity, which qualify you to enter the Lord’s holy temples. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
Virtuous people possess a quiet dignity and inner strength. They are confident because they are worthy to receive and be guided by the Holy Ghost. Virtue begins in the heart and mind, and it is the accumulation of thousands of small decisions and actions each day. “Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from Heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and they dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 121.45-46. If you listen, you will hear the sound of the Kingdom of God in the air as no generation ever could before. The ultimate questions of our life transcend knowledge. One riddle after another surrounds us. However, the final question of our being has but one concern, and it decides our fate. Again and again, we are thrown back to it. What will become of our will? How does it find itself in the will of God? The highest insight humans can attain is the yearning for peace, for the union of one’s will with an infinite will, one’s human will with God’s will. Such a will does not cut itself off and live in isolation like a puddle that is bound to dry up when the heart of summer comes. No, it is like a mountain stream, relentlessly splashing its way to the river, there to be swept on to the limitless ocean. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
You know of the disease in Central Africa called sleeping sickness, there also exists a sleeping sickness of the soul. Its most dangerous aspect is that one is unaware of its coming. That is why you have to be careful. As soon as you notice the slightest sign of indifference, the moment you become aware of the loss of a certain seriousness, of longing, of enthusiasm and zest, take its as a warning. If you live superficially, you should realize that your soul suffers. People need times in which to concentrate, when they can search their inmost selves. It is tragic that most human have not achieved this feeling of self-awareness. And finally, when they hear the inner voice they do not want to listen anymore. They carry on as before so as not to be constantly reminded of what they have lost. However, as for you, resolve to keep a quiet time both in your homes and where within these peaceful walls when the bells ring on Sundays Then your souls can speak to you without being drowned out by the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Do not let your hearts grow numb. Stary alert. It is your soul which matters. O Lord our God, on this festive day we recall that on Sinai Thou didst reveal Thyself, and through Thine immortal words didst weld our people into a nation through Torah. Standing before the sacred scrolls of Thy law, we here renew the ancient covenant with our fathers, pronouncing again their memorable words: “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Help us t discern the wisdom of Thy precepts so that we may heed Thy commandments. May Thy Torah ever inspire us, guiding and leading us in the paths of justice and peace. Amen. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
Winchester Mystery House
Llanada Villa has changed quite a bit since Sarah Winchester began construction in 1884. Despite a tragedy-ridden life, her generosity, ingenuity, and passion left an endless mark on the Santa Clara Valley. How many times have you visited Mrs. Winchester’s creation?
Even after months of distancing, the air of bizarre energy still flows through the house after the sun sets.
We’re open for Self-Guided Mansion Tours!
Begin to Obtain Wisdom Under a Wide Starry Sky!
Time in love and time in life are unrelated: forever exists more than once. The second stage of moral development is that of the morality of association. This stage covers a wide range of cases depending on the association in question and it may even include the national community as a whole. Whereas the child’s morality of authority consists largely of a collection of precepts, the content of the morality of association is given by the moral standards appropriate to the individual’s role in the various associations to which one belongs. These standards include the common sense rules of morality along with the adjustments required to fit them to a person’s particular position; and they are impressed upon one by the approval and disapproval of those in authority, or by the other members of the group. Thus at this stage the family itself is viewed as a small association, normally characterizes by a definite hierarchy, in which each member has certain rights and duties. As the child becomes older one is taught that standards of good conduct suitable for one in one’s situation. The virtues of a good son or a good daughter are explained, or at least conveyed by parental expectations as shown in their approvals and disapprovals. Similarly there is the association of the school and the neighbourhood, and also such short-term forms of cooperation, though not less important for this, as games play with peers. Corresponding to these arrangements one learn the virtues of a good student and classmate, and the ideals of a good sport and companion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
This type of moral view extends to the ideals adopted in later life, and so to one’s various adult statuses and occupations, one’s family, and so to one’s various adult statuses and occupations, one’s family position, and even to one’s place as a member of society. The content of these ideals is given by the various conceptions of a good wife and husband, a good friend and citizen, and so on. Thus the morality of association includes a large number of ideals each defined in ways suitable for the respective status or role. Our moral understanding increases as we move in the course of life through a sequence of positions. The corresponding sequence of ideals requires increasingly greater intellectual judgment and finer moral discriminations. Clearly some of these ideals are also more comprehensive than others and make quite different demands upon the individual. As we shall see, having to follow certain ideals quite naturally leads up to a morality of principles. Now each particular ideal is presumably explained in the context of the aims and purposes of the association to which the role or position in question belongs. In due course a person works out a conception of the whole system of cooperation that defines the association and the ends which it serves. One knows that others have different things to do depending upon their place in the cooperative scheme. Thus one eventually learns to take up their point of view and to see things from their perspective. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
It seems plausible, then, that acquiring a morality of association (represented by some structure of ideals) rests upon the development of the intellectual skills required to regard things from a variety of points of view and to think of these together as aspects of one system of cooperation. In fact, when we consider it, the requisite array of abilities is quite complex. First of all, we must recognize that these different points of view exist, that the perspectives of others are not the same as ours. However, we must not only learn that things look different to them, but that they have different wants and ends, and different plans and motives; and we must learn how to gather these facts from their speech, conduct, and countenance. Next, we need to identify the definitive features pf these perspectives, what it is that others largely want and desire, what are their controlling beliefs and opinions. Only in this way can we understand and assess their actions, intentions, and motives. Unless we can identify these leading elements, we cannot put ourselves into another’s place and find out what we would do in one’s position. To work out these things, we must, of course, know what the other person’s perspective really is. However, finally, having understood another’s situation, it still remains for us to regulate our own conduct in the appropriate way by reference to it. Doing these things to a certain minimum degree at least comes easily to adults, but it is difficult for children. No doubt this explains in part why the precepts of the child’s primitive morality of authority are usually expressed in terms referring to external behaviour, and why motives and intentions are largely neglected by children in their actions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
