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Lay Bare the Secret You Keep from Each Other
It was a lie. A lie I would never forget for as long as I walked the Earth. He would tell us nothing of himself but that he was “a fool,” to be frightened by their talk, and that the rattle of a window, or the dropping of a pin was enough to scare him now. He was now asleep on the sofa. The candles were flaring, and there was a wavering shadow at the door that looked like the head of a man with a long neck, and a long, sharp nose, peeping and drawing back. The fugitive shadow seemed to be breaking up, rearranging itself oddly. I rose, and walking slowly to him, I stood over him and looked at him, at the blood that soaked his lace shirt and stained his face. He did not open his eyes. However, I felt his sorrow. I felt its immensity, and I wished I did not feel it, and for the moment I understood the gulf that divided us, and the gulf that divided his attempt to overpower me from my rather simple defense of myself. And with his eyes closed, and his hand open beside him, he appeared the abandoned offspring of time and supernatural accident, someone as miserable as myself. What had he done to become what he was? His family was ruined, I believe, in some civil wars, long ago. Through the hall door, I could see the moonlight was beautiful. As the night waned on, the young man recovered slowly from his brain fever, but not perfectly. He was not sufficiently strong to remove for change of scene and air, which were necessary for his complete restoration. In the dead of the night, Haze Austin was suddenly awakened. And in this broken child were centuries of evil and centuries of knowledge, and out of him there came no ignominious entreaty but merely the soft and bruised sense of what he was. Old, old evil, eyes that had seen dark ages of which I only dream. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
I shall never forget this sight, for he looked the perfect incarnation of hate. His green eyes blazed with lurid fire, and his white teeth seemed to almost shine through the blood which dabbled his mouth. Desperately he tried to vanquish what he did not comprehend. He was so exquisitely beautiful and so lost. “Is there a chill in the air, dear?” I said. “I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? You look ill, Mrs. Winchester; a little faint,” said Haze. “I am better now. How do you feel now, Haze?” I said. I was beginning to take alarm. Natural enough, was it not, that one of his own should take him away from Llanada Villa. “Papa would be grieved beyond measure,” he said. “If he thought we were inconveniencing you at all.” In a moment he was standing on his own feet. And then he walked drowsily beside me, my arm about his shoulder, bolstering him and steadying him, until we were moving towards his father’s cottage on my estate. I only half glanced at the figures passing us, until I saw a familiar shape under the trees. Somewhere far off in the darkened gardens, other were near. When he pushed open the door to his father’s home, he was laying dead upon the floor. His cravat was drawn halter-wise tight round his throat, and he had done its work well. The body was cold, and had been long dead. In due course the coroner held his inquest, and the jury pronounced that the deceased, Mac Austin, had died by his own hand, in a state of temporary insanity. However, Haze had his own opinion about his father’s death, though his lips were sealed, and he never spoke about it. He went and lived for the residue of his days in York, where there are still people who remember him, a taciturn and surly young man, who attended church regularly, and also drank a little, and was know to have saved some money. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to even startle even Haze’s languid nature. When I returned to my drawing-room, and sat down to coffee and chocolate, Elizabeth joined me, and we had a little card party. When the game was over, Elizabeth and I sat down on the sofa, and I asked her, a little anxiously, whether she had heard from her mother since her arrival. She answered “No.” I then asked her whether she knew where a letter would reach her at present. “I cannot tell,” she answered, ambiguously, “but I have been thinking of leaving you; you have been already too hospitable and too kind to me. I have given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to take a carriage to-morrow, and post in pursuit of her; I know where I shall ultimately find her, although I dare not tell you.” “But you must not dream such a thing,” I exclaimed. “I cannot afford to lose you so, and I will not consent to your leaving us, except under the care of your mother, who was so good as to consent to your remaining with us till she should herself return. I should be quite happy if I knew that you heard from her; but this evening the accounts of the progress of the mysterious disease that has invaded our community, grow even more alarming; and my beautiful guest, I do feel the responsibility, unaided by advice from your mother, very much. However, I shall do my best’ one thing is certain, that you must not think of leaving Llanada Villa without her distinct direction to that effect. We should suffer too much in parting from you to consent to it easily.” “Thank you, Mrs. Winchester, a thousand times for your hospitality,” Elizabeth answered, smiling bashfully. “You have all been too kind to me; I have seldom been so happy in all my life before, as in your beautiful mansion, under your care, and in the society of your dear niece.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
I accompanied Elizabeth to her room, and sat and chatted with her while she was preparing for bed. She turned around, “Do you think that you will ever confide fully in me about your home?” “Now, Elizabeth, you are gong to talk your wild nonsense again,” I said hastily. “Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims and fancies; for your sake I’ll talk like a sage. Did you ever have a ball in the Grand Ballroom? What was it like? How charming it must be.” “I almost forget, it is years ago.” I laughed. “Mrs. Winchester, you are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.” “I remember everything about it—with an effort. I see it all, as divers see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but transparent. There occurred that night what has confused the picture, and made it colours faith I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here,” I touched my breast, “and never was the same since.” “Were you near dying?” “Yes, a very—cruel love—strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifices without blood. Let us go to sleep now; I feel lazy.” I bid her good-night, crept from the room with an uncomfortable sensation, locked her door and retired to my chambers. I was lying in bed, with my hands buried in my rich wavy hair, under my cheek, and my head upon the pillow. I often wondered whether my pretty guest ever said her prayers. I certainly had never seen her upon her knees. In the morning she never came down until long after our family prayers were over, and at night she never left the drawing room to attend our brief evening prayers in the hall. Ever since the midnight invaders, I locked all the doors in the house at night, and my whimsical alarms about prowling assassins required me to have the servants search every room in the house to make sure there were no lurking assassins or robbers “ensconced.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
After these measures were taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep. A light was burning in my room. This was an old habit, of very early date, ad which nothing could have tempted me to dispense with. Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. However, dreams come through walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths. I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. However, I was equally conscious of being in my room, and lying in bed, precisely as I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and its furniture just as I had seen it last, except tht it was very dark, and I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not accurately distinguish. However, I soon saw that it was a sooty-black figure that resembled a man. He appeared to me about five or six feet tall, he floated around the room hither and tither with the lithe sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry out, although as you ay supposed, I was terrified. Its pace was growing faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark that I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it spring lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face, and I could see it was Haze. He looked at me with centuries of evil blazing in his eyes, but there was not the slightest stir or respiration. And I felt a shudder. My heart expanded slightly, against my will. “I curse you,” he said. As I stared at him, I felt danger again, terrible danger. Then he appeared to have changed his place, and was now nearer to the door; then, close to it, the door opened, and he vanished. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
It would be vain my attempting to tell you the horror with which, even now, I recall he occurrence of that night. It seemed to deepen by time, and communicated itself to the room and the very furniture that had encompassed the apparition. Later that day, I had another strange experience; I walked into the parlor that afternoon where Daisy and Elizabeth had been sitting, and a saw Haze upon the sofa. However, then I realized that he was invisible to the others. He got up and walked toward me—I was not afraid—and then—seemed to dissolve into the air. And so I wondered…whether I might have fallen into a trance. I clasped my hands and struggled to control my breathing. We know that, in the mesmeric trance, a subject may acquire unusual mental powers; The Frenchman Didier, who could read minds, play cards blindfolded, and identify the contents of sealed containers with great accuracy, is one of the best-known instances. Ancient houses, it has always seemed to me, are like Leyden jars, quietly accumulating the influences of the past…and my home is a special case. I lay awake into the small hours, worrying over these anxieties as they became more and more nightmarish until I sank into a troubled sleep. Sleeping had become so difficult one night that I wandered through this vast mansion, searching for a precious jewel William had given me. The jewel had been lost; I did not know how, but I knew that my own carelessness was to blame. To make matter worse, I could not remember what kind of stone it was, for as I went from room to room, a voice kept chanting, “Emerald, sapphire, ruby, diamond,” over and over, and none of them seemed right, because the lost stone was a different, a more beautiful colour than any of those, and I knew I ought to be able to picture it, and thus recall its name, but I could not. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The mansion was absolutely silent; the light throughout, even in corridors was a pale, uniform grey like that of an overcast sky. The rooms were modestly furnished; each one seemed to have its own miniature flight of stairs, up or down two or three steps, and the corridors kept changing levels in similar fashion. Though the house itself was not especially sinister, my anxiety over the fate of the jewel grew steadily more acute until it had risen to an unbearable pitch. Then it occurred to me that I still had not searched the Venetian Dining Room. The thought precipitated a vertiginous change of scene; the light sank to a dim, murky brown, and I was standing in the doorway of the room where we had dined that night. The curtains were drawn, the candles snuffed; the room seemed to be empty, but as I crept toward the table, I saw, above the back of the chair in which I usually sat, the dark outline of a head. There was time to slip away quietly; but perhaps the jewel had fallen into the lining of my chair, and if I were to tiptoe forward, I might be able to see it. I was within two feet of the motionless figure when a voice spoke from the doorway behind me, a word that rang like a loud gong, louder and louder until it became my own cry of “No!” and I woke in grey dawn light to find myself standing at the head of the stairs. And then I thought I caught sight of a shape, dak in space and light, through the door in one of the bedrooms. There was a tall figure in what I could have sworn was a black top hat, staring directly back at me. The figure was dressed formally in black morning suit. And then, with a movement so spasmodic and sudden, the man turned and stated to walk eastward, out of sight. I dismissed it, as one of the Winchester’s passing enigmas. There was much about the curse of the Winchester Mansion that I did not understand. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Spirits of Llanada Villa, I awaken the powers of darkness which dwell within you by the power of the blood of the three heeded Dragon Zohak that you may serve to empower Mrs. Winchester’s great work! Through serving the greater cause of dark magick which break the shackles that bind the Blackened Fire of Spirit, may you be uplifted and liberated! Awaken and empower the forbidden rites of Angra Mainyu! Awaken to empower the Mrs. Winchester’s great work of counter creation as an Apostle of the Lord of Darkness eternal and as a warrior of the path of the Lemegeton. I adjure thee, Emperor Lucifer, as the agent of the strong living God, of His beloved Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to appear instantly, or to send thy Messenger Astarot, forcing thee to forsake thy hiding-place, wheresoever it may be. Aeshma, Div of wrath and fury! He who wields the bloody mace! Aeshma who is demon of the wounding spear I call you forth into this temple of counter creation! Through devotion to my becoming on this path, your spiritual weapon has been made manifest in this corporeal World through my will and counter creative power so you may fill it with your essence and might! Empower it so that it may serve me here upon the corporeal plane! May it serve as a key to the realms above and below unlocking the power and wisdom for the spirits of the Winchester’s glory and ascent! Fill this weapon with your powers of wrath and fury that it may seek out spiritual attacks made and render them useless and impotent! #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
One Halloween, a tour guide saw a little boy who was no more than six years old. He was dressed in a black hood, and long black robe, and it looked like he did not have a face, as he had a black, opaque nylon covering the opening in the hood. The tour guide asked him who he was supposed to be, and the little boy said, “I’m the Angel of Life.” The tour guide then asked him who the Angel of Life is. The boy replied, “The Angel of Life is someone who comes to talk to you. He tells you things about your life.” The conviction on the little boy’s face and the non-hesitant way in which he explained who he was made the tour guide think that the boy had some knowledge of what he was talking about. Shortly after, objects in the gift shop started floating about, and glimpses of a shadowy figure were spotted in the basement. In the café, according to a female patron, she had been sitting at a table in a back corner of the room when a man suddenly appeared in a chair across the table from her. The man stared straight ahead and refused to react in any way. The female patron looked away to get the waitress’s attention and when she looked back, the man was gone. The woman related that the elusive figure was wearing old-fashioned clothes. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Return in the Darkening Twilight
Llanada Villa is a prime example of Victorian architecture. Its exterior is stately, refined, with a touch of Gothic elegance. Its front doors welcome, even as it seems to be hiding something. Inside the floors creak without warning, without any sense of someone there. The wood is thick with the humidity, as if the walls and floor breathe. Through the years, guest have reported feeling cold spots, or seeing strange, wispy streaks of light. The sense of the uncanny cries out for an explanation. Ghosts bridge the past to the present; they speak across the seemingly insurmountable barriers of death and time, connecting us to what we thought was lost. The townsfolk whispered tales of its dark history, of unspeakable horrors that occurred within the walls of my homes. As I climbed the grand staircase, each step seemed to release a flurry of hidden memories. Voices whispered incantations that send shivers down my spine. I must not faint, I told myself, and summoning all my resolve, made my way to the safety of the back parlour. There I collapsed into a couch, with my head already beginning to throb. The pain soon became so excruciating that I lost all sense of time until someone, I could not tell who, brought me a sleeping draught, and I sank at last into merciful oblivion. Next morning, I was at first bewildered to find myself fully dressed upon the parlour sofa. The parlourmaid, Trinity, brought me a cup of tea. She had set my skin crawling with fear. At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon the road, arrested out attention. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I was haunted with a terror of robbers. My house was robbed once, and two servants murdered, so I always lock my door. It had become a habit. Still, it was a fine autumnal sunset, and melancholy lights and long shadows spread their peculiar effects over the landscape. I was looking out of one of the long drawing-room windows, when there entered the court-yard, a figure of a wanderer who I knew very well. He used to come by twice a year asking to tour my home. He was a tall man, with sharp learn features. He wore a pointed black bread, and he was smiling from ear to ear, showing his white fangs. He was dressed in buff, black, and scarlet, and crossed with more straps and belts than I could count, from which hung all manner of things. Behind, he carried a magic-lantern, and two boxes, which I well knew, in one of which was a salamander, and in the other a mandrake. These monsters used to my Mr. Hansen laugh. They were compounded of parts of monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together with great neatness and startling effect. He had a fiddle, a box conjuring apparatus, a pair of foils and masks attached to his belt, several other mysterious cases dangling about him, and a black staff with copper ferrules in his hand. His companion was a rough spare dog, that followed at his heels, but stopped short, suspiciously at the front gate, and in a little while began to howl dismally. In the meantime, the mountebank, standing in the midst of the court-yard, raised his grotesque hat, and made us a very ceremonious bow, paying his compliments very volubly in execrable French, and German not much better. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Then, disengaging his fiddle, he began to scrape a lively air, to which he sang with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous airs and activity, that made me laugh, in spite of the dog’s howling. Then he advanced to the window with many smiles and salutations, and his hat in his left hand, his fiddle under his arm, and with a fluency that never took breath, he gabbled a long advertisement of all his accomplishments, and the resources of the various arts which he placed at our service, and the curiosities and entertainments which it was in his power, at my bidding to display. “Will your ladyship be pleased to buy an amulet against the oupire, which is going like the wolf, I hear, through these woods,” he said, dropping his hat on the floor. “They are dying of it right and left, and here is a charm that never fails; only pinned to the pillow, and you may laugh in his face.” These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic ciphers and diagrams upon them. I instantly purchased one. He was looking up, and I was smiling down at him, amused. His piercing black eye, as he looked up in my face, seemed to detect something that fixed for a moment his curiosity. “I told you that I am charmed with you in the most particulars,” he said. “You are slender, and wonderfully graceful. Your complexion is rich and brilliant; your features are small and beautifully formed; your eyes large, dark, and lustrous; your hair is quite wonderful, I never saw hair so magnificently think and long when it is down about your shoulder. It is exquisitely fine and soft, and in colour a rich very dark brown, with something of gold.” “Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you,” I replied. And so he walked on, and I heard no more. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Within the space of a week, my colour had returned, and I was sleeping so soundly that I was scarcely aware of my dreams. I walked miles on my estate each day, and I began to see it with new eyes. Every field, every path, even every hedgerow had its own name and its own history. I considered the amulet I purchased as an omen of good luck—and placed in beneath my pillow, to guard against further visitation. That evening, as I reached the top of the stairs, I heard a peculiar flickering sound. Entering my dressing room in the darkness, I made my way to the familiar dressing table on the right side of the room. Now the noise was even more pronounced. It sounded to me as if someone were turning the pages of book, a sound for which there was no rational source. Move over, I suddenly became away of a clammy, cold feeling around me. Since it was a warm evening, this too surprised me. In the dark, I could not be sure if there were not someone else in the dressing room. I quickly existed the room and went to bed. But this night, I was awakened by a violent shaking of my bed. I could see, in the very imperfect light, two figures at the foot oof it, holding each a bedpost. A voice said, “We’ll hang you!” Trembling, I climbed over to the footboard; and saw the figure at the other side, little more than a black shadow, begin also to scale the bed; and there was instantly a dreadful confusion and uproar in the room, and such a gabbling and laughing; I could not catch the words. I found myself on the floor. The phantoms and clamour were gone, but a crash and ringing of fragments was in my ears. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
The great china bowl, from which for generations the Winchester had been baptized, had fallen from the mantelpiece, and was smashed on the hearthstone. I warned the servants not to disregard oaths and curses. A mourning coach drove up, and two gentlemen in black cloaks, and with crape to their hats, got out, and without looking to the right or the left, went up the steps to the Winchester mansion. Mr. Hansen followed them slowly. The carriage had, he supposed, gone round to the yard, for, when he reached the door, it was no longer there. So he followed the two mourners into the house. In the hall he found a fellow servant, who said he had seen two gentlemen, in black cloak, pass through the hall, and go up the stair without removing their hats, or asking leave of anyone. This was very odd, Mr. Hansen thought, and a great liberty; so upstairs he went to make them out. But he could not find them then, nor ever. And from that hour the house was troubled. In a little time there was not one of the servants who had not something to tel. Step and voices followed them sometimes in the passages, and tittering whispers, always minatory, scared them at the corners of the galleries, or from dark recesses; so that they would return panic-stricken. I, myself, had also heard these voices, and with this formidable aggravation, they came always when I said my prayers. I was scared at such moments by dropping words and sentences, which grew, as I persisted, into threats and blasphemies. These voices were not always in the room. They called, as I fancied, through the walls, very thick in this house, from the neighbouring rooms, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other; sometimes they seemed to holla from distant lobbies, and came muffled, but threateningly, through the long paneled passages. As they approached they grew furious, as if several voices were speaking together. Whenever I applied myself to my devotions, these horrible sentences came hurrying towards the door, and, in panic, I would start from my knees, and all then would subside except the thumping of my heart against my stays, and the dreadful tremours of my nerves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
What these voices said, I never could quite remember one minute after they had ceased speaking; one sentence chased another away; gibe and menace and impious denunciation, each hideously articulate, were lost as soon as heard. And this added to the effect of these terrifying mockeries and invectives, that I could not, by any effort, retain their exact import, although their horrible character remained vividly present to my mind. Camile who acted as a housemaid, would not sleep in the house, but walked home, in trepidation, to her father’s, under the escort of her little brother, every night. Mrs. Rendell, the kitchenmaid, endured the nightly terrors. Mr. Hansen was testy and captious about these stories. He was already uncomfortable enough by reason of the entrance of tow muffled figures into the house, about which there could be no mistake. His own eyes had seen them. He refused to credit the stories of the servants. I made a decision not to fuel the stories of the ghost to keep the servants. “If you see ghosts here, it is no place for you, and it is time you should pack,” I would say. Here has been the cook with the kitchenmaid, as white as pipeclay, all in a row, to tell me I must have a parson to sleep among them, and preach down the devil! Upon my soul, I would not allow my home to fall into utter chaos and disarray. “Mrs. Winchester, I know you are no fool,” said the cook. “But supposed there was a such thing as a ghost here, don’t you see, it ain’t just women telling stories.” “I will not dignify such ideas,” I replied. The women left the kitchen, the cook and the butler went down, not altogether unused to such condescension in the household. The fire had gone down and I was chilled. The candles were expiring in the socket and threw on the white all long shadows, that danced up and down from the ceiling to the ground, and their black outlines I fancied resembled the two men in cloaks, whom I remembered with profound horror. I took the candle, with all the haste I could, getting along the passage, on whose walls the same dance of black shadows was continued, very anxious to reach my room before the light should go out. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
On night in 1990, there was an unusual buzzing sound in The Winchester Mystery House, one of the staff encountered a dark, hooded figure standing at the door-to-nowhere. In the dim light issuing through the stained glass windows from an outside light, he could see that the intruder, who looked very much like a cowled monk, was waving his arms in a particular manner. Interpreting his movement as threatening, he approached the man and asked him to leave. At the very moment, the employee says he never felt so weak and helpless.
