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How Long is it Since You were Really Bothered? About Something Important, About Something Real?

August 14, 2019 10:32 pm

Cans. Beer cans. Glinting on the verges of a million miles of roadways, lying in scrub, grass, dirt, leaves, sand, mud, but never hidden. Piel’s, Rheingold, Ballantine, Schaefer, Schlitz, shinning in the Sun, or picked by Moon or the beam of headlights at night; washed by rain or flattened by wheels, but never dulled, never buried, never destroyed. Here is the mark of savages, the testament of wasters, the stain of prosperity. These wise souls contemplated their past lives in a long wrathless reverie, and sought to answer prayers from below as I have said. They watched over their kindred, their clansmen, their own nations; they watched over those who attracted their attention with accomplished and spectacular displays of religiosity; they watched with sadness the suffering of humans and wished they could help and tried to help by thought when they could. However, who are these beings who defile the grassy borders of our roads and lanes, who pollute our ponds, who spoil the purity of our ocean beaches with the empty vessels of their thirst? Who are the beings who make these vessels in millions and then say, “Drink—and discard”? What society is this that can afford to cast away a million tons of metal and to make of wild and fruitful land a garbage heap? #RandolphHarris 1 of 14

What manner of men and women need thirty feet of steel and four hundred horsepower to take them, singly, to their small destinations? Who demand that what they eat is wrapped so that forests are cut down to make the paper that is thrown away, and what they smoke and chew is sealed so that the sealers can be tossed in gutters and caught in twigs and grass? What kind of beings can afford to make the streets of their towns and cities hideous with neon at night, and their roadways hideous with signs by day, wasting beauty; who spill their trash into ravines and make smoking mountains of refuse for the town’s rats? What manner of beings choke off the life in rivers, streams and lakes with the waste of their produce making poison of water? Who is as rich as that? Slowly the wasters and despoilers are impoverishing our land, our nature, and our beauty, so that there will not be one beach, one hill, one lane, one meadow, one forest free from the debris of beings and the stigma of their improvidence. Who is so rich that ne can squander forever the wealth of Earth and water for the trivial needs of vanity or the compulsive demands of greed; or so prosperous in land that one can sacrifice nature for unnatural desires? The Earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14

And when we are long dead, what will we leave behind us? Temples? Amphora? Sunken treasure? Or mountains of twisted, rusted steel, canyons of plastic containers, and a million miles of sores garlanded, not with the lovely wrack of the sea, but with the cans and bottles and light-bulbs and boxes of people who conserved their convenience at the expanse of their heritage, and whose ephemeral prosperity was built on waste. As the generations pass they grow worse. A time will come when they have grown so wicked that they will worship power; might will be right to them and reverence for the good will cease to be. At last, when no being is angry any more at wrongdoing or feels shame in the presence of the miserable, God will destroy them too. And yet even then something might be done, if only the common people would rise and put down rulers that oppress them. Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude. We have a natural desire for solitude because we are beings. We want to feel what we are—namely, alone—not in pain and horror, but with joy and courage. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14

There are many ways in which solitude can be sought and experienced. And if it is true that religion is what a being does with one’s solitariness, each way can be called religious. One of these ways is the desire towards the silence of nature. We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea. Without words they respond through the rustling of leaves and the moving of clouds and the murmuring of the sea. This solitude we can have, but only for a brief time. For we realize that the voice of nature cannot ultimately answer the questions in our minds. Our solitude in nature can easily become loneliness, and so we return to the World of being. Solitude can also be found in the reading of poetry, in listening to music, in looking at pictures, and in sincere thoughtfulness. We are alone, perhaps in the midst of multitudes, but we are not lonely. Solitude protects us without isolating us. However, life calls us back to its empty talk and the unavoidable demands of daily routine. It calls us back to its loneliness and the cover that it, in turn, spreads over our loneliness. Without a doubt, this last describes not only a being’s general predicament, but also, and emphatically, our time. Todays, more intensely than in preceding periods, beings are so lonely that they cannot bear solitude so they take to social media to build a fantasy life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14

The epidemic of this fantasy life that people present on social media to cure their loneliness has become so pervasive that they even gather in groups in public to act out their roles they cast themselves in in the real World. It is as if life, for many people has become so lonely, that they feel the need to collect their fake friends and act out scenes in real life. People have become so lonely that they conjure up marriages, relationships, vacation and lifestyles all with the click of a button. Some do it for profit, others do it to make themselves feel better. However, the bottom line is they are trying to make an impression for an individual or a wide audience. People try desperately to become a part of the crowd. Everything in our World supports them. They are able to cyberstalk people, to figure out where they might be and what they might be think, and with the technology to track a cellphone or with the cameras all over the place, which are supposed to add to our security, people can then make a cameo in a person’s life and impersonate someone the individual know or act out a fantasy for a brief moment. It is a symptom of our disease that teachers and parents and the managers of public communication do everything possible to deprive us of the external conditions for solitude, the simplest assistant to privacy. #RandolphHarris 5 of 14

Even our houses, instead of protecting the solitude of each member of the family or group, are constructed to exclude privacy almost completely with Alxea the virtual assistant, Roomba, and other devices spying on us, while pretending to make life easier. People can also access digital information and figure out where you go and be there waiting on you. Can you imagine how annoying that is? You wake up in the morning wonder what story is your mother going to tell you today? What scene are people in the community going to be acting out? What stupid question is someone going to ask? And who is going to become the fakest person in the World on social media, while all you are looking for is some solitude and something real, but people are all selling their souls because they want to look cool and feel special. The same holds true f the forms of communal life, the school, college, office and factory. An unceasing pressure attempts to destroy even our desire for solitude. However, sometimes God thrusts us out of the crowd into a solitude we did not desire, but which nonetheless takes hold of us. The prophet Jeremiah says—“I sit alone, because thy hand was upon me.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 14

God times lays hands upon us. He wants to ask the question of justice that many bring us suffering and death, and that can grow in us only in solitude. He wants us to break through the ordinary ways of beings that may bring disrepute and hatred upon us, a breakthrough that can happen only in solitude. God wants us to penetrate to the boundaries of our being, where the mystery of life appears, and it can only appear in moments of solitude. There may be some among you who long to become creative in some realm of life. However, you cannot become or remain creative without solitude. One hour of conscious solitude will enrich your creativity far more than hours of trying to learn the creative process. What happens in our solitude? Listen to Mark’s words about Jesus’ solitude in the desert—“And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts, and the Angels ministered to him.” He is alone, facing the whole Earth and Sky, the wild beasts around him and within him, he himself the battlefield for divine and demonic forces. So, first, this is what happens in our solitude: we meet ourselves, not as ourselves, but as the battlefield for creation and destruction, for God and the demons. Solitude is not easy. Who can bear it? It was not easy even for Jesus. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14

We read—“He went up into the hills to pray.” When evening came, he was alone.” When evening comes, loneliness becomes more lonely. We feel this when a day, or a period, or all the days of our life come to an end. Jesus went up to pray. Is this the way to transform loneliness into solitude and to bear solitude? It is not a simple question to answer. Most prayers do not have this much power. Most prayers make God a partner in a conversation; we use God to escape the only true way to solitude. Such prayers flow easily from the mouths of both ministers and laymen. However, they are not born out of a solitary encounter of God with beings. They are certainly not the kind of prayer for which Jesus went up into the hills. Better that we remain silent and allow our soul, that is always longing for solitude, to sign without words to God. This we can do, even in a crowded day and a crowded room, even under the most difficult external conditions. This can give us moments of solitude that no one can take from us. In these moments of solitude something is done to us. The center of our being, the innermost self that is the ground of our aloneness, is elevated to the divine center and taken into it. Therein can we rest without losing ourselves. Now perhaps we can answer a question you may have already asked—how can communion grow out of solitude? #RandolphHarris 8 of 14

We have seen that we can never reach the innermost center of another being. We are always alone, each for one’s self. However, we can reach it in a movement that rises first to God and then returns from God to the other self. In this way being’s aloneness is not removed, but taken into the community with that in which the centers of all beings rest, and so into community with all of them. Even love is reborn in solitude. For only in solitude are those who are alone able to reach those from whom they are separated. Only the presence of the eternal can break through the walls that isolate the temporal from the temporal. One hour of solitude may bring us closer to those we live than many hours of communication. We can take them with us to the hills of eternity. And perhaps when we ask—what is the innermost nature of solitude? we should answer—the presence of the eternal upon the crowded roads of the temporal. It is the experience of being alone but not lonely, in view of the eternal presence that shines through the face of the Christ, and that includes everybody and everything from which we are separated. In the poverty of solitude all riches are present. Let us dare to have solitude—to face the eternal, to find others, to see ourselves. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14

Observation shows beyond any doubt that if they feel the deprivations to be just, fair, necessary or purposeful, children, as well as adults, can accept a great many deprivations. A child does not mind education for cleanliness, for example, if the parents do not put an undue stress on it and do not coerce the child with subtle or gross cruelty. Nor does a child mind an occasional punishment, provides it feels certain in general of being loved and provided it feels the punishment to be fair and not done with the intention of hurting it or humiliating it. The questions of whether frustration as such incites to hostility is difficult to judge, because in surroundings which impose many deprivations on a child plenty of others provocative factors are usually present. What matters is the spirit in which frustrations are imposed rather than the frustrations themselves. The reasons I stress this point is that the emphasis often placed on the danger of frustration as such has led many parents to carry the idea still farther than did Dr. Freud himself and to shrink from any interference with the child lest one might be harmed by it. Jealousy can certainly be a source of formidable hatred in children as well as in adults. There is no doubt about the role that jealousy between siblings and jealousy of one or the other parent may play in neurotic children, or about the lasting influence this attitude may have for later life. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14

One who is educated by dread is educated by possibility, and only the being who is educated by possibility is educated in accordance with one’s infinity. Possibility is therefore the heaviest of all categories. One often hears, it is true, the opposite affirmed, that possibility is so light but reality is so heavy. However, from whom does one hear such talk? From a lot of miserable beings who never have known what possibility is, and who, since reality showed them that they were not fit for anything and never would be, mendaciously bedizened a possibility which was so beautiful, so enchanting; and the only foundation of this possibility was a little youthful tomfoolery of which they might rather have been ashamed. Therefore by this possibility which is said to be light one commonly understands the possibility of luck, food fortune and so forth. However, this is not possibility, it is a mendacious invention which human depravity falsely embellishes in order to have reason to complain of life, of providence, and as a pretext for being self-important. No, in possibility everything is possible, and one who truly was brought up by possibility has comprehended the dreadful as well as the smiling. When such a person, therefore, goes out from the school of possibility, and knows more thoroughly than a child knows the alphabet that one can demand of life absolutely nothing, and that terror, perdition, annihilation, dwell next door to every being, and has learned the profitable lesion that every dread which alarms may the next instant become a fact, one will then interpret reality differently. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14

One will then extol reality, and even when it rests upon one heavily one will remember that after all it is far, far lighter than the possibility was. Only thus can possibility educate; for finiteness and the finite relationships in which the individual is assigned a place, whether it be small and commonplace or World-historical, educate only finitely, and one can always talk them around, always get a little more out of them, always Shaffer, always escape a little from them, always keep a little apart, always prevent oneself from learning absolutely from them; and if one is to learn absolutely, the individual must in turn have the possibility in oneself and oneself fashion that from which one is to learn, even though the next instant it does not recognize that it was fashioned by one, but absolutely takes the power from one. However, in order that the individual may this absolutely and infinitely be educated by possibility, one must be honest towards possibility and must have faith. By faith I mean the inward certainty which anticipates infinity. When the discoveries of possibility are honestly administered, possibility will then disclose all finitudes and idealize them in the form of infinity in the individual who is overwhelmed by dread, until in turn one is victorious by the anticipation o faith. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14

Everyone uses from time to time such expressions as, “a thought pops up,” an idea comes “from the blue” or “dawns” or “comes though out of a dream,” or “it suddenly hit me.” These are various ways of describing a common experience: the breakthrough of idea from some depth below the level of awareness. I shall call this realm “the unconscious: as a catchall for the subconscious, preconscious, and other dimensions below awareness. When I use the phrase “the unconscious,” I, of course, mean it as shorthand. There is no such thing as “the unconscious”; it is, rather, unconscious dimensions (or aspects or sources) of experience. I define this unconscious as the potentialities for awareness or action which the individual cannot or will not actualize. These potentialities are the source of what can be called “free creativity.” The exploration of unconscious phenomena has a fascinating relationship to creativity. What are the nature and characteristics of the creativity that has its source in these unconscious depths of personality? When a body is still and ego-mind is at rest, there is peace, sometimes even ecstasy. However, when both are active I am not, when there is neither questing nor non-questing, there is unchanging stability. That is realization. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14

When the sense of this presence is a continuous one, when the knowledge of the mentalness of this World-experience is an abiding one, and when the calm which comes as a result is an unshakeable one, it may be said that one is established in the Truth and in the Real. One does not have to enter into formal prayer to find one’s soul. It is an ever-present reality for one, not merely an intellectual conception or emotional belief. If one has no need to sit down specially for an arranged period of prayer, it is only because one has successfully gone through several stages of the practice. In the World you will find only two kinds of people—the unconscious and the conscious. The first kind know only their own little egos and their own large desires. The second kind know continually that they are in the presence of the Overself, and enjoy it great peace. The consciousness of Consciousness never deserts one. It remains somewhere on the outer periphery of the mind all the time and expands to its fullness at special times—that is, when withdrawn from all activity for a few minutes. One lives inwardly silent thought—free awareness of whatever is presented to one, whether it be the body in which one must live or the environment in which one finds oneself. One enjoys a supernal calm, being indeed free while living. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14

The Full Development of the Individual is Conditioned by the Most Ruthless Struggle of Individuals