The child has not yet mastered the art of perceiving the person of others, that is, the art of discerning their beliefs, intentions, and feelings, so that an awareness of these things cannot inform one’s interpretation of their behaviour. Moreover, one’s ability to put oneself in the place is still untutored and likely to lead one astray. It is no surprise, then, that these elements, so important from the final moral point of view, are left out of account at the earliest stage. However, this lack is gradually overcome as we assume a succession of more demanding riles with their more complex schemes of rights and duties. The corresponding ideals require us to view things from a greater multiplicity of perspectives as the conception of the basic structure implies. The self object state is succeeded, in a facilitating environment, by the child’s phantasy that the satisfying object is there when wanted. This phantasy helps the baby not to be overwhelmed by distress when it begins to feel ever more individual and separate from the (m)other. For, as this happens, it may more often have to wait for, or work for, or even forgo, the gratification of its wishes. However, though it must now change from “good things are there when needed,” to “you bring me good things when I need them,” it need not lose its feeling that it is a grand baby. That confident trust may remain, that memory of the reliable availability of goodness. In fortunate circumstances the baby may after differentiation feel that it is a grand baby in a grand environment. Here is the beginning of the useful process by which we can turn our phantasies into symbols. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Just to remind ourselves: a memory, however simple or complex, is a concept, an image or part of an image, part of a dynamic structure. The more complex of these structures we can call phantasies. A phantasy can be a symbol: it can stand for, stand in for, represent something. Thus the memory that good things come when they are needed “represents” the good thing and “stands for” a guarantee that it will come. In between the infant and the object is some thing, or some activity or sensation. Insofar as this joins the infant to the object, so far is this the basis for symbol formation. A memory can stand for—be symbolic of—a future event. It can be maintained as an active phantasy for a while, even in the absence of sensory confirmation. The process is like that of “reverberation,” whereby a concept continues to be maintained for a while even without sensor reinforcement. It can operate to prevent a rise in anxiety, such as a baby might feel in the absence of the mother. So the baby is able to hold the mother in mind, and the comfort and security which are associated wit the mother, while she is not there—even when there is n sensory reinforcement of that complex concept of comfort and security which “mother” connects with. The presence of a transitional object which can be held on to, helps to keep the reverberations going. Blanket edges, teddy bears, and such stand in for the phantasied (m)other. They stand on the margins of shared reality, representing the more uncontrollable mother and others who are known to come eventually, if not now. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
I have touched upon these aspects of intellectual development for the sake of completeness. I cannot consider them in any detail, but we should note that they obviously have a central place in the acquisition of moral views. How well the art of perceiving the person is learned is bound to affect one’s moral sensibility; and it is equally important to understand the intricacies of social cooperation. However, these abilities are not sufficient. Someone whose designs are purely manipulative and wishes to exploit others for one’s own advantage, must likewise, if one lacks overwhelming force, possess these skills. The tricks of persuasion and gamesmanship call upon the same intellectual accomplishments. We must, then, examine how we become attached to our fellow associates and later to social arrangements generally. Consider the case of an association the public rules of which are known by all to be just. Now how does it come about that those taking part in the arrangement are bound by ties of friendship and mutual trust and that they rely on one another to do their part? We may suppose that these feelings and attitudes have been generated by participation in the association. Thus once a person’s capacity for fellow feeling has been realized by one’s acquiring attachments in accordance with the first psychological law, then as one’s associates with evident intention live up to their duties and obligations, one develops friendly feelings toward them, together with feelings of trust and confidence. And this principle is a second psychological law. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
As individual enter the association one by one over a period of time, or group by group (suitably limited in size), they acquire these attachments when others of longer standing membership do their part and live up to the ideals of their situation. Thus if those engaged in a system of social cooperation regularly act with evident intention to uphold its just (or fair) rules, bonds of friendship and mutual trust tend to develop among them, thereby holding them ever more securely to the scheme. Once these ties are established, a person tends to experience feelings of (association) guilt when one fails to do one’s part. These feeling show themselves in various ways, for example, in the inclination to make good the harms caused to others (reparation), if what one has done is unfair (wrong) and to apologize for it. Feelings of guilt are also manifest in conceding the propriety of punishment and censure, and in finding it more difficult to be angry and indignant with others when they likewise fail to do their share. The absence of these inclinations would betray an absence of ties of friendship and mutual trust. It would indicate a readiness to associate with others in disregard of the standards and criteria of legitimate expectations that are publicly recognized and used by all to adjudicate their disagreements. A person without these feelings of guilt has no qualms about burdens that fall on others, nor is one troubled by the breaches of confidence by which they are deceived. However, when relations of friendship and trust exist, such inhibitions and reactions tend to be aroused by the failure to fulfill one’s duties and obligations. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
If these emotional constraints are missing, there is at best only a show of fellow feeling and mutual trust. Thus just as in the first stage certain natural attitudes develop toward the parents, so here ties of friendship and confidence grow up among associates. In each case certain natural attitudes underlie the corresponding moral feelings: a lack of these feelings would manifest the absence of these attitudes. The second psychological law presumably takes hold in ways similar to the first. Since the arrangements of an association are recognized to be just (and in the more complex roles the principles of justice are understood and serve to define the ideal appropriate), thereby insuring that all of its members benefit and know that they benefit from its activities, the conduct of other in doing their part is taken to be the advantage of each. Here the evident intention to honour one’s obligations and duties is seen as a form of good will, and this recognition arouses feelings of friendship and trust in return. In due course the reciprocal effects of everyone’s doing one’s share strengthen one another until a kind of equilibrium is reached. However, we may also suppose that the newer members of the association recognize moral exemplars, that is, persons who are in various ways admired and who exhibit to a high degree the ideal corresponding to their position. These individuals display skills and abilities, and virtues of character and temperament, that attract our fancy and arouse in us the desire that we should be like them, and able to do the same things. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Partly this desire to emulate springs from viewing their attributes as prerequisites for their more privileged positions, but it is also a companion effect to the Aristotelian Principle, since we enjoy the display of more complex and subtle activities and these displays tend to elicit a desire in us to do these things ourselves. Thus when the moral ideals belonging to the various roles of a just association are lived up to with evident intention by attractive and admirable persons, these ideals are likely to be adopted by those who witness their realization. These conceptions are perceived as a form of good will and the activity in which they are exemplified is shown to be a human excellence that others likewise can appreciate. The same two psychological processes are present as before: other persons act with evident intention to affirm our well-being and at the same time they exhibit qualities and ways of doing things that appeal to us and arouse the desire to model ourselves after them. The morality of association takes many forms depending upon the association and role in question, and these forms represent many levels of complexity. However, if we consider the more demanding offices that are defined by the major institutions of society, the principles of justice will be recognized as regulating the basic structure and as belonging to the content of a number of important ideals. Indeed, these principles apply to the role of citizen held by all, since everyone, and not only those in public life, is meant to have political views concerning the common good. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