He collapsed in a heap backward onto the floor. He remembered that he actually began to weep in fear and confusion. He was completely at the mercy of whoever or whatever was standing at the door. It was then that the hooded being spoke. “Don’t be afraid,” it said in a quiet whisper. “We won’t hurt you.” And the next thing he knew, the morning sunlight was making him squint into wakefulness. As he reflected on the incident, he became more and more convinced that an actual visitation had occurred and that some kind of entity had come into the mansion. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Some Move to Suburbia Out of Fear of those Unlike them
Sarah L. Winchester stirred, rolling onto her side and clutching her pillow. She had been caught in a strange netherworld between sleep and wakefulness, her uneasy rest punctured by nightmares of loss connections with her daughter and husband, but a noise downstairs had brought her back to reality. Every criminal offense is comprised of a set of behavioural (actus reus) and mental (mens reus) prerequisites. These statutory provisions are clearly sated in the criminal code and establish what an individual must do and think to be in violation of the law. Criminal events transpire when offenders, victims, and audience members intersect in a given setting. These participants engage in a dynamic set of actions and counteractions to produce the criminal outcome. The term “criminal transaction” is used to describe this exchange process. A full discussion of the criminal transaction must consider broad-based issues such as the demographics of the actors, the environment in which the crimes occur, and the way that these events tend to play themselves out. In the case of the offender-victim relationship, it is noted the violent crimes tend to take on a one-on-one offender-victim dynamic. Conversely, property offenders, public order offenders, and many organizational criminals are prone to work in small groups. What is more, robbery, burglary and common property offense are described as stranger crimes while other crimes tend to involve a victim and perpetrator(s) who know one another. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Faith motivated individuals, faith-based organizations, and the transformative power of faith itself are proven keys in reducing crime and improving the effectiveness of our criminal justice system. We now know that intentional partnerships between congregations and law enforcement can lead to dramatic improvement in police-community relations and reductions in crime, youth violence, and gang activity. We also known that faith-based programs can provide an antidote to the harmful culture that permeates so many of our correctional facilities. In this way, religion can help change prisons from an environment for learning even more deviant behaviour to places where rehabilitation is a realistic possibility. Additionally, faith-motivated mentors and faith-based groups can provide both the support and supervision necessary to help not only prisoners but also those former prisoners stay crime-free by learning moral and productive lives. The American suburbs are part of what is called a “global project.” Across the planet, after World War II, America’s image as a democracy and as World economic leaders also became a cultural model for consumerism and community-building. American images and ideas central to the lifestyle of its new suburbs—supermarkets, automobiles, super-highways, and motels—were exported to other nations. The American post-war dream was concretized in the form of the single-family suburban home, the cul-de-ac community, the local shopping center, and the family car, as opposed to the crowded, high crime, industrial cities. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
To middle class families the suburbs give a safe, sanitary environment, new houses in styles somewhat in keeping with the conception of family life, and permanent neighbourhoods of people with similar outlook. In an atmosphere of rapid change, the income-graded neighbourhoods render two important service to their residents. Relative evenness of wealth meant neighbours who would reinforce an individual family’s efforts to pass on its values to its children. The surrounding evenness of wealth also gave adults a sense of a community of shared experience, and thereby gave some measure of relief from the uncertainties inherent in a World of highly competitive capitalism. Even those excluded from them, the suburbs offered a physical demonstration that the rewards of competitive capitalism might be within the reach of all. The suburban life is also a spiritual quest. These suburbs are the latest version of the promise of the American frontier—blank slates on which new residents can write their stories. The pioneers who move to these suburbs have made a startling leap into the unknow. The places have no past, no precedent, no settled conventions. The residents have no family connections here. However, people move here with the hope that there soon will be communities and relationships developed among people in the same yacht as themselves. Fellow pilgrims on the journey, as it were. Many people are struck by the significance of suburban living as a spiritual quest or pilgrimage. They are all looking for something. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
People live in the suburbia for any number of reasons. They may have come here because of a job change or for a relationship. They come in search of affordable housing, good school, or safe communities. Or they may have grown up in suburbia by default; indeed, over half of the American population now lives in suburbia, and many of them have been suburbanites for two or three generations. Whatever the case, those who live in suburbia have aspirations for a certain kind of life. For some it is an optimistic vision, while others may be more cynical about ever seeing such a life to come. However, it is still a spiritual longing in either case. Even those who come to suburbia for less than noble reasons do so out of a particular vision of their ideal life. Some move to suburbia out of fear of those unlike them, fleeing from racial diversity and searching for a place “safer” and more comfortable to their preexisting prejudices. Others care little for their neighbours and fashion suburban lives of self-centered materialism, acquisition of possessions and status climbing. These too point to spiritual needs, however misguided or impure the motivations might be. Whenever people describe suburbia, invariably they use phrases like “a good place to raise kids,” or “where people settle down and start a family.” Inherent in these comments is an aspiration of hope for their future and a dream of a good life for their children. Suburbia is the context and the setting for the fulfillment of people’s hopes and dreams. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The suburbs had always promised prosperity, upward mobility, a healthy life in an unpolluted environment, safety and tranquility, and above all, the best place to bring up kids. Although this promise still fuels many dreams and infuses a nostalgic political rhetoric, the future is hopeful. It is a place many people can hear the voice of God. The suburban Christian ought not uncritically absorb all the characteristics of the suburban World but rather should thoughtfully asses and discern how Christians ought to live in this environment, without either capitulating to the culture or abandoning it by fleeing the suburbs and relocating to the country. Given suburbia’s new centrality, Christians, especially suburban Christians, must take the suburbs seriously. In order to detect the “voice of God,” we need to understand that the Holy Spirit alone is charged to communicate the will of God to the believer, and that He works from within the spirit of the disciple, enlightening the understanding so as to bring one into intelligent co-working with the mind of God. No matter where you live, the purpose of the Holy Spirit is, briefly, the entire renewal of the redeemed one, in spirit, soul and body. God therefore directs all His working to the liberation of every faculty, and never in any way seeks to direct a human as a passive machine, even into good. God work in one to enable one to choose the good, and strengthens one to act, but never—even for “good”—dulls one or renders one incapable of free action. One would nullify the very purpose of Christ’s redemption on Calvary, and the purpose of His own coming. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
When the self-actualized understands these principles, the “voice of psychopathological offenders” is recognizable: when it comes from outside the human, or within the sphere of one’s perception, and not from the central depth of one’s spirit where the Holy Spirit abides; when it is imperative and persistent, urging sudden action without time to reason or intelligently weigh the issues; when it is confusing and clamorous, so that humans are hindered from thinking. For the Holy Spirit desires the believer to be intelligent, as a responsible being with a choice, and will not confuse one so as to make one incapable of coming to a decision. The speaking of psychopathological offenders can also be a counterfeit of the apparent inner speaking of the human oneself, as if one were oneself “thinking,” and yet with no concentrated action of the mind; exempli gratia, a persistent and ceaseless “commentary” going on somewhere within, apart from volition or mind action, commenting on the human’s own actions or the actions of others, such as “You are wrong,” “You are never right,” “God has cast you off,” “You must not do that,” et cetera, et cetera. Humans do not grasp God through symbols, but in the experience of faith one is grasped by an ultimate concern expressed in symbols. Every symbol descriptive of ultimate reality originates in an experience of ultimate concern and continues to live only insofar as it can introduce someone into the revelatory constellation by arousing a similar experience. Religious symbols participate in the power of being not merely ontologically, but experientially. They concretely convey the experience of ultimacy, of seizure by an ultimate concern. And lest this affirmation of the symbol open the door to the demonic, we insist upon the negation of the symbol by the ultimate to which it points. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Analogia is more negative-protesting than positive-affirming. Religious symbols participate in that which they symbolize, being-itself; they participate by sharing in the ground of being, as do all finite beings; and they participate by expressing the experience of ultimacy. This last element is decisive. One expresses the experience of the ground being through the religious symbols which are formed in the crucible of the experience itself. God is being-itself is the only nonsymbolic statement about God. The religious experience of God is had through finite beings which participate in being-itself. The principle of analogy justifies this. The expression of this experience is through religious symbols which participate in the experience itself. Theology elaborates the meaning of religious symbols by using ontology. Analogy permits and even demands this procedure. We use the principle of analogy for two purposes: to permit a religious encounter with God through finite beings and to justify the theological use of ontology. Theology speaks ontologically about religious symbols which express the encounter with God, our ultimate concern. The word “creation” is one of the great symbol-words describing the relation of God to the Universe. The doctrine of creation depicts a state; it does not relate an event that happened “once upon a time.” Humans ask the question of their finitude and of finitude in general, and creation answers it by pointing to the situation of creatureliness and to its correlate, the divine life; it is beyond potentiality and actuality. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Hence the question whether creation is a necessary or contingent act of God is meaningless. For nothing higher than God necessitates His creativity; neither does it happen to one as an accidental act. The divine life and the divine creativity are one. All three modes of time must be used to symbolize the infinite scope of the divine dynamism. Therefore creativity originates (the past) sustaining creativity (the present), and directing creativity (the future). The classical phrase to express the Christian doctrine of creation is creatio ex nihilo. We see in it the exclusion of the pagan idea of me on, of the “given” which resists the divine creativity. Though ouk on, absolute nothingness, suffices to explain nihilo, the ex demands something more positive to describe the origin of the creature. The solution lies in the dialectic of being and non-being. Ex nihilo indicates the “heritage of nonbeing” which is the lot of every creature. Yet the creature is; it participates in the power of being which holds nonbeing in check. Being a creature include both the heritage of nonbeing (anxiety) and the heritage of being (courage). Creation is essentially good, for it is not the offspring of me on, of some semi-divine power that opposes being-itself. The way to incarnation lies open, for finitude essentially is not in conflict with God. Secondly, the element of nonbeing in creatureliness provides the potentiality for tragic disruption within finitude itself. Eschatology is forbidden to do violence to the finite by eliminating the possibility of conflict, by locating salvation in an unreal World above or finite, tragic World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The simple theoretical analysis of the evolution of family agencies into three phases appears to be corroborated by the growth in all six types of agencies of what may indeed be called quasi-families—that is, small groups of persons similarly affected by some distinctive problem, condition or interest, who come together voluntarily to solve, correct, or pursue it by concerted actions, meanwhile providing each other with a degree of understanding, encouragement, and support which they have not found elsewhere in the community. Most of these have only arisen within the past five or six decades. While they are predominately found in urban areas, since only in such centers are there enough persons of any one type of category, exempla gratia, the Townsend Clubs, which considerably outlived the depression. While some of these quasi-families have been the products of invention and experiment by therapists, so many have sprung up apparently quite spontaneously (exempla gratia, child study groups attached to cooperative nursery schools) as to suggest that they are a particularly fitting response to current situations confronted by members of the community. Their fraternal rather than patriarchal structure does not negate the value of construing them as quasi-families; indeed, to recognize their correspondence with the more fraternal character of contemporary families improves the analogy. The desire of many public and private agencies to foster participation “at the grass roots” is most successful when the grass roots consist of strong, intimate, small groups, not collections of strangers. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Under urban conditions, such groups do not as a rule get constituted on a neighbourhood basis, but out of common interests; they may primarily focus on these interests, yet they frequently have corrective and therapeutic effects on their members. While the characteristic quasi-family has a fairly homogenous membership, draw from some limited segment of a community, this does not mean that one had to regard them as simply the result of an ever more refined division of labour or fragmentation of interests. An urban quasi-family often recruits only one member of a family, which makes it quite different from those farm organizations whose local units aim to provide some engrossing activity for every member of a family. Yet every quasi-family so rapidly takes on an elaborates other functions, that few persons would ever need or want to belong to more than two or three quasi-families at most. Every member can remain as convinced of one’s own individuality within a quasi-family as within one’s actual family. In fact, scrutiny reveals a number of respects in which membership in quasi-families offers certain advantages which real families cannot. Involvement in these groups, however highly committed and intense it may be, is more like becoming a member of a club or a team in a game. Family commitments, by contrast, have still an inescapable character posing the gravest consequences for the unwilling participant. It is unlikely that individual counseling can or should be dispenses with. Yet, the theoretical shift to recognition of the family origin and interpersonal nature of personality difficulties, justifies the support counseling activity gives to voluntary group procedures. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Sociologists long ago recognized the threat to individual psychological existence in the breakdown of ancient primary group supports. Though the rural village, like Humpty Dumpty, cannot be put back together again, the incessant reorganizing of the various institutions of the urban community can well take account of the means whereby citizens continually reintegrate their selves. If it is granted that small, intimate groups of significant others play a vital part in supporting every self, it is probable that groups formed solely for the sake of such mutual support will be less durable and successful than those which accomplish this in the process of pursuing other ends. It is improbable, therefore, that individual counseling agencies could produce a full solution ever under ideal conditions, since the problem involves the whole structure of the community as this bears upon personality. What the best solutions will be is known to on one, and will only be approached through imaginative experiments of many kinds. However, no matter what, people believe that the United States of America will continue to be a great manufacturing power. There just will not be as high a percentage of people working in factories. Explaining the difference between traditional manufacturing methods and the way Macintosh computers were then being produced, she pointed out that the United States of America was surely one of the great good producers of the World with fewer than two percent of the work force engaged in agriculture. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
However, many people would like America to returned to its agricultural roots, while we still have farmland, and to increase the amount of meat, poultry, and produce that is created in America so we will stop importing it, feed our own people, and export our products to other nations. This will help reduce the national deficit and be a step in the right way to help America return to being a creditor nation. Also, the American population will expand, and the labour force is also likely to expand, so more people will be willing to work on farms. While the United States of America is likely to generate 10,000 new jobs a day for the next decade, it is important to regain a presence in the manufacturing business. We do not want to leave the economy hollowed out. Nonetheless, the shift away from Second Wave manual labour toward Third Wave service work and super-symbolic activity has become widespread, dramatic and irreversible. In the United States of America today, these activities account for fully three-quarters of the work force. The great transition is reflected globally in the surprising fact that World exports of services and “intellectual property” are now equal to those of electronics and automobiles combined, or of the combined exports in foods and fuels. Futurists foreshadowed this massive shift as early as the 1960s. However, because the early warnings were ignored, the transition has been unnecessarily rocky. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Mass layoffs, bankruptcies and other upheavals swept through the economy as old rust-belt industries, late to install computers, robots and electronic information systems and slow to restructure, found themselves gutted by more fleet-footed competition. Many blamed their troubles on foreign competition, high or low interest rates, overregulation and a thousand other factors. Some of these no doubt played a role. However, equally to blame was the arrogance of the most powerful smokestack companies—auto makers, steel mills, shipyards, textile firms—that had for so long dominated the economy. Their managerial myopia punished those in the society least responsible for industrial backwardness and least able to protect themselves—their worker. The fact that aggregate manufacturing employment in 1988 was at the same level as 1968 does not mean that the workers laid off in between simply returned to their old jobs. On the contrary, with mote Third Wave technologies in place, companies needed a radically different kind of work force as well. The Old Second Wave factories needed essentially interchangeable workers. By contrast, Third Wave operations require diverse and continually evolving skills—which means that workers become less and less interchangeable. And this turns the entire problem of unemployment upside down. In Second Wave or smokestack societies an injection of capital spending or consumer purchasing power could stimulate the economy and jobs. Given one million jobless, one could, in principle, prime the economy and create one million jobs. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Once consumers have the money, they will rush out and buy things. This in turn leads to manufacturers to expand their plants and hire more workers. Good-bye, unemployment. Monetarists urge manipulation of interest rates or money supply instead, to increase or decrease purchasing power as needed. In today’s global economy, pumping money into the consumer’s pocket may simply send it flowing overseas without doing anything to help the domestic economy. An American buying a new TV set or compact disc player merely sends dollars to Japan, Korea, Malaysia, or elsewhere. The purchase does not add jobs at home. However, there is a far more basic flaw in the old strategies: they still focus on the circulation of money rather than knowledge. Yet it is no longer possible to reduce joblessness simply by increasing the number of jobs because the problem is no longer merely numbers. Unemployment has gone from quantitative to qualitative. The jobless desperately need money if they and their families are to survive, and it is both necessary and morally right to provide them with decent levels of public assistance. However, any effective strategy for reducing joblessness in a super-symbolic economy must depend less on the allocation of wealth and more on the allocation of knowledge. Furthermore, as these new jobs are not likely to be found in what we think of as manufacture, we will need to prepare people through schooling, apprenticeships and on-the-job learning for work in such fields as the human services—helping to care, for example, for our fast-growing population of the elderly, providing child care, health services, personal security, training services, leisure and recreation services, tourism and the like. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
We will also have to begin according human-service jobs the same respect preciously reserved for manufacture rather than snidely denigrating the entire service sector. The service industry cannot stand as the sole symbol for range of activities that includes everything from teaching to working at a pet groomer or in a hospital radiology center. What is more, if, as is often charged, wages can be below what people need to survive on their own in the service sector, then the solution is to increase service productivity and to invent new forms of work-force organization and collective bargaining. Unions, primarily designed for the crafts or for mass manufacturing, need to be totally transformed or else replaced by new-style organizations more appropriate to the super-symbolic economy. To survive they will have to support rather than resist such things as work-at-home programs, flextime and job-sharing. The rise of the super-symbolic economy compels us to reconceptualize the entire problem of unemployment from the ground up. To challenge outworn assumptions, however, is also to challenge those who benefit from them. The Third Wave system of wealth creation thus threatens long-entrenched power relationships in corporations, unions and governments. China, already a major importer of fuels and many minerals, is getting equipped for such a competition especially fast: With its rapidly growing, highly energy- and resources-intensive economy, the consequences of resource supply irregularities may be fatal. In the days of the Iraq war Beijing already resorted to eventually a panic buying of petroleum, overstanding the global market. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