August 11, 2019 1:43 am

I was lying still somewhere, in an open place, on the rocky ground. I had the veil. I could feel the bulk of it, but I did not dare to reach inside and draw it out or examine it. Help the souls who are lost! Help them. Do not leave them in the whirlwind, do not leave them on Earth struggling to gain understanding. The deepest problems of modern life derive from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of one’s existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life. The fight with nature which primitive beings has to wage for one’s bodily existence attains in the modern form its latest transformation. The eighteenth century called upon beings too free themselves of all the historical bonds in the state and in religion, in morals and in economics. Being’s nature, originally good and common to all, should develop unhampered. In addition to more liberty, the nineteenth century demanded the functional specialization of beings and their work; this specialization makes one individual incomparable to another, and each of them indispensable to the highest possible extent. However, this specialization makes each being the more directly dependent upon the supplementary activities of all other. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

The full development of the individual is conditioned by the most ruthless struggle of individuals; socialism believes in the suppression of all competition for the same reason. Be that as it may in all these positions the same basic motive is at work: the person resists being leveled down and worn out by a social-technological mechanism. An inquiry into the inner meaning of specifically modern life and its products, into the soul of the cultural body, so to speak, must seek to solve the equation which structures like the metropolis set up between the individual and the super individual contents of life. Such an inquiry must answer the question of how they personality accommodates itself in the adjustments to external forces. The psychology basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swifts and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli. Beings are a differentiating creature. Their minds are stimulated by the difference between a momentary impression and the one which preceded it. Lasting impressions, impressions which differ only slightly from one another, impressions which take a regular and habitual course and show regular and habitual contrasts—all these use up, so to speak, less consciousness than does the rapid crowding of changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of single glance, and the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

These are the psychological conditions which the metropolis creates. With each crossing of the street, with the tempo and multiplicity of economic, occupational and social life, the city sets up a deep contrast with small town and rural life with reference to the sensory foundations of psychic life. The metropolis exacts from beings as a discriminating creature a different amount of consciousness than does rural life. Here the rhythm of life and sensory mental imagery flows more slowly, more habitually, and more evenly. Precisely in this connection the sophisticated character of metropolitan psychic life becomes understandable—as over against small town life which rests more upon deeply felt and emotional relationships. These latter are rooted in the more unconscious layers of the psyche and grow most readily in the steady rhythm uninterrupted habituations. The intellect, however, has its locus in the transparent, conscious, higher layers of the psyche; it is the most adaptable of our inner forces. In order to accommodate to change and to the contrast of phenomena, the intellect does not require any shocks and inner upheavals; it is only through such upheavals that the more conservative mind could accommodate to the metropolitan rhythm events. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

Thus the metropolitan type of being—which, of course, exists in a thousand individual variants—develops an organ protecting one against the threatening current and discrepancies of one’s external environment which would uproot one. One reacts with one’s head instead of one’s heart. In this an increased awareness assumes the psychic prerogative. Metropolitan life, this, underlies a heightened awareness and a predominance of intelligence in metropolitan beings. The reaction to metropolitan phenomena is shifted to that organ which is least sensitive and quite remote from the depth of the personality. Intellectuality is thus seen to preserve subjective life against the overwhelming power of metropolitan life, and intellectuality branches out in many directions and is integrated with numerous discrete phenomena. The metropolis has always been the seat of the money economy. Here the multiplicity and concentration of economic exchange gives an importance to the means of exchange which the scantiness of rural commerce would not have allowed. Money and economy and the dominance of the intellect are intrinsically connected. They share a matter-of-fact attitude, a formal justice is often coupled with an inconsiderate hardness. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

The intellectually sophisticated person is indifferent to all genuine individuality, because relationships and reactions result from it which cannot be exhausted with logical operations. In the same manner, the individuality phenomena is not commensurate with the pecuniary principle. Money is concerned only with what is common to all: it asks for the exchange value, it reduces all quality and individuality to the question: How much? All intimate emotional relations between persons are founded in their individuality, whereas in rational relations beings are reckoned with like a number, like an element which is in itself indifferent. Only the objective measurable achievement is of interest. Thus metropolitan beings reckons with one’s merchants and customers, one’s domestic servants and often even with persons with whom one is obliged to have social intercourse. These features of intellectuality contrast with the nature of the small circle in which the inevitable knowledge of individuality as inevitably produces a warmer tone of behavior, a behavior which is beyond a mere objective balancing of service and return. In the sphere of the economic psychology of the small group it is of importance that under primitive conditions productions serves the customer who orders the goods, so that the producer and the consumer are acquainted. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

The modern metropolis, however, is supplied almost entirely by production for the market, that is, for entirely unknown purchasers who never personally enter the producer’s actual field of vision. Through this anonymity the interests of each party acquire an unmerciful matter-of-factness; and the intellectually calculating economic egoisms of both parties need not fear any deflection because of the imponderables of personal relationships. The money economy dominates the metropolis; it has displaced the last survivals of domestic production and the direct barter of goods; it minimizes from day to day, the amount of work ordered by customers. The matter-of-fact attitude is obviously so intimately interrelated with the money economy, which is dominant in the metropolis, that nobody can say whether the intellectualistic mentality first promoted the money economy or whether the latter determined the former. The metropolitan way of life is certainly the most fertile soil for this reciprocity, a point which I shall document merely by citing the dictum of the most eminent English constitutional historian: throughout the whole course of English history, London has never acted as England’s heart but often as England’s intellect and always as her moneybag! #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

In certain seemingly insignificant traits, which lie upon the surface of life, the same psychic currents characteristically unite. Modern mind has become more and more calculating. The calculative exactness of practical life which the money economy had brought about corresponds to the ideal of natural sciences: to transform the World into an arithmetic problem, to fix every part of the World by mathematical formulas. Only money economy has filled the days of so many people with weighing, calculating, with numerical determinations, with a reduction of qualitative values to quantitative ones. Through the calculative nature of money a new precision, a certainty in the definition of identities and differences, an unambiguousness in agreements and arrangements has been brought about in the relations of the life-elements—just as externally this precision has been effected by the universal diffusion of pocket watches. However, the conditions of metropolitan life are at once cause and effect of this trait. The relationships and affairs of the typical metropolitan usually are so varied and complex that without the strictest punctuality in promises and services the whole structure would break down into an inextricable chaos. Above all, this necessity is brought about by the aggregation of so any people with such differentiated interests, who must integrate their relations and activities into a highly complex organism. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

If all clocks and watches in Berlin would suddenly go wrong in different ways, even if only by one hour, all economic life and communication of the city would be disrupted for a long time. In addition an apparently mere external factor—long distances—would make all waiting and broken appointments result in an ill-afforded waste of time. Thus, the technique of metropolitan life is unimaginable without the most punctual integration of all activities and mutual relations into a stable and impersonal time schedule. Here again the general conclusions of this entire task of reflection become obvious, namely, that from each point on the surface of existence—however closely attached to the surface alone—one may drop a sounding into the depth of the psyche so that all the most banal externalities of life finally are connected with the ultimate decisions concerning the meaning and style of life. Punctuality, calculability, exactness are forced upon life by the complexity and extension of metropolitan existence and are not only most intimately connected with its money economy and intellectualistic character. These traits must also color the contents of life and favor the exclusion of those irrational, instinctive sovereign traits and impulses which aim at determining the mode of life from within, instead of receiving the general and precisely schematized form of life from without. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15

Even though sovereign types of personality, characterized by irrational impulse, are by no means impossible in the city, they are, nevertheless, opposed to typical city life. The passionate hatred of the metropolis is understandable in these terms. The nature of some beings discover the value of the alone in the unschematized existence which cannot be defined with precision for all alike. From the same source of this hatred of the metropolis surged their hatred of money economy and the intellectualism of modern existence. The idea of introducing Questers to the Quester has generally failed to effect the original purpose and has not seldom had disappointing results. It is better to recognize that this is an individual work, not to be identified with any group effort, even so small a group as two or three, let alone the larger ones of several dozen. People cannot blend so easily as to form a harmonious friendship or group, even if they are Questers. Yet many beginners in their enthusiasm try to create such friendships and have to learn their lessons when the friendship falls apart. It is better to let people find their affinity and form their companionships in a natural way. There is no duty laid upon anyone, whether teacher or taught, to give introductions unless a direct, intuitive bidding points to that duty. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

Even where an organization is not actually obstructive or misleading, it is often cumbersome. Can the inquiring and aspiring person find no better refuge anywhere than some rigid church? Must one join some institution and have the rest of one’s life laid out for one by others even if it does violence to one’s own finer feelings and best reasonings? Must one join a crowd of other aspirants or attach oneself to some persuasive leader? It is a fact that many if not most do this, which shows the lack of strength in their minds and characters; but on the other hand a more popular way is easer and more comfortable. Belonging to an elite group, whether or not it be real as self-claimed, allows its members to feel superior, to be condescending, and to denigrate others. A movement may begin and seek to keep free from organization, administration, and authority, but it is unlikely to remain so. For human beings, fallible or ambitious, frail or emotional, will sooner, or later seek to impose their ideas, will, or themselves on the others. Few are willing to sacrifice their desire for the gregarious support offered by joining an organization and therefore few see how this binds them to its strict and rigid doctrines, imprisons them in its practices or methods, and obstructs their free hearing of the intuitive voice of their own soul. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

With the capacity of hostility to generate anxiety the relation between the two is not exhausted. The process also works the other ways around: anxiety in its turn, when based on a feeling of being menaced, easily provokes a reactive hostility in defense. In this regard it does not differ in any way from fear, which may equally provoke aggression. The reactive hostility too, if repressed, may create anxiety, and this a cycle is created. This effect of reciprocity between hostility and anxiety, one always generating and reinforcing the other, enables us to understand why we find in neuroses such an enormous amount of relentless hostility. When the intensification of hostility through anxiety is realized it seems unnecessary to look for a special biological source for destructive drives. This reciprocal influence is also the basic reason why severe neuroses so often become worse without any apparent difficult conditions from the outside. It does not matter whether anxiety or hostility has been the primary factor; the point this that is highly important for the dynamics of a neurosis is that anxiety and hostility are inextricably interwoven. I am not enamoured overmuch of this modern habit, which forms a society at faint provocation. A being’s own problem stares one alone in the face, and is not to be solved by any association of others. Every new society we join is a fresh temptation to waste time. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

The great mistake of all spiritual organizations is to overlook the fact that progress or salvation is a highly individual matter. Each person has one’s unique attitude towards life; each must move forward by one’s own expanding comprehension and especially by one’s own personal effort. Some people are held spellbound by others because their statements matter. Some authorities speak out of their own doubt-ridden souls—souls which always existed on the boundary. Many are called to give doubt to the faithful and faith to the doubters. Doubting is the symbol of the growing process, and may lead one into the mist interesting and even thrilling phenomena. To doubt constructively requires that one be well fortified with knowledge; the person who knows very little cannot take the risk the doubting requires. When we bring doubt to the faithful, that means these faithful are soundly based and can stand—and even need to stand—looking into the abyss of doubt. They are the one who can take the risk which confronts anyone who gazes into the Holy Void. It takes more than knowledge to doubt; it takes courage. Richness is a product of prolonged and multitudinous doubting. Doubting in this sense is a rich and adventurous back-packing among the high mountains; one’s knowledge gives one a firm footing on the trail but one’s doubt give the sense of venture. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

Doubt opens new trails to the unknown; one learns new paths; one sees new things on the trip; there are fresh winds blowing from different directions. Doubt in this sense is expressive of the courage to venture when one never knows where one will come out. To venture cases anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one’s self. The courage to doubt for the enlightened is one’s quest for the Holy Void and the use of the soul and love as our teacher. It means our lives are far from simple but at the same time they are glorious. Some may accuse one of being an atheist, but it also means that thousands of others will see one as their guide to meaning, to mystery and blessedness. To live in doubt is to live in ecstasy. It means no loner to live life continually under the phrase “in spite of.” As our faith increase, we will unequivocally know it is because we are seeking the truth and not merely because we are told to believe is the right thing to do. When the masculine and feminine temperaments within us are untied, completed, and balanced, when masculine power and feminine passivity are brought together inside the person and knowledge and reverence encircle them both, then wisdom begins to dawn in the soul. The ineffable reality and the mentalist Universe are then understood to be non-different from other another. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

Where both unity and diversity are experienced and the individual is able to attain both these levels, one is surely gifted with insight. However, if diversity has to be blotted out before becoming aware of unity, this may be regarded as a penultimate faculty; that is, the insight is genuine but is still not fully mature. Everything depends on the capacity of the individual. When one’s mind moves entirely and wholly into the One Infinite Presence, and when it settles permanently there, the divided existence of glimpse and darkness, of Spirit and matter, of Overself and ego, of Heaven and Earth, will vanish. The crossing over to a unified existence will happens. The state of nonduality is a state of intense peace and perfect balance. It is so peaceful because everything is seen as it belongs—to the eternal order of cosmic evolution; hence, all is accepted, all reconciled. For the heart in inner harmony and for which everything is one, no difference exists between this and that. Why is it that despite all the visible and touchable counter-attractions, despite the innumerable failures and long years of fruitlessness, so many beings have sought through so many ages in so many lands for God, for wat is utterly intangible, unnamable, shapeless, unseen, and unheard? #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

Because the simple but astonishing fact is that the Overself, which is the presence of God in them, is part of their nature as human beings is why we search for God! Mysticism is nothing more than the methodical attempt to wake up to this fact. The soul which metaphysics points to in reasoning, mysticism establishes in experience. We all need to feel the divine presence. Even the being who asserts that one does not is no exception. For one indirectly finds it just the same in spite of oneself but under limited forms like aesthetic appreciation or Nature’s inspiration. Even if all contemporary mystics were to die out, even if not a single living being were to be interested in mysticism, even if all mystical doctrines were to disappear from human memory and written record, the logic of evolution would bring back both the teaching and the practice. They are two of those historical necessities which are certain to be regained in the course of humanity’s cultural progress. Because the Overself is already there within one in all its immutable sublimity, beings have not to develop it or perfect it. One has only to develop and perfect one’s ego until it becomes like a polished mirror, held up to and reflecting the sacred attributes of the Overself, and showing openly forth the divine qualities which had hitherto lain hidden behind itself. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15