Thus we may suppose that there is a morality of association in which the members of society view one another as equals, as friends and associates, joined together in a system of cooperation known to be for the advantage of all and governed by a common conception of justice. The content of this morality is characterized by the cooperative virtues: those of justice and fairness, fidelity and trust, integrity and impartiality. The typical vices are graspingness and unfairness, dishonesty and deceit, prejudice and bias. Among associates, giving in to these faults tends to around feelings of (association) guilt on the one side and resentment and indignation on the other. These moral attitudes are bound to exist once we become attached to those cooperating wit us in a just (or fair) scheme. Some people do not understand why people care about the homeless. They do not understand what good giving them blanket or food will do when the problem is so massive and that is not really a solution. However, when trying to meet the short-term needs and figure out ways to bring long-term changes to people’s life, starting with handouts and basic supplies is a great way to show compassion. Sometimes it seems like just a band-aid. However, this is how we build relationships. These people become our friends and they trust us to help them in bigger way. There are plenty of struggles, but giving always makes the difference in a Christian’s life. Instead of just reading the Scriptures, we can start living them. Everything someone does to improve the life of someone who is going through a struggle make a big difference to those in need—and to those who give as well. Some people’s problems are beyond the spiritual, and that is when we have to step out in faith. The Lord knows the challenges we all face. If we keep His commandments, we will be entitled to the wisdom and blessings of Heaven in solving them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
The appeal to self-respect and accountability is they key to helping needy people. It is the only way to break the cycle of their poverty. Teaching people who to manage and extend their resources helps set them free. The principle of self-reliance or personal independence is fundamental to the happy life. In too many places, in too many ways, we are getting away from it. Unless we use care, we are on the verge of doing to ourselves emotionally (and, therefore, spiritually) what we have been working so hard for generations to avoid materially. Being a Christian is a matter of obedience—and that means helping people in need as the Holy Spirit leads. The people in the inner city are living by the roadside, wounded by economic hardship; they do not even know how to help themselves. Meanwhile, there are a lot of good church people passing by on the other side. Someone needs to cautiously stop and take a risk. We cannot help the poor from afar. Those who want to help them need to relocate and become part of their neighbourhoods. Also, racial, social, and economic barriers created by racial hostility can be broken only by the forgiveness and healing that takes place through reconciliation; only the gospel of Christ truly provides this. As we read the Christian Bible, Jesus Christ presents a radical call for those who have, to share with those who do not. This means redistribution through sharing skills, technology, and educational resources. We have to model the hopes and values of the Kingdom of God for the kingdom of man. They are based in human dignity and a view of economics designed to equip people to climb out of their condition rather than manacling them to their poverty. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
It is a magicians bargain: give up our souls, get power in return. However, once our souls, that is, ourselves have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. Truly important changes in culture begin not from officials or celebrities, but through ordinary people: the little platoons. Every person can—and should—seek to make a difference in one’s corner of the World by personal helping those in need. Beyond this, some people, like William Wilberforce, are called to work through government structure and by political means to being Christian influence into the culture. Those who do, however, need to be forewarned: the everyday business of politics is power, and power, as I know well from own experience, can be perilous for anyone. The human desire to control one’s own destiny and to impose one’s will on other is the most basic human motivation. We are moved without know it by an imperious will to power, which brooks no obstacles. The will to power has filled society’s vacuum of values. We see it on an individual level in the quest for autonomy and the shedding of all restraints. On a corporate level, it is dramatically evident in the rise of gangster leaders, and evident as well in the bloated growth of Western governments. The resultant illusion—that all power resides in large institutions—is the salient characteristic of modern politics. Since power is often measures by one’s prominence and ability to influence others, in today’s World, politics is the most visible means to both. Hunger for political power lures men and women from the comfort of their homes and jobs in the private sector and drives them to spend months, even years, traveling about their state or nation, subsisting on stale sandwiches, greasy chicken, and little sleep as they should the same soul-stirring speech over and over until they are hoarse. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Candidates for Congress spend several million dollars to fight for a job that pay a little under $200,000 a year; others settle for lower-paying bureaucratic positions. Still others give huge political contributions in the hopes of acquiring even an obscure embassy appointment. Certainly in every generation there are states-people motivated by a genuine noblesse oblige, a sense of high calling to serve humanity. For the most part, it is will to power that fuels political passion in every culture. In the political arena one of the most important attributes of power is its visibility. So people go to great lengths to protect their territory or prerogatives. The pursuit of power affects entire governments or regions, as well as individuals. Those in office use their power to keep themselves in office. This is an accepted tradition in most Wester democracies. In every American election since the forties the party in power has used grants and federal assistance programs for political advantage. President Truman won his upset victory in 1948 by doling out federal funds to struggling farmers and openly courting special-interest groups. President Eisenhower judiciously announced grants in key states during the 1956 campaign. In the Kennedy and Johnson year a special White House office monitored election-year grants, and party fund-raisers notified defense contractors of impending contracts. Administrations since have adopted similar practices. All governments also use the reality as well as the façade of power to maintain their own power. Eventually people start to see public office as a holy crusade. They party seeks power entirely for its own sake, they are interested only in power, the object of power is power. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
While power may begin as a means to an end, it also becomes the end itself. Having witnessed Watergate, one can attest to the wisdom of Lord Acton’s well-known adage: Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is crucial to note, however, that it is power that corrupts, not power that is corrupt. It is like electricity. When properly handled, electricity provides light and energy; when mishandled it destroys. God has given power to the state to be used to restrain evil and maintain order. It is the use of power, whether for personal gain or for the state’s ordained function, that is at issue. The problem of power is not limited to public officials, of course. It affects all human relationships, from the domineering parent to the bullying boss to the manipulative spouse of the pastor who plays God. It is also wielded effectively by the seemingly weak who manipulate others to gain their own ends. The temptation to abuse power confronts everyone, including people in positions of spiritual authority. It is ludicrous for any Christian to believe that one is the worthy object of public worship; it would be like a donkey carrying Jesus Christ into Jerusalem believing that crows were cheering and laying down their garments for him or her, not Jesus. However, the perks and public adoration accompanying television exposure are enough to inflate anyone’s ego. This leads to the self-indulgent use of power some have subbed the “Imelda Marcos syndrome,” which reasons, “because I am in this position, I have a right to do whatever I want,” with total selfishness and disregard for others. Power is like saltwater; the more you drink the thirstier your get. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