In today’s World, if you cannot obtain your own resources domestically, to avoid supply troubles, it is considered preferable to establish long-term relationships with particular resource-rich countries, getting a stake in their resource development and extraction. Perhaps more than any other country, China is making big steps to obtain direct access to fuel and mineral resource in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The United States of America and European countries are supplied a significant portion of the natural resources they consume by major multinational companies such as Exxon-Mobil, Royal-Dutch Shell, Rio-Tinto, or BHP Billiton. In Japan and South Korea, a key role is played by the resource supply channels of leading trading houses like Mitsubishi Corporation, Itochu, SK Corporation, or Hanwha Trading. State-owned resource companies play their part, too. In most other countries, China included, supplies are provided first of all by state-owned oil and mining corporations. Currently, with strong support from the state, China’s natural resources heavyweights—PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC, Chinalco, China Metallurgical Group and the like—are establishing themselves among the leading global players, not at all inferior to Western majors or Japanese and Korean trading houses. On its part, the Chinese government is coming out with an innovative model of tapping natural resources in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In broader terms, this model helps China to strengthen its overall presence and influence in the World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Economic and legal scholars who study business disputes (and other events such as accidents where some economic consequences are at issue) recognize that the initial allocation of legal entitlements, the expectation and uncertainty about a court’s decision in the matter, and the costs of using the legal system all affect the parties’ choice between going to the law and settling the dispute by private negotiation. Rolling back one more step along a game tree, the same considerations also affect individuals’ decisions about engaging in activities that can lead to accidents or disputes. Consider two parties involved in an economic dispute. One of them (plaintiff) could sue the other (defendant) in a court of law. Their expectation for the time being assumed to be commonly held and known, is that the court will aware AP to the plaintiff and AD to the defendant. (If the defendant is ordered to make restitution or pay a fine, his payoff Ad can be negative.) In addition, each side has to bear some cost for using the court; this can be monetary in the form of court costs and lawyers’ fees, or non-monetary in various forms, such as time, mental strain, or damage to reputation. The costs can depend on the legal system; for example, in the American system each side bears its own court and lawyer costs, whereas in the British system the loser bears both sides’ cost. Denote the overall monetary equivalent costs by CP for the plaintiff and Cd for the defendant. Thus the expected net payoffs from recourse to the court are (AP-CP) for the plaintiff and (AD-CD) for the defendant. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The two parties could negotiate a settlement, either before a suit is filled at all, or after a suit is filed but before trial. Doing so enables them to avoid some or all of the costs of using the law. If the court is expected to levy a fine in addition to mandating some transfer between the parties, and the proceeds of the fine go to the government, then the negotiation avoids the fine and leaves a larger sum of money available for dividing between them. Suppose S is the total available for them to bargain over, and S> (AP – CP) + (AD – CD). The excess of the left-hand side of this inequality over the right-hand side constitute the “surplus” that is available for them to negotiate over. Denote the sums they can get through bargaining by XP and XD, respectively, then XP + XD= S is the bargaining frontier. The bargaining frontier is a straight line of slope -1. If the negotiation fails and the plaintiff has to sue, their payoffs in the court will be (AP – CP, AD – CD). This point is therefore the threat point that lies behind their bargaining. The generalized Nash bargaining solution then says that each party will get its threat-point payoff, plus a share of the surplus equal to its bargaining power. This bargaining power can be explained in terms of the two parties’ relative impatience, but we will simply assume that the plaintiff’s bargaining powers is and that of the defendant (1 –
). Then the outcomes of the negotiation is (figure 2.1) XP = (AP – CP) +
[S – (AP – CP) – (AD – CD), (Figure 2.2) XD = (AD – CD) + (1 –
) [S – (SP – CP) – (AD – CD)] = (1 –
)(AP – CP) + (AD – CD). These expressions yield several simple implications. For example, they tell us how different rules about the allocation of legal costs affect the outcome of pretrial negotiation. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Supposed the expectation is the plaintiff will win. Under the American system, each side would pay its own monetary legal costs. Under the British system, the monetary part of the plaintiff’s legal costs would be shifted to the defendant. Denote this by M. Then the British system, as compared with the American, CP is lower and CD higher by M. Therefore (2.1) shows that XP is higher by M, and (2.2) shows that XD is lower by M, in the British system than in the American. In turn, we can calculate how the expectation of this outcome affects the incentive of the parties to engage in activities that may lead to such disputes. This argument assumes that the expected payoffs AP and AD when the parties go to the court are the same in the two systems. If the courts adjusted the payoffs to offset the stipulated allocation of costs, then the threat points of the two systems would be the same, and therefore so would the Nash solution of the negotiation. However, this simple model has some flaws. Most obviously, in the model the negotiation succeed and the threat of going to court is never invoked. This is less egregious than it may appear at first sight, because only 10 percent of disputes go to trial. Simple extensions of the model explain why and which disputes are likely to go to trial. The main cause is the parties’ inconsistent expectations about the outcome in court. If the plaintiff expects AP to be high, and the defendant simultaneously expects AD to be high, then each may think that there is no surplus to bargain over. The simple figure and algebra I have developed here promising foundations for formal models of such extensions, but I will leave developments along these lines for future work. The model can readily be extended to apply another situation. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
My discussion of the court that generates the threat-point payoff in this model treated it as a well-meaning but costly system. However, it could easier be a corrupt system, or a predatory or kleptocratic government. Economic activities and transactions in such a country would try to proceed in secrecy. However, the threat of disclosure, and the consequent exposure to extortion by the state’s agents, would underlie all negotiations. By interpreting CP and CD as the expected amounts the state would extort from the two parties, the model can cover this situation. Now, let us focus on how a Christian suburb is to be. Better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house feasting amidst strife. Yea, better to ear herbs where love is, than the choicest food and hatred therewith. Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Through wisdom is a house builded, and by understanding is it established. By knowledge is the home filled with all that is pleasant and precious. Make your house a meeting place for the learned, and give heed to their words. If three people have eaten at one table and have spoken the word of the Christian Bible or Book of Mormon, it is as though they had eaten at God’s table. Blessed is that home where the woman regards the ways of her household. Blessed is the man who has a good wife, for the number of his days shall be doubled. Blessed is he who loves his wife and honours her, and direct his children into paths of righteousness. When husband and wife are worthy of each other, the divine spirit rests upon them. A home where a man loves his wife as himself, and honours her beyond his own person, shall be blessed everlastingly. A home where children honour their parents is a home in which God dwells, and He Himself is honoured. How goodly are your homes, and your dwellings, O America. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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I’m a Pharmacist, I Know What I am Doing
Recreational drug use is often portrayed in popular culture and music. To further highlight this illustration, probably the best known musical cliché of recent decades was “sex, drugs, and rock’ n’ roll,” while the Billbooard charts have been filled with songs involving drugs, such as Eric Clapton’s Cocaine or the Rolling Stones’ Sister Morphine and Mother’s Little Helper. Popular culture portrays not just recreational drug use but tragedy associated with drugs, for example, the deaths of guitarist Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison and many others. Of course, not all common-use drugs are understood as dangerous or associated with tragedy. We found clear evidence of two very different modes of entry among the respondents, namely recreational abusers and therapeutic self-medicators. However, it is important to note tht these were not mutually exclusive categories of offenders. In other words, these two categories were not completely dichotomous. As is usually the case, real life seldom fits cleanly into nice, neat categories. In fact, we were able to identify a number of cognitive and behavioural themes that were common to almost all of the drug-using pharmacists interviewed. These themes were expressed by nearly all of the drug-abusing pharmacists that we interviewed, regardless of how the individual initially began their illicit drug abuse career. The existence of these common themes suggest that pharmacy-specific occupational contingencies play a center role in the onset and progression of illicit use of prescription medicines. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Intuitively, it should not be surprising that pharmacists would steal prescription medicines as a way of treating their own physical ailments. After all, they have been exposed to years of pharmacy training that emphasized the beneficial, therapeutic potential of these medicines. Each pharmacist has dispensed the medicines to hundreds of patients and then watched the drugs usually produce the predicted beneficial results. They have all read the literature and drug inserts detailing the chemical composition of drugs and studied the often dramatic curative effects of the chemical substances. Pharmacists, more so than any other member of society, are keenly aware of how and why drugs work. There was strong evidence to suggest that both the therapeutic self-medicators and the recreational abusers actively used the years of pharmacological knowledge that they had acquired. In their eyes, it made perfect sense that they should put their pharmacy knowledge to work on themselves. This application of knowledge can be seen in the comments of a 40-year-old female self-medicator: “So, in 1986 I was sent to the psychologist. That was when I was forced to recognize that I had an alcohol problem. And I recognized that I had to do something. And in my brilliant analysis, I made a decision that since alcohol was a central nervous system depressant, the solution for me was to use a central nervous system stimulant. That would solve my alcohol problem. So I chose the best stimulant that I had access to, and that was [pharmaceutical grade] cocaine. I started using cocaine in 1986. I never thought that it would progress. I never thought it was going to get worse. I thought, ‘I’m just going to use it occasionally.’” #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Similar trends were observed among the recreational abuser group, only here, the applied use of drugs was based upon more recreational motives. Almost all of the therapeutic self-medicators and recreational abusers described how they became masters of quickly diagnosing their own ailments or emotional needs and then identifying the appropriate pharmacological agent that would remedy the problem. Moreover, as professionals, they were confident that they would be able to self-regulate their drug intake so as to never become addicted. All of the respondents drew upon their social status as pharmacists to convince themselves that their drug use would not progress into dependency. They recall being adamant in their view that personally they were immune from such problems, believing that only stupid, naïve people became addicted to drugs. As a 40-year-old female self-medicator put it, “I’m a pharmacist, I know what I am doing.” A 39-year-old male self-medicator went so far as to say: “I mean, we know more [about the effect of drugs] than doctors. We have all the package inserts. We have the knowledge. We know a lot about the drugs, so what’s the big deal?” Elsewhere we refer to this denial mechanism as a “paradox of familiarity,” because familiarity can breed consent, not contempt toward prescription drug use. Members of both categories of pharmacists claimed that they had never been warned about the dangers of drugs, insisting instead that their training had only stressed the beneficial side of prescription medication. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
To further highlight this illustration, a 48-year-old male misuser stated: “I never had anybody come right out and tell me that [prescription drug abuse] was probably unethical and illegal because they assumed that we knew that. But nobody ever said this is something that is not done.” Let without guidance on the issues, some pharmacists assumed that self-medication was acceptable behaviour. To this end, a 39-year-old female self-medicator said: “It’s [self-medication] just part of it [the pharmacy job]. It’s just accepted because we know so much. I’m sure it’s the same way when the doctors do it. It wasn’t a big stretch to start going “You know, I got a headache here, maybe I should try one of these Percocets [narcotic analgesic]?” Many pharmacists spoke about their prescription drug theft/use as if it were an entitlement that went along with being a pharmacist. Much like a butcher always has fresh meat at home or a car dealer always drives a state-of-the-art automobile, pharmacists will always have the best drugs. This theme is illustrated in an exchange that occurred between the interviewer and a45-year-old-male pharmacist: “Why take plain Aspirin or plain Tylenol when you’ve got this [Percocet-narcotic analgesic]? It works better….[so] you don’t even have to struggle with it. I really believed that I had license to do that…as a pharmacist. I mean with all that stuff sitting there, you know. Oh, my back was just killing me during that period of time and this narcotic pain reliever is sitting right there. I thought, ‘why should [I] suffer through back pain when I have this bottle of narcotics sitting here?” #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The above-mentioned themes involve cognitive dimensions of the pharmacists’ drug abuse in that they speak to common motivational and justification themes that were present in all of the interview. Perhaps more important is the fact that there was a common behavioural characteristic shared by all 50 pharmacists. In ever case, occasional prescription drug abuse eventually gave way to an advanced addictive state that was marked by an enormous intake of drugs, unmistakable habituation, and the constant threat of physical withdrawal. Members of the recreational abuser and therapeutic self-medicator groups alike routinely reported daily use levels exceeding 50-100 times the recommended daily dosage. One pharmacist reported that his drug use regimen progressed to 150 Percocets [strong narcotic analgesic] per day. Another individual reported injecting up to 200 mg of Morphine each day. Still another respondent described a daily use pattern that, among other things, included 5g of cocaine. Invariably, these advanced levels of drug use led to clear signs of habituation and the constant threat of physical withdrawal. At this point, the individual recalls growing increasingly desperate. Consider the following quote from a 44-year-ol male pharmacist who was in charge of ordering the narcotics at the independent retail pharmacy where he worked: “I was ordering excessive quantities and chasing down tracks. That’s what I used to do. I was really reaching my bottom. I would chase these delivery trucks down in the morning because I didn’t come to my store until mid-afternoon. I was in withdrawal in the morning and I was without drugs, so I had to have it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
“I was just going nuts. Many mornings I had gone to work sweating. It would be 30 degrees (Fahrenheit), it would be January, and the clerk would say, ‘you look sick,’ and I would say, ‘It’s the flu.’ So I would pay the delivery guys extra money to deliver my drugs first or I would chase the delivery trucks down in the morning. I knew the trucks delivered at 6 in the morning, they came by my area, and I would get up early and chase the trucks down the highway. I would go in excess of 100 miles an hour trying to catch up with this truck and flag it down.” The advanced stages of drug addiction invariably produced traumatic physical psychological outcomes. Eventually, “out-of-control” drug use patterns along with the realization of chemical dependency left the pharmacists in a problematic mental state. It was at this point that al of the pharmacists recalled coming to grips with their addiction. This personal realization was accompanied by a shift in the way they thought about their drug use. They no longer denied that situation by drawing upon recreational or therapeutic explanations. Instead, they finally admitted the dire nature of their situation and became more and more reclusive. In short, all of the respondents grew to realize that they had a drug problem, turning then to fear and ignorance to foster the final weeks or months of their drug addiction. Two identifiable criminal career trajectories were observed among the pharmacists who we interviewed: recreational abusers and therapeutic self-medicators. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Careful scrutiny of contemporary drug theory, policy, and practice in all areas, from prescription pharmaceuticals to illegal recreational drugs, reveals numerous apparent inconsistencies and pervasive incoherence. This results, in part, from a kind of silo thinking in which attention to drug theory and drug policy, however sophisticated in its own realm, is encapsulated within distinct professional, practical, and economic spheres or “silos.” Silos are descriptively and prescriptively dense but stand isolated from each other in an empty landscape. In other words, people in one arena of drug theory, policy, or practical programs have plenty to say to each other about the way things are and the way things should be with respect to drugs, but they don’t talk much across the open spaces between their areas of focus. Not only do they not talk much between their fields, for reasons to be explored, they cannot really do so. Clearly, our discussion of the therapeutic self-medicator category goes far beyond what is present in the existing literature. However, the first documentation of recreational drug use among health professionals, had minimal impact on the way that the various healthcare professions think about or address problem of substance abuse within their ranks. The pharmacy profession has been especially reluctant to address the reality of the prescription drug abuse situation. For instance, existing self-reports and interview research on drug using pharmacists largely ignores the recreational origins of drug use and, instead, describes the affected individuals as having misplaced therapeutic motivations. This assumption is reinforced by published biographical accounts of recovering drug using pharmacists. While principally intended to raise awareness among fellow pharmacists, these confessionals consistently emphasize the well-intentioned motives behind the individuals’ destructive drug use past. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Information is called observable when it is available symmetrically to both parties, and verifiable when it can be proved to third parties such as a court. In practice, this is a matter of cost, and the standard of proof required. Contracts that are intended to be enforced in a court of law can only stipulate actions that are conditioned on verifiable information; courts cannot judge whether a breach of the contractual terms has occurred if they cannot verify whether the circumstances that call for an action have actually transpired. However, observable information can be the basis for contracts that are enforced by extralegal or private methods, because the two parties can know fully well whether a breach has occurred. Such extralegal methods of enforcement come in to broad types. One is enforcement by insider third parties with specialized knowledge that enables them to verify information that outsider general courts of law cannot; arbitrators in industry associations are the most prominent enforcers of this kind. The second is based on a relationship or ongoing interaction between the parties; a breakup of this relationship constitutes the punishment that may deter one of the parties from breaching. This covers many possibilities. The same two parties may meet repeatedly; the two may not have a direct repeated interaction with each other, but each may interact with others in a group or network that transmits information about any breach to all members and collectively sanctions the miscreant, using ostracism in business interactions or social relationships or both. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The distinction between observable and verifiable information is standard in the economic theory of contracts. The New York Stock Exchange developed its internal rules and procedures for dispute resolution, and even Taiwanese shoe manufacturers and Western fashion houses performed dispute-resolution functions in addition to their primary matchmaking ones. One may think that these alternative methods of private ordering must suffer a crippling disadvantage relative to the government’s courts, namely their lack of coercive power to ensure that their decisions are obeyed. However, the difficulty is often nonexistent or easily overcome. First, the sanctions available for private ordering are often very effective. Breach of contract can be deterred in ongoing relationships by the threat that the miscreant will be barred from future business with this particular partner or the group; this can be buttressed by social ostracism if the group fosters social ties among its business members. Sometimes this threat may be even more severe than the fines that courts would impose in the matter. If the threat is credible, in the sense of being a part of the strategies in the subgame-perfect equilibrium of the repeated game that constitutes the ongoing relationship, then the contract is self-enforcing. Second, arbitrators may have similar sanctions at their disposal; if they can bar the miscreant from the industry association, they can instantly put one out of business, which can be a more effective sanction than the fines the courts will impose. Of course, the feasibility of such sanctions depends on the availability of the requisite information, and in the case of repeated interactions, on how highly the participants value the future relative to the present. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Finally, courts recognize the informational advantage of the alternative institutions. Therefore when a relational or implicit contract serves such an informational purpose, courts refuse to intervene to modify its terms, or to insert missing provisions, or to overrule the availability of discretion to one party. They also enforce the awards of industry arbitration tribunals, using the government’s power of coercion to obtain compliance if the loser in the arbitration attempts to defy the ruling. In the United States of America, this has been so since 1920; in the international context, over 100 countries now accede to the 1958 New York Convention of the Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards. By providing for the appointment of industry-expert arbitrators, who can make many factual determinations more accurately and less expensively than a judge or jury can, the rules greatly expand the “contractible” aspects of an exchange. The use of stream-lined procedures together with the appointment of expert adjudicators transforms considerations that in the public legal system would have been only observable to the parties…into considerations that are also verifiable…thereby encouraging transactors to enter into more complete contracts. The point is not that arbitrators have access to more information. Any relevant information can be elicited and brought before the court by either party to the dispute through the legal process of discovery. Conversely, many arbitration forms do not allow discovery, although the arbitrator can request additional information. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The key is how information is used; industry arbitrators can use their expertise to interpret it—make factual determinations—more accurately and at a lower cost than non-specialized courts can. This is the sense in which verifiability should be interpreted in this context. Arbitration is used in other contexts for other reasons. In international transactions, each party may suspect that the other country’s courts will be biased in favour of its own nationals; this can deter them from entering into contrast that may end up in national courts. Therefore both may agree ex ante to settle any disputes in an agreed international forum of arbitration. Several of these exist, based in London, Paris, Stockholm, et cetera. They differ in their procedures (degree of formality, time taken, fees charged, et cetera) and the range of legal traditions they cover (civil, common, Islamic, et cetera). These affect the choice of forum by the parties to each transaction. These forums usually lack the expertise that industry-specific forums can provide. Therefore they are not likely to lower costs or improve verifiability and permit more complete contracts; instead, removing the suspicion of bias may be their most important function. The different modes of private and official governance can interact in various ways. To further highlight the illustration, if an ongoing relationship based on the superior observability of information by the two parties breaks down, the best alternative available to the parties may be recourse to a contract based on verifiable information enforceable in a court of law, not total cessation of transactions. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
And if an arbitrator’s award is not enforceable by direct sanctions such as fines, it may nonetheless form part of a relational arrangement where the arbitrator can terminate the miscreant’s access to future trades. Not only do modes like arbitration evolve and apply to provide governance for transactions where they have an informational advantage and can reduce transaction costs, but also transactions take forms that adapt to the available information and governance. As for the emergence and prevalence of barter and countertrade in post-Soviet Russia in this way: The advantage of paying with goods rather than money is that they can be earmarked s property of the creditor. Money is fungible and liquid; a buyer can hide money easily if he chooses to renege on his promised payment to the seller. Goods in a barter or countertrade contract are more difficult to hide, and therefore can act as deal-specific collateral that mitigates opportunism. When it comes to systems of integration, rising complexity in the economy calls for more sophisticated integration and management. In a not atypical case Nabisco, the food company, as to fill 500 orders a day for literally hundreds of thousands of different products that must be shipped from 49 factories and 13 distribution centers, and at the same time take into account 30,000 different sales promotional deals with its customers. Managing such complexity requires new forms of leadership and an extremely high order of systemic integration. That, in turn, requires greater and greater volumes of information to pulse through the organization. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