The Soul is Still the Activity of thinking, the Emotion of Joy, and the Discrimination Between X and Y

August 7, 2019 9:11 pm

And as we Angels peered into Sheol, as we passed into it, invisible, our essence causing no disturbance in a realm that was purely souls at that point…souls and nothing but souls…we realized these souls were strengthened in their survival by the attentions of those living on Earth, by the love being sent to them by humans, by the thoughts of them in human minds. It was a process. And just as with Angels, these souls were individuals with varying degrees of intellect, interest, or curiosity. They were hosts as well to Hudegrees of spiritual illumination, which accounts both for the varying outlooks to be found among the mystics and for the different kinds of Glimpse among aspirants. All illumination and all Glimpses free the soul from its negative qualities and base nature, but in the latter case only temporarily. One is able, as a result, to see into one’s higher nature. In the first degree, it is as if a window covered with dirt were cleaned enough to reveal a beautiful garden. One can symbolically look down and see flowers of the World enjoy the petal and the center colors. The colors themselves were so distinct and so finely delineated one may be unsure that our spectrum is even involved. I mean, it is as if out spectrum of color is not the limit! #RandolphHarris 1 of 13

The soul is still the activity of thinking, the emotion of joy, and the discrimination between X and Y. In the next and higher degree, it is as if the window were still more leaned so that still more beauty is revealed beyond it. Here there are no thoughts to intervene between the seer and the seen. In the third degree, the discrimination is no longer present. In the fourth degree, it is as if the window were thoroughly cleaned. Here there is no longer even a rapturous emotion but only a balanced happiness, a steady tranquility which, being beyond the intellect, cannot properly be described by the intellect. Some soul, for example, knew they were dead, and sought to respond to the prayers of their children, and actively attempted to advise, speaking with all the power they could muster in a spiritual voice. They struggled to appear to their children. Sometimes they broke through for a fleeting seconds, gathering to themselves swirling particles of matter by the sheer force of their invisible essence. Other times they made themselves visible in dreams, when the soul of the sleeping human was opened to other souls. They told their children of the bitterness and darkness of death, and that they must be brave and strong in life. They gave their children advice. And the seemed, in some instance at least, to know that the belief and attention of their sons and daughters strengthened them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13

These souls requested prayers and offerings, they reminded the children of their duty. These souls were to some extent the least confused, expect for one thing. They thought they had seen all these was to be seen. There was no hint of Heaven, no light from Heaven penetrated Sheol, nor any music. From Sheol one saw the darkness and the stars, and the people of Earth. Again, mental peace is a fruit of the first and lowest degree of illumination, although thoughts will continue to arise although gently, and thinking in the discursive manner will continue to be active although slowly. However, concentration will be sufficiently strong to detach one from the World and, as a consequence, to yield the happiness which accompanies such detachment. Only those who have attained to this degree can correctly be regarded as “saved” ad only they alone are unable to fall back into illusion, error, sin, greed, or sensuality. In the second degree, there will be more inward absorption and cerebral processed will entirely fade out. Freedom from all possibility of anger is a fruit of the third degree and higher degree. If you think l entirely fade out. Freedom from all possibility of anger is a fruit of the third degree and higher degree. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13

If you think you are a god to your children and can still derive strength from the mere sight of the liberation they pour on your grave, the Witness is both an abstract metaphysical concept and a concrete mystical experience. It is not an ultimate one, yielding pure Being, the unsplit Consciousness, but a provisional one. The Witness itself, while witnessing, is being witnessed. Regardless of if the soul’s descendants harken their advice or not, one cannot feel anger toward them, sometimes one will be able to communicate with their descendants with spectacular results. To be the witness is the first stage; to be Witnesses of the witness is the next; but to BE is the final one. For consciousness lets go of the witness in the end. Consciousness alone is itself the real experience. One discovers the presence of this link with World-Mind by a wonderful experience, brief and passing though it be. It is felt intensely and known intuitively. That the divinity is within one is thenceforth one’s certainty even at the times when awareness is absent. However, eventually, if mind develops, one has to asks the question, “What of the World outside?” Until it takes the final leap and transcends itself, human thought can rise to levels of godliness. We may reasonably hope to see God one day but not to be God. The Cosmic Vision of the World-Mind at work can make these souls seem like god to their children. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13

Astral gods of a certain kind. Not the Creator of All. When they come to mortals, some souls know they are ghost. Others think they are alive and the whole World has turned against them. Others simply drift, seeing and hearing the sound of other living beings but remote from this as if in a stupor or dream. And some souls died. The dying soul will last a week, perhaps a month in human time, after its separation from the human body, retaining its shape, and then begin to fade. The essence will gradually disperse. Gone into the air, returned perhaps to the energy and essence of God. Their energy comes back into the Creator; the light of a candle returns to the eternal fire. Yet, these are spiritual beings, made in our image and in God’s image, and they cling to that image and hunger for a life beyond death. That is the agony. The hunger for life beyond death. The souls who become the strongest are those who perceive themselves as gods, or humans passed into the realm of the good God, and attentive to humans; and these souls gain power even to sway the others and strengthen them sometimes and keep them from fading away. There are various degrees and kinds of trance, ranging from mere oblivion to psychical visions and mental travelling, and higher still to a complete immersion of the soul in cosmic Divinity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13

A rare but complete illumination must not only pass from the first to the final degree of intensity, but must also contain a picture of the cosmic order. That is to say, it must be a revelation. It must explain the profounder nature of the Universe, the inner meaning of individual existence, and the hidden relationship between the two. There are some souls who understand things in a different way. They know they are not gods. They know they are dead humans. They know they do not really have the right to change the destiny of those who pray to them; they know that the libations essentially are symbolic. These souls understand the meaning of the concept of symbolic. They know. And they know they are dead and they perceive themselves to be lost. If they could, they would reenter the flesh. For there in the flesh is all the light and warmth and comfort that they have ever known and can still see. And sometimes these souls manage to do exactly that! Two factors account for the differences between individual cosmic illumination. First, there is the human contribution made by the mind itself; second, there are ascending stages in the Illumination or rather in the receptivity to it. Cosmic Vision is of two kinds: a seeing the forms and objects around and feeling one with them, and seeing only the Idea of the Universe. This is called identifying through worship. It is the subtle Universe. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13

It is an advanced experience, not the ultimate so one ought not to stop there. I have witnessed it in various different fashions. I saw these souls deliberately descend and take possession of a stupefied mortal, take our one’s limbs and brain and live in the individual until the being gained the strength to throw the soul off. You know these things. All beings do—what is involved in possession. There is some confusion on this point in the minds of many students. On attaining enlightenment a being does not attain omniscience. At most, one may receive a revelation of the inner operations of life and Nature, of the higher laws governing life and beings. That is, one may also become a seer and find a cosmogony presented to one’s gaze. However, the actuality in a majority of cases is that one attains enlightenment only, not cosmogonical seership. And what I cannot fail to be frightened by, and horrified by Nature, what I cannot ignore is that these souls do have an effect on living men and women. There are those living humans already who have become oracles. They smoke or drink some potion to render their own minds passive, so that a dead soul might speak with their voice! And because these powerful spirit—for I shall call them spirits now—because these powerful spirits know only what Earth and Sheol can teach them, they might urge human beings on to terrible mistakes. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13

I have seen these spirits take possession of someone and order people into battle; I have seen them order executions. I have seen them demand blood sacrifice of human beings. Perhaps this is what is wrong with the thugs outside Mitch McConnell’s home who are currently saying, “Stab the expletive in the heart.” Tomi Lahren what is actually going on is called, “liberal privilege, and that is the misguided belief that those on the left and attack and harass anyone on the conservative side, anyone who is republican, anyone who is a Trump supporter because they believe they have the moral authority to do so.” Humans can create anything. Let us not forget Who Created us all. Angels have gathered, exchanged stories in amazement, then they go off again on their own explorations; they are more entangled with the Earth than they have ever been. However essentially, the reactions of Angels varies. Some, the Seraphim mainly, think the whole process of creation and evolution is downright marvelous; that God deserves a thousand anthems in praise that his Creation should lead to a being who can evolve an invisible deity from itself who would then command it to ever greater efforts at survival of war. Then there are those who think, “This is an error, this is an abomination! These are the souls of humans pretending to be Gods! This is unspeakable and must be stopped immediately!” #RandolphHarris 8 of 13

The deeper one penetrates into the Void the more one is purified of the illusions of personality, time, matter, space, and causality. Between the second and third stages of insight’s unfoldment there are really two further subsidiary stages which are wrapped in the greatest mystery and are rarely touched by the average mystic. For there are stages which lead further downwards into the Void. Some can touch the edge of the Void, as it is, but not its centre. These two stages are purificatory ones and utterly annihilate the last illusions and the last egoisms of the seeker. They are dissolved forever and cannot revive again. Nothing more useful can and may be said about it here. For this is the innermost holy of holies, the most sacred sanctuary accessible to beings. One who touched this grade touches what may not be spoken aloud for sneering ears, nor written down for sneering eyes. Consequently none has ever ventured to explain publicly what must not be so explained. All those of the bene ha Elohim whom I describe to you are alive now. They are immortal. How could you think it would be any other way? Now, there were souls in Sheol at that time who no longer exist, not in any form I know of, but perhaps they do in some form known to God. Tribes pray to different souls. These souls become their gods. Some are stronger than others. Look at the way everywhere, the battle. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13

All human beings on this planet are imperfect. Perfection is not fully attainable here. However, when a being has striven for it and advanced near to it, one will attain it automatically as soon as one is freed from the body. So long as beings are immured in this Earth place, so long must the enlightenment one attains be an imperfect one, or the fulfilment one experiences is a limited one. The liberation from further reincarnation can be attained while still here in the flesh, but the full completion of its consequent inner peace can come only after final exit from the body. So long as one is held by the finite flesh, so long as existence in the inner human body is continued, the perfect and complete merger of one’s individuality in the cosmic mind is impossible. However, once through the portals of so-called death, it becomes an actuality. It is not that philosophy denies the possibility of escaping from personal consciousness into the universal one; on the contrary, it well admits it. However, it declares that the journey is still not finished. These souls have only begun their evolution. Who knows how strong they may become? Beings have stepped into the invisible. What if they are meant to become Angels? #RandolphHarris 10 of 13

Some have sensed the presence of Angels on Earth. They sense it as they sense the presence of a dead soul. It is the same part of the brain which perceives other things invisible; I tell you Angels have been glimpsed and shall now be imagined by these people. “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the Angels in Heaven,” reports Matthew 22.30. Believe in the divinity of your deeper self. Stop looking elsewhere for light, stop wandering hither and tither for power. Your intelligence has become falsified through excessive attention to external living, hence you are not even aware in which direction to look when you seek for the real Truth. You are not even aware that all you need can be obtained by the power within, by the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Self. You have to change, first of all, the line of thought and faith which pleads helplessly: “I am a weak being; I am unlikely to rise any higher than my present level; I live in darkness and move amid opposing environments that overwhelm me.” Rather should you engrave on your heart the high phrase: “I possess illimitable power within me; I can create a diviner life and truer vision than I now possess. So this and then surrender your body, your heart and mind to the Infinite Power which sustains all. Strive to obey Its inward promptings and then declare your readiness to accept whatsoever lot it assigns you. This is your challenge to God and he will surely answer you. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13

Your soul will be slowly or suddenly liberated; your body will be granted a freer pathway through conditions. You may have to be prepared for a few changes before the feet find rest, but always you shall find that the Power in which you have placed an abiding trust does not go into default. Because one believes that self-improvement, the bettering of what being’s nature, is quite possible, one believes in the quest. One who learns the essence of spiritual questing and the basic need in practical living, learns that one must come into command of oneself. Who is willing to work upon oneself? Who even fees that one has any duty to do so? Yet this simple acknowledgment could lead to the discovery of God. The student of true philosophy is more intent on growth than on study. Each being should be oneself, not represent a copy of another being. However, one should be one’s best self, not one’s worst, one’s lower, one’s lesser. This calls for growth, aspiration, effort, on one’s part. That is to say, it calls for a quest. Out of one’s present self one is to evolve a better one and to actualize one’s higher possibilities. The divine spirit is always there in beings, has always been there; but until one cultivates one’s capacity to become aware of it, it might as well be non-existent for one. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13

The Overself is always there; it has never left us, but it has to be ardently, lovingly, and subtly searched for. One must carry the idea of “I” to a deeper level of identification. Most groups of human beings, most of their associations, societies, and organizations suffer at some time from trouble caused by human weaknesses and shortcomings. These include divisions, jealousies, malices, and personal dislikes or hostilities. This is true of idealistic and religious groups as of business and professional ones. Those with experience of the cults and organizations know how unsatisfactory they are in the end. The passage of truth from mind to mind has always been a personal matter and cannot be otherwise, just as the training in prayer is equally person. In authentic living is an expression of complacency. It is designed around habit, custom, and the forgetting of life’s temporality. Being-in-the-World, on the other hand, is characterized by presence or responsiveness to the World (with all its possibilities and limits). The authentic person, accordingly, is one who responds, not just to Worldly demands, but to Being itself, or to the call within. What is this call to Being? It is like calling of the poet—passionate, poignant, and welling from the depths. When people live authentically, they have a spontaneous feeling that they are caught up in something above human desires to be achieved. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13

And How do We Relight the Flame When it is Cold, Why do We Dream When Our Thoughts Mean Nothing?