The lure of power can separate the most resolute of Christians from the true nature of Christian leadership, which is service to others. It is difficult to stand on a pedestal and wash the feet of those below. It was this very temptation of power that led to the first sin. Eve was tempted to eat from the tree of knowledge to be like God and acquire power reserved for Him. The sin of the Garden was the sin of power. Power has been one of Satan’s most effective tools from the beginning, perhaps because one lusts for it so oneself. Milton wrote of Lucifer in Paradise Lost, “To reign is worth ambition, though in hell. Better to reign in hell than to serve in Heaven.” The claims of the inner life for attention and satisfaction are too often thrust aside, with a consequent unbalance. This deplorable condition increases until in middle life bodily malfunctions and maladies begin to appear, nervous and emotional stresses begin to cause trouble. It is then that the little “I” starts to break down. However, because those clams are still, consciously or unconsciously, resisted, the cures are either temporary or followed, later, by new forms of ill health. This is not to say that there is only a single origin of sickness or disease, but it is certainly a very modern one. If the change begins in the body’s behaviour it may influence the mind to a very limited extent, but if it begins in the mind’s thinking it will influence the body to a very large extent. That is the difference. If, when we consider a subject from the standpoint of medicine, psychology, biology, or philosophy, we treat the body and the mind as two entirely separable things, it would be a mistake. They have a common origin. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
We agree with all those virile advocates of health who assert that it is the foundation of human happiness. However, we would widen its definition and make it include mental, emotional, and spiritual health. The psychological causes of disease have only recently come under investigation by the strict methods of modern science, but the general fact of their existence was known thousands of years ago. Plato, for instance, said: “This is the great error of our say, that physicians separate the inner being from the body.” What needs to be learned and accepted is the mentalist law of reproduction—as apart from the biological law—which teaches that sustained thoughts or violent feelings may produce physical-body effects. Many of the conventional ideas prevalent in the medical profession are still materialistic, although some members of that profession do not shut their eyes to the dominant role of mind in the mind-body relationship. When the perceptions of the inner being are developed, the all-importance of healing wrong thought-emotion becomes clear. The belief that disease exists entirely in the mind is an exaggerated one. The opposite belief that it exists entirely in the body is equally carried too far. In both cases experience and reflection must ultimately produce a reaction, provided prejudice is not stronger than the spirit of truth-seeking. Nothing that happens to a human happens to one’s flesh alone or to one’s mind alone. The one can never exclude the other, for both have to suffer together, or enjoy together, or progress together. Here again mentalism makes it possible for us to understand the basic principle which is at work. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
The entire body being a mental construct, it is occasionally possible to apply mental forces so as to repair wastage, heal disease, and restore healthy functioning. We say “occasionally” advisedly, for reasons which will shortly be given. Psychosomatic medicine deals with physical diseases caused by emotional or mental factors, by moods of fears, by hidden conflicts or repressions. It has steadily been rising into an influence place of its own in recent years. Mentalism affirms the true nature of the body, and hence of the nerves in the body. Pain is a condition of those nerves and hence must ultimately be what the body is—an idea in the mind. What healing agent can be used successful to cure a pathological condition whose first origin is the mind? Should it not also be mental? The power of bodily conditions to control thinking is admittedly true. Experience tells us that this is so, that physical causes are effectual in producing mental-emotional results. However, this is not the whole true. The reverse fact, that spiritual and psychic forces can heal or injure the body, that thoughts and feelings can affect its functioning, must also be admitted into consideration. Even if it be hard to grant by sceptics that the mind is the whole cause of a particular sickness, they may be willing to grant that it is at least a contributing cause. If the individual mind were completely cut off from the Universal Mind, if it really lived in a realm composed only of its own thought, then the formation and continuation of the World-image would be fully under its control. However, this is not the case. Consequently it lacks the freedom to mold the body-thought as it would or prolong its life at will. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
In the process of announcing the Kingdom and offering redemption from the Fall, Jesus Christ turned conventional views of power upside down When His disciples argued over who was the greatest, Jesus rebuked them. “The greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves,” he said. Imagine the impact His statement would make in the back rooms of American politicians or in the carpeted boardrooms of big business—or, sadly, in some religious councils. Jesus was as good as His words. He washed His own followers’ dusty feet, a chore reserved for the lowliest servant of the first-century Palestine. A king serving the mundane physical needs of His subjects? In comprehensible. Yet servant leadership is the heart of Christ’s teaching. “Whoever want so be first must be slave of all.” His was a revolutionary message to the class-conscious culture of the first century, where position and privilege were entrenched, evidenced by the Pharisees with their reserved seats in the synagogue, by masters ruling slaves, and by men dominating women. It is no less revolutionary today in the class-conscious cultures of the Old World and the New World where power, money, fame, and influence are idolized in various forms. I have the feeling that the Christian theologian are reluctant to come in through the door I have tried to open. I have tried to relate Christianity to the sacredness of all life. It seems to me this is a vital part of Christianity as I understand it. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
However, the Christian theologians, many of the, confine Christianity to be the human form of life. It does not seem to me to be correct. It lacks the essential universalization that I associate with Jesus. Why limit reverence for life to the human form? We cannot understand God’s ways. However, we can understand through Jesus that in all our suffering we still have a Father in Heaven. And this calms people’s hearts. I know that many are as convinced as I that in spite of suffering we need not doubt God’s love and faithfulness. We are still heirs of His Kingdom and still His children, and so we may rest assured that He will always lift us above misfortune. That is why our Lord says to be: “Blessed are those who suffer, for they shall be comforted.” It is amazing paradox that the Overself completely transcends the body yet completely permeates it: both these descriptions are simultaneously true. Although the Overself does not pass through the diverse experiences of its imperfect image, the ego, nevertheless it witnessed them. Although it is aware of the pan and pleasure experienced by the body which it is animating, it does not itself feel them; although detached from physical sensations, it is not ignorant of them. On the other hand, the personal consciousness does feel them because it regards them as states of its own self. Thus the Overself is conscious of our joys and sorrows without itself sharing them. It is away of our sense-experience without itself being physically sentient. Those who wonder how this is possible should reflect that a human awakened from nightmare is aware once again in the form of a revived memory of what one suffered and what one sensed but yet does not share again either the suffering or the sensation. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