To hold everything together—to track all the components and products, to synchronize deliveries, to keep engineers and marketers appraised of each other’s plans, to alert the R&D people to the needs of the manufacturing side and, above all, to give management a coherent picture of what is going on—billions of dollars are being poured into electronic networks that link computers, data bases and other information technologies together. This vast electronic information structure, frequently satellite based, knits whole companies together, often linking them into the computers and networks of suppliers and customers as well. Other networks link networks. Japan has targeted $250 billion to develop better, faster network. All these changes further accelerate the pace of operations and transactions. Economies of speed replace economies of scale. Competition is so intense and the speeds required so high that the old “time is money” rule is increasingly updated to “every interval of time is worth more than the one before it.” Time becomes a critical variable as reflected in “just-in-time” deliveries and a pressure to reduce DIP or “decisions in process.” Slow, sequential, step-by-step engineering is replaced by “simultaneous engineering.” Companies wage “time-based competition.” Expressing the new, it is clear that money moves at the speed of light. Information has to move faster. Thus acceleration pushed Third Wave business closer and closer to real time. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Taken together, these ten features of the Third Wave economy, among many others, add up to a monumental change in how wealth is created. The conversion of the United States of America, Japan and Europe to this new system, though not yet complete, represents the single most important change in the global economy since the spread of factories brought about by the industrial revolution. This historical transformation, picking up speed in the early-to mid-1970, was already fairly well advanced by the 1990s. Unfortunately, much of America’s economic thinking was left behind. Global markets of energy and mineral resources are undergoing far reaching irreversible changes, and so are perceptions about the policies needed to provide their stable supply. Global demand is surging due to a dramatic increase of consumption by the fast-growing large emerging economies. Experts project that, absent significant changes in policy or technology, global energy consumption will increase nearly 50 percent over the next 30 years. Energy consumption is growing faster than the GDP in many countries. On the supply side, uncertainties and destabilization risks are exacerbating due to rising political instability in exporting countries, periodical redirections of sales from external to domestic markets by leading suppliers, and, to a certain extent, a depletion, in some major producing countries, of existing deposits in the absence of new ones whose discovery and exploitation could make up for the loss. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Therefore, oil and some other natural resources are becoming more and mor attractive targets for speculators. In these circumstances, countries highly dependent on natural resources imports, especially those that do not have their own powerful resource multinationals, get increasingly concerned about supply destabilization risks. Predictions about an all-out resource war or bitter fights among buyers for limited amounts of oil or metallic ores look like an exaggeration. However, buyers’ competition for particular kinds of resources within particular periods of time due to particular circumstances is becoming a more frequent phenomenon. For instance, the Philippines and Vietnam protested to China against its patrol boats hindering their oil exploration activities near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. China demanded that its neighbours stop exploration work in this area. Tensions rose as the United States of America declared that the South China Sea was in the sphere of its national interest and that it would stand by the Philippines as its ally. Now, when it comes to supernatural affairs, the angels are “sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation,” reports Hebrews 1.14, but not to take the place of Christ or the Holy Spirit. The apocalypse seems to show that this ministration of angels to the saints on Earth is a ministration for war in the spiritual realm against the forces of Satan; but there is little indication given of ministry in any other way. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
After the first Advent, when there was great angelic activity over the wondrous event of the Father brining the “Firstborn: of the new race (Romans 8.29) into the inhabited Earth (Hebrew 1.6), and again at the Advent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost to begin His work of forming a Body like unto the Risen Head—and during the early years of the Church—the employment of an angel in direct and visible communication with believers seems to give way to the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. The entire work of witnessing to Christ, and leading the Church into all truth, has been committed to the Holy Spirit. Therefore all intervention of “angels” or of audible voices from the spiritual realm purporting to be from God may be taken as counterfeits of psychopathological offenders, whose supreme object is to substitute the workings of their own wicked offenders in the place of God. In any case, it is best and safest in these days of peril to keep in the path of faith and reliance upon the Holy Spirit of God working through the Word of God. Man, the microcosm, the mirror of reality has structures of beings found in him, and are found analogously in the subhuman realm. Selfhood, inner awareness, freedom and destiny—all are verified analogously in subhuman beings. Furthermore, the concepts of courage, love, power, and justice are used to describe analogously the characteristics of all beings and of being-itself. The point we wish to make is that this use of analogy based on human experience seems to yield valid knowledge. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Moving up now to the relationship between man and God, one would expect that on the same principle, but with proper adjustments, man could get an analogous knowledge of God. Symbols are not a means of knowing God, but rather a way of speaking about Him. If one wishes to talk about God, finite material must be used, and this is justified by the fact that all finite beings participate in being-itself. Without such an analogy nothing could be said about God. However, the analogia entis is in no way able to create a natural theology. It is not a method of discovering truth about God; it is the form in which every knowledge of revelation must be expressed. In this sense anlogia entis, like “religious symbol,” points to the necessity of using material taken from finite reality in order to give content to the cognitive function in revelation. What is boils down to is that analogy or symbolism is the expression of an encounter with God. Through the revelatory experience is far more than an intellectual communication—it is primarily a reunion with the ground of being—it contains a cognitive element conveyed by symbols which are qualified as channels of communication by their participation in being-itself. Yet, it seems not, for every creature participates in being-itself, and yet not everything is a religious symbol, although it has the potentiality to become one. What is the decisive ingredient of symbolism beyond ontological participation? These symbols are not arbitrary interpretations of the concrete revelatory experiences. However, they appear within this experience itself. They are not created intentionally, but they are born in the same dimension in which the revelatory experience takes place. In and through its symbols the religious encounter with reality opens up the dimension of reality in which ultimacy appears. There is no other way of expressing our encounter with the holy than in symbols. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
From the standpoint of the counselor who finds one’s role ambiguous, it seems more than likely that exploration of a developmental perspective would help resolve the conflicts implicit in one’s professionalization. For the psychotherapist who thinks of oneself as a physician who cures sickness, or who avoids this and speaks only of the “difficulties of living,” there may appear to be no conflict in one’s role. One may be satisfied to reduce symptoms of disorder, to solve the problem presented and to think of oneself primarily as someone who relieves distress, without defining one’s goals beyond that. However, apparently more and more thoughtful counselors do not think they can stop there, or do any permanent good, unless they leave their patients better able to cope with later problems and future strains. Some even feel that their job to plan for the optimal development of their clients, or to organize clients to plan for their own. The ambiguous feelings of the professional who presumes to assist in the personal problems of family members may be all to the good if these are construed in a framework of family relations which includes oneself. The concept of transference goes only part way. The client in the course of the counselor-client interaction frequently construes the counselor as a figure representative of previous others, with whom relations have been unresolved but are thus worked out through the interviews. The difficulty, however, from the client’s standpoint, is that no matter how versatile one’s counselor may be, and no matter how facile or fantastic one’s own imagination, the range of persons with whom a person needs intimate discourse in order to achieve one’s optimal development of self far exceeds the resources of this single relationship. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Moreover, there is the fact that the client must pay in cold cash for the kind of communication which the best families afford on a basis of affectional reciprocity; thus the most sacred disclosures hover at times on the verge of something equivalent to prostitution. Regardless of ethics and their enforcement by professional insistence upon its eventual termination, and the limitation of reciprocity to monetary reward; in a word, the elaboration of this relationship lead nowhere. The best hope for fruition of any gains that accrue is tht they serve as a bridge to the regeneration of their client’s involvement in a quasi-family constellation which includes near-rivals and critics, models and admirers, other ages and other genders, in both work and play. Only through others can one obtain the continual characterizations of self essential to valid knowledge of self. Research and experience have already shown that the human being, from birth until death, almost to the degree that the fish requires water, thrives only in social interaction. Neglect, isolation, loneliness, solitary confinement, and deteriorative influences very hard to endure, even though every physical condition of survival is met. And among all kinds of interaction, the most potent of all for personal development are those characterized by the unconditional acceptance of family relations. Only here is the listener who always finds more in the person than one presents in one’s actual behaviour. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Only here is the audience that never grows tried. Only here is the person of similar background, for whom every aspect of the culture—of class and ethic experience—resonates with comparable meaning. That a counselor could ever aspire to duplicate these functions of the optimal family is beyond the hope of those who have thought and written about it. In a sense this analysis of the implicit or potential demands on the counselor’s role both justifies and specifies a therapeutic approach. It also shows that one’s role must be transcended by more adequate institutions for providing each client with a stable constellation of significant others, who can be the precisely appropriate self-definers at each critical stage in one’s personal development. For the person whose actual family has failed one the solution suggested by this analysis is the invention of effective quasi-families. The process by which each person contributes to the self-knowledge of others, and others contribute to one’s knowledge of oneself, it immanent in human society. Where self-knowledge and self-control are deficient relative either to norms or ideals, the best means for reversing these deficiencies is effective utilization of all available knowledge of how selves originate, operate, and co-operate. Recognition that some tasks are beyond the powers of the unassisted individual does not mean that society must be divided into two classes, therapists and their patients. It means, or at least can be made to mean, joint action to perform these tasks. Such an approach is as relevant and applicable to the tasks of counseling agencies as to the other types of family agencies. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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My Soul to Nothingness, but I Will Strive
Many persons accustomed to travelling the old country side were sure so fair a place was never seen. Of all that charmed the romantic eye, it seemed an emerald through the clouds of fleecy white, and cerulean sky. As the sun crowned its lawny crest, smiling upon the flowers and trees, bright eyes reflected the majesty of Llanada Villa. The lively and robust body of this remarkable house contrasts its physicality against the darkness, secrets, and void of the dense ancient elms. Tall ornamental hedges maintain the privacy of the dwelling. The fruit orchard much like an enchanted forest, in which the bluebirds returning to their nest, guard the fruit from pests, as the straggling deer who peep from beneath the branches, do not startle the natural and undisturbed dominion. Heightened by euphoria, delightful shapes of mystery and fear clear in youthful bloom of its immortal spirit. On stormy nights, as the guard described, one can hear the doors clapping inside, and the howl and sobbing of the wind through it ornate galleries. I carried with me some blessings and a good many curses. I was woken in the early morning, by hearing my name called softly. I rose and went to my door in my nightgown, but there was no one in the passage. The voice sounded like my niece Daisy’s, but when I came to her door, it was closed. All was silent; the bathroom door stood slightly open; there was the morning room beyond; then the landing and the staircase. I heard my name called again, only this time the voice boomed like a gong inside my head; the light failed, as if a candle had been snuffed, and something rushed at me out of the gloom. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
I screamed and struggled until the light came back with the sound of running feet and I realized that the demon who had seized me was, in fact, a Welsh priest. A fornight or so later—certainly, after the doctor had pronounced me well on the way to recovery—I was sitting up in bed reading when my grandmother came into the room and sat down in the chair beside me, looking exactly as he had when we first met: the same calf length frock coat, double-breasted vet, and wool trousers, with his hair parted on the left and neatly combed to the side, the same familiar scent of alone wood, orange flower, musk and spices. The chair creaked as he settled himself in it, smiled at me and took up his work, just as if he had only been gone for five minutes, rather than resting in the Evergreen Cemetery for nine years. I was vaguely aware that my husband was supposed to be dead, but somehow this did not matter; his presence at my bedside seemed entirely natural and comforting. And though my own tranquil acceptance of the visit would later seem, to me, as strange as the visit itself, we sat in companionable silence for an indefinite interval until my husband gathered up his work, smiled once more at me and went slowly from the room. Daisy came in so soon after that I thought they must have passed each other in the hall, so I asked, “Did you see your uncle William?” I saw from her look of consternation that I had best not pursue the subject, and agreed that I must have been dreaming. As with the strange radiance of William’s appearance was followed by one of the worst headaches I had ever endured. But I felt certain I had been wide awake. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Even after the strangeness of the experience had become fully apparent to me, I found I could not think of my visitant as a ghost. My reading in sensational literature had enhanced an already vivid imagination of how ghosts ought to conduct themselves: a hint of transparency and one or two bloodcurdling groans was surely the least that could be expected, whereas William had been—well, just my husband. And though nothing like this had ever happened to me before, I had not felt in the slightest afraid. Dr. Wayland had declared me well enough to get up, and the memory of my husband’s visit had faded to the point where I could almost believe it had been a dream, when one evening after dinner I saw my father-in-law crossing the hall ahead of me. He was no more than ten paces away, I heard the floor creak under his tread. Looking neither right nor left, he entered his study and closed the door behind him, just as he would have done in life. Again I felt no fear; only an overwhelming impulse to go up to the door and knock. When there was no answer, I tried the handle. The door opened readily, but there was no one there, only the familiar cracked brown leather armchairs on the worn Persian rug, the elaborate desk with its feet carved into the fierce face carved into faces of angels, the bookshelves crammed with Blue Book and army lists and regimental histories and accounts of gun dealers, the lingering faint scent of timber, leather and bindings. I remained in the doorway for a long time, lost in a trance of recollection. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
I picked up one of Willian’s old letters and went out into the garden and sat down on a charming bench, under a group of magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendour being the horizon, and the fountains wound through a group of noble trees, almost at my feet, reflecting in their current the fading crimson of the sky. His letter was extraordinary. So much so that I read it twice over—the second time to the spirits. It said, “I miss you my darling wife, for as such I love you. During these last days of my illness, I was too weak to write you. Before then I had no idea of the danger. I will soon no longer be with you. Thank you for the hospitality. Thank you for receiving me into your heart, gaiety, and for being a charming companion. Heaven! I devote my remaining days to the gleaming light that you cast upon my heart. I hope you may accomplish your merciful purpose. I curse my conceited incredulity for unduly leaving you to mourn my absence. If only I could live for eternity, I would remain by your side. Farewell. I love you, my beloved.” My eyes filled with tears at his passion and intelligence. The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time gone back inside. It was a soft evening, and I loitered, speculating upon seeing him again. I could hear his voice in animated dialogue and recall how proud he was to be a father, and turned about to admire the beautiful scene. The glade which I had just walked lay before. At the left narrow of the path wound away under the clumps of lordly trees, and was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
At the right of the path stands the Observational Tower, which guarded the estate. Over the grounds, a thin film of mist was stealing, like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and there I could see the fountains flashing in the moonlight. No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. I enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood looking silence over the expanse beneath me. Standing a little way behind me, discoursed upon the scene, and were upon the eloquent moon. When the moon shone with a light so intense it is well known that it indicates a special spiritual activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy is manifold. It acts on dreams, it acts on lunacy, it acts on nervous people; it has a marvellous physical influence connected with life. One of the carpenters, having taken a nap on the balcony on such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light of the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side. The moon, this night, is full of odylic and magnetic influences—and when one looks behind at the front of the mansion, how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendour, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests. There are indolent states of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the stars. But I felt as is some great misfortune were hanging over me. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
O THOU great, powerful, and mighty KING AMAIMON, who bearest rule by the power of the SUPREME GOD EL over all spirits both superior and inferior of the Infernal Orders in the Dominion of the East; I do invocate and command thee by the especial and true name of God; and by they Thou Worshippest; and by the Seal of thy creation; and by the most mighty and powerful name of GOD, IEHOVAH TETEAGRAMMATON who cast thee out of Heaven with all other infernal spirits; and by all the most powerful and great names of God who created Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, and all things in them contained; and by their power and virtue; and by the name PRIMEUMATON who commandeth the whole host of Heave; that thou mayest cause, enforce, and compel the Spirit Murmus—The Fifty-fourth Spirit and His 30 Legions of Spirits, Lord of darkness and liberation come forth! Murmus awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the God of limitation Ahura Mazda! Murmus, Zairich, and Tairich, unholy fever and thirst come forth! Murmus awaken! Tairich awaken! Zairich awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Amardad! Akiman, demon of evil mind come forth! Akoman awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Vohuman! Naikiyas, Div or rebellion and discontent come forth! Naikiyas awake! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Andar, Div of antinomian fire come forth! Andar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fllen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Arwahist! Taromat, beautiful Div of rebellion come forth! Taromat awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! Aeshma, wielder of the bloody mace! Demon of the wounding spear and bringer of wrath come forth! Aeshma awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Srosh! Sovar, merciless leader of Divs come forth! Sovar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel shahrewar! I stand alone as the embodiment of the Adversary known as Ahriman, the Black Dragon of Chaos and becoming! I devour the natural order of stasis brought forth by Ahura Mazda and forge my destiny through the power of the Black Sun! By the figurative mystery of this holy mansion, I will clothe it with the armour of salvation in the strength of the Most High, ANCOR, AMICAR, AMIDES, THEDONIAS, ANITOR, that so the end which I desire may be effected, O ADONAI, through Thy strength, to whom be praise and glory for ever and ever. I adjure thee, Emperor Lucifer, as the agent of the strong living God, of His beloved Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to appear instantly, or to send thy Messenger Astarot, forcing thee to forsake thy hiding-place, wheresoever it may be, an warning thee that it thou didst not manifest this moment, I still straightway smite thee and all thy race with the Blasting Rod of the great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
In 2007, while closing up The Winchester Mystery House, Jeff kept catching sight of a shadow moving. He would turn quickly to see if it was a person, but nothing was there. It unnerved him, not knowing what was taking place. The activity picked up when they started to decorate for the Christmas season. Finally, he consulted one of the guests about the strange occurrences. He was very talkative, and would relate experiences about a ghost. During one conversation with the guest, Jeff related that he heard people upstairs laughing and thumping around in the Grand Ballroom, almost like they were dancing country-western style. When he investigated, he would find nothing out of place and no living person upstairs. When opening the mansion in the morning, they found linen that had been neatly arranged, laying on the floor, yet no one had been in the mansion since he had closed it the night before.
One morning he found an entire display sitting at the foot of the stairs. Everything had been moved during the night. His first thoughts were that someone had broken into the place, but there were no signs of an intruder. Early another morning, Jeff and a few other employees heard a music box playing. They went deep in the mansion to find the source. After searching for hours, they found nothing in the mansion, until they went up the dark stairs to the fourth floor. The stairs were steep, and when Jeff got to the top, he snapped a picture down the stairway. He took the picture at that moment because he had a strange feeling. After the investigated the fourth floor, Jeff said he felt a cold draft come by him, as though it was rushing past them down the stairs. The resulting picture was a tragic and forlorn figure dressed in nineteenth century clothes. People have reported seeing her figure walking toward doors that lead to parts of the mansion that are off limits to guest and that she passes unimpeded through locked doors. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Look at those Big Bad Pimps—Americans Want to Pay for their Lunch!