August 6, 2019 8:17 am

God said: “Wait!” So I found myself stopped at the gates of Heaven, along with all my companions, the Angels who generally went and did what I did, and Michael and Gabriel and Uriel, though not among my companions, were there, too. “Memnoch, my accuser,” said God, and the words were spoken with the characteristic gentleness and a great effulgence of light. “Before you come into Heaven, and you begin your diatribe, go back down to the Earth and study all you have seen thoroughly and with respect—by this I mean humankind—so that when you come to me, you have given yourself every chance to understand and to behold all I have done. I tell you now that Humankind is part of Nature, and subject to the Laws of Nature which you have seen unfold all along. No one should understand batter than you, save I. But go, see again for yourself. Then, and only then, will I call together a convocation in Heaven, of all Angels, of all ranks and all endowment, and I will listen to what you have to say. Take with you those who seek the same answers you seek and leave me those Angels who never cared, nor taken notice, nor though of anything but to live in My Light.” Parts of the psychoanalysis of a young man will demonstrate what happens when an individual’s power cannot be admitted consciously and openly, much like Memnoch In Anne Rice’s Memnoch the Devil. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

The power is not erased but comes out in a myriad of other, separate ways. These ways may be camouflaged power or they may be pseudopower. Soren, a Ph.D. student, good-looking, tall, appeared younger than his twenty-six years. He was the third and last child of an affluent Italian family of which the oldest child, Soren’s brother, who was nine years his senior, had always been successful both socially and on the athletic field. Soren’s sister, who was seven years older, had been in some form of therapy most of her life, had been hospitalized after a schizophrenic breakdown, and had been mute for two years in the mental hospital where she now was. His father, the treasurer of a large chain of stores, was detached, successful at work, and hypochondriacal at home—kind at times, but completely unpredictable, wanting the children to be “sweet” to him and reacting to family disagreements by becoming sick and withdrawing. Soren’s mother, who had been and still was a beauty, dominated the family constellation. She was flighty, subtle, inconsistent, intelligent, and in arguments would change her viewpoint with every sentence in order to put the other person on the defense. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

She had “spoiled” Soren—preparing his favorite cuisine, driving him to school so that he would not have to take the subway like the other boys—and was more than glad when Soren, who disliked school consistently and strongly, would feign illness in order to stay home with her. Soren’s mother was delicate toward him, actively opposing his ineffectual efforts later to date girls. The mean table was a constant battlefield of bickering, with one member of the family not speaking to another for weeks on end. This technique of cutting the resented person dead (“I would walk by my father as though he was not there,” said Soren) was resorted to particularly by Soren and his sister, the weakest members of the family. Soren’s sister eventually enlarged the pattern to include the whole World by her muteness at the hospital. Our opening question is: How was Soren to achieve any power in such a family and such a World? Caught in a double bind, with a mother who would change her stance at the drop of a word, with a father who would withdraw with the threat of a heat attack whenever the smoldering undercover warfare of the family burst out into the open, a pawn between his sister who was mentally disturbed and a successful brother who did come to protect Soren at school but teased him mercilessly at home—what was Soren to do? #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

Should Soren try, now that he had grown to six feet and was good-looking, to assert himself on the social scale? However, the girls at high school had always called him the “baby” (which he had been), and this still bedogged him. The athletic field? He was a novice there; and besides his brother had completely usurped that mode of recognition. Intellectually? For his entire life, until he got into college, he had hated school, did not prepare his work. All of this in spite of the fact that he basically was highly imaginative and, as it later turned out, demonstrated a rich mind and active intelligence. In his boyhood Soren presents the picture of the “little fellow,” who had learned early to be “sweet” to others, never to blow up, and, like the little countries in Europe in the eighteenth century, to get some protection by making alliances with different important members of the family. This self-deprecation pattern went so far, he confessed, that he preferred to be disliked in high school (the other boys had for him a disparaging nickname, “Sappo”) because that at least brought him some attention. Where does his power go? When he was sixteen he had had two epileptic attacks and had been on a daily dose of Dilantin since. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

These epileptic attacks are interesting for our purpose as a symptom of the seething cauldron of emotions under the surface in Soren. Whatever these attacks show physically, the psychological dimension is generally a massive rage. This rage builds up and finally explodes in the periodic seizure. The explosion is blotted out of consciousness, so the individual never has to be aware of, or has to be responsible for, what he does. However, it turns out to be violence directed chiefly against himself—the person himself gets physically hurt, to a greater or lesser degree, as he falls at the time of the seizure. Furthermore he is, like Soren, chronically crippled by having this Damocles’ Sword hanging over his head, never knowing when it will fall. All the while Soren denied this, saying: “I never get emotional or upset—I saw what it does to my sister so I vowed I would never get that way.” Soren’s dreams early in the therapy were frequently of thieves breaking into the house, which was a kind of fortress for him. The only thing he could do was to play dead, the ultimate symbol of impotence and innocence: A group of thieves was in the house. Someone came downstairs—I curled up as though dead. He looked at me a long time. After a while I went outside. The thieves grabbed me. Then a crowd of people were outside, where a woman began to chase me with a meat cleaver in her hand, and then a man took the cleaver and began to chase me. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

“I remember moments of unhappiness,” said Soren, “never any joy in our family. I learned to roll with the punches in family fights, to go along, never to expect anything—you get hurt that way. Why struggle? It is painful, and I learned early never to believe in pain of any sort…Nobody paid any attention to my feelings. I was always belittled.” This is similar to the way Memnoch felt about God creating human beings and their suffering. “I went up to Heaven,” he said, “ablaze with thoughts and doubts and speculations. I knew wrath. The cries of suffering mammals had taught me wrath. The screams and roars of wars amongst beings had taught me wrath. Decay and death had taught me fear. Indeed all of God’s Creation had taught all I needed to speed before him (God) and say, ‘Is this what you wanted! Your own image divided into male and female! The spark of life now blazing huge when either dies, male or female! This grotesquerie; this impossible division; this monster! Was this the plan?’” Soren and Memnoch are both like Gulliver, all tied up with ropes by Lilliputians, this is a symbol which betrays their own image of hidden power. Memnoch’s only happy time was before the creation of humans. Soren’s only happy time was the year he went to Israel. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

The Israeli-Arab war was beginning, and Soren covered it for an American newspaper. He looked back upon this period with fond memories; he loved the excitement, the enforced relationship with death in his walking along the Gaza strip among the bodies of fallen soldiers. For a brief period he left himself to be of some significance. He was twenty-four at this time, and Soren fell in love with a girl—the first time he had ever been in love. The occasion, as distinguished from the cause, of his coming for psychoanalysis was his turmoil over whether to marry this girl or not. His family was aligned against her, but when I met her she seemed a sympathetic though somewhat optimistic person who was someone Soren could talk and who gave him some recognition. About three months after his psychotherapy started, he told me that he believed he could influence distant objects to change. He was shy and hesitant in telling me this, saying he knew it sounded irrational and adding that if I did not believe what he said he could not tell me. I replied that my task was not to argue the truth or falsehood of such ideas; but to find out what function they served for him; and obviously the ideas were significant for him. This apparently satisfied him, for Soren then began to reveal a whole system of belief in “retribution” at the hands of God and in harm being meted out to others and punishment for wrongs they had done. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

When we awakens in the morning, Soren must think of his family or else they would get hurt. He must lift the sheets up two feet, look at an exact spot on the wall, stand up exactly the right way on the floor, go to the bathroom and urinate, all before he exchanged a word with anyone. He must take his clothes out, put on his undershirt, sit down on the bed and put his left shoe on first, then his trousers. If he makes a mistake in this ritual, he must go back to bed and start the whole thing over. After that he must say “good morning” to Charlotte (the maid) or to his brother. At breakfast he had to eat in the same rigid order; he must drink his orange juice, then eat his egg, then drink his milk. And so on. When he does something wrong in this system, his father will have a heart attack or something will happen to his mother. Punishment and happiness, he believed, were portioned out by God. Several years earlier Soren had been relatively happy when enrolled in journalism school. As a “result” his grandmother died because he had placed the book Huckleberry Finn in a certain position on his desk or because of the way he had placed his pennies on his dresser. When I, testing the rigidity of the system, asked whether his grandmother might not have died anyway, he replied, not at the time or in some other way. If Soren does right, others will benefit; if he does wrong, others, especially those in his own family, will get sick or have accidents. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

Soren cannot have pleasures of the flesh, nor must he enjoy it very much. When he did experience pleasures of the flesh, he waited in fear for several days for the retribution to fall. Surely enough, two days later his mother was mugged and robbed in the train station in a neighboring city. What strikes us immediately in this complex system is the tremendous power it gives him. Any chance deed of his could decide whether someone lived or died. He even had power over the weather: “When it rains, the rain is sent by God to punish me.” He actually controlled the Universe that way. “I have to control everything about my life. I could not live if I did not control the future.” It is worthy of note that “control” was one of Soren’s favorite words, and he used it often. I contended myself at first by remarking that he must feel as if he were in a strait jacket with all those rigid compulsions, and did not he find it a heavy weight upon him? He agreed that it was difficult, but he had no choice. Moreover, he had not been able to read Faust when in high school because of all the “demons” running around in it, and even Mary Poppins was prohibited when it became filled with devils. He could not say the word that goes before Yankees in the title of a contemporary play. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

Soren did see the vast power that his system gave him, after I pointed it out to him. However, Memnoch was also very powerful. God created him and his followers first—the archangels were Memnoch, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and many others whose names have never been discovered—either inadvertently or deliberately. There were actually fifty archangels, and they were the first made. Memnoch is actually Satan. The archangels are very powerful because they are the ones who communicated in the most direct way with God, and also with the Earth. That is why they were labeled Guardian Angels, as well as Archangels. Much like Soren, the Archangels were sometimes given a low rank in religious literature, but they do not have a low rank. What they have is the greatest personality and the greatest flexibility between God and humans. However, whenever the Angels have a problem with God, they would take their concerns to Memnoch, so much like Soren a lot of power rested on his shoulders. Also, like Soren, Memnoch became rejected as he was deemed God’s accuser. Satan means accuser. “And the early religious writers, knowing only bits and pieces of the truth, thought it was man whom I accused, not God; but there are reasons for this, as you will soon see. You might say I have become the Great Accuser of everybody,” says Memnoch. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

Much like Soren, some thought Memnoch seemed “exasperated.” Soren have lived as a child, he knew, in such emotional disorder that he had to have something solid. He was compensating for a boyhood that was completely powerless. “I would allow people to use me to build themselves up,” he said; and one can be sure Soren have to take revenge. The neurotic power (or magic) is in direct proportion to the early powerlessness. Such a person will not and cannot five up his system until he experiences some real power in the actual World. That Soren had plenty of threats against which to protect himself is shown in several dreams that occurred during the weeks he was telling me about his retribution system. One was: “I was left in the house alone. A masked man and woman disguised as my mother and father broke into our house to attack me.” He also often dreamed of the Mafia, and suddenly asked one day: “Is my mother this Mafia, the enemy? Sometime pain is the punishment or is an alleviating factor. I then can give up the compulsions. Generally the compulsions does not affect my life, but it leaves me very frightened. In some ways it is like voodoo. I keep thinking may I have dome something I should not have. I do not want to be responsible for all those things happening.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

Memnoch feels the say way as Soren, he does not want to be held responsible for everyone’s mistakes. “At times when I am angry and making speeches to all of Heaven, I accuse them…if you will pardon the expression again—of being held to Go as if by a magnet and not having a free will or personality such as we possess. But they have these things, they do, even the Ophanim, who are in general the least articulate or eloquent—in fact, Ophanim are likely to say nothing for eons—and any of these First Triad can be sent by God to do this and that, and have appeared on Earth, and some of the Seraphim have made rather spectacular appearances to men and women as well. To their credit, they adore God utterly, the experience without reserve the ecstasy of his presence, and he fills them completely so that they do not ask questions of him and they are more docile, or more truly aware of God, depending on one’s point of view,” Memnoch. So, you can see that both Memnoch and Soren feel frustrated and like they are the only ones who can keep the order and peace. However, is it not that Soren and Memnoch want the controlling the system not to continue—it gives their lives a tremendous sense of significance—but neither wants to accept the responsibility for the power. It is to be kept secret, not admitted openly; they both are a controller of life and death for countless people related to them, and no one but the both of them know it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

By acting as controller, Memnoch and Soren can preserve their façade of innocence. When people have to ask for help, and feel a need to be in control, it can be humiliating. Therefore, they have to work out a covert system of secret control over others while doing so. Much like Memnoch, Soren was a puppeteer, pulling wires, in reality or in fantasy, to direct his therapist, his girl friend, his professors, and everyone around him. Memnoch had to direct God, the Angels, and humans. They both are weak, greatly needing an authority figure and tried to maneuver people into taking the responsibility they felt they had. One must, at all costs, not let one’s power come out into the open or let oneself be seen as powerful; one must forever remain the innocent little boy or Angel. To make someone else responsible but powerless—this is the bind the Soren and Memnoch tried to put their authority figure in. It is the bind both of them had been in all of their lives. The pattern of God and retributions, I proposed, must have the effect of reversing the above pattern: it must be a way that one can be powerful with no responsibility. Memnoch and Soren had no confidence in the possibility of their changing; change must come from the outside. This conviction was necessary to keep the whole retribution system intact. Memnoch and Soren get their power by being secretly allied with God. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

All power remains with God; God requires that Soren and Memnoch have no autonomous power to assert themselves. If one once decided that one could make a fateful decision on one’s own, God himself would be challenged and the whole system would fall away like mist under the morning Sun. Taking responsibility upon one’s self, asserting one’s own autonomy, was challenging God and committing the sin of hubris. “Angels are not perfect. You can see that already. They are Created Beings. They do not know everything God knows, that is obvious to you and everyone else. However, they know a great deal; they know that all can be known in Time if they wish to know it; and that is where Angels differ, you see. Some wish to know everything in Time, and some care only for God and god’s reflection in those of his most devoted souls,” Anne Rice. One who has attained the consciousness of Overself puts in no claim to the attainment. One accepts it in so utterly natural and completely humble a manner than most people are deceived into regarding one as ordinary. One has not attained who is conscious that one has attained, for this very consciousness cunningly hides the ego and delivers one into its power. That alone is attainment which is natural, spontaneous, unforced, unaware, and unadvertised, whether to the being or to others. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