The Overself perceives and knows that individual self, but only as an imperturbable witness—in the same way that the sun witnesses the various objects upon the Earth but does not enter into a particular relation with a particular object. So too the Overself is present in each individual self as the witness and as the unchanging consciousness which gives consciousness to the individual. The “I” is immeasurably greater than the ego which it projects or than the intellect, which the ego uses. The normal human thinks one is body plus mind, with emphasis on the body. However, self-questioning and analysis show that, although one certainly has these two things and is certainly associated with them, the “I” is in fact neither of them. It is, by contrast, not changing and quite elusive. It is not in space, as the body is, nor in time, as the mind is. It is, in fact, a mystery. The attempt to find out what it is brings up the questions of existence, life, activity, and consciousness. All that anyone basically possesses unlost through all one’s life is one’s “I.” All that one really is, is this same “I.” The physical body, although seemingly inseparable from it, is something lived in and used, as a house is lived in and a tool is used. To look at a human and at one’s life from the outside is only to see half the human. To look at one from the inside is to see the other half. Put these two fragments together and there is the whole human. Or so it would seem. However, what if behind one’s thoughts and feelings there were still another self of an utterly different kind and quality? And this exactly is one’s situation. One does not know all of oneself, and one understands it even less. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
Those who have been privileged to look being the veil can only urge one to recognize this incompleteness and teach one what steps to take to overcome it. The divine soul in us utterly above and unaffected by the sense impressions. If we become conscious of it, we also become conscious of a supersensual order of existence. It is a higher self not only in a moral sense but also in a cosmic sense. For the lower one issued forth from it, but under limitations of consciousness, form, space, and time which are not in the parent Self. When we come to see that it is the body alone that expresses the coming into life and the going into death, that in the true self there is neither a beginning nor an ending but rather LIFE itself, we shall see aright. We thank Thee, O Father for the joy and gladness of this festival. At this Season of our Freedom, we are grateful unto Thee, O Redeemer of America, for the redemption Thou hast wrought for our fathers and for us. Thou did bring us forth from slavery to freedom, from darkness to light, from human bondage to Thy divine service. As Thou wast with our fathers, we pray Thee, be with us in every generation, and bear growth and provide safe harbour in unlimited recesses. We would travel eternity to experience your grace for there lies beauty in radiant abundance and it gives tenor to the vast ocean of our lives. Please protect this paradise. Amen. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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Beneath the Surface Lies Beauty in Radiant Abundance in the Vast Oceans of Our Lives!
Losers have tons of variety. Champions take pride in just learning to produce the same old boring plays that win the game. If you do not have someone you can talk to about stressful events, you might try expressing your thoughts and feelings in writing. Several studies have found that students who write about their upsetting experiences, thoughts, and feelings are better able to cope with stress. They also experience fewer illnesses, and they get better grades. Writing about your feelings tends to leave your mind clearer. This makes it easier to pay attention to life’s challenges and come up with effective coping strategies. Thus, after you write about your feelings, it helps to make specific plans for coping with upsetting experiences. Stress is greatly affected by the views we take of events. Physical symptoms and a tendency to make poor decisions are increased by negative thoughts or “self-talk.” In many cases, what you say to yourself can be the different between coping and collapsing. The cause of disease with which conventional medicos deal are too often themselves the effects of still deeper causes. It is because unconventional healers recognize this that they are able to achieve so much higher a proportion of dramatically successful cures than the medicos can achieve. And their principal recognition is of the spiritual nature of humans, along with the mental emotional influence on the body. When plague broke like a wave over the heads of humankind in the fifteenth century and spread with startling rapidity through the nations of Europe, the obvious physical cases were in themselves but agents of the less obvious soul-causes, defects in the very character of humanity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Insomnia and cancer, to take but two of the representative illnesses of our own epoch, are no less plaguelike in their menace to people of today, no less the products of causes inherent in imperfect human character, habit, or environment. Although we can often find the physical causes of physical ailments, behind these physical causes there are quite often maladies of the soul. Heal the soul and the bodily healing may follow. Obviously there are many cases where no success would result. The first step in healing, for both the healer and the patient, is to pray, to ask for enlightenment about the true and first cause of the sickness. What act or what thought of the patient was primarily responsible? Once learnt, it must be corrected. A disease may well be the outer expression of an inner conflict, or an inner weakness, or an inner misery. One may push the problem away for a time, but it will be only for a time. One day it will return and one will have to deal with it again. Those who violate the laws of their own being will suffer in health. When Jesus Christ told the woman he healed to sin no more, he added that it was her sinning which brought her ill-health upon her. Here then is one of the potent causes of sickness. So long as we remain alienated from the Overself, so long shall we suffer misery and spoil life. All the good we may recognize or desire is nothing in itself and leads nowhere unless it is strengthened in the thought of faithfulness. It is just like the hardening of metal. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
No one can explain how metal hardens. First it is weak and pliable, but then it becomes a hundred times as strong as it was before. Nor can we explain how every human virtue only achieves strength and fulfilment after it has been hardened on the anvil of faithfulness. While certain aspect of morality of authority are preserved at later stages for special occasions, we can regard the mortality of authority in its primitive for as that of the child. I assume that the sense of justice is acquired gradually by the younger members of society as they grow up. The succession of generations and the necessity to teach moral attitudes (however simple) to children is one of the conditions of human life. Now I shall assume that the basic structure of a well-ordered society includes the family in some form, and therefore that children are at first subject to the legitimate authority of their parents. Of course, in a broader inquiry the institution of the family might be questioned, and other arrangements might indeed prove to be preferable. However, presumably the account of the morality of authority, if necessary, be adjusted to fit these different schemes. In any event, it is characteristic of the child’s situation that one is not in a position to assess the validity of the precepts and injunctions addressed to one by those in authority, in this case one’s parents. One lacks both the knowledge and the understanding on the basis of which their guidance can be challenged. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Indeed, the child lacks the concept of justification altogether, this being acquired much later. Therefore one cannot with reason doubt the propriety of parental injunctions. However, since we are assuming that the society is well-ordered we my suppose, so as to avoid needless complications, that these precepts are on the whole justified. They accord with a reasonable interpretation of familial duties as defined by the principles of justice. The parents, we may suppose, love the child and in time the child comes to love and to trust one’s parents. How does this change in the child come about? The following psychological principles come into play: only if hey manifestly love the child first, the child comes to love its parents. This attachment is quite unconscious and instinctive. Thus the child’s actions are motivated initially by certain instincts and desires, and one’s aims are regulated (if at all) by rational self-interest (in a suitably restricted sense). Although the child has the potentiality for love, one’s love of the parents is a new desire brought about by one’s recognizing their evident love of one and one’s benefitting from the actions in which their love is expressed. The parents’ love of the child is expressed in their evident intention to care for one, to do for one as one’s rational self-love would incline, and in the fulfillment of these intentions. Their love is displayed by their taking pleasure in one’s presence and supporting one’s sense of competence and self-esteem. They encourage one’s efforts to master the tasks of growing up and they welcome one’s assuming one’s own place. One learns what one can do in that World. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