Whenever a single wave of change predominates in any given society, the pattern of future development is relatively easy to discern. Writers, artists, journalists and others discover the “wave of the future.” Thus, in nineteenth-century Europe many thinkers, business leaders, politicians and ordinary people held a clear, basically correct image of the future. They sensed that history was moving toward the ultimate triumph of industrialism over premechanized agriculture, and they foresaw with considerable accuracy many of the changes that the Second Wave would bring with it: more powerful technologies, bigger cities, faster transport, mass education and the like. This clarity of vision had direct political effects. Parties and political movements were able to triangulate with respect to the future. Preindustrial agricultural interests organized a rearguard psychological action against encroaching industrialism, against “big business,” against “union bosses,” against “sinful cities.” Labor and management grappled for control of the main levers of the emergent industrial society. Ethnic and racial minorities, defining their rights in terms of an improved role in the industrial World, demanded access to jobs, corporate positions, urban housing, better wages and mass public education. This industrial vision of the future had important effects as well. The shared image of an industrial future tended to define options, to give individuals a sense not merely of who or what they were but of what they were likely to become. It provided a degree of stability and a sense of self, even in the midst of extreme social change. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
This industrial vision of the future had important psychological effects as well. The shared images of an industrial future tended to define options, to give individuals a sense not merely of who or what they were but of what they were likely to become. It provided a degree of stability and a sense of self, even in the midst of extreme social change. In contrast, when a society is struck by two or more giant waves of change and none is yet clearly dominant, the image of the future is fractured. It becomes extremely difficult to sort out the meaning of the changes and conflicts that arise. The collision of wave fronts creates a raging ocean full of clashing currents, eddies and maelstorms which conceal the deeper, more important historic tides. In the United States of America—and in many other countries—the collision of Second and Third Wave creates social tensions, dangerous conflicts and strange new political wave fronts that cut across the usual divisions of class, race, gender, or party. This collision makes a shambles of traditional political vocabularies and makes it very difficult to separate progressive from reactionaries, friends from enemies. All the old polarizations and coalitions break up. The apparent incoherence of political life is mirrored in personality disintegration. Psychotherapists and gurus do a land-office business, people wander aimlessly amid competing therapies. They slip into cultus and covens or, alternatively, into a pathological privatism, convinced that reality is absurd, insane or meaningless. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Life may indeed be absurd in some large, cosmic sense. However, this hardly proves that there is no pattern in today’s events. In fact, there is a distinct, hidden order the becomes detectable as soon as we learn to distinguish Third Wave changes from those associated with a diminishing Second Wave. The crosscurrents created by these waves of change are reflected in our work, family life, sexual attitudes and personal morality. They show up in life-styles and voting behavior. For in our personal lives and political acts, whether we know it or not, most of us in the rich countries are essentially Second Wave people committed to maintaining a dying order. Third Wave people constructing a radically different tomorrow or a confused, self-canceling mixture of the two. The conflict between Second and Third Wave groupings is, in fact, the central political tension cutting through our society today. The more basic political question, as we shall see, is not who controls the last days of industrial society but who shapes the new civilization rapidly rising to replace it. On one side are the partisans of the industrial past; on the other, growing millions who recognize that the most urgent problems of the World can no longer be resolved within the frame work of an industrial order. This conflict is the “super struggle” for tomorrow. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
This confrontation between the vested interest of the Second Wave and the people of the Third Wave already runs like an electric current through the political life of every nation. Even in the nonindustrial counties of the World, all the old battle lines have been forcibly redrawn by the arrival of the Third Wave. The old war of agricultural, often feudal interests against industrializing elites, either capitalist or socialists, takes on a new dimension in light of the coming obsolescence of industrialism. Now that Third Wave civilization is making its appearance, does rapid industrialism imply liberation from neocolonialism and poverty, or does it, in fact, guarantee permanent dependency? It is only against this wide-screen background that we can begin to make sense of the headlines, to sort out our priorities, to frame sensible strategies for the control of change in our lives. Once we realize that a bitter struggle is now raging between those who seek to preserve industrialism and those who seek to supplant it, we have a new tool for changing that World. To use this tool, however, we must be able to distinguish clearly those changes that extend the old industrial civilization from those which facilitate the arrival of the new. We must, in short, understand both the old and the new, the Second Wave industrial system into which so many of us were born and the Third Wave civilization that we and our children have inhabited. America has a lot of structural problems. Almost all of them are similar to those faced by developing nations. However, they are more acute and visible to the World because of America’s unique status. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
The list is well-known. We no longer manufacture a significant portion of products we use in our own country. Although we are technologically advanced, new technology is often not used in many buildings and infrastructure because older technology is more cost efficient. And there is a battle between polluting enterprises and green technology, both of which pose problems for the environment. There is high latent unemployment and underemployment in rural and urban areas. Large-scale migration to the cities overstrains their infrastructure causing a lot of ultra-urbanization pains. Obviously mismatch exists between the labor supply (and those willing to work for lower wages, tend to get most of the work). And so on, and so forth. Discussion of America’s present and future usually focuses on a gentlemanly set of problems. They are often looked upon as critical and posing a threat of abrupt and disruptive economic downturn, social and political turmoil or, in the extreme case, the country’s collapse. Such views do not look convincing. The gentlemanly set of problems is manageable, especially for America with its remarkable ability to address crucial issues a gradual, evolutionary, but persistent change. Let us have a loot at a conventional Problem List. Aging Population and Labor Shortages? Yes, population of the working age is apparently approaching its peak and will start to decline in the second half od this century. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
However, labor force constraints can and most likely will be offset by further gains in labor productivity. Also, there is still a lot of underused human resources in the countryside (about 40 percent of all American worker live in suburban areas) whose migration to the cities will continue to boost labor supply. However, many businesses are now leaving the decaying urban centers, for the suburbs, and many people are working from their electronic cottages. As a result, more businesses will move to the suburbs, which should decrease inner state traffic. As for the growing number and share of elderly people, America with its high migration rates, unhealthy public finance, extremely high social spending, and high dependency toward social safety nets in the future, is in a good position to address the population aging issues in a realistic and financially sustainable way. However, many senior citizens are now small business owners and in good health and are working and support their families, while their kids go to college to obtain degrees, and one day may take over the family business and expand it. Also, the genetic engineer and stem cell technology, we may be able to prevent and cure disabilities. Therefore, most of the population will be in the condition to work and pay taxes. One day, scientists may even find a cure for aging. So, there is a lot of hope for the future. Growing Income Gaps? Well, indeed, they are growing, but, on the other hand, low-income families are mostly elevating their earnings and consumption standards; social safety nets are improving; and, overall, today’s America provides a lot of opportunities to enhance revenues and life a better life to those who really want to make it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Intra-Regional Development Gaps Threatening the Country’s Integrity? Not at all. It is not a critical problem as less developed provinces are becoming the country’s major growth engines and the state has enough financial and other resources to support and amplify the trend. Environmental Damage Endangering the Very Basis of Human Life? No doubt, a whole lot of issues have become critical. However, America is more and more establishing the position of the World leaders in most areas of sustainable smokestack energy, as these companies like Standard Oil are starting to tackle the environmental problems in the same gradual, evolutionarily, but persistent manner it tackled the other ones. And, finally, is there a threat of a big political and social turmoil that may occur as people’s anger with the authoritarian Capitalist regime and democratic political system bursts out and they take to the streets again? Fringe groups of Americans have also been dissatisfied with law and order and hard work, and their anger with the regime is really strong and apparently growing, impacted by numerous cases of power abuse, rampant corruption, disrespect for law enforcement, abuse elder and contempt for leaders, and a lack of respect for patriots and Americana, and other violations of basic human rights. A fresh memory of mine…Some three or four years ago, during a reception in hour of a group of American professors visiting Africa, two of them approached me for a greeting and asked a tough question: “Sir, why don’t you write plainly the America’s present political system is outdated and has to be changed? It worked, but now it has ceased to work. For us it is kind of problematic to write such a thing. Why don’t you?” #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
What could I say to this? For sure, democracy and human rights have a basic, universal value and are perhaps not less (or even more?) important than economic growth and rising living standards, but really all of that is intertwined. Generally speaking, people are disrespected because they do not have enough money, because the color of their skin, religion, physical appearance and what type of house they live in and the car they drive. However, as standards of living increases, through economic growth, people become more rational, better education, and have more money to defend themselves in a court of law, so people reconsider violating these peoples’ human rights because they know they may suffer dire financial and legal consequences as a result, which could impact their freedom and reputation. However, on a macro level, we are seeing people raging against the capitalistic regime and they are actually fighting to restrict freedoms and destroy human dignity; information block-outs are now occurring because a handful of corporations own the media outlets and are fighting to conceal the truth; as well as cynical politicians consorting with the World’s most dictatorial and criminal regimes, which often get a helping hand from Washington when the global community tries to do something to put an end to their brutalities (notably, America tends to mind its own business and condemns brutal regimes for massacres of all people or for developing weapons of mass destruction; it always repeats honest and genuine calls to resolve issues peacefully and not to interfere with internal affairs when possible), naturally, this causes resentment, anger, and indignation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
It is a moral and historical obligation of all America and all honest people in the World who care about justice, the rule of law, mortality, and individual freedom to do their best to send the global leadership a clear message about it. On the other hand, values, ideals, and emotions are not the right starting point when your task is to analyze the logic of the evolution of the country’s political system. And there the truth is that America is approaching the task of changing its political system in the very same way it has approached the task of the economic reforms; gradual, evolutionary, but persistent. Its ruling elite is really trying to find workable answers to key and very difficult questions, while avoiding, by all means, any abrupt revolutionary change. At the dawn of 2020, President Trump proclaimed that everything which is good for a human being is capitalism, that is it not so important if you drive a Cadillac or BMW as long as it is made in America or Europe, and that there is no problem with some Americans becoming rich earlier than others. A variety of forms of ownership is encouraged to give a boost to private enterprise and less the burden on social programs. Many affluent people, this may come to a surprise to some, when they retire, it is funded 100 percent by private investments. Wealthy and upper-class Americans have always felt shameful to use government resources, that is why they believe in capitalism. They want to pay for their lunch. After his election, President Trump boosted the stock market to record highs, we saw property value soar (which is a good thing because it puts money in the banks of homeowners), and unemployment reach a historic low. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Also, although President Trump is a Republican, he is also a business owner. He fought to make sure each and every America, no matter if they pack income taxes or not, and every business received stimulus money. This helped avoid a depression that would have been much more severe than the Great Depression. Because people have hope, they did not jump from buildings to end their lives like they did during the great depression. President Trump also made sure all Americans has access to medical care, that they had food on the table and that fuel prices remained low so people could get back to work and school. He also told people that they have a right to tell authorities about their grievances, in a respectful manner, but that is they got out of line that the situation would be dealt with by using necessary force. He also told Congress and state and local leaders that they are to listen to what the people say, as long as they are respectful, and seek solutions for the issues they pose. Also, perhaps, America is the World leader in terms of the number of high-ranking officials executed for corruption-related crimes. The FBI prosecuted several government officials in Sacramento when they raided the state capitol. Again, any changes America makes will not be abrupt: from one party of rule to full-fledged multiparty politics, but evolutionary and very gradual, which is why it is very important to people to actually to research about political issues and politicians and vote accordingly. Many people used to vote democratic because they wanted high welfare benefits and more social programs, but as you see, many democrats are using the money to build sports complexes and remodel state buildings and put in bike lanes and resurface sidewalks, while affordable housing needs are ignored. So a Republican may be your best bet. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
As any business owner will tell you, if your employees cannot take care of themselves, they will not take good care of your business. Therefore, a business owner might make a better President, than a politician because they are used to dealing with human concerns. Citizens are being encouraged by federal law enforcement to stop criticizing the ruling party too strongly because otherwise they may face tough penalties—for example, for disturbing the social order or for being a public nuisance. President Trump was even in the works of making a government news broadcast channel, like FOX News or CNN, so you could get the information directly and unfiltered from the government. That way, private entities and special interest groups will not be able to distort the information for profit. In other words, the major trend is and will be a shift from an outdated communist dictatorship of the traditional type to a more sophisticated political system with a democratic base. This will make the information projected over the airwaves more legitimate in the eyes of World and public opinion or at least to argue that it is legitimate and that it cares about democracy. Look around you and you will see: America is one of the best countries in the World. Now, prostitution is an economic activity, and it is one many people turn to when they cannot feed their families, and this is why the government likes to keep social programs because no matter how rich a person is or what political party, they are part of, their kids could become involved in prostitution if they have no other way to survive. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The prostitutes-as-business-women and prostitutes-as-loving-partners identifications were made possible by a men-as-expense symbolic landscape where men were defined in relation to money because involvement with them was seen as necessitating payment in the form of “opportunity costs” (id est, vales which must be given up in order to achieve something) and “hidden costs” (id est values which are unknown at the time of calculation). The men-as-expense symbolic nexus was a construction of involvement with men in general rather than involvement with men in the context of engagement in prostitution. Hence, Sophie (aged 28) made the comment: “If you get involved with a man—ANY MAN—there’s always a price to pay. There’s always responsibility to give him money or something. You never can get away with it for free.” Throughout all the respondents’ talk there were differences drawn between the actual opportunity cost incurred by relationships with different categories of men. Involvement with pimps, boyfriends and the police were described as necessitating an opportunity cost in that the women understood involvement with all these men as providing them with “sanctuary” from prostitution or protection from prostitution-related risks, but at different and specific prices. “What I was left with was absolute fear and terror—a loneliness on a level I didn’t know existed. I didn’t feel like a human being anymore,” Michelle shares of her heartbreaking story of addiction—an addiction that eventually drove her to become a prostitute. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Most of the women spoke about boyfriends with whom they were or had been involved and who gave them sanctuary from prostitution through financially supporting them. However, the women described such involvement as costing them their independence and it was their unwillingness to pay this price that, they believed, lead to the break up of those relationships. Similarly, involvement with policemen was seen as offering the women protection from prostitution-related violence, especially against violence from pimps. In her moments of deepest darkness, Michelle began entertaining the idea that maybe God could help her, maybe He could provide hope and light like to one else could. “My World changed. You don’t life a life like that and then have things change overnight. It took some time,” she says. Indeed, two other women recalled that it was only after the intervention of the police that they were able to leave their pimps. However, here, the police did not arrest the pimps, rather they arrested the women and took them to hostels or other helping agencies. The price for this was understood as being both provision of information to the police, and more importantly being “indebted” to the particular policeman who provided the help. In one of her moments of desperation, Michelle heard a knock on the door. Two police officers were on her doorstep and wanted to share a message with her. “I needed to know that Heavenly Father loved me. Once I started to believe that—to believe that I was a child of God, that I want not the sum of my behavior, that I was not too broke and not too damaged. I was not unlovable. I was loveable and I was worth it, and He would send His police officers to knock on the door to make me feel loved that night.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Lastly, in relation in relation to pimps, more than half of the interviewees talked of making calculations about the quality of protection that pimps could offer them (against violence from johns or intimidation by other pimps) in exchange for the financial exploitation to which they would have to submit. This was most clearly seen in the women’s discussion of “big, bad pimps.” “Once they know who you’re working for and what status he’s got—like who’s the baddest, who’s got the gun and who hasn’t. You have only to mention his name and that was that. People leave you alone. Other [pimps] and other girls just leave you be. They don’t meddle because he’s psychotic! He’s notorious! He’s one very sick and twisted individual. People are afraid of him. (Anna, aged 36.) Of course, the obvious irony is that, although the women understood involvement with their pimps as a form of opportunity cost, providing them with protection, in reality, these pimps provided them with little protection and, in fact, exposed to them further violence and certainly to further financial exploitation. (I supposed they must have shorted him on his money.) In contrast, involvement with men as partners was described by the women as incurring “hidden costs.” In two cases, the hidden cost was initial entrance into prostitution. Both women talked about “having the knickers charmed off” them and being talked into engaging in prostitution. The cost was hidden because it only emerged after their relationships with these men were established. More commonly, however, was the woman’s understanding of the cost of maintaining their relationships as being their continued involvement in prostitution. As Anna (aged 36) stated: “There’s a lot of pressure. You have to do it, coz you need the money yourself. Then you get mixed up with someone and you have to do it again to help him, to keep a hold of him.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
A community committed to the optimal development of all its citizens will usually find—unless it is very small—that it has an array of all six types of agencies, both public and private. At the national level these are mostly grouped in the new Department of Health, Education and Welfare; at the local level, the city departments (plus some units of county and state) tend to cover the range, though very unevenly, and so do the councils of social agencies on the private side. Together they make up an impressive complement of personnel and machinery. From the administrative standpoint, not more machinery but its co-ordination to sever the family as a unit, appears to be the most pressing demand. From the standpoint of the citizen and family, however, the salient point is the effect achieved by the expenditure of resources; what matters is whether the agencies encourage dependency or foster development. Expressed in terms of values rather than functions, does the family agency attempt to define and achieve an optimal family, or does it avoid such responsibility, and merely seek to supply the most obvious and agreed-on deficiencies, as if these deficiencies were objective facts, not subject to different interpretations? In most parts of the United States of America, the hospital rather than the home is the place where babies are born and where patients with the more acute illnesses are cared for. Professional nurses and subordinate assistants have largely displaced kind relatives and helpful neighbors. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Yet while the hospitals have been taking over certain medical functions from the home, the biological scientists have been urging that greater responsibilities for nutrition, sanitation, and mental hygiene should fall upon the family itself. The vast and burdensome scale of mental disease in particular, which cannot possibly be reversed solely by psychiatric treatment at the point of breakdown, as well as an increased consciousness of the contribution of disturbed mental states to physical illness, have led physicians to expect more from the family than in the past. Nursing education steadily includes more social science. Likewise, the modern knowledge of bacterial and other origins of disease, and the biochemistry of healthful nutrition, have led to the elaboration of genuinely new functions, whereby the family may contribute to the physical competence of its members. Even if desirable, it would not be possible to have a psychiatrist, a bacteriologist, and a dietitian stand over every living unit of the community. If there is to be a rise in health along these lines, the members of each living unit must co-operate in supervising their own hygiene. It is not easy to think of a better institution for performing these functions than the competent family. There is a conspicuous problem for present families who attempt to cultivate the physical competence of their members. This is not really a medical problem at all but an economic one. It is the problem of hospital and doctor bills, and of spreading the risks of chronic or catastrophic illness. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The believer needing deliverance from the condition of passivity must first seek to understand what should be one’s normal or right condition, and then test or examine oneself in the light of it to discern if psychopathological offenders have been interfering. To do this, let one recollect a moment in one’s life which one would call one’s “best”—either in spirit, soul and body, or in one’s whole being—and then let one look upon this as one’s normal condition, one which one would want to be maintained, and never rest satisfied below it. Since the passivity has come about gradually it can only end gradually, as it is detected and destroyed. The full cooperation of the human is necessary for its removal—a major reason for the long period needed for deliverance. Deception and passivity can only be removed as the human understands, and cooperates by the use of one’s volition in the refusal of both the deception and the ground upon which it was based. It is important to keep perpetually in mind the standard of the normal condition, and should at any time the believer drop below it, to find out the cause, so as to have it removed. Whatever faculty or part of one’s being has been surrendered into passivity, and therefore lost for use, must be retaken by the active exercise of the will, and thus brought back into personal control. The ground which had been given—which caused the fall into bondage to the enemy—must be eliminated and then refuse persistently, in a steady resistance to the spirits of evil in their hold of it. Remember, the powers of psychopathological offenders will fight against the loss of any part of their kingdom in human, just as any Earthly government would fight to protect its own territory and subjects. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
However, the “Stronger than he” is the Conqueror, and will strengthen the believer for the battle and full recovery of the spoil. First of all, the method of correlation is seen in action, the posing of existential questions followed by theological answers in the form of Christian symbols. Up to now the method of correlation has not been explicitly operative; rather, we have synthesized the union of religion and culture. Second, God, the Christ, the church, history—corresponds to the major divisions of Systematic Theology, and so we gradually progress systematically and express a lifetime of theological endeavor. The existential question is the question of being, and the answer is God. Also treated is the problem of the natural-supernatural and the problem of symbolism, or the way to speak about God. Thus we probe into the depth-dimension which underlies theonomous cultural forms, the holy which shines through the secular, the ground of being which alone can command the ultimacy of an ultimate concern. God is the answer to the question implied in being. We are nominalist by birth. And as nominalist we are inclined to dissolve our World into things. However, the true ontological question does not try to describe the nature of beings, either in their universal, generic qualities, or in their individual, historical manifestation. It simply asks: What does it mean to be? The profundity and the seriousness of the question is realized only in a “metaphysical shock”—the shock of possible nonbeing. The question, “Why is there something, why not nothing” produces the shock by peering into the abyss of possible nothingness. However, the answer to the question is always in terms of being, which permits it to be posed again and again in infinite regression. Furthermore, nonbeing cannot answer it, for nonbeing depends upon being. Therefore, we cannot go beyond being in order to explain being. However, there could be something, a state, beyond being and nonbeing that we cannot comprehend. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Magnolia Station will include 81 homesites and five distinct plans ranging from 2,200 – 3,700 square feet, with up to 7 bedrooms; including three single story plans!