At this stage there is no struggle for further growth; it comes as softly and as naturally as a flower’s. There is no sacrifice of things the ego desires or clutches to itself, for there is such insight as to their worth or worthlessness that they stay or fall away of themselves. It is better to attain such high status without knowing it. For this absence of pride and presence of humility keeps the ego from threatening it. The actions of a being who has attained this degree are inspired directly by one’s Overself, and consequently are not dictated by personal wishes, purposes, passions, or desires. They are not initiated by one’s ego’s will higher than one’s own. Since there is no consciously deliberating thinking, no broken trends. There is only spontaneous thought, feeling, and action, all being directed by intuition. For one not to be aware that one is acting virtuously, courageously, wisely, or practicing contemplation beautifully, free from interfering mental images and thought, this is the ideal disposition. For then, if one does not know that one—the person—is doing so, no egoism will taint one’s consciousness. It will be pure being. One will do whatever has to be done by one as a human creature—whether it be a physical act or a mental one, one will respond to all situations that call for a human response, but neither the act nor the response will be accompanied by the personal ego. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

This does not mean that one’s Worldly life or one will suffer loss of identity—only that one will be isolated from the Worldly self-centered thought, desire, and motive which prompts the existence of the mass of people. One feels no need—so conspicuous in neurotics with a message—to call attention to oneself. Rather does one seek to keep it away. The strength of the enlightenment will determine the extent of its effects. An illumination maybe permanent but at the same time it may be only partial. Not until it is complete and lasting is it really philosophic. It is not only true that there is variety in the types of illumination but also true that there is a scale of degrees in the illumination itself. Until one has established permanently, although not necessarily at the very highest level, the consciousness can become corrupted, the being can fall back. “As I sit here and slowly close my eyes, I take another deep breath and feel the wind pass through my body. I am the one in your soul, reflecting inner light. Protect the ones who hold you, cradling in your inner child. I need serenity in a place where I can hide. I need serenity, nothing changes, days go by. Where do we go when we just do not know and how do we relight the flame when it is cold. Why do we dream when our thoughts mean nothing and when will we learn to control? Tragic visions slowly stole my life. Tore away everything, cheating me out of my time,” Serenity by Godsmack. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

Good Health Generally Means the Ability to Resolve Contradictions—It is a Synthesis Like Breathing!

August 6, 2019 12:14 am

God created the Universe and Time. Well, we were astonished, and we were also enthralled! Absolutely enthralled. God said to us, “Watch this, because this will be beautiful and will exceed your conceptions and expectations, as it will Mine.” It is all garbled, in countless texts throughout the World. There are texts which are irretrievable now which contained amazingly accurate information about cosmology; and there are texts that mortals know; and there are texts that have been forgotten but which can be rediscovered in time. “And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone,” reports Matthew 14.23. He was there alone. So are we. Beings are alone because they are mortal! In some way every creature is alone. In majestic isolation every star travels through the darkness of endless space. Each tree grows according to its own law, fulfilling its unique possibilities. Animals live, fight, and die for themselves alone, confined to the limitations of their bodies. Certainly, they also appear as male and female, in families and in flocks. Some of them are gregarious. However, all of them are alone! Being alive means being in a body—a body separated from all other bodies. And being separated means being alone. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15

This is true of every creature, and it is more true of humans than any other creature. One is not only alone; one also knows that one is alone. Aware of what one is, one asks the question of one’s aloneness. One asks why one is alone, and how one can triumph over one’s being alone. For this aloneness one cannot endure. Neither can one escape it. It is one’s destiny to be alone and to be aware of it. Not even God can take this destiny away from one. In the story of paradise we read—“Then the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone.” And as we pondered, as we opened our arms and sang and tried to comfort them, while stepping invisibly and artfully through the material of Earth, something momentous made itself known to us, shocking us out of our explorations. Before our very eyes, the Twelfth Revelation of Physical Evolution was upon us! It struck us like the light from Heaven; it distracted us from the cries of the covert invisible! It shattered our reason. It caused our songs to become laughter and wails. The Twelfth Revelation of Evolution was that of the female of the human species had begun to look more distinctly different from the male of the human species by margin so great that no other anthropoid could compare! #RandolphHarris 2 of 15

The female grew pretty in our eyes, and seductive; the hair left her face, and her limbs grew graceful; her manner transcended the necessities of survival; and she became beautiful as flowers are beautiful, as the wings of birds are beautiful! What had risen, a female tender-skinned and radiant of face. And God created the woman from the body of Adam. Here an old myth is used to show that originally there was no bodily separation between man and woman; in the beginning they were one. Now they long to be one again. However, although they recognize each other as flesh of their own flesh, each remains alone. They look at each other, and despite their longing for each other, they see their strangeness. In the story, God himself makes them aware of this fact when he speaks to each of them separately, when he makes each one responsible for one’s own guilt, when he listens to their excuses and mutual accusations, when he pronounces a separate curse over each, and leave them to experience shame in the face of their nakedness. They are each alone. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15

The creation of the woman has not overcome the situation which God describes as not good for man. He remains alone. And the creation of the woman, although it provides a helper for Adam, has only presented to the one human being who is alone another human being who is equally alone, and from their flesh all other beings, each of whom will stand alone. We ask, however—is this really so? Did not God accomplish something better? Is not our aloneness largely removed in the encounter of the genders? Certainly it is during hours of communion and in moments of love. The ecstasy of love can absorb one’s own self in its union with the other self, and separation seems to be overcome. However, after these moments, the isolation of self from self is felt even more deeply than before, sometimes ever to the point of mutual repulsion. We have given too much of ourselves, and now we long to take back what was given. Our desire to protect our aloneness is expressed in the feeling of shame. When our intimate self, mental or bodily is opened, we feel ashamed. We try to cover our vulnerability, as did Adam and Eve when they became conscious of themselves. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15

Thus, man and woman remain alone even in the most intimate union. They cannot penetrate each other’s innermost center. And if this were not so, they could not be helpers to each other’ they could not have human community. This is why God himself cannot liberate mortals from their aloneness: it is human’s greatness that one is centered within one’s own being. Separated from one’s World, one is thus able to look at it. Only because one can look at it can one know and love and transform it. God, in creating one the ruler of the Earth, had to separate one and thrust one into aloneness. Humans are also therefore able to be spoken to by God and by other beings. One can ask questions and give answers and make decisions. One has the freedom for good or evil. Only one who has an impenetrable center in oneself is free. Only one who is alone can claim to be a human. This is the greatness and this is he burden of being. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” From this primal decree millions of human beings are now liberated. More and more beings have more and more leisure. The working day grows shorter, the week end longer. More and more women are released at an earlier age from the heavier tasks of the rearing of children, in the small family of today, when kindergarten and school and clinic and restaurant come to their assistance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15

More and more people are freed for other things, released from the exhaustion of their energies in the mere satisfaction of elementary wants. No longer is the pattern so simple as that of Longfellow’s blacksmith, who something attempted, something done, had earned a night’s repose. Released from what? When necessity no longer drives, when people own long hors in which to do what they want, what do they want to do? Where necessity is heavy upon beings, they yearn for the joys of leisure. Now many have enough leisure. What are the joy they find? The shorter working day is also a different working day. Nearly all people work for others, not for themselves—not the way a person works who has one’s own little plot of Earth and must give oneself up to its cultivation. For many, work has become a routine—not too onerous, not too rewarding, and by no means engrossing—a daily routine until the bell rings and sets them free again. For what? It is a marvelous liberation for those who learn to use it; and there are many ways. It is the great emptiness for those who do not. People of a placid disposition do not know the great emptiness. When the day’s work done, they betake themselves to their quiet interests, their hobbies, their gardens or their amateur workbenches or their stamp collecting or their games or their affairs or their church activities or whatever it be. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15

When they need more sting in life, they have a mild “fling,” taking a little “moral holiday.” Some find indulgence enough in the vicarious pleasure of snidely malicious gossip. Their habits are early formed and they keep a modicum of contentment. However, the number of the placid is growing less. The conditions of our civilization do not encourage that mood. For one thing, the old-time acceptance of authority, as God-given or nature-based, is much less common. Religion is for very many an ancient tale, a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong, reduced to ritual or the moral precepts of the Sunday pulpit. There is little allegiance to the doctrine that every being has allotted place. How could there be when competition has become a law of life? There is incessant movement and disturbance and upheaval. And with the new leisure there come new excitations, new stimuli to unrest. So the new leisure has brought its seeming opposite, restlessness. And because these cannot be reconciled the great emptiness comes. Faced with the great emptiness, unprepared to meet it, most people resort to one or another way of escape, according to their kind. Those who are less conscious of their need succeed in concealing it from themselves. They find their satisfaction in the great new World of means without ends. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15

Those who are more conscious of their need cannot conceal it; they only distract themselves from the thought of it. Their common recourse is excitation, and they seek it in diverse ways. The first kind are the go-getters. When they are efficient or unscrupulous or both, they rise in the World. They amass things. They make some money. They win some place and power. Not for anything, not to do anything with it. Their values are relative, which means they are no values at all. They make money to make more money. They win some power that enables them to seek more power. They are practical beings. They keep right on being practical, until their unlived lives are at an end. If they stopped being practical, the great emptiness would engulf them. They are like planes that must keep on flying because they have no landing gear. The engines go fast and faster, but they are going nowhere. They make good progress to nothingness. They take pride in their progress. They are outdistancing other beings. They are always calculating the distance they have gained. It shows what can be done when you have the know-how. They feel superior and that sustains them. They stay assured in the World of means. What matters is winning. “But what good cam of it at last?” Ouoth little Peterkin. “Why that I cannot tell,” said he, “But ’twas a famous victory.” Victory for the sake of the winning, means for the sake of the acquiring, that is success. So the circle spins forever means without end, World without end. Amen. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15

One will find that the onset of insight will not be at all like the picture of it which one had previously and erroneously formed. When one awakens to truth as it really is, one will have no occult vision, one will have no astral experience, no ravishing ecstasy. One will awaken to it in a state of utter stillness, and one will realize that truth was always there within one and that reality was always there around one. Truth is not something which has grown and developed through your efforts. It is not something which has been achieved or attained by laboriously adding up those efforts. It is not something which has to be made more and more perfect each year. And once your mental eyes are opened to truth they can never be closed again. The discovery of one’s true being is not outwardly dramatic, and for a long time no one may know of it, except oneself. The World may not honour one for it: one may die as obscure as one lived. However, the purpose of one’s life has been fulfilled; and God’s will has been done. There is nothing melodramatic about realization of Truth. Those who look for marvels look in vain, unless indeed its bestowal of singular serenity is a marvel. No one really knows ho this enlightenment first dawns on one. One moment it was not there, the next moment one was somehow in it. No announcements tell the World that one has come into enlightenment. No heralds blow the trumpets proclaiming being’s greatest victory—over oneself. This is in fact the quietest moment of one’s whole life. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15

To find out that one’s way does lie through cults, in the hope of finding one to suit one, ventures into a danger-beset field, where lunacy is often mistaken for illumination and where exaggerated claims substitute for solid facts. The desire for power over others, for authority, is a form of personal ambition which has, in the past, mixed easily with a spiritual glimpse. A new sect, a new movement, has then come to birth. The seeker after truth who comes in contact with it would be far safer to take some of the teaching without sacrificing one’s freedom, without joining the group. If any work, institution, or organization is centered in the Overself it cannot fall into the base, negative, or selfish currents which, in the historic past, have polluted, poisoned, and sometimes destroyed so many tasks and enterprises. The fears which repression serves to overcome may also be overcome by keeping the hostility under conscious control. However, whether one controls or represses hostility is not a matter of choice, because repression is a reflex-like process. It occurs if in a particular situation it is unbearable to be aware that one is hostile. In such a case, of course, there is no possibility of conscious control. The main reasons why awareness of hostility may be unbearable are that one may love or need a person at the same time that one is hostile toward one, that one may not want to see the reasons, such as envy or possessiveness, which have promoted the hostility or, that it may be frightening to recognize within one’s self hostility toward anyone. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15

In such circumstances repression is the shortest and quickest way toward an immediate reassurance. By repression the frightening hostility disappears from awareness, or is kept from entering awareness. I should like to repeat this sentence in other words, because for all its simplicity it is one of those psychoanalytic statements which is but rarely understood: if hostility is repressed the person has not the remotest idea that one is hostile. The quickest way toward a reassurance, however, is not necessarily the safest way in the long run. By the process of repression the hostility—or to indicate its dynamic character we had better use here the term rage—is removed from conscious awareness but is not abolished. Split off from the context of the individual’s personality, and hence beyond control, it revolves within one as an affect which is highly explosive and eruptive, and therefore tends to be discharged. The explosiveness of the repressed affect is all the greater because by its very isolation it assumes larger and often fantastic dimensions. As long as one is aware of animosity its expansion is restricted in a few different ways. First, consideration of the circumstances as they are in a given situation shows one what one can and what one cannot do toward an enemy or alleged enemy. Second, if the anger concerns one whom one otherwise admires or likes or needs, the anger will sooner or later become integrated into the totality of one’s feelings. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15

Finally, inasmuch as a being has developed a certain sense of what is appropriate to do or not to do, personality being as it is, this too will restrict one’s hostile impulses. If the anger is repressed, then access to these restricting possibilities is cut off, with the result that the hostile impulses trespass the restrictions from inside and outside, though only in fantasy. If the chemist I mentioned yesterday had followed his impulses he would have wanted to tell others how Kirk had abused his friendship, or to intimate to his superior that Kirk had stolen his idea or kept him from pursuing it. Since his anger was repressed it became dissociated and expanded, as would probably have shown in his dreams; it is likely that in his dream he committed murder in some symbolic form, or became an admired genius, while others went disgracefully to pieces. By its very dissociation the repressed hostility will in the course of time usually because intensified from outside sources. For instance, if a high employee has developed an anger toward his chief, because the chief had made arrangements without discussing them with him, and if the employee represses his anger, never remonstrating against the procedure, the superior will certainly keep on acting over his head. Thereby new anger is constantly generated. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15