Playing leads to the child developing a self-identity, it teaches them their separateness from others. Playing helps distinguish “me” from “you,” preparatory to building a strong “us.” Playing leads to the discover of the others as the other “really” is. I mean here the discovery of the other we cannot control, the other who exists regardless of our needs, hopes, fears, and wishes. Playing corrects our phantasies of what we imagine the other to be, using the evidence which we allow the other to present to our senses. Of course, we do not play with those we fear too much, and so we cannot discover who or what they “really” are in this sense. However, we do watch the late-night horror film; we play with what we fear a little, hoping to reduce our fear through finding less danger than we feared, or more sill in coping. The discovery of others who are the source of good things leads to gratitude and confidence. However, there must surely be many times when the child responds with ager to the discovery that it is not omnipotent but must put up with a delay before it will get what it wants. This anger has a special role: it can test and at times establish the reality of the other person’s separateness. Testing is a process which allows us to distinguish between the people and things we can imagine or phantasies about, and the people and things whose actions are not under our control. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
By testing I can discover what is under my control and so “mine,” and what is in the World known as “shared reality” and which is not under my control. I think that quite a lot of such discoveries happen in a painless way in the process of playing and exploring. When things (or persons) are no longer subject to omnipotence—no longer imagined to be under the child’s control but discovered to be part of shared reality—they cease to be part of the child and become separated out. The loss of omnipotence may frustrate and anger the baby, but it has a focus for its anger—the (m)other. The distress of deprivation becomes the anger of frustration, anger which may be so great that the child fears it will destroy the (m)other in its rage. However, it is not in shared reality and so it is bound to learn that destroying people in phantasy does not destroy them in shared reality, thank goodness. And so, when the rage subsides, the child discovers that the (m)other is still there and so is the baby itself. Thus, the child discovers a class of objects not destroyed by rage, to which it can then begin to attend in a new way. When you can stop thinking of yourself as omnipotent, powerful, and destructive in a World which has other powerful and destructive people in it, the World is a safer place. The (m)other has been tested and survived. The subject says to the object “I destroyed you,” and the object is there to receive the communication. From now on the subject says “Hullo object! I destroyed you. I love you. You have value for me because of your survival of my destruction of you.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
So, gradually, either through playing or more perilously through testing, other people become more real as other people. They have been discovered as able to survive both love and hate. This makes realistic ambivalence possible. In phantasy, the good and the bad can be kept separate. We can have a phantasy goo mother, who comes when wanted, separate from a phantasy bas mother, who never comes when wanted. In shared reality, we have to put up with the fact that mothers (and others) are both good and bad together. To some extent they will be just as we imagined them; and to some extent they remain obstinately their own selves. This is why transitional objects—bears, dolls, imaginary playmates—are normally not tested to destruction, however savagely the child treats them. The child could destroy them—they are sufficiently under the child’s control to be capable of destruction—but this is not what the child normally wants to do to is transitional objects. It is partly because the child does not normally test its transitional objects to destruction that it eventually turns more to other people and things: transitional objects cannot be “discovered,” the way other people and things can be discovered, to be either the sort of person or thing we hoped for, or not. There is a particular gratification or disappointment which comes from relating to real people and things in shared reality. Transitional objects, by contrast, are useful because they help the child comes to terms with the discovery of its own limitations: they put the child in touch with the possibility (disillusioning? comforting?) that is not omnipotent. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
So we have been considering a developmental period when the child feels strong enough to discover the real people to relate to in an honest way taking the rough with the smooth, as regards itself, and as regards others. In general, to love another means not only to be concerned for one’s wants and needs, but to affirm one’s sense of worth of one’s own person. Eventually, then, the love of the parents for the child gives rise to one’s love in return. The child’s love does not have a rational instrumental explanation: one does not love them s a means to achieve one’s initial self-interested ends. With this aim in view one could conceivably act as if one loved them, but one’s doing so would not constitute a transformation of one’s original desires. By the stated psychological principle, a new affection is in time called into being by the evident love of the parents. By the stated psychological principle, new affection is in time called into being by the evident love of the parents. There are several ways in which this psychological law may be analyzed into further elements. Thus it is unlikely that the child’s recognition of parental affection causes directly a returning sentiment. We may conjecture several other steps as follows: when the parents’ love of the child is recognized by one on the basis of their evident intentions, the child is assured of one’s worth as a person. One is made away that one is appreciated for one’s own sake by what are to one the imposing and power persons in one’s World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
One experiences parental affection as unconditional; they care for one’s presence and spontaneous acts, and the pleasure they take in one is not dependent upon disciplined performances that contribute to the well-being of others. In due course, the child comes to trust one’s parents and to have confidence in one’s surroundings; and this lead one to launch out and to test one’s maturing abilities, all the while supported by their affection and encouragement. Gradually one acquires various skills and develops a sense of competence that affirms one’s self-esteem. It is in the course of this whole process that the child’s affections for one’s parents develops. One connects them with the success and enjoyment that one has had in sustaining one’s World, and with one’s sense of one’s own worth. And this brings about one’s love for them. We must now consider how the child’s love and trust will show itself. At this point it is necessary to keep in mind the peculiar features of the authority situation. The child does not have one’s own standards of criticism, since one is not in a position to reject precepts on rational grounds. If one loves and trusts one’s parents, one will tend to accept their injunctions. One will also strive to be like them, assuming that they are indeed worthy of esteem and adhere to the precepts which they enjoin. They exemplify, let us suppose, superior knowledge and power, and set forth appealing examples of what is demanded. The child, therefore, accepts their judgment of one and one will be inclined to judge oneself as they do when one violated their injunctions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