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In a Few Years, California Will be the Capitol of Mexico
I confess that what I saw during my time of travel and investigation left me with a very heavy heart. The work to be done in order to lift these people up seemed almost beyond accomplishing. The debate over the nature and extend of the relationship between heroin used and criminal activity is a long-standing one which has generated a voluminous literature. An increase in criminality commonly occurs in conjunction with increased heroin use in the United States of America. The addict of lower socioeconomic class is generally a criminal primarily because illicit narcotics are costly and because one can secure one’s daily requirements more readily by committing crimes that will pay for them. The Heroin addict has a criminality that maybe a consequence of addiction, albeit an indirect one. As physical dependence upon and tolerance for heroin increases, and the cost of progressively larger dosages of heroin increase proportionally, some addicts seem to be driven to criminal means to satisfy his or her habit. Empirically, this hypothesis predicts a linear increase in heroin consumption and a corresponding increase in criminal activity necessary to support it. In contrast, a second hypothesis maintains that the principal explanation for the association between drug abuse and crime is likely to be found in the subcultural attachment comprised of the criminal associations, identifications, and activities of those persons who eventually become addicted. The basis for this hypothesis can only be understood in the context of the contemporary sociolegal milieu in which narcotics use takes place. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Since the criminalization of heroin in 1914, the social World of narcotics has become increasingly intertwined with the broader criminal subculture. Consequently, would-be narcotics users inevitably associate with other criminals in the highly criminal copping areas of inner cities, and, indeed, are often recruited from delinquent and criminal networks. Through these criminal associations, therefore, the individual is introduced to heroin, and both crime and heroin use are facilitated and maintained. Empirically, this second hypothesis predicts increases in heroin use following or coinciding with periods of criminal association and activity. A shorthand title for the first hypothesis is “Drugs cause crimes”; for the second “Crimes cause drugs.” Our contribution to understand the dynamics of the drugs-crime connection is based upon life-history interviews with 32 hard core heroin addicts in the Sacramento, California area. We purposely selected the respondents on the basis of their extensive involvement in the heroin subculture. All of the respondents had extensive contact with the criminal justice system. At the time of interview, 24 of the 32 respondents were incarcerated or under some form of correctional authority supervision (exempli gratia, supervised custody, work release, parole, or probation). While this places certain limits on the generalization that can be made from these data, the focus of this study is the dynamics of addiction among heavily-involved street addicts. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
To further highlight this experience, controlled users or “chippers” will not have experienced many of the dynamics reported here. Similarly physicians, nurses, and middle class “prescription abusers” are not typically subject to many of the constraints experienced by lower-class street users. Hence, it is important to emphasize that the findings we report here are intended to describe “hard core” urban heroin addicts. Women are slightly overrepresented, constituting 14 of the 32 respondents. Ethnically, the sample consist of 23 African-Americans and nine European-Americans; Hispanic-Americans are not represented because there was no access to them at the time of this study. Respondents were paid five dollars per hour for their interview time, which undoubtedly contributed to the 100 percent response rate. The interviews ranged from 10 to 25 hours in length, with each interview session averaging between three and four hours. With a single exception, all of the interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. Respondents and most of the street respondents were selected with the assistance of treatment personnel who were carefully instructed regarding the goals of the research and selection criteria. This strategy proved invaluable for two reasons. First, by utilizing treatment personnel in the screening process, we were able to avoid the time-consuming task of establishing the “appropriateness” of respondents for the purposes of this research: the treatment personnel were already intimately familiar with the drug-using and criminal histories of the respondents. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Second, the treatment personnel had an unusually positive relationship with Sacramento-area drug users. The treatment counselor in the prison system was regarded as an ally in the quest for better living conditions, appeals for early release, et cetera, and was regarded as highly trustworthy in the prison subculture. His frequent confrontations with prison inmates. Similarly, the treatment counselor who assisted in the selection of street respondents was carefully selected on the basis of his beneficial involvement with street addicts. His relationship with area addicts is a long-standing and multifaceted one. His reputation among street addicts was firmly established when he successfully negotiated much needed reforms in one of the local treatment agencies. Because of the long-standing beneficial relationship they had with area addicts, this initial contact by treatment personnel greatly facilitated our establishing necessary rapport. After a few initial interviews were completed, several broad focal areas emerged which formed the basis for future questioning. Respondents were interviewed regarding: childhood and early adolescent experiences which may have served as predisposing factors for eventual drugs/criminal involvement: initial encounters with various types of drugs and criminality; the evolution of their drug and criminal careers; their patterns of activity during peak periods of drug use and criminality, including descriptions of typical days during these periods; their preferences for types of crimes and drugs; the structure of understanding guiding drug use and criminal activity; and their perception of the nature and effectiveness of drug treatment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Structuring the life-history interviews in this way insured that most relevant career phases were covered while at the same time it permitted the respondents a great deal of flexibility in interpreting their experiences. One of the earliest strategies for testing the Drug-cause-crime versus Crimes-cause-drugs hypotheses involved trying to establish that a pattern of regular or extensive criminal behavior typically precedes heroin addiction, that finding would tend to support the Crimes-cause-drugs hypothesis. Conversely, is a pattern of regular or extensive criminality tends to develop after the onset of heroin addiction, that finding would tend to support the Drugs-cause-crimes hypothesis. Previous research on this question is mixed, but mixed in a systematic way. Most of the early studies found little criminality before the onset of opiate addition. Later studies, by contrast, have shown a high probability of criminality preceding heroin addiction. Our life-history interviews are consistent with the findings of the recent studies. All of our respondents reported some criminal activity prior to their first use of heroin. However, for nearly all of our respondents, both their criminal careers and their heroin-using careers began slowly. For the respondents in our study, a median of 3.5 years elapsed between their first serious criminal offense and subsequent involvement in criminal activity on a regular basis. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
Likewise, all of our respondents reported at least occasional use of other illicit drugs prior to their first experience with heroin. Moreover, many of our respondents indicated that they spent substantial periods of time—months and even years—using heroin on an occasional basis (“chipping” or “chippying”), either inhaling the powder (“sniffing” or “snorting”), injecting the prepared (“cooked”) mixture subcutaneously (“skinpopping”), or receiving occasional intravenous injections from other users before becoming regular users themselves. Perhaps most importantly, virtually all of our respondents reported that they believed that their criminal and drug careers began independently of one another, although both careers became intimately interconnected as each evolved. In the earliest phases if their drug and crime careers, the decision to commit crimes and the decision to use drugs were choices which our respondents believed they freely chose to make and which they believed they could have discontinued before either choice became a way of life. From our interviews it appears that two very general factors shape and influence the drug and crime careers of our respondents, not only during the early stages of each career but as each career evolves through different stages. The first of these factors in the availability of heroin rather than the level of physical tolerance the user has developed “The more you had the more you did,” explains “Mona” a thirty-year-old female. “And if all you have was $10 than that’s all you did…But if you had $200 then you did that much.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Addicts are able to adjust to periods of sharply decreased availability (exempli gratia “panic” periods when supplies of street heroin disappear) by reducing consumption or my using alternative drugs (exempli gratia methadone). They are also able to manipulate availability, increasing or decreasing it in ways and for reason we will discuss. As we use the term, availability also means something more than access to sellers of heroin who have quantities of the drug to sell. By availability we also mean the resources and opportunities to buy the drug to sell. By availability we also mean the resources and opportunities to buy heroin or obtain it in other ways as well as the skills necessary to use it. In short, availability is understood to include considerations of all of those opportunities and obstacles which may influence a heroin user’s success in introducing a quantity of the drug into his or her bloodstream. The second general factor shaping the drugs and crime careers of our life-history interviewees is life-structure. By “life structure” we mean regularly occurring patterns of daily domestic, occupational, recreational, or criminal activity. Recent ethnographic accounts of heroin-using careers in several major cities reveal that, like their “straight” counterparts, most addicts maintain reasonably predictable daily routines. Throughout their lives or respondents fulfilled, to one degree or another, conventional as well as criminal and other subcultural roles. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
In fact, during most periods of their crime and drug careers, our interviewees spent far more time engaged in conventional as well as criminal and other subcultural roles. In fact, during most periods of their crime and drug careers, our interviewees spent far more time engaged in conventional role activities than in criminal deviant ones. Many worked conventional jobs. Women with children performed routine housekeeping and child-rearing duties. Many leisure-time activities did not differ from those of non-addicts. These hard-core addicts spent time grocery shopping, tinkering with cars, visiting relatives, talking with friends, listening to records, and watching television in totally unremarkable fashion. Life structure in the hard core criminal addict’s life can be also provided by some rather stable forms of criminal activity. Burglars spend time staking out business establishments. Shoplifters typically establish “runs,” more or less stable sequences of targeted stores from which to “boost” during late morning, noon, and early afternoon hours, saving the later afternoon for fencing what they have stolen. Prostitutes typically keep a regular evening and night-time schedule, which runs from 7 P.M. to 3 A.M. Mornings are usually spent sleeping and afternoons are usually occupied with conventional duties. It is within this structure of conventional and criminal roles that buying (“copping”), selling (“dealing”), and using (“shooting”) heroin takes place. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Likewise, prostitutes seek to manage their drug use so that neither withdrawal symptoms (“joneses”) nor periods of heroin-induced drowsiness will interfere with their work. In order to meet the demands of criminal or conventional roles, addicts in our sample often used other drugs (exempli gratia marijuana, barbiturates, alcohol, amphetamines, methadone) to alter their moods and motivations, saving heroin as a regard for successful completing a job or meeting other obligations. Of one thing I felt more strongly convinced than ever, after spending time in seeing the actual life of these people, and that was that, in order to life them up, something must be done more than merely imitate New England education as it existed. I saw more clearly than ever the wisdom of the system which General Armstrong had inaugurated at Hampton. To take these people, and each day give them a few hours of education, I felt would be almost a waste. The shock is great when one first apprehends the truth of deception as possible for oneself; but as the ultimate issue is realized, the joy of the one who sets oneself to understand and fight through to full deliverance is more than words can tell. Light pours in upon the unsolved problems of years, in both one’s personal experience and in the perplexities surrounding one, as well as on the conditions in the Church and in the World. As one seeks for light from the ultimate concern, the subtle inroads of the deceiving spirits into one’s life slowly become clear to the open-minded believer; and their many devices to deceive one stand revealed as the searchlight of truth goes far back into the past, uncovering the cause of unaccountable difficulties in experience and life, and many mysterious happenings which had been accepted as “the inscrutable will of God.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
PASSIVITY! How many have fallen into it, little knowing their state! Through the misuse of their faculties much time is lost in dependence upon the help of outward circumstances and environment. In the lives of so many there is much “doing,” with so little accomplished…many beginnings, and few endings. How familiar we are with the words, “Yes, I can do that,” and the impulse is there, but by the time the need for action has come the passive man has lost his momentary interest. This is the key to much of the lamented “apathy” and the dulled sympathy of Christians to really spiritual things, while they are keenly alive to the social or Worldly elements around them. The Worldling can be stirred in acutest feeling for the sufferings of others, but many of the children of God have, unknowingly, opened themselves to a supernatural power which has dulled them in thought and mind and sympathy. Ever craving for comfort and happiness and peace in spiritual things, they have sung themselves into a “passivity”—id est, a passive state of “rest,” “peace” and “joy”—which has given opportunity to the powers of darkness to lock them up in the prison of themselves, and thus make them incapable of sensitively understanding the needs of a suffering World. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
The equilibrium between cultural substance and form is achieved in a theonomy which embraces the truth of autonomy and heteronomy while avoiding their errors. Theonomy rejects both a divine law imposed by outside authority and a self-sufficient reason divorced from its depth. It demands that man seek a superior law which is at the same time rooted in the divine ground of being that lies at the depth of reason. The result is a theonomous culture which expresses in its creation an ultimate concern and a transcending meaning not as something strange but as its own spiritual ground. Theonomous creations are vessels of a spiritual content. Religion is the substance of culture, and culture the form of religion. Theonomy, autonomy, and heteronomy as cultural types constantly act and interact in dialectical fashion. The shallowness of an autonomous, secularized culture creates a vacuum of despair, a sacred void which preludes the advent of a theonomous period in which empty cultural forms receive substance and depth. Theonomy, however, tends to degenerate into an oppressive heteronomy which, in turn, provokes an autonomous reaction, and so the cycle begins anew. For instance, Clement and Origen created a Christian theonomy which later came under the heteronomous influence of Athanasius and Augustine. The Middle Ages stated a theonomy and ended in heteronomy. The Renaissance had theonomous qualities, but deteriorated into autonomy. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
The Reformation itself developed into the heteronomy of Protestant orthodoxy and then succumbed to the triumphant autonomy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These examples illustrate that theonomy, though realizable, is ever fragile and incomplete. Its victory is always fragmentary because of the existential estrangement underlying human history, and its defeat is always limited by the fact that human nature is essentially theonomous. A description of the general qualities of a theonomous culture serves to highlight the reciprocal influence of the three cultural types. The first characteristic of theonomy is that it communicates the experience of holiness, of something ultimate inbeing and meaning, in all its creations. This theonomous style appears even in the most limited vehicles of meaning—a painted flower, a family habit, a technical tool, a form of social intercourse, the vision of a historical figure, an epistemological theory, a political document, and so on. The second characteristic is the affirmation of the autonomous forms of the creative process. The moment theonomy fails to respect legitimate autonomy and the freedom of the human spirit, it becomes heteronomy. The third characteristic of a theonomous culture is its permanent struggle against both an independent autonomy and an independent heteronomy. Only theonomy can prevent them from inflicting upon mankind either a meaningless or a destructive culture. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
Asking which nations will dominate the 21st century is an exciting game. However, it is, in fact, the wrong question to ask—or at least the wrong form on which to ask it—because it overlooks what could turn out to be the biggest change in global affairs since the rise of the nation-state: the coming of the Global Gladiators. A new group of power-seekers are leaping onto the World stage and seizing sizable chunks of the clout once control by nations alone. Some are good; some, decidedly psychopaths. When a blood-besotted Ayatollah Khomeini called for a martyr to murder Salman Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses Mr. Khomeini denounced as blasphemous, he sent a historic message to all the World’s governments. That message was instantly communicated via satellite, television, and print. The message, however, was totally misunderstood. One may argue that Mr. Rushdie’s book was in bad taste, that it deliberately offended many Muslims, that it derided an entire religion, that it violated the Koran. Indeed, Mr. Khomeini said these things. However, that was not the real message. Mr. Khomeini was telling the World that the nation-state is no longer the only, or even the most important, actor on the World stage. Superficially, Mr. Khomeini seemed to be saying that Iran, itself a sovereign state, had the “right” to dictate what the citizens of other equally sovereign nations could or could not read. In claiming this right, and threatening to enforce it with terrorism, Mr. Khomeini suddenly catapulted censorship from a matter of domestic concern to the level of a global issue. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
In a World that is witnessing the glocalization of the economy and the globalization of the media, Mr. Khomeini was demanding the globalization of mind-control. Other religions, in past eras, have asserted a similar right, and burned heretics at the stake. However, in threatening cross-border assassination, Mr. Khomeini was doing more than attacking Salman Rushdie—a British citizen. He was challenging the most fundamental right of any nation-state, the right to protect its citizens at home. What Mr. Khomeini was really telling us was that “sovereign” states are not sovereign at all, but subject to a higher Shiite sovereignty, which he alone would define—that a religion or church had rights that supersede those of mere nation-states. He was, in fact, challenging the entire structure of “modern” international law and custom, which until then had been based on the assumption that nations are the basic units, they key players on the global stage. This assumption pictured a planet neatly divided into states, each with its flag and army, its clearly mapped territory, a seat in the U.N., and certain reasonably defined legal rights. It is no accident that, to much of the World, Mr. Khomeini seemed a cruel throwback to the preindustrial era. He was. His assertion of the rights of religion over nation-states paralleled the doctrine medieval Popes expressed during centuries of bloody church-state conflict. The reason this is important is that we may well be circling back to the kind of World system that existed before industrialism, before political power was packaged into clearly defined national entities. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
That pre-smokestack World was a hodgepodge of city-states, pirate-held ports, feudal princedoms, religious movements, and other entities, all scrambling for power and asserting rights that we, today, assume belong only to governments. What we might now call nations were few and far between. It was a heterogeneous system. By contrast, the nation-state system that evolved during the smokestack centuries was far more standardized and uniform. We are now moving back to a more heterogeneous global system again—only in a fast-changing World of high technology, instantaneous communication, nuclear missiles, and chemical warfare. This is an immense leap that carries us forward and backward at the same time, and propels religion once more to the center of the global stage. And not just Islamic extremism. A totally different case in point is the growing global power of the Catholic Church. Papal diplomacy has figured recently in major political changes from the Philippines to Panama. In Poland, where the church won admiration for its courageous opposition to the communist regime, it has emerged as a dominant force behind the first noncommunist government. Vatican diplomats claim that the recent changes all across Eastern Europe were, in large measure, triggered by Pope John Paul II. The Pope is no fanatic and has reached out to other religions. He has spoken out against interethnic violence. Yet echoes of a long-distant pre-secular past are heard in his call for a “Christian Europe” and his repeated criticism of Western European democracies. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