The neurotic attitude calls forth a reaction of the environment, by which the attitude itself is reinforced, with the result that the person is more and more caught, and greater and greater difficulty escaping. This phenomenon is called Teufelskreia. Another consequence of repressing hostility arises from the fact that a person registers within oneself the existence of a highly explosive affect which is beyond control. Before discussing the consequences of this we have to consider a question which it suggests. By definition the result of repressing an affect or an impulse is that the individual is no longer aware of its existence, so that in one’s conscious mind ones does not know that one has any hostile feelings toward another. How then can I say that one registers the existence of the repressed affect within oneself? The answer is possessed in the fact that there is no strict alternative between consciousness and unconscious, but that there are several levels of consciousness. Not only is the repressed impulse still effective—one of the basic discoveries of Dr. Freud—but also in a deeper level of consciousness the individual knows about its presence. Reduced to the most simple terms possible this means that fundamentally we cannot fool ourselves, that actually we observe ourselves better than we are aware of doing, just as we usually observe others better than we are aware of doing—as shown, for example, in the correctness of the first impression we ger from a person—but we may have stringent reasons for not taking cognizance of our observations. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15

For the sake of saving repetitive explanations I shall use the term register when I mean that we know what is going on within us without our being aware of it. These consequences of repressing hostility may themselves be sufficient to create anxiety, provided always that the hostility and its potential danger to other interests are sufficiently great. States of vague anxiety may be built in this way. More often, however, the process does not come to a standstill at this point, because there is an imperative need to get rid of the dangerous affect which from within menaces one’s interest and security. A second reflex-like process sets in: the individual projects one’s hostile impulses to the outside World. The first pretense, the repression, requires a second one: one pretends that the destructive impulses come not from one but from someone or something outside. Logically the person on whom one’s own hostile impulses will be projected is the person against whom they are directed. The result is that this person now assumes formidable proportions in one’s mind, partly because in any danger the degree of potency depends not only on the factual conditions but also on the attitude taken toward them. The more defenseless one is the greater the danger appears. The anxiety with which we react to a danger does not depend mechanically on the realistic greatness of the danger. An individual who has developed mechanically an attitude of helplessness and passivity will react with anxiety to a comparatively small danger. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15

As by-function the projection also serves the need for self-justification. It is not the individual oneself who wants to cheat, to steal, to exploit, to humiliate, but the others want to do such things to one. A wife who is unaware of her own impulses to ruin her husband and subjectively convince ed that she is most devoted may, because of this mechanism, consider her husband to be a brute wanting to harm her. The process of projection may or may not be supported by another process working to the same end: a retaliation fear may get hold of the repressed impulse. In this case a person who wants to injure, cheat, deceive others has also a fear that they will do the dame to him. How far the retaliation fear is a general characteristic ingrained in human nature, how far it arises from primitive experiences of sin and punishment, how far it presupposes a drive for personal revenge, I leave as an open question. Beyond doubt it plays a great role in the minds of neurotic person. These processes brought about by repressed hostility result in the affect of anxiety. In fact, the repression generates exactly the state which is characteristic of anxiety: a feeling of defenselessness toward what is felt an overpowering danger menacing from outside. “Tell them to fear not, for God will deliver them, yea, and also all those who stand fast in that liberty wherewith God hath made them free,” Alma 6.21. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15

Should I Ever Take Ease Upon a Bed of Leisure, May that Same Moment Mark My End!

July 30, 2019 12:04 am

It is a lust again of time and for the future, for the mysteries of the natural World. For being the watcher that I became that long-ago night in Paris, when I was forced into it. I lost my illusions. I lost my favorite lies. You might say I revisited that moment and was reborn to darkness of my own free will. The transition to a study of the negative aspects of bureaucracy is afforded by the application of Veblen’s concept of trained incapacity, Dewey’s notion of occupational psychosis, or Warnotte’s view of professional deformation. Trained incapacity refers to that state of affairs in which one’s abilities function as inadequacies or blind spots. Actions based upon training and skills which have been successfully applied in the past may result in inappropriate responses under changed conditions. An inadequate flexibility in the application of skills, will, inchanging milieu, result in more or less serious maladjustments. Thus, to adopt a barnyard illustration used in this connection by Kenneth Burke, chickens may be readily conditioned to interpret the sound of a bell as a signal for trained chickens to their doom as they are assembled to suffer decapitation. In general, one adopts measures in keeping with one’s past training and, under new conditions which are not recognized as significantly different, the very soundness of this training may lead to the adoption of the wrong procedures. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18

Again, in Burke’s almost echolalic phrase, “people may be unfitted by being fit in an unfit fitness”; their training may lead to the adoption of the wrong procedures. Dewey’s concept of occupational psychosis rests upon much the same observations. As a result of their day to day routines, people develop special preferences, antipathies, discriminations and emphases. (The term psychosis is used by Dewey to denote a “pronounced character of the mind.”) These psychoses develop through demand put upon the individual by the particular organization of one’s occupational role. The concepts of both Veblen and Dewey refer to a fundamental ambivalence. Any action can be considered in terms of what it attains or what it fails to attain. “A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing—a focus upon object A involves a neglect of object B.” In his discussion, Weber is almost exclusively concerned with what the bureaucratic structure attains: precision, reliability, efficiency. This same structure may be examined from another perspective provided by the ambivalence. What are the limitations of the organizations designed to attain these goals? For reasons which we have already noted, the bureaucratic structure exerts a constant pressure upon the official to be “methodical, prudent, disciplined.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 18

If the bureaucracy is to operate successfully, it must attain a high degree of reliability of behavior, an unusual degree of conformity with prescribed patterns of actions. Hence, the fundamental importance of discipline which may be as highly developed in a religious or economic bureaucracy as in the army. Discipline can be effective only if the ideal patterns are buttressed by strong sentiments which entail devotion to one’s duties, a keen sense of the limitation of one’s authority and competence, and methodical performance of routine activities. The efficacy of social structure depends ultimately upon infusing group participants with appropriate attitudes and sentiments. As we shall see, there are definite arrangements in the bureaucracy for inculcating and reinforcing these sentiments. At the moment, it suffices to observe that in order to ensure discipline (the necessary reliability of response), these sentiments are often more intense than is technically necessary. There is a margin of safety, so to speak, in the pressure exerted by these sentiments upon the bureaucrat to conform to one’s patterned obligations, in much the same sense that added allowances (precautionary overestimations) are made by the engineer in designing the supports for a bridge. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18

However, this very emphasis leads to a transference of the sentiments from the aims of the organization onto the particular details of behavior required by the rules. Adherence to the rules, originally conceived as a means, becomes transformed into an end-in-itself; there occurs the familiar process of displacement of goals whereby an instrumental value becomes a terminal value. Discipline, readily interpreted as conformance with regulations, whatever the situation, is seen not as a measure designed for specific purposes but becomes an immediate value in the life-organization of the bureaucrat. This emphasis, resulting from the displacement of the original goals, develops into rigidities and an inability to adjust readily. Formalism, even ritualism, ensures with an unchallenged insistence upon punctilious adherence to formalized procedures. This may be exaggerated to the point where primary concern with conformity to the rules interferes with the achievement of the purposes of the organization, in which case we have the familiar phenomenon of the technicism or red tape of the official. An extreme product of this process of displacement of goals is the bureaucratic virtuoso, who never forgets a single rule binding his or her actions and hence is unable to assist many of one’s clients. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18

A case in point, where strict recognition of the limits of authority and literal adherence to rules produced this result, is the pathetic plight of Bernt Balchen, Admiral Byrd’s pilot in the flight over the South Pole. According to a ruling of the department of labor Bernt Balchen cannot receive his citizenship papers. Balchen, a native of Norway, declared his intention in 1927. It is held that he has failed to meet the condition of five years’ continuous residence in the United States of American. The Byrd Antarctic voyage took him out of the country, although he was on a ship carrying the American flag, was an invaluable member of the American expedition, and in a region to which there is an American claim because of the exploration and occupation of it by Americans, this region being Little America. The bureau of naturalization explains that it cannot proceed on the assumption that Little America is American soil. That would be trespass on international questions where is has no sanction. So far as the bureau is concerned, Balchen was out of the country and technically has not complied with the law of naturalization. Such inadequacies in orientation which involve trained incapacity clearly derive from structural sources. The process may be briefly recapitulated. An effective bureaucracy demands reliability of response and strict devotion to regulations. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18

Such devotion to the rules of an effective bureaucracy leads to their transformation into absolutes; they are no longer conceived as relative to a set of purposes. This interferes with ready adaptation under special conditions not clearly envisaged by those who drew up the general rules. Thus, the very elements which conduce toward efficiency in general produce inefficiency in specific instances. Full realization of the inadequacy is seldom attained by members of the group who have not divorced themselves from the meanings which the rules have for them. These rules in time become symbolic in cast, rather than strictly utilitarian. The usefulness of organizations makes them a necessity. The appointment of people to administer those organizations is unavoidable. In the arrangements of human society, there is a necessary place for human institutions. However, organizations and bureaucracy may lead to anxiety. A way of escaping anxiety that is considered most radical consists in avoiding all situations, thoughts or feelings which might arouse anxiety. This may be a conscious process, as when the person who fear driving or mountain climbing avoids doing these things. More accurately speaking, a person may be aware of the existence of anxiety and aware of avoiding it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18

One may also, however, be only dimly or not at all aware of avoiding activities. One may, for instance, procrastinate in matter which, without one’s knowledge, are connected with anxiety, such as making decision, going to the doctor or writing a letter. Or one may pretend, that is, subjectively believe that certain activities one contemplates—such as taking part in a discussion, giving orders to employees, separating oneself from another person—are unimportant. Or one may pretend not to like doing certain things and discard them on that basis. This a young lady whom going to parties involves gears of being neglected may avoid going altogether by making herself believe that she does not like social gatherings. If we go one step farther, to the point where such avoidance operates automatically, we have the phenomenon of an inhibition. An inhibition consists in an inability to do, feel or think certain things, and its function is to avoid the anxiety which would arise if the person attempted to do, feel, or think those things. There is no anxiety present in awareness, and no capacity for overcoming the inhibitions by conscious effort. Inhibitions are present in their most spectacular form in the hysterical losses of functioning: hysterical blindness, speechlessness or paralysis of a limb. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18

In the sphere pleasures of the flesh and frigidity and impotence represent such inhibitions, although the structure of these inhibitions may be very complex. In the mental sphere inhibitions in concentration, in forming or expressing opinions, in making contacts with people are well-known phenomena. It might be worth while to spend several pages merely enumerating inhibitions, as to convey a full impression of the variety of their forms and the frequency of their occurrence. I think, however, that I may leave it to the reader to review one’s own observations on that score, because inhibitions are nowadays a well-known phenomenon and easily recognizable, if they are fully developed. Nevertheless it is desirable to consider briefly the preconditions that are necessary in order to become aware that inhibitions exist. Otherwise we should underestimate their frequency because usually we are not aware of how many inhibitions we really have. In the first place, we must be aware of the desire to do something in order to be aware of the inability to do it. For instance, we have to be aware of possessing ambitions before we can realize that we have inhibitions on that score. The question may be asked whether we do not always at least know what we want. Decidedly not. Let us consider, for example, a person listening to a paper and having a critical thought about it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18

A minor inhibition would consist in a timidity about expressing the criticism; a stronger inhibition would prevent one from organizing one’s thoughts, with the result that they would occur to one only after the discussion was over or the net morning. However, the inhibition may go so far as not to permit the critical thoughts to come up at all, and in this case, assuming that one really feels critical, one will be inclined to accept blindly what has been said or even to admire it; and one will be quite unaware of having any inhibitions. In other words, if an inhibition goes so far as to check wishes or impulses there can be no awareness of its existence. A second factor that may prevent awareness occurs when an inhibition has such an important function in a person’s life that one prefers to insist that it is an unchangeable fact. If, for instance, there is an overpowering anxiety of some kind connected with any sort of competitive work, resulting in an intense fatigue after every attempt to work, the person may insist that one is not strong enough to do any work; that belief protects one, but if one admitted an inhibition one might have to return to work and thereby expose oneself to the dreaded anxiety. Truth comes after states and ecstasies and then takes it place. It is easier to glimpse the truth than to stay in it. For the first, it is often enough to win a single battle; for the second, it is necessary to win a whole war. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18

Compensatory trends in an individual will influence the forms of his or her creating will take, but they do not explain the process of creativity itself. Compensatory needs influence the particular bent or direction in culture or science, but they do not explain the creation of the culture or science. Because of this I learned very early in my psychological career to regard with a good deal of skepticism current theories explaining creativity. And I learned always to task the questions: Does the theory deal with creativity itself, or does it deal only with some artifact, some partial, peripheral aspect, of the creative act? The other widely current psychoanalytic theories about creativity have two characteristics. First, they are reductive—that is, they reduce creativity to some other process. Second, they generally make it specifically an expression of neurotic patterns. The usual definition of creativity in psychoanalytic circles is regression in the service of ego. Immediately the term regression indicates the reductive approach. I emphatically disagree with the implication that creativity is to be understood by reducing it to some other process, or that it is essentially an expression of neurosis. Creativity is certainly associated with serious psychological problems in our particular culture—Van Gogh went psychotic, Gaugin seems to have been a schizoid, Poe was an alcoholic, and Virginia Woolf was seriously depressed. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18