At the same time, of course, one’s desires exceeds the bounds of what is permitted, for otherwise there would be no need for these precepts. Thus parental norms are experienced as constraints and the child may rebel against them. After all, one may see no reason why one should comply with them; they are in themselves arbitrary prohibitions and one has no original tendency to do the things one is told to do. Yet if one does love and trust one’s parents, then, once one has given in to temptation, one is disposed to share their attitude toward one’s misdemeanors. One will be inclined to confess one’s transgression and to seek reconciliation. In these various inclinations are manifested the feelings of (authority) guilt. Without these and related inclinations, feelings of guilt would not exist. However, it is also true that the absence of these feelings would indicate a lack of love and trust. For given the nature of the authority situation and the principles of moral psychology connecting he ethical and the natural attitudes, love and trust will give rise to feelings of guilt once the parental injunctions are disobeyed. Admittedly in the case of the child it is sometimes difficult to distinguish feelings of guilt from the fear of punishment, and especially from the dread of the loss of parental love and affection. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The child lacks the concepts for understanding moral distinctions and this will reflect itself in one’s behaviour. I have supposed, however, that even in the child’s case we can separate (authority) guilt feelings from fear and anxiety. Because the child is still tiny and when the mother is good enough, and has arranged things just as the child imagined them, as a consequence the child begins to believe in external reality, which appears and behaves as by magic, and which acts in a way that does not clash with the infant’s omnipotence. On this basis the infant can gradually abrogate its sense of omnipotence. The True Self has a spontaneity and this has been joined up with the World’s events. The child can now begin to enjoy the illusion of omnipotent creating and controlling, and can then gradually come to recognize the illusory element, the fact of playing and imagining. Disillusionment is the process of discovering that you are not omnipotent after all, that phantasy does not by itself create what you want, that there had been someone all along who was not under your control, who had been letting you believe that you were in control, and who is now no longer letting you believe that. The child can enjoy the illusion of omnipotent creating and controlling, and can then gradually come to recognize the illusory element. The illusory element is, in my view, the merged selfobject state which is he precursor of the experience of “us.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The emergence of the distinct concepts of “you” and “I” creates a gap which does not exist in the selfobject state. The experience of “us” is the bride across that gap. How I need that bridge, that sense of union, after losing the phantasy of well-being and omnipotence which characterized a good selfobject state! Illusory it may have been, but it felt safe. His safety is now being rebuilt in the relationship called “us,” or to put it in a different way, this safety is being re-established as part of the concept of “us.” After ego-relatedness—“us”-relatedness. In that safety, the fortune baby can discover the World of other people and things not under its control, but in shared reality. The third part of the life of a human being, part that we cannot ignore, an intermediate area of experiencing, to which both inner reality and external life contribute. It is a resting place for the individual engaged in the perpetual task of keeping inner and outer reality separate yet interrelated. The intermediate area to which I am referring is the area that is allowed to the child between primary creativity and objective perception based on reality-testing. This intermediate area is in between the mother and the infant and is some thing, or some activity, or sensation. This is the “third part”—the part thought of as a transitional or a potential space. How else may we think of it, this “between” thing or activity to sensation? To my mind it is best thought of in two ways, one to do with people and one to do with creativity. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
The “intermediate area between people” seems to me an experience of “us,” and is not a space but a process. This process, the experience of “us,” developing as it does in favourable circumstances from selfobject states, requires the differentiation of “you” from “me”: we are then separate yet interrelated. To maintain that way of relating is indeed “a perpetual task”; to be in such a relationship is indeed to be in a resting place. In the light of this sketch of the development of the morality of authority, it seems that the conditions favouring its being learned by the child are these. First the parents must love the child and be worthy objects of one’s admiration. In this way they arouse in one a sense of one’s own value and the desire to become the sort of person that they are. Secondly, they must enunciate clear and intelligible (and of course justifiable) rules adapted to the child’s level of comprehension. In addition they should set out the reasons for these injunctions so far as these can be understood, and they most also follow these precepts insofar as they apply to them as well. The parents should exemplify the morality which they enjoin, and make explicit its underlying principles as time goes on. Doing this is required not only to arouse the child’s inclination to accept these principles at a later time, but also to covey how they are to be interpreted in particular cases. If parental injunctions are not only harsh and unjustified, but enforced by punitive and even physical sanctions, presumably moral development fails to take place to the extent that these conditions are absent. The child’s having a morality of authority consists in one’s being disposed without the prospect of reward or punishment to follow certain precepts that not only may appear to one largely arbitrary but which in no way appeal to one’s original inclinations. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
If one acquires the desire to abide these prohibitions, it is because one sees them as addressed to one by powerful persons who have one’s love and trust, and who also act in conformity with them. One then concludes that they express forms of action that characterize the sort of person one should want to be. In the absence of affection, example, and guidance, none of these processes can take place, and certainly not in loveless relationships maintained by coercive threats and reprisals. The child’s morality of authority is primitive because for the most part it consists of a collection of precepts, and one cannot comprehend the larger scheme of right and justice within which the rules addressed to one are justified. However, even a developed morality of authority in which the basis of the rules can be understood shows many of the same features, and contains similar virtues and vices. There is typically an authoritative person who is loved and trusted, or at least who is accepted as worthy of one’s position, and whose precepts it is one’s duty to follow implicitly. It is not for us to consider the consequences, this being lefts for those in authority. The prized virtues are obedience, humility, and fidelity to authoritative persons; the leading vices are disobedience self-will, and temerity. We are to do what is expected without questioning, for not so to act expressed doubt and distrust, and a certain arrogance and tendency to suspicion. Clearly the morality of authority must be subordinate to the principles of right and justice which alone can determine when these extreme requirements, or analogous constraints, as justified. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The child’s morality of authority is temporary, a necessity arising from one’s peculiar situation and limited understanding. Moreover, the theological parallel is a special case which, in view of the principle of equal liberty, does not apply to the basic structure of society. Thus the morality of authority has but a restricted role in fundamental social arrangements and can be justified only when the unusual demands of the practice in question make it essential to give certain individuals the prerogatives of leadership and command. In all cases, the scope of this morality is governed by the principles of justice. The trouble is that such personal tactics become less effective with every passing day. As the rate of change climbs, it becomes harder for individual to create the personal stability zones they need. The cost of non-change escalate. We may stay in the old-hose—only to see the neighbourhood transformed. We may keep the old car—only to see repair bills mount beyond reach. We may refuse to transfer to a new location—only to lose our job as a result. For while there are steps we can take to reduce the impact of change in our personal lives, the real problem lies outside ourselves. To create an environment in which change enlivens and enriches the individual, but does not overwhelm one, we must employ not merely personal tactics but social strategies. If we are to carry people through the accelerative period, we must begin now to build “future shock absorbers” into the very fabric of super-age of information society. And this requires a fresh way of thinking about change and non-change in our lives. It even requires a different way of classifying people. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Today we tend to categorize individuals not according to the changes they happen to be undergoing at the moment, but accord to their status or position between changes. We consider a union man as someone who has joined a union and not yet quit. Our designation refers not to joining or quitting, but to the “non-change” that happens in between. Welfare recipients, college students, Methodist, executive—all refer to the person’s condition between changes, as it were. There is, however, a radically different way to view people. For example, “one who is moving to a new residence” is a classification into which more than 100,000 Americans fit on any given day, yet they are seldom thought of as a group. The classification “one who is changing one’s job” or “one who is joining a church,” or “one who is getting a divorce” are all based on temporary, transitional conditions between transitions. This sudden shift of focus, from thinking about what people “are” to thinking about what they are “becoming,” suggests a whole array of new approaches to adaptation. One of the most imaginative and simplest of these comes from Dr. Herbert Gerjuoy, a psychologist on the staff of the Human Resources Research Organization. One terms it “situational grouping,” and like most good ideas, it sounds obvious once it is described. Yet it has never been systematically exploited. Situational grouping may well become one of the key social services of the future. Dr. Gerjuoy argues that we should provide temporary organizations—“situational groups”—for people who happen to be passing through similar life transitions at the same time. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Such situational groups should be established, Dr. Gerjuoy contends “for families caught up in the upheaval of relocation, for men and women about to be divorced, for people about to lose a parent or a spouse, for those about to gain a child, for men preparing to switch to a new occupation, for families that have just moved into a community, for those about to marry off their last child, for those facing retirement—for anyone, in other words, who faces an important change. Membership in the group would, of course, be temporary—just long enough to help the person with the transitional difficulties. Some groups might meet for a few months, others might not do more than hold a single meeting.” Some people cannot see beauty because they do not care about anything. By bringing together people who are sharing, or are about to share, a common adaptive experience, we help equip them to cope wit it. A human required to adaptive to a new life situation loses some of one’s bases for self-esteem. One begins to doubt one’s own abilities. If we bring one together with others who are moving through the same experience, people one can identify with and respect, we strength one. The members of the group come to share, even if briefly, some sense of identity. They see their problems more objectively. They trade useful ideas and insights. Most important, they suggest future alternatives for one another. That which I call the Overself is intermediate between the ordinary human and the World-Mind. It includes human’s higher nature but stretches into what is above one, the divine. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
That which connects the individual human to the Universal Spirit, I call the Overself. This connection can never be broken. Its existence is the chief guarantee that there is hope of salvation for all, not merely for those who think their group alone will be granted it. It is one’s own greater self, one’s Overself, that one thus experiences, although one ay be so overwhelmed by its mysterious Power, so awed by its ethereality, that one usually believes—and names—it God. And in one mode of meaning, one’s belief is not without justification. For at the core of the experience, one, the atom within the World-Mind, receives the revelation that it is ever there and, more, ever supporting one. It is this, the deepest part of one’s being, one’s final essential self, which is human’s Overself, and which links one with the World-Mind. It is this Presence within which evokes all one’s spiritual quality. This is the essential being of humans, where one’s link with God lies. Do you know that you carry God within you? You are a distinct portion of the essence of God and contain a part of Him within yourself. We like to focus on the future in group meetings. They should not be devoted to hashing over the past, or to griping about it, or to soul searching self-revelation, but to discussing personal objectives, and to planning practical strategies for future use in the new life situation. Members might watch movies of other similar groups wresting with the same kinds of problems. They might hear from others who are more advanced in the transition than they are. People are given the opportunity to pool their personal experiences and ideas before the moment of change is upon them. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
In essence, here is nothing novel about this approach. Even now certain organizations are based on situational principles. A group of Peace Corps volunteers preparing for an overseas mission is, in effect, just such a situational grouping, as are pre- and postnatal classes. Many American tows have a “Newcomers Club” that invites new residents to casserole dinners or other socials, permitting them to mix with other recent arrivals and compare problems and plans. Perhaps there ought to be an “Outmovers Club” as well. What is new is the suggestion that we systematically honeycomb the society with such “coping classrooms.” It is interesting how the lack of understanding by a few can innocently or purposely misguide many. Judging another’s heart and conscience is probably best lest to the righteous judge of us all. Surely the final determination as to who is a true disciple of Christ will be left to the Savior, who said, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep,” reports John 10.14. So, if we, even in our weak and stumbling way, are earnestly striving to live a Christlike life, how others choose to characterize us should be of little consequence. The responsibility for our Christianity is ours. Others may characterize us as they will, but the true and righteous Judge will judge us as we are. Our discipleships is for us to determine, not someone else. I would hope that our fruits would merit the term Christian, and that our deeds, our actions, our hearts, and our countenances exemplify the teachings of the Saviour and display our gratitude for His great sacrifice for all of us. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Christ is the Redeemer of the World. He is our Lord, our Light, and out Saviour. He was ordained from on high to descend below all, to suffer above all! He is the focus of all that we teach and all we do. As a Church we are individual Christians, trying to prove our discipleship to the Saviour. It is not an institutional matter, it is a personal matter. Almighty Father, on this day, as we approach Thine altar to gain inspiration from Thy Torah, we pray that Thou wilt open our hearts unto Thy Law to the end that we may fulfill Thy holy precepts. Thou who didst bring order out of chaos, who didst establish harmony among the Heavenly bodies, do Thou bring order and harmony into our lives and the lives of all humankind. May the portion of the Torah we read today inspire us to dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to all that makes for just and righteous living. Hasten the day when Thy Law shall guide the lives of all the peoples of the Earth, when all humans shall live together as brothers recognizing Thee, the Father of all. Amen. Our God and God of our fathers, we stand before the open Ark of Thy Covenant to acknowledge Thy sovereignty. Before Thee and before the glory of Thy Law do we bow at all times. For Thou art Truth and Thy Torah is Truth, and Thy prophets are prophets of Truth, and Thou doest abound in mercy and in truth. Do Thou enlighten our eyes that we may behold the sonders of Thy Torah. Endow us with wisdom that we may understand its precepts, and inspire us with courage that we may hold aloft the banner of Thy Law in the eyes of all humans. We need freedom in our thought to elude what we have been taught to find what we have sought. May we just let go so we may know the flow of true being. It is worth seeing a Heavenly view. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Randolph Harris II International 