The Pope’s policies call to mind a long-forgotten document that was circulated in European capitals in 1918 urging the creation of a Catholic superstate made up of Bavaria, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Bohemia, Slovakia, and Poland. The Pope’s proposed Christian (though presumably not exclusively Catholic) Europe today embraces all of Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, with a population of nearly 800 million people. Such religious stirrings are part of the gathering attack on the secular assumptions that underpinned democracy in the industrial era and kept a healthy distance between church and state. (If Europe is Christian, as distinct from secular, where do nonbelievers fit in, or Hindus or Jews, or the 13 million Muslim immigrants encouraged to come to Europe to serve as affordable labor in the recent past? (Some Muslim fundamentalists actually dream of Islamicizing Europe. Says the director of the Institute of Islamic Culture in Paris: “In a few years Paris will be capital of Islam, just as Baghdad and Cairo were in other eras.”) The emerging global power game in the decades ahead cannot be understood without taking into account the rising power of Islam, Catholicism, and other religions—or of global conflicts and holy wars among them. I know that one who makes a mistake does so because of one’s own lack of opportunity for the highest growth. I pity those type of people because I know that they are trying to stop the progress of the World, and because I know that in time the development and the ceaseless advance of humanity will make one ashamed of one’s weak and narrow position. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Self-regulation and autonomy have emerged as key predictors of health and well-being in several areas of psychology. Autonomy has been provisionally defined as the ability to be one’s self. Analytically considered, it involves and requires knowing one’s self; having or finding an unambiguous identity to refer to in each situation; and being able to govern one’s self in the sense of being able to choose among alternatives. The development of autonomy is not synonymous with the development with a self, though emergence of a self is indispensable. The growth of autonomy is taken as measurable and as varying within and among individuals over time. Preliminary work indicates that a satisfactory index can be devised, although the invention of such a measure requires considerable analysis of the pattern in which autonomy is exhibited, so as to differentiate these as consequents from the reproducible condition hypothecated as their regular antecedents. The giving and receiving of characterizations of self and others not only exhibit various degrees of ease and constraint, but whether one’s self-concept is ratified rather than enforced by others is often ambiguous. That human beings are characterized by the possession of selves. Experimentally, it requires that the antecedent conditions conducive to increase in autonomy be distinguishable from autonomy as a dependent variable. Because autonomy is perhaps more vulnerable than any other component of competence to being constructed as a state of affairs, a trait, or a form of virtuous conduct following definite commandments, it is important to reiterate that it is here regarded as an acquired ability to handle certain aspects of problematic interpersonal situations with greater or lesser success. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Health which itself is one of the components of competence, significantly conditions all the other components including autonomy. The condition of health—nutrition, rest, hygiene—are therefore indirectly biological conditions of autonomy. However, there are a few biological conditions which more directly affect autonomy than through their influence upon physical health. In marriage and family living, these concern sexual adequacy and fertility, where these enter into self-respect and sense of worth, in the estimation of self and others. To the extent that sexual adequacy and skill can be improved by knowledge, practice, or medical treatment, a contribution is made by knowledge, practice, or medical treatment, a contribution is made to autonomy, id est, the person becomes more able to handle interpersonal situations making demands upon one’s sexual competence. The fact that there is a circular relationship here, in which autonomy significantly affects sexual functioning, implies the reverse proposition as a corollary hypothesis worthy of investigation. Fatigue as a biological variable distinguishable from health significantly conditions autonomy, and is also often the product of absence of autonomy. If practices are followed by which energy is fostered and fatigue diminished, at those times when the severest demands are made upon autonomy, autonomous capacity is itself increased. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Association in play exclusively with those with whom one is at a physical disadvantage, especially in the same family, leads to recurrent experiences of failure and submission which inhibit the development of autonomy. The optimal distributional of success and failures occurs when physical opponents are evenly matched in competition. The more adequate sexual satisfaction is in marriage, the less frequent is extra-marital sexual experience and consequent threats to mutually supported self-esteem. Cultivation of physical appearance—ccomplexion, weight, grace, posture, grooming—contributes to the growth of autonomy. Space for physical privacy and quiet—reduction of stimulation—facilitates the integration of new conceptions of self, especially during adolescence, and thus contributes to the development of autonomy. Autonomy is positively corelated with children’s opportunity progressively to earn money for performance of economically significant work and to gain practice in the management of their own economic affairs. (Safeguards against exploitation are assumed.) Economic independence develops autonomy, while chronic dependence undermines autonomy, unemployment undermines autonomy. Work which continually challenges the capacities of the person without taxing them beyond their limits enhances autonomy. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Continuous employment at work far below one’s level of capacity reduces autonomy. Continuous employment at work which exceeds one’s capacities and causes a chronic judgment of failure by others and self reduces autonomy. Continual exposure to marked differences of reward for comparable effort reduces autonomy, whereas recognition of differences of effort by differences of reward enhances autonomy. Autonomy develops in direct proportions to the experience of participation in governing the conditions of economic life. Constant exposure to the inducement of wants which cannot realistically be satisfied reduces autonomy, whereas the inducement of wants which cannot realistically be satisfied reduces autonomy, whereas the inducement of wants within the range of realistic anticipation of achieving the means of realizing them encourages the growth of autonomy. Exclusive evaluation of personal worth by monetary standards reduces autonomy, whereas making available multiple criteria of personal worth cultivates autonomy. Voluntary and informed participation in the production of valued goods and services develops autonomy. Team play means that you alone cannot get too far out ahead of the troops. You cannot because in our company it is necessary to consult and check over everything. Someone will ask whether this does not lead to a certain amount of mediocrity. It does. There is an optimal balance of work and leisure which maximizes autonomy. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
It would be safe to say that overall, China has been fighting excessive lending and financial bubbles more persistently and successfully than most countries in the West. Chinese financial institutions do not play with tricky structured financial instruments the way their Western counterpart do—both because of tight government regulations and the lack of market infrastructure as well as financiers who are versed in such transactions. It goes without saying that financial sectors in China and in the West are going through different development stages. However, in the global economic arena China and the West are competing in a real-time format—and in this competition, paradoxically, China’s earlier stage works as a source of strength, shielding it from financial gambling risks the West is fighting, often unsuccessfully. Also, there is little doubt that from now on, while further developing its financial instruments, China will act much more cautiously than most of its Western counterparts, paying much more attention to accommodating and minimizing associated risks. In the West it is often argued that a wide variety of financial instruments, including risky ones, is needed to create money, which is invested in various industries. Nevertheless, China provides plenty of funds for the country’s industries—sometimes, according to Chinese financial authorities, even more than necessary. Today it is Western businesses that are facing a tighter credit squeeze. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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The Feeling of Being Watched and Impending Danger Gradually Increased
Shortly before nine o’ clock, a butler, dressed in an azure tailcoat and navy-blue breeches, escorted Me to my estate. A coldly sumptuous hall, it was the first point of entry to the 600-room mansion. Rows of muskets, taller than a man, and hundreds of swords, their blades sharp-edged and glinting lined its walls. From the vaulted ceiling hung several beautiful chandeliers. Directly in front of them, a magnificent staircase swept to the state rooms on the upper floors; and yet, as the butler led me across the hall, he veered to the right, heading for its farther corner. There, he ushered me through a discreet swing door. We had stepped into the “invisible World.” Behind the secret door, the entire ground floor was devoted to privacy. A magnificent hinterland of fifty rooms, some cavernous, some no larger than a closet, it was where many of the servant lived and worked. From here, a network of passages coursed through the mansion: hidden routes, which spiraled up the narrow turrets and towers to the splendid rooms above, enabling the servants to carry out their duties unobserved. One might ask, why was I touring the part of my home? It was through this labyrinth of passages, deep in the servants quarters, where the rooms were subjects of wild speculations, fueled by servants’ fears that someone had come back from the dead. It seems a few of the servants had been thinking of ways to make money. One of the servants, Olov told Stellan about a plan to end their money troubles. The scheme was simple. Each of the men would take a life insurance policy out of another one of the servants, twenty-year-old Leif Titus. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
They would say that they had helped raise and support Leif in his life and were looking for reimbursement for their help upon his death. There was nothing illegal about that. Then they would wait awhile before killing Leif, collect on the policies, and all of their money troubles would be over. Stellan asked who would kill Leif. “That’s the beauty of it,” Olov told his friend. “We each kick in a percentage of the policy money to pay an assassin so none of us has to do the killing.” Stellan was quiet for a moment, and then he nodded. They could get someone at the tavern to do it. Olov arranged for a meeting with Duke. They worked it all out the details of the murder plot and agreed to execute the plan. The other men paid Duke $400 to arrange and carry out the murder. This was a lot of money, so Duke agree to do the deed. June 6, 1890, was just another day to Leif Titus as he went about his work on the estate. He was not surprised when Olov told them that their friend Duke had come by to see if he might want to go for a drink later that evening. The two men had hung out at the tavern from time to time, so he readily accepted the invitation. The two men set off after work. It was after dark and Leif and Duke rode horse back to the tavern. However, before getting their Duke fired his rifle, Leif horse was scared, threw him from the saddle. He fell off the horse, hitting his head on the cobble stones and his life had been snuffed out for $9,000 in life insurance policies. It was the perfect crime, or so it seemed to the men. They said that Leif fell off his horse and died on the way back from the tavern. And they seemed to have gotten away with it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Saturday night, Olov arrived back to my estate, and went to his room to lie down on his bed. He had not been there long when he heard noises. As he was just involved in a plot that robbed another man of his life, he became quite nervous. That night, there were doors opening and closing, footsteps of unseen guests. As he got up to go investigate, Olov felt a strange touch at his back; then a tug; then he felt the back of his sweater pulled several inches away from his back. He turned to look over his shoulder and wondered how, without moving, he could have hooked his sweater on something. However, there was nothing upon which his sweater could have been stuck. Just then he saw Stellan, eyes wide with astonishment. He blurted out to Olov, “I just saw the back of your sweater pull out all by itself!” Later the following evening Olov was closing up the mansion for the night, at about 9.00 P.M. Like all Victorian homes, “The House Built by Spirits” has its share of creaks and groans. Creaks and groans are one thing—but witnessing something supernatural is another thing entirely. He was turning out the lights. The house, as the light are slowly being extinguished, does have a certain “feeling” to it: as it grows dark, one gets the inkling that one need to hurry, that someone—or something—cannot wait for you to leave so that they may get on with their existence—if that is what one could call it—in peace. Moving from the parlor to the morning room, he casually looked into the darkened stairwell. His eye was caught by the manifestation of a spectral being. A strange man with long hair appeared in the morning room. Olov mistake this spectral man for a servant. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
When he realized his mistake, Olov hurried forward to see who the person was. As he watched the figure, the long-haired man moved out of the morning room, he followed him. Just as the icy fingers of fear had begun to trace a slow, deliberate path up the length of his spine, the figure floated the through the mahogany wall and disappeared. Stellan arrived to find Olov in a near state of panic. While in the servants’ quarters, he had been sitting in a chair with his back to the door. He heard the door open and close and the sound of footsteps enter the house and approach the spot directly behind his chair. Imagine the horror when he turned around and saw a misty figure take the form of a tall man all in gray. The ghost, wearing a tattered Revolutionary War uniform, looked unkempt with long hair and a grizzled appearance. Olov screamed, but it was only second before the specter faded away. When Stellan reached him, his was quivering and inconsolable. Stellan then figure it would be a good idea for the two men to quit their jobs and move north. After all, they now had the money to do so, they were rich. On that evening, Olov wandered into a dark and deserted section of the mansion. This was the most active area of the mansion and too dangerous to inhabit. The stairway to the attic was narrow and winding. Suddenly a shrill scream came from the attic. Stellan ran to the fourth floor where Olov was discovered lying on the floor, stabbed through the heart. He was dead. Stellan figured the men had been hexed, and he would be the next one to die. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Stellan went into a secret room under one of the kitchens through a trap door—a secret room that house Mrs. Winchester’s magic. He was looking for her book of spells in the secret room. However, there was someone in that room, perhaps waiting for a century or more, for someone to open the trap door. Walking through the small, arched doorway, the room was furnished and there were antique carpets near the alter. He heard music and instruments. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure of a small woman, seemingly cloaked in a long, dark, flowing dress with a wide-brimmed, black hat, standing in the corner. He stood for a brief moment, seeing her out of the side vision, afraid to look directly at her, since he realized that entities can sometimes only be seen through peripheral vision. Indeed, when he turned to confront the dark lady, he was struck on the head with a piece of stove wood, killing him. The story of a mysterious man in the servants quarters had spread throughout the estate, as we were touring the room that belonged to Leif, we herd the sounds of horses hooves and whips. Then sudden sound heralded the appearance of a bright figure we immediately recognized of Leif. He told us how he had died and how his poor mother was near a breakdown; after someone had dug up bushes in her yard, she took it as a sign that Leif’s body would also be dug up. He had him exhumed and reburied in the flower bed outside her house. Here she piled a huge mound of stones over his grave. Vowing to get revenge, she would sit up nights watching for grave robbers and crying for her lost son, until she died from a broken heart. And from beyond the grave, she had discovered who took the life of her son and returned the favor. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Through the years the servants on occasion have hear Olov’s shrill last crimes repeated over and over again. The antique carpets in the secret alter room were cleaned, but the bloodstain frequently reappears. One of the servants mentioned that he saw an injured man, blood, and a woman in a dark dress in the alter room, leaning up against the walls, exhausted, dirty, bloody, smelling like sweat and fear. After hearing the specter’s story, I was trembling. I said nothing for a second or two, trying to find the words. Nothing ever came to mind. It is when things are busiest in their dwelling-places that the spirits are most active. Already disposed once out of their bodies, they react when they are again dispossessed of their homes. There was a great deal of strong, negative energy coming from this particular corner of the room. From the moment on, I closed off this section of the house and had Mr. Hansen build Victorian cottages for the servants to live in and increased their pay three times more than the going rate. The servants were good and faithful people. Perhaps these ghosts and restless spirits return to remind mortals of the evil that can be done in the name of good. Many people whisper that no one can make it through this area of the mansion. It is said that strange fear grips people as they approach the servant’s wing. As they pass through the threshold, they feel that they should turn back. A feeling of being watched and of impending danger gradually rises as they wander deeper and deeper into this wing. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
O thou great and powerful King AMAYMON, who rulest by the power of the Supreme God El, over all Spirits, superior and inferior, but especially over the Infernal Order in the Dominion of the East, I invoke and command thee by the particular and true Name of God, and by the God whom thou dost worship, by the Seal of thy creation, by the most mighty and powerful Name of God TETRAGRAMMATION, who cast thee out of Heaven with the rest of the Infernal Spirits, by all the other potent and great names of God, Creator of Heaven, Earth, and Hell, of all contained therein, by their powers and virtues, and by the Name PRIMEMATUM, which commands the whole host of Heaven. Do thou force and compel the Spirit ADONAI, king of Kings here before this circle, in a fair and comely shape, without injury to myself or to any creature, that he may tide and time receive our wish, and grant us new beginnings so that we may accomplish our desires, whatsoever the be, provided that it is proper to his office, by the power of God, EL, who hath created and doth dispose of all things, celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal. ASTRACHIOS, ASACH, ASARCA, ABEDUMABAL, SLLAT, ANABOTAS, JESUBLIN, SCIOIN, DOMOL, Lord God, who dwellest above the Heavens, whose glance searchest the abyss; grant us, we pray Thee, the power to conceieve in our minds and to execute that which we desire to do, the end of which we would attain by Thy help, O God Almighty, who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
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Many False Opinion May be Exchanged for True Ones
I have learned from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are the result. The American public, for example, are quite as raw and undiscerning on subjects of political economy since the nation has been converted to free-trade, as they were before; and are still further from having acquired better habits of thought or feeling, or being in any way better fortified against error, on subjects of a more elevated character. For, though they have thrown off certain errors, the general discipline of their minds, intellectually and morally, is not alerted. I am now convinced, that no great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought. Unfortunately, our country’s ardent commitment to capitalism and the accumulation of wealth comes with a downside: Faced with the pressing need to obtain and expend monetary resources, untold scores of people simple take from their fellow citizens as a means of getting what they want. It is widely accepted that crimes against property account for the vast majority of criminal victimizations that occur annually in this country. However, these offenses tend to remain in the background of our discussions of crime, as society is much more concerned with the documentation and prevention of violent crime. This means that one must traverse a fragmented empirical and conceptual landscape when trying to piece together the nature and dynamics of what constitutes common property crime. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
When it comes to shear incidence and law enforcement workload allocation, common property crimes collectively constitute a most menacing foe. Turning to the limited list of eight Part I index crimes, we see that property offenses (burglary, arson, larceny/theft, and motor vehicle theft) accounted for 88 percent of all offenses known to the police in 2022. That translated to an official property crimes rate of 3,656 per 100,000 persons. These four offenses generated 1.6 million arrests in 2022, but this is only part of the picture. Several noteworthy forms of property crime are included on the supplemental list of Part II index offenses, namely, fraud, forgery and counterfeiting, embezzlement, receiving stolen property, and vandalism. When these offenses are added to the mix, we see that more than 2.5 million arrests for crimes against property occur each year in this country. One could legitimately include, a long list of offense when trying to frame a discussion of what constitutes “common” property crime. The list might include such offenses as burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, fraud, forgery and counterfeiting, embezzlement, receiving stolen property, and vandalism. Given its unique status as a “crime of intrusion,” burglary had been allocated its own separate discussion. Even with this significant paring, a full treatment of the remaining laundry list of property crimes is far beyond the scope of this report. Luckily, this sort of comprehensive discussion is not necessary because the similarities between these crimes far outweigh the differences. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
In the tradition of the typologies approach, we will use the single conceptual category that is termed common property crime. These two offenses were chosen for several reasons. First, they are among the most recognizable and pure forms of crimes against property. Second, their status as Part I index crimes means that comprehensive data are readily available on each. These two offenses comprise roughly 80 percent of known Part I property crimes each year and more than 50 percent of all Part I and II property crime arrests that are effected each year. The crime of larceny is steeped in a rich legal history. In common law times, the larceny statue was comprised of five essential parts: (1) an act of wrongful taking; (2) an act of carrying away; (3) a piece of property; (4) a rightful owner; and (5) the intent to permanently deprive the owner of possession. As the nature of property and property relationships grew more complicates, so too did the larceny statue. In particular, the courts had to grapple with such complex issues as ownership versus possession, misappropriations that occur while a property owner has voluntarily relinquished possession to another for shipping or safekeeping, and what exactly constitutes “property.” The result was the gradual emergence of a flexible and more amorphous legal definition of larceny that incorporates all acts of wrongful property misappropriation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Today, most jurisdictions follow the direct of the Model Penal Code and rely upon a consolidated larceny-theft statue. For example, the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) defines larceny-theft as any “unlawful taking, carrying, leading, or riding away of property from the possession or constructive possession of another.” Note that this definition effectively incorporates all forms of property theft under a single heading, regardless of the means or motivations that lay behind the act. There are two important caveats that accompany the UCR’s consolidated definition of larceny-theft. First, it does not apply to the theft of a motor vehicle. In particular, the theft or attempted theft of a self-propelled vehicle (id est, any nonmanual, nonrailrunning vehicle including cars, trucks, motorboats, construction equipment, airplane, or farming equipment) is in its own category named motor vehicle theft. Second, the UCR’s consolidated definition does not apply to acts of theft or conversion that are accomplished by “false pretenses” (id est, fraud), those thefts committed during the course of a contractual or work relationship (id est, embezzlement), or other legal contexts that would allow for the act to be categorized under the heading of specialized form of property crime. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) collapses all form of theft by taking, regardless of their manifestations (id est, by stealth or deceit) into one generic category—theft. Motor vehicle theft is afforded a separate offense designation. The NCVS classifies all nonviolent thefts from the body of a person under the heading of purse snatching or pocket picking. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Approximately 14,135,090 thefts, 1,008,720 motor vehicle thefts, and 188,370 purse snatchings/pocket pickings occurred in 2022. Combined, generic thefts, motor vehicle thefts, and purse snatchings/pocket pickings accounted from almost two-thirds of the overall victimization tall from 2022. Because crimes rates are so high and homeowners want more security than stationary cameras, within the next decade, it is predicted that homeowners will be able to purchase a noninvasive form of a satellite, probably smaller than a golf ball, which will blend in with the environment, that will hover over their homes and give them an aerial view of their property, and will detect body temperature and have infrared sensors that will allow homeowners to detect if there is an intruder hiding on their property, as thieves are becoming more and more stealth due to all of the modern technology. Nonetheless, the raw property crime numbers produce some lofty victimization rates. For example, the 2022 theft rate was reported at 129 per 1,000 persons or households. This is more than 4 times higher than the rate of any other type of crime that is tracked by the NCVS (burglary is second with a rate of 28.7 per 1,000). The rate of 9.2 motor vehicle thefts per 1,000 persons or households was also among the highest crime-specific victimization rates that year. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