Obviously creativity and originality are associated with persons who do not fit into their culture. However, this does not necessarily mean that the creativity is the product of the neurosis. The association of creativity with neurosis presents us with a dilemma—namely, if by psychoanalysis we cured the artists of their neuroses would they no longer create? This dichotomy, as well as many others, arise from the reductive theories. Furthermore, if we create out of some transfer of affect or drive, as implied in sublimation, of if our creativity is merely the by-product of an endeavor to accomplish something else, as in compensation, does not our very creative act then have only a pseudo value? We must indeed take a strong stand against the implications, however they may creep in, that talent is a disease and creativity is a neurosis. We sail on a vast expanse, ever uncertain, ever drifting, hurried from one to the other goal. If we think to attach ourselves firmly to any point, it totters and fails us; if we follow, it eludes our grasp…vanishing forever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition, yet always the most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find a steadfast place and an ultimate fixed basis whereon we may build a tower to reach the infinite. However, our whole foundation breaks up, and Earth opens to the abysses. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18

We may not then look for certainty. Our reason is always deceived by changing shows, nothing can fix the infinite between the two infinities, which at once close and fly from it. The heart has its reason which reason know not. The relationship between power and love is shown in myth. Recall that Eros, god of love, is the offspring of Aphrodite and Ares, god of war or strife. In what better way could the ancient Greeks have told us that there is no love without aggression? However, even more surprising is the name of another child which blessed this union, Harmonia. The word means that which is fitting, in proportion, in concord—and it seems paradoxical in the extreme. However, is it not appropriate that harmony should be a dynamic proportion between strife and beauty? The empirical relationship of power and love is illustrated in the closeness of the two in the problem of violence, the converse of power. Violence is most apt to occur between persons who are closely tied emotionally and, therefore, vulnerable to each other. According to a statistical study of homicides in the city of Sacramento, which is in the state of California, the majority of murders are committed against a member of the family. The most dangerous room, again judged in terms of the likelihood of murder occurring there, is the bedroom. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18

According to M. E. Wolfgang, “If you are a woman over 16, your murderer will most likely be a husband, lover, or relative. When a man is killed, the killer is most likely to be his wife. The bedroom is the most murderous room in the house.” Maybe that is why bad partners are sent to sleep on the couch. In marriage and in relationships between couples we see a similar relationship between love and power. There is a necessity of combining self-assertion (power) with tenderness (love) in the pleasures of the flesh. Without tenderness, the caring and the sensitivity for the feelings and delight of the other is absent; and without self-assertion the capacity to put one’s self fully into the act is missing. When love and power are seen as opposites, love tends to be the abject surrender of one partner and the subtle (or not so subtle) domination by the other. These are often the sadomasochistic marriages. When the aim is to be guided only by love, assertion and aggression are obviously ruled out as being too tainted with power. There results a clinging to one another, an absorption in each other. Missing are the firmness of assertion, the structure and the sense of dignity that guard the rights of each of the partners. Such relationships may swing back and forth, from surrender as a form of love to violence as a form of power. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18

Everyone is familiar with the news clippings telling how a devoted wife or husband of thirty years suddenly took a hatchet to his or her mate in a peculiarly bloody murder. This extreme example reveals the problem in a love that does not have within it a realistic assertion of power. There is statistical grounds for the common saying that marriage with someone who is undercontrolled—for instance, blows up from time to time—may make for turmoil and frequent fighting, but it does not make for murder. The docile, overcontrolled individual, the one who appears kind all the time, can be the one who releases one’s aggression in one big blowup. This accords with our thesis that violence occurs when a person cannot live out one’s needs for power in normal ways. It is only when one’s intermittent nature becomes obvious, however remarkable and uplifting they may have seemed, that one who experienced them is ready to seek for the higher Truth. This is not only a matter of personal feeling, but also of impersonal intuitive knowledge confirmed by reason and experience. Not everyone will enter into the kingdom of Heaven. Only to a very few is it given to enter and remain stabilized in the kingdom; many more must be content with glimpses only. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18

The belief is all too common that union with God is experienced as a tremendous uprush of ecstatic emotion. This is true in several cases, but not in all. In any case, only after the excitement has abated and calm has descended on the being will one be able to see whether this is merely another of those temporary glimpses or whether it is really a lasting discovery of one’s divine identity. For the truth is that such a durable discovery of one’s divine identity. For the truth is that such a durable discovery, such an ever-present fulfillment of one’s highest possibilities, comprises much more than this inspired, but still personal experience. It is true that our sins and faults are automatically dispersed by the inrush of Enlightenment, but it is equally true that they will return if we have no prepared our selves to be able to stay in the Light. To gaze upon this great light without sufficient precious training of the inward life is ordinarily not possibly for more than a short time. The few exceptions who were able to stay in the light unbrokenly were beings of special genius and special destiny. Those who have obtained the abiding state are in the sanctuary, but those who have attained the transient one are only at the gate. Visions, mental states, and experiences may succeed each other progressively, but they are not the same as a continuous stabilized awareness of that which is behind all these temporary states. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18

In one’s earlier years, if it does not fulfill one’s expectations, the seeker may try one kind of institution of a religious or mystical character and then move to a different one. In this way one may experiment with different creeds and different forms of practice. This may be useful so far as it exposes one to the influences which are needed to balance one another. However, if one ever does, it may be bewildering. Most traditional forms, or the newer organizations which have some sort of spiritual teaching, are useful in the beginning to most people. However, this is not to say that they are going to be useful always. They have their limitations, and at certain stage may prevent further advance. However, those who can stand alone are always smaller in number: most persons will frankly admit that they cannot, certainly most young and elderly persons. This is the justification for the need of organizations, groups, churches, and priesthoods. They offer what seems fixed support in life, stable in doctrine, superior nobler holier and wiser than what the ordinary person finds in oneself. This is why philosophy attracts the few, those who are, or who can be trained to become, strong enough to walk a lonely path. For us, the end is always on the covenant path through the temple to eternal life, the greatest of all gifts of God. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18

We know this flight in our dreams, perhaps because we knew it in some celestial realm beyond this Earth before we were born. However, sometimes we cannot conceive of the sight of eternal life as Earthly creatures because we have somehow forgotten, or damaged and torn our heart and soul. Seeing darkness where we expect to see light reminds us that one of the fundamental needs we have in order to grow is to stay connected to our source of light—Jesus Christ. He is the source of our power, the Light and Light of the World. Without a strong connection to Christ, we begin to spiritually die. Knowing that, Satan tries to exploit the Worldly pressures we all face. He works to dim our light, short-circuit the connection, cut off the power supply, leaving us alone in the dark. Satan operates a lot like Lestat in Ann Rice’s Tales of the Body Thief. When David is reborn in a new body, tall, with tan skin and blonde hair and lean, Lestat turns him into a Vampire to steal his joy. He was infuriated that David experienced a miracle which allowed him to give up his 74-year-old body and take over the beautiful body of a twenty-six-year-old male. Out of the miracle came youth, rebirth, and Lestat could not stand to see David profit. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18

Pressures in life are common conditions in morality, but Satan works hard to isolate us and tell us we are the only one experiencing them. When tragedies overtake us, when life hurts so much we cannot breathe, when we have taken a beating like the man on the road to Jericho and been left for dead, Jesus come along and pours blessings into our wounds, lefts us tenderly up, takes us to an inn, looks after us. Jesus will ease the burdens which are put upon our shoulders, that even we cannot feel then upon our backs, that we may know of a surety that the Lord, our God will and does visit his people in our afflictions. It is not intended that we run faster than we have the strength. However, in spite of that many of us run very, very fast and the energy and emotional supply sometimes registers close to being on E—empty. When expectations overwhelm us, we can step back and ask Heavenly Father what to let go of. Part of out life experience is learning what not to do. However, even so, sometimes life can be exhausting. Jesus assures us, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” reports Matthew 11.28. Christ is willing to join with us in the yoke and pull in order to listen our burdens. Christ is rest. Should I ever take ease upon a bed of leisure, may that same moment mark my end! #RandolphHarris 18 of 18

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A Glowing Tripod Will at Last Give Sign that You Have Reached the Deepest, Nethermost Shrine and by its Light You Will Behold the Mothers!

July 22, 2019 1:31 am

Within moments of leaving of the Cresleigh Homes Rocklin Trails House, stepping out into the glorious daylight, I knew that this experience would be worth all of the trials and the pain. And no mortal chills, with all its debilitating symptoms would keep me from frolicking in the morning Sun. Never mind that my overall physical weakness was driving me mad: that I seemed to be made of stone as I plodded along with Nacho, that I could not jump two feet in the air when I tried, or that pushing open the door of the butcher shop took a colossal effort; or that my cold was growing steadily worse. Once Nacho had devoured his breakfast of scraps, begged from the butcher, we were off together to revel in the light everywhere, and I felt myself becoming drunk on the vision of the Sunlight falling upon windows and wet pavements, on the gleaming tops of brightly enameled BMWs, on glassy puddles where the snow had melted, upon the plate-glass shop windows, and upon the people—the thousands and thousands of happy people, scurrying busily about the business of the day. In our society most men and women spend the major portion of their waking hours at work, a fact which should not be taken to mean that beings find or express themselves only in their work. Yet far beyond the workplace and the time spent in it, the work we do and the way we do it shape our lives—our image of ourselves and our relations with others. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22

The World we have lost, a World based on the patriarchal productive unit of preindustrial times was an intimate Word in which work was inseparable from other family activities. Let it be noted, however—especially for those who would turn the clock back—that this was an authoritarian World, ruled by a father or father-figure who was absolute boss. But along with the power and control exercised by this figure went duties and responsibilities toward those whose work he supervised. He ruled his flock, but he also tended it. With large-scale industrialism this type of family industry as the basic productive unit came to an end, never to be restored. In the rise of industrial capitalism, handicrafts were replaced by machine-tool production. What this transformation meant for the ordinary worker, turn from the roots of their medieval past, is the beings are alienated from a World in which nature, others, and them as living beings become objects. The object produced by being’s labor—its produce—now confronts one in the shape of an alien thing, a power independent of the producer. The product of labor is labor given embodiment in a material form this product is the objectification of labor. Furthermore, the worker is estranged from the very process of production, which is controlled not by one, but by an alien being. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22

Having lost control of one’s work, beings are alienated from others—and from oneself as well. Both labor and the possessing class represent the same self-estrangement. Alienated labor is not the result, but the cause of private property because people want to see the emancipation of themselves as creative and self-expressive, free to product the things they desire with love and passion. However, today we are confronted with the ambivalent machine—an instrument of liberation and of repression. As a result of innovation and globalization in America, we are seeing the heartland being eroded. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that licensed dairy farm numbers in the country declined by 2,731 farms, a drop of 6.8 percent, leaving just 37,468 licensed dairy farms America, compared to 40,199 last years. Wisconsin is the state with the most dairy farms in American, but 590 dairy farms went out of business. Decline in American production is also because we are confronted by a formidable counterpart of the machine—bureaucracy. While bureaucracy aims at the rationalization of human behavior, it rarely achieves this goal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22

Blind adherence to the rules may be dysfunctional, that is, it will prevent the bureaucracy from performing its intended function. For instance, former governor Jerry Brown signed a law that mandates cutting methane from livestock 40 percent by 2030 from 2013 levels. Dairy Farmer Kim Jorgensen has 270 cows. The cow tax would cost him an estimated $93,126.00. This mandate will cost a number of farmers their livelihoods and it will have an effect on competition. It means that farmers in California will have to compete with colleagues who do not have this mandate, and California dairy famers will be at a disadvantage. Consumers will prefer to buy their milk if it is affordable, but if diary famers are penalized, consumers will switch to milk produced outside of California, or the Untied State or switch to an alternative like cashew milk, almond milk, soy milk, or camel’s milk. If our goal is to create jobs and support local business, by taxing cow emission and buying milk and beef from other countries, where it is not regulated by the USDA will cause Americans to lose more jobs in the future. Therefore, as you can see whether bureaucracy is efficient or inefficient, it can be inherently impersonal and defeat the purpose of what it is intended to do. This impersonal character makes bureaucracy a hated and feared institution. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22

Although Americans tend to dislike bureaucracy because it tends to over regulate the beings and their production, and it has run amuck, many democrats are pushing for socialism and want to actually expand the government and put the government in more control of their lives. By forcing the government to provide healthcare for everyone, pay for college educations, tax foods and drinks that can lead to obesity to curb their popularity and control who can own guns. If democrats have their way, there will even be mandated wages and your education, experience, and performance will not matter because democrats want their “fair share,” even if they have not worked for it nor earned it. For instance, with democrats demanding their “fair share” to help people in retail jobs earn a living wage, they could reduce a doctor’s pay from $50 an hour to $25 an hour to supplement people’s wages in retail jobs so bureaucrats can equalize the wage disparity in California. This impersonal character makes bureaucracy a hated and feared institution, which capitalist want less government and less regulation so people have a fair chance at succeeding in life. When personal feelings and needs are permitted to intrude into its deliberations, there is a danger for bureaucracy. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22

However, bureaucracy is not supposed to be only an alien governing power that provides welfare and handouts to those who do not want to work, while over taxing and oppressing those who want to get an education and work; it is for increasing numbers of professional and white-collar workers a workplace. However, life in the crystal palace is not a government bureau or dreary counting house, but more of what many would consider the ideal corporate environment—physically luxurious and at least superficially warm and friendly in its human relationships. And yet, the crystal palace is less alienating than the assembly line because it is safe, clean, nice and peaceful. People are artificially caring, but not snarky, sarcastic nor vindictive. Both the assembly line and crystal palace turn out robots, but with the crystal palace you get cheerful robots, instead of cheerless robots, even though both are victims of impersonal and remote power. When not at work is where beings find themselves, in leisure hours, if they have any. However, some people have no training for leisure. And so, like the work from which it provides escape, leisure becomes a great void and these people usually fill that void with sinful activities. The Devil finds work for idle hands. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22

For some people their leisure time is occupied with productive activities so they stay out of trouble. Out of all the other I’s some are chosen as a pattern that is me. However, there are all the other possibilities of patterns within what all the others say which come into me and become other I’s which is not myself, and sometimes these take over. Then who am I? The personal self is not formed in isolation. It is built out of both our private and our shared experiences. We tend to evaluate ourselves, at least in our early years, by comparing ourselves to others or by patterning our behaviors and ideas on those of people whom we feel to be significant. Peer and authority figures are often role models for our personal selves. Even if you are not in your ideal career, or ideal environment, I myself choose to occupy myself with reading psychology, religion and other subjects for 3-7 hours every day. I truly believe that an education, even if it is not formal, will help my mind develop and eventually elevate me to a place where I can achieve my dreams. Some people run hither and thither, from teacher to teaching to a different teacher or teaching, from Euramerica to India, to Japan, to China, looking away from their own being for that which is the essence of that being. They are like the man who looked everywhere for his spectacles. At last he gave up the search—only to find the spectacles resting on this own nose. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22

However, had this man’s attention had first to be drawn to his nose by someone—or by the book of someone—who could see his spectacles there. These seekers are not ordinarily aware of what is continually present within them, the stillness of the centre of their being, and instead of looking there for it, they look elsewhere, or to other beings. The real service which is rendered them by others is to tell them where to look; the rest is for them to do. However, the lazy, or those who want something for nothing, expect or want the gurus to do it for them—a false idea. The other great error of these confused minds is to seek from the crystal palace what it is not rejecting. The best in the crystal palace are not rejecting spirituality but ignorance, superstition, unbalance, futility, narrowness, and excess of liberalism. The Westerner who adores American’s past want to copy it, picturing it as a golden age of excess and abundance (which it never was). One tries to restore it for oneself and in oneself, becoming an ape and a parrot. If some have found their way to this illumination by following slavishly the details of a special teaching, others have found it by following their faith in God. It is not uncommon for inexperienced beginners on the Quest, who are ignorant of the serious and often harmful results of such associations, to turn to untrustworthy so-called occult teachers. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22

In most cases, it would be far safer, and more satisfactory in the end, for them to depend solely upon their own unassisted efforts than to follow such a dangerous method. One of the predominant trends of neurotics of our time is their excessive dependence on the approval or affection of others. We all want to be liked and to feel appreciated, but in neurotic persons the dependence on affection or approval is disproportionate to the real significance which other persons have for their lives. Although we all wish to be liked by persons of whom we are fond, in neurotics there is an indiscriminate hunger for appreciation or affection, regardless of whether they care for the person concerned or whether the judgment of that person has any meaning for them. More often than not they are not aware of this boundless craving, but they betray its existence in their sensitivity when the attention they want is not forthcoming. They may feel hurt, for example, if someone does not accept their invitation, does not telephone for some time, or even only if one disagrees with them in some opinion. This sensitivity may be concealed by a “do not care” attitude. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22

Furthermore, there is a marked contradiction between their wish for affection and their own capacity for feeling or giving it. Excessive demands concerning consideration for their own wishes may go with just as great a lack of consideration for others. The contradiction does not always appear on the surface. The neurotic may, for example, be overconsiderate and eager to be helpful to everyone, but if this is the case it is noticeable that one acts compulsively, not out of a spontaneously radiating warmth. The inner insecurity expressed in this dependence on others is the second feature that strikes us in neurotics on surface observation. Feelings of inferiority and inadequacy are characteristics that never fail. They may appear in a number of ways—such as a conviction of incompetence, of stupidity, of unattractiveness—and they may exist without any basis in reality. Notions of their own stupidity may be found in persons who are unusually intelligent, or notions about their own unattractive in the most beautiful person. These feelings of inferiority may appear openly on the surface in the form of complaints or worries, or the alleged defects may be taken for granted as a fact on which it is superfluous to waste any thought. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22

On the other hand, feelings of inferiority may be covered up by the compensating needs for self-aggrandizement, by a compulsive propensity to show off, to impress others and one’s self with all sorts of attributes that lend prestige in our culture, such as money, possession of antique pictures, antique furniture, women and/or men, social contacts with prominent people, travel, or superior knowledge. One or the other of these tendencies may be entirely in the foreground, but more generally one will feel distinctly the presence of both tendencies. The third set of attitudes, those concerning self-assertion, involve definite inhibitions. By self-assertion I mean the act of asserting one’s self or one’s claims, and I use it without any connotation of undue pushing forward. In this respect neurotics reveal a comprehensive group of inhibitions. They have inhibitions about expressing their wishes or asking for something, about doing something in their own interest, expressing an opinion or warranted criticism, ordering someone, selecting the people they wish to associate with, making contact with people, and so on. There are inhibitions also in reference to what we might describe as maintaining one’s stand: neurotics often are incapable of defending themselves against attack, or of saying “no” if they do not wish to comply with the wishes of others, as for example to a saleswoman who wants to sell them something they do not want to be, or to a person who invites them to a party, or to a woman or man who wants to experience pleasure of the flesh. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22

There are finally the inhibitions toward knowing what they want: difficulties in making decisions, forming opinions, daring to express wishes which concern only their own benefits. Such wishes have to be concealed: a friend of mine in her personal accounts puts “movies” under “education” and “liquors” under “health.” Particularly important in this latter group is the incapacity to plan, whether it be a trip or a plan of life: neurotics let themselves drift, even in important decisions such as a profession or marriage, instead of having clear conceptions of what they want in life. They are driven exclusively by certain neurotic fears, as we see in persons who pile up money because they fear impoverishment, or take part in endless love affairs because they fear to enter a constructive piece of work. However, God is immanent in us, that through realization of our higher self we become more like God, but that God never ceases to be the Unattainable, the Incomprehensible. The individual is as inseparable from the Infinite as the ray from the Sun. Nevertheless one differs from it in degree and in attribute. Just as a little child may be closely intimate with its mother but not with its mother’s mind, so the human being may be closely intimate with the World-Mind but not with Its full consciousness. The higher kingdoms of Nature cannot be understood by denizens of lower ones. Beings can grow, move, and reflect, but as far as we know cannot enter into God’s infinitely mysterious consciousness. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22

Being itself infinite, the World-Mind is able to express itself in an infinite number of souls. How is your mood? The mother, from whom one is born, who gives us form to start with, who carries the survival of the race in her womb—no topic can be more important. Every patient, in learning to love, must confront the psychological remains of his or her mother’s imprinting. However, we have to take responsibility for our own anxiety and our own distress—blame but yourself that it has come to that. Something of importance is occurring beyond the achievement of Helen, who represent feminine beauty raised to an ethical level in ancient Greece. A goal for the development of the virtue, so prized by the Greeks, was the “Mothers” ultimate importance. The form of forms participates in the Universe of reproduction of the species. The one in whose womb life is created, the one who carries the implantation of new life, also has these powers such as intuition that alternate between knowledge and magic. Wizards of femininity, they (the Mothers) must be rescued to help form and reform the new culture. The Mothers have, by nature of reproducing the race, whether they are conscious of it and take responsibility for it or not the key to transformation as they had been for the forming of the fetus in the womb at pregnancy. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22

However, this Age of Information is one of force. Such power is gained by overcoming the competitors; it works by thrust, tax, by attack, by fake news and systematic discrimination of traditional ways of life and my usurping patriarchal power, deconstructing gender roles, and by cyber activity. The seamy side of the Age of Information is green energy over jobs, life-killing drugs to abort the elderly and terminally ill (which 88 percent of is used by White people), a housing and homeless crisis nationwide, the whole arsenal of competitive, adversarial systems. The feminine characteristics ideally are receptivity rather than aggression, tenderness and creating rather than destroying. Many people still believe in the patriarchal gospel and it is balanced with a traditional family union of man and women. It is not about fighting your opponent and being militant, but showing your skills and talents to appeal to others. Power, strength, dependability—all these are called masculine and patriarchal. Only the bastard child wants to fight his father, instead of showing his intelligence. Mothers are the source of love, tenderness, caring, instead of toughness, cruelty, slaughter. When life is not in balance with the feminine and masculine, the drama is bound to come to grief. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22

We must explore humanism, to search out every way to help human beings and other beings discover and live by their greatest callings. Progress does not mean simply mechanical achievements or achieving wealth, it means that human beings are learning to be conscious of their richest unique capacities, and thus have life and have it more abundantly. Stretching up toward the divine is a way to transcend being. Evil acts must be changed to good. Eventually, the devil is duped, betrayed by his own powers. When people use their powers in a petty and selfish fashion, it always rebound upon them. Thefts are symbolic. This is a creature of compulsion and obsession. It is a game. That is why they cannot hand on to what they steal. It is the process that counts with those types of beings more than anything else. It is an endlessly destructive game. Beings who are possessed by the devil’s nature always have a pattern. They rise from the lowest caste in society to living in extravagant luxury, running up ludicrous accounts for fine clothing, motorcars, jet excursions here and there, sports terms, and then it all collapses in the face of their petty crimes, treachery, and betrayal. They cannot break the cycle. It always brings them down. “And the mists of darkness are the temptation of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into broad roads, that they perish and are lost,” 1 Nephi 12.17. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22

A curious paradox characteristic of every kind of courage here confronts us. It is the seeming contradiction that we must be fully committed, but we must also be aware at the same time that we might possibly be wrong. This dialectic relationship between conviction and doubt is characteristic of the highest types of courage, and gives the lie to the simplistic definitions that identify courage with ere growth. People who claim to be absolutely convinced that their stand is the only right one are dangerous. Such conviction is the essence not only of strict and rigid doctrines, but of its more destructive cousin, fanaticism. It blocks off the user from learning new truth, and it is a dead giveaway of unconscious doubt. The person then has to double his or her protests in order to quiet not only the opposition but his or her own unconscious doubts as well. Whenever I heard—as we all did during the Obama days—the “I am absolutely convinced” tone or the “I want to make this absolutely clear” statement emanating from the White House, I braced myself, for I knew that some dishonesty was being perpetrated by the telltale sign of overemphasis. Shakespeare aptly said, “The lady [or the politician] doth protest too much, methinks.” In such a times, one longs for the presence of a leader like Lincoln, who openly admitted his doubts and as openly preserved his commitment. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22

It is infinitely safer to know that the being at the top has his or her doubts, as you and I have ours, yet has the courage to move ahead in spite of these doubts. In contrast to the fanatic who has stockade oneself against new truth, the person with the courage to believe and at the same time to admit one’s doubt is flexible and open to new learning. Paul Cezanne strongly believed that he was discovering and painting a new form of space which would radically influence the future of art, yet he was at the same time failed with painful and ever-present doubt. The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt. To believe fully and at the same moment to have doubts is not at all a contradiction: it presupposes a greater respect for truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment. To every thesis there is an antithesis, and to this there is a synthesis. Truth is thus a never-dying process. We then know the meaning of the statement attributed to Leibnitz: “I would walk twenty miles to listen to my worst enemy if I could learn something.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 22

There is, among intellectuals, a tendency to deny and renounce power. Some have done this under the rubric: “Intellectuals and power are incompatible.” Others have said: “Ought we to redefine [power] in a clear way, or ought we to banish it altogether? My initial reaction is that it should be banished altogether. Indeed, outside Marxist circles, the subject has unfortunately been generally banished. There is a suspicious of the whole topic as through it were like Faust: whoever seeks power has already sold his soul to Mephistopheles. Some intellectuals propose that they deal in influence, and that influence is the opposite to power in that it restructures or alters preference. These intellectuals believe that power is the restructuring of action without altering preferences; you are made to do something irrespective of whether it is your preferred course of action. However, is not this distinction between influence and power essentially false? If we take the university as the setting, we need only ask any graduate student whether one’s professors have power over one, and one will laugh at our naivete. Of course the professors have power; the perpetual anxiety of some graduate students as to whether they will be passed or not is proof enough. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22

The professors’ power is even more effective because it is clothed in scholarly grab. It is the power of prestige, status, and the subtle coercion of others that follows from these. This is not due to the professors’ conscious aims; it has more to do with the organization of the university and the teachers’ unconscious motivations for being part of it. The more powerless the teacher feels oneself to be, the more destructive, even though subtle and covert, will be one’s influence. Influence is surely a form of power—intellectual power, but power all the same. I agree that being coerced into doing something regardless of whether it is the preferred course of action is a form of power (albeit a kind we are all used to and accept a hundred times a day, from waiting for red light to change to paying taxes). However, the emphasis on altering preferences can actually be harmful in that it leads to the state of the de Tocqueville described as characteristics of Americans—that we are bodily freer than Europeans, but intellectually more conformists and spiritually more in bondage. Many academic examinations fall into this category, in which it is psychologically healthier for the student to realize that one is required to take the examination and one does not like it, and to study for it with that realization in mind. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22

The damage to one’s integrity comes when one tries to persuade oneself that one does like the examination, and really does not. The idea of liking what you have to do is an illusion, and an unhealthy one at that. If we can like and choose a proportion of what we have to do, and do the rest because we are required to without trying t delude ourselves, we shall have more effectively preserved out autonomy and our humanity. The denial of power in society on the part of the professor is an example of pseudoinnocence. The professor proposes an idea, which in turn has power. One ducks out by letting the idea be powerful, not him. It is as though one says: “I said it, but the ‘it’ is responsible for my action, not me.” No doubt this syndrome is related by both cause and effect to the general American tendency toward anti-intellectualism, the distrust of the intellectuals on the frontier. However, one cannot purchase innocence so easily. Ideas unmated with reality produce few offspring. When the intellectual realizes that one has been increasingly pushed from the battlefield [of power] and put to flight, the reason may be that one has defined oneself out of the battle to begin with. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22

If the intellectual were to admit that one also has power, although a different kind from that of the politician, the businessman, and the military leader, it would clear the air. Furthermore, modern society clearly needs the intellectuals and their guidance; the corporate power needs to be shared with them as well as with the other disinherited groups of society. It is worthwhile to recall that in The Queen of the Damned, by Anne Rice, Lestat de Lioncourt, the intellectual vampire appears to be getting ready to be decapitated, but is pulled in by Queen Akasha, the 6,000-year-old most powerful and first vampire in the World. However, later Queen Akasha faces a struggle, when all the vampires turn against her and is herself decapitated by one of the redhead witches the was responsible for bring the dark forces into her life that cursed her with vampirism. This is a graphic allegory of the role of intellectual and