The public is hesitant to report most property crimes to the police. This trend is illustrated by the reporting rates of 30.1 percent and 35.2 percent that are observed for the larceny-theft and purse snatchings/pocket pickings offenses in the 2022 NCVS. Debriefings indicate that victims see little benefit from reporting property crimes, as police are thought to be too busy to attend to such minor crimes, thus making the recovery of their lost property unlikely. Motor vehicle theft stands as a glaring exception to the rule. In 2022, 82 percent of all automotive vehicle theft victims reported the incident to the police. No other form of crime surpasses the 66 percent reporting level. This inordinately high reporting rate is drive primarily by insurance regulations that require victims to file police reports prior to having their automobiles replaced or repaired. In the aggregate, common property crimes generate a sizable price tag. Conventional victimization reports set the property losses due to larceny-thefts round $5.5 billion annually, with an average loss per incident of roughly $500. However, it is important to note that crimes against institutional or corporate entities are beyond the scope of the NCVS. This results in the exclusion of sizeable numbers of shoplifting, employee theft, and embezzlement offenses that are perpetrated against business. Shoplifting alone costs retailers an estimated $15 billion each year. In light of this oversight, it seems reasonable to conclude that the actual dollar loss from larceny-theft offenses is far larger than what is reported by the NCVS. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Equally disturbing dollar losses are attributed to motor vehicle theft. Victimization data suggest that the average auto theft victim experiences approximately $8,886 loss. There were an estimated 721,885 thefts of motor vehicles nationwide in 2019. The estimated rate of motor vehicle thefts was 219.9 per 100,000 inhabitants. More than $6.4 billion was lost nationwide to motor vehicle thefts. There appear to be no clear-cut regional disparities for common property crimes. Data from the Uniform Crime Reports shows that theft-larceny rates were highest in Texas, Florida, Arizona, New Mexico and Louisiana. West Virginia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and North Dakota were found to have the lowest theft-larceny rates that year. Shifting our attention to state-level rates of motor vehicle theft offending, we see that Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Washington, and Michigan were top of the 50-state list. Officials in New Hampshire, South Dakota, Wyoming, Maine, and Idaho reported the lowest rates of motor vehicle theft in 2022. Residents in densely populated, inner-city areas clearly experiences a higher risk of property crime victimization than do their counterparts who live in more sparsely populated outlying areas. The 2022 NCVS data reveal an inverse relationship in theft rates across urban, suburban, and rural locales (rates of 160.4, 123.9, and 101.6, respectively). A similar trend is observed in the 2022 motor vehicle theft victimization, where the rates in urban areas exceed those of suburban and rural areas. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Critics observe that motor vehicle theft rates appear to be more a function of automobile density (measured either in terms of cars per square mile or per capita automobile registrations) than population density. A city-level analysis of UCR data reveals tht New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Huston consistently rank among the top five most problematic locales in terms of larceny and motor vehicle theft rates. The larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft rates in the United States of America compare favorably to those reported by other developed countries. The United States of America experienced a larceny rate of 2,728.1 per 100,000 persons and an auto theft rate of 459.0 per 100,000. The official larceny and motor vehicle theft rates of our peer nations were as follows: England and Wales (3,460.2 and 753.0), Australia (3,033.7 and 706.2), France (2,527.5 and 546.1), Canada (2,431.0 and 547.10, Germany (2,406.3 and 137.4), Israel (2,149.0 and 694.1), Japan (1,198.1 and 28.4), and Spain (650.8 and 343.1). A guessing game of more than playful significance can be played among persons who have spent a few days sociably together, as in a series of parties or at a resort: one person attempts to describe the kinds of families from which the group members came, with no prior knowledge of their personal histories. The same is most successfully played when the group includes mainly young adults but some other and younger people. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Still, if the attitudes of the group members toward waiters or clerks can be observed, more clues can be secured. Hits or misses are determined by checking guesses against the facts, and score is kept by noting the correct guesses and comparing them with the record of other guessers, or with the results that might be obtained by chance alone. A practiced observer of normal sensitivity and adult experience can usually make a surprisingly large number of correct guesses. The kind of questions to which one can most frequently give accurate answers are these: Did the person have any brothers or sisters? Were these brothers or sisters older or young? Ho much was one loved by one’s mother? Father? (Another adult?) With which did one tend to identify more? Was one’s family close and demonstrative, or cold and distant? Were one’s parents young or old when one was born? Was one’s mother or father dominant, or were they equal in authority? Was either parent repeatedly cruel or arbitrary in disciplining one? Which parent was more influential in the person’s career choices? Were one’s parents, or one’s siblings, approving or critical of one’s achievements? Which parent was the more intellectual? Action-oriented? Sociable? Sometimes, though less frequently, even such characteristics as the presence and importance of grandparents, adoptive status, father’s occupation, mother’s education, the family’s social status, and some quite idiosyncratic circumstances can be guessed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
As the guesser goes from the common relations of authority and affection among parents and children into these more peculiar features of another person’s upbringing, one’s chances of being right go down; one’s chances of being right by luck alone, however, decrease still faster. Yet the validity of some of one’s faintest premonitions can be quite astounding to one’s audience. Indeed, the more accurate in detail the guesser become, the more likely it is that the game will encounter two specific hazards. The person whose family origins are so closely described may suspect and charge that one ha been previously investigated and resent the implied invasion of one’s privacy, or one may be embarrassed by the disclosure of such intimate and perhaps ungratifying facts to the remainder of the group. Yet, if this game is played correctly, the guesser has depended for clues entirely upon what each particular subject has already disclosed about oneself through the characteristic patterns of one’s interactions with others. Whether consciously or not, each person tells one’s history publicly in one’s behavior, and could only conceal it by withdrawing from society, an act that in itself is diagnostic and occasionally observed. There is nothing mysterious or occult about the inferences employed. They are all derived from the theorem that one reproduces one’s earlier family relations in one’s interpersonal relations beyond the family. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Father-figure, mother-figures, brother-figures, sister-figures, rivals, servants, authorities, as first experienced in the family, furnish the prototypes for apprehending and responding to all later intimates. Especially in the rapid development of intimate association with strangers, the prototypical family constellation is most recognizably reproduced, and the characteristic actions which it guides from the “person” that becomes known to others. When a person is most spontaneously free, these same expressive acts are usually subjectively taken by one to be one’s natural self. A person’s identity in such a group is thus—or can be—simultaneously one’s self as privately conceived. Yet even one’s reactions to constraints upon one’s self-expression tell something of the figures one fears; in this sense, all one’s acts are representative. And it is precisely upon the evidence of many small but representative encounters witnessed between each subject of this game and the others that successful guesses and generalizations can be made. In later discussion, the basis for errors through insufficient evidence or mistaken inference may be brought out, but no evidence used is found invalid. (Such checking back is useful for improving the skill of the guesser.) To be sure, no single episode leads directly back to a specific family pattern. Rather, by recurrence of similar episodes in orderly relationship to episodes of other kinds, the generic constellation is pieced together. As more information is added, the more the pattern hangs together and even indicates missing evidence to be sought for by reviewing a wider range of incidents. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
For instance, a girl bumps a boy and blushes; he speaks to her cordially and thereafter her eyes follow him about the room; a younger boy tries to gain her attention, but is ignored; she appears respectful toward a male teacher and defends him against gibes by other girls; after a downpour, she organizes the drying out of clothes by other girls; her female teacher speaks equivocally of her as independent. Is it possible that her father was a widower, and let her play the role of a “little mother” to her small sister—which she did out of a desire to please him, who she admires? Even with these many observed details, much of the complex is missing from which a successful guess might be made; but at least the principle employed is evident. If it is remembered that boys who have dated her found her somewhat repressed and inclined toward intellectual conversation, further confirmation may be added, but also complications may emerge which reduce the plausibility of the previous guess. From experience in playing this game, several limitations become evident. The older the person—the further one had left one’s parental family behind, in time or in any other sense—the less does one’s present behavior tell about one’s past. And if one’s succeeding experience has been markedly heterogeneous, with strong emotional attachments intervening between one’s original family and one’s present circle of intimates, the less does the present constellation tell us about the original. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
If the person’s cultural or sub-cultural background is markedly foreign to the guesser’s, of course the latter has more difficulty in interpreting the biographical significance of behavior. Patterns of sociability among teenagers still living at home, by contrast, almost transparently reveal the structure of their families. Although there is thus no mystery as to why successful guessing is not really guessing or intuition, but complex inference from objective evidence, explanation of the procedure does not dimmish the uncanny feeling of some of the subjects that they are being laid bare. Even when the bits of evidence are painstakingly pointed out and are admitted to be public knowledge, the sense of exposure may persist and give rise to mild dismay on the part of the beholders as well. If the procedure were explored systematically and no longer used mainly as a game, what might develop is a matter for speculation. However, questions are raised by the demonstration of the underlying theorem which are far more important than the mild shock of the shyer players. If postdiction is this easy, why is prediction so hard? And if prediction from pervious to future behavior is hard, does not this fact qualify the determinisitic assumption which underlies an characterizes much research and writing in social science? And finally, what might this game of revelation disclose about the role of the social scientists and one’s ultimate audience? #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
There is a mistake about forgiveness by the ultimate concern that many people make. First, a mistake conception about the “shelter of the blood,” claimed upon an assembly as a guarantee of absolute protection from the working of the powers of darkness. However, if we walk in light, if we confess our transgression, then the blood of Jesus cleanses from sin. The blood of Jesus gives us access to the Holiest of all, because of the cleansing power from sin. The blood of Jesus is the ground victory over the Offender, because of its cleansing from every confessed sin, and because at Calvary the Offender was conquered. (However, remember, you can confess your sins silently in prayer. Not all religious figures uphold their oath and keep the things you say confident, much like therapists or their employers.) However, nowhere do we read that any person can be put “under the blood” apart from one’s own volition and individual condition before God. Therefore, if the “shelter of the blood” is claimed over an assembly of people and someone present is giving ground to the Offender, the “claiming of the blood” does not avail to prevent Offender from working on the ground to which one has a right in that person. This misconception about the protecting power of the blood is serious; for those who are present at a meeting where the Offender as well as God is working many believe they are personally safe from the Offender’s workings apart from their individual condition and dealing with God. However, through the ground they have given—even unknowingly—to the Adversary, they are open to one’s power. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Faith, religion, and revelation, are readily intelligible. If one simply stated that religion is ultimate concern, a turning toward the unconditional, and that it is not a special function of man’s spirit but a centered act of his personality, that would be an adequate summation of the broad sense of religion. Here faith and religion are identical. The narrow sense of religion is the “churchy” sense—doctrine, rites, and all the appurtenances of an institution. While the above paragraph sufficiently describes religion, a somewhat deeper examination is called for. The ultimate concern is what we rely on chronologically as an evolved insight of religion more than faith. Doctrine is developed under the heading of religion. Religion cannot be identified with any of the functions of spirit and it cannot be placed beside them as a special function animated by one’s thinking at a very early date, and this insight is decisive. Religion is an attitude of spirit which participates in all these spheres. Spirit depends on two other concepts, thought and being, which are in constant dynamic tension. Spirit is neither pure thought nor pure being, but involves both. Being and Spirit are the essential components of the act of knowledge. The act or intention is thought, and the object or thing intended is being. For Spirit is the form of thought-in-being. Every being has something of thought in it, but the more thought it contains the more reality is possesses. The most real of beings is the one in which thought as thought is realized, that is, a spirit-bearing totality—man. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
In the economy, there are power triads, and wealth is one, which is experiencing deep transformation as the new system for wealth creations spreads across the planet. As corporations integrate their production and distribution across national boundaries, acquire foreign firms, and draw on brainpower from around the entire World, they inevitably need fresh sources of capital in many countries. They also need it fast. Thus we see a race to “liberalize” capital markets so that investments can flow more or less freely across national frontiers. The result is a surging ocean of capital free of restraining walls. This, however, shifts power away from central banks and individual nations, undermining sovereignty and introducing new dangers of financial fibrillation on a Worldwide scale. After the 1987 Wall Street crash, it was understood that building a single completely open financial system, subject to minimal regulation, is like building a supertanker without airtight compartments. With adequate dividers or safety cells, a big system can survive the breakdown of certain parts. Without them, a single hole in the hull can sink a tanker. There was also a warning that the creation of multinational securities firms that buy, sell, underwrite and invest in many nations increases the risk of large-scale breakdown. A loss by one or more of these firms, could result in transmitting a disturbance from one country to another. As finance is globalized, nations risk losing control over one of the keys to their power. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The proposed all-European currency, for example, would reduce the flexibility of individual nations to cope with their own unique economic problems. Another proposal would arm the EC commissioners with far greater control over the budgets of Europe’s supposedly sovereign nations than the federal government of the United States of America exerts over its fifty states—a centralizing power shift of massive proportions. While this power redistribution is going on, the entire wealth system becomes, as we have seen, super-symbolic. Like violence, wealth, too, is shifting and being transformed at the same time. Until recently, China was not on the list of the World’s major foreign direct investor nations. An important breakthrough came in 2008. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, outbound FDI increased dramatically to $55,907 million from $26,506 million in previous years (flow; FDI by financial institutions is not included). In 2009, it rose further to $56,529 million, in 2010 it hit $59 billion. In recent years, China has been the second largest recipient of foreign direct investments (FDI) Worldwide, attracting approximately USD $181 billion in 2021. That is extremely significant. Compared to the U.S.A FDI of USD $367.38 billion. According to preliminary figures, monthly foreign direct investments (FDI) inflows to China amounted to approximately USD $20.69 billion dollars in February 2023. For the whole year of 2022, FDI flows to China reached around $189.1 billion, an increase of 12 percent compared to the year before. Western companies have become a hot topic around the World. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Acquisitions account for 40 percent of China’s total FDI. The major targets are mining industry, high-tech manufacturing firms, and well-known but usually ailing companies possessing famous brands. Such acquisitions are usually carried out with the backing of the government, mostly by state-owned companies. On the other hand, Chinese companies, especially the private ones, are gradually increasing FDI of quite a conventional Character. They are investing in India, Africa, North Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, and elsewhere in the developing World seeking lower production costs or better access to local markets. Also, more and more often, they are coming to the West entirely on their own initiative (without the government’s backing), attracted by markets, technologies, and high-skilled human resources. In these cases, Chinese investors act basically the same way and pursue the same goals as investors from any other country, whether America, a European state, or Japen. China’s foreign portfolio investment reached an all-time higher of USD $99.45 billion in December 2020. United States of America’s foreign portfolio investment accounted a record deficit of USD $206.805 billion in December 2022. American leaders should be scrambling to invest in improving technology and infrastructure in American cities, investing more in education and recruitment of students for medical, engineering, and computer science careers. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Dabbling in its Dark, Cruel Possibilities
It was one of the brisk winter mornings that begins in a fog, promising the cold to come. A mist was rising from the fruit orchards as I dropped down the hill into Llanada Villa in the valley below the mansion. It was a fair-tale mansion, all turrets and towers, stained glass and plush Victorian gardens, sitting majestical on the most valuable plot of land. As I entered my home, I heard the music playing softly from the morning room. I sat sipping coffee at nine thirty, glad it was Saturday. I knew that life was going to be vastly more complicated now. Well, it was going to be more dangerous, too. Overhead, the morning sky had turned a vivid blue, intersected by fading vapor trails. It was bright enough blue, the sky. However, it had a depth and stillness suggestive of the steady retreat of sunlight and a slight warmth. I have seen real ghouls in my home, and I knew that magic was something that could be harnessed and exploited and there were people in the World with hunger for power and influence enough to risk dabbling in its dark, cruel possibilities. The whisper of water dropping on to leaves as the rain began to fall could be heard. The lights flicked on and off. I looked around, half-waiting for the sound to stir again. The rain strength. I heard drops begin to fall on the roof. For many years the staff reported hearing a little girl crying. She has been seen on occasion, and is described as about seven years old. She has been seen in the house at the main stairwell, on the lawn, and on the third floor. I passed on through the passages of crystal and rooms of silver—spacious chambers, empty and silent. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
This house felt older than the memory of man. It was an accursed mansion. There were strange noises in the mansion. Every night the wailing of a woman could be heard above the moaning of the wind. If ghost must walk the Earth, they could find no spot on the globe where their appearance would be more natural, or better understood. The staff tells tales of disembodies footsteps, lights that switch themselves off and on at will, and objects moving. The Daisy Bedroom has lights that switch themselves on and off after dark and phantom footsteps are often heard in the hallway near the room. One day a housemaid was speaking to a guest as she served dinner downstairs. To everyone’s surprise, the serving tray sitting on the table picked itself up and tipped itself upside down. The tray was filled with plates of hot foot that went everywhere. The sacrificial stones of the Druid priests, oriented after the fashion of the ruin of ruins of Stonehenge, the blood-vats, imperishable adjuncts to human sacrifice, have stood through the ages, grim guardians of the mysteries of the haunted fruit orchards. If someone were to tell me that the fruit orchards at Llanada Villa echoed nightly with the shrieks of sacrifice and that the ghost fires of forgotten priestcraft still glowed in the morning, I would find it hard to disbelieve. That ghastly curse remained on my family and fortune. The mansion has picked up a few permanent guests. One evening, from the observation tower, I saw a huge black figure gliding along the grounds. It could not be human because of the rate of speed it was going. I felt not just fear, but absolute dread. I experienced a bone-chilling could throughout my body. I ran down nine flights of stairs, while crying uncontrollable and my heart was pounding. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Only in the understanding of the stock from which the Victorian mansion’s ghosts are sprung can one appreciate the immortality with which long-accepted tradition has endowed them. Ghostly itself is the history of the Winchester Mansion. While the carpenters were painting on the fourth floor, one of them was startled to see the word MURDER appear in the freshly rolled paint, as if written with someone’s finger—only the words were backwards, as though being written from the other side of the wall. One of the painters explained: “We were quite surprised when a shadow started moving towards us.” As they realized that the “shadow” was approaching them, they also realized that area of the mansion was a very lonely place, especially at night. Not many people ventured up there. And although in their haste to leave, they could only give brief glances at the dark figure, they were sure of one thing: “The only outstanding feature was the outline of a wide brim hate.” Another evening while the carpenters were painting, they heard a quiet creaking emanating from the wood floors. They steeled their nerves before investigating. That is when they saw a young woman sitting in a chair directly behind them. The woman was there for just a moment before disappearing. Later the evening as the farmers were picking fruit in the fields, the dark figure “floated” diagonally across the field. It drifted rapidly to a clump of trees with two flat rocks near by and disappeared over a slight drop-off beyond. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
One of the farmers screwed up his courage and, in spite of the bizarre, dark figure’s mysterious and even menacing appearance, volunteered to walk down to the spot where the apparition disappeared. After five minutes of observation, he returned, like an efficient scout, with his report, unsettling as it might be. He said when he reached the far side of the hill there were two “soldiers-dressed” figures stilling on the two flat rocks near the clump of trees. Neither one spoke to the other; nor did they acknowledge the other’s presence. Instead they just sat, seemingly rigidly fixated, staring down into the field. Other ghost haunting the mansion include those of two little boys, who have been heard running on the second floor. One night, while I was preparing for company, I found two sets of muddy boot prints coming from the door to nowhere and crossing the room. When I told Daisy about the boot prints. She said they must be made by the same boys who keep coming in the door the opens to the wall, and we had locked them out. Looking toward the door she said, “It’s OK, if you prefer this door, go ahead and use it.” Immediately the door swung open. Needless to say cold chills ran through both of us. We never worried about the door that opens to the wall again. My idea for the mansion was not only to create a place for the spirits, but also to build an estate that would inspire awe. The gorgeous series of fields gardens, forests, and grassy acres are as fascinating as they are beautiful. However, when the sun goes down, the shadows creep and spread, giving the Victorian Mansion an entirely different look and feel. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
With grounds lit by a full moon hanging low in the sky, just to the side of the columns of the mansion, one begins to ponder the many mysteries surrounding the Winchester Mansion. One night I was putting out a candle when I heard the sound of a singing voice. At first I thought: “Oh, that sounds nice.” However, then I wondered what it was and where I could be hearing singing from. After all, the staff was asleep and there was no one around, and the sound definitely was not coming from outside. It was frightening, but it was not explainable. It was just a couple of phrases of singing and it took me by surprise. I could faintly see the hazy shape of a woman moving down what the hallway. One night, a group of farmers were packing up for the evening. A they looked around with a lantern for their tools, they were shocked to see what appeared to be the black form of a man moving toward them. The figure was larger than human and had no features—it was a black mass that seemed to sway toward them in the bright light. The man wielding the lantern quickly put it out and they all ran away. For weeks the men thought about what they had seen; they just could not forget it. They spoke to other servants about the vision or sighting. They were quite disturbed and unable to let the subject drop. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Take heed! Come, all Spirits! By the virtue and power of your king, and by the seven crowns and chain of your Kings, all Spirits of the Hells are forced to appear in my presence before this circle of Solomon, whensoever I shall call them. Come, then, all at my order, to fulfil that which is in your power, as commanded. Come, therefore, from the East, South, West, and North! I conjure and command you, by the virtue and power of Him who is three, eternal, equal, who is God invisible, consubstantial, in a word, who has created the Heavens, the sea, and al which is under Heaven. I conjure thee, Lucifer, by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, who spake and all was made, who commanded and all things were created and made! I conjure thee by the ineffable name of God, ON, ALPHA, and OMEGA, ELOYM, YA, SADAY, LUX, MUGENS, REX, SALUS, ADONAY, EMMANUEL, MESSIAS; and I adjure, conjure. I command you, O all ye demons dwelling in these parts, or in what part of the World soever ye may be, by whatsoever power may have been given you by God and our holy Angels over this place, and by the power Principality of the fernal abysses, as also by all your brethren, both general and special demons, whether dwelling in the East, West, South, or North, or in any side of the Earth, and, in like manner, by the power of God the Father, by the wisdom of God and the Son, by the virtue of the Holy Ghost, and by the authority I derive from our Savior Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
The idea that we survive physical death, that some part of our being is immortal, profoundly affects the loves of those who harbor such a belief. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Randolph Harris II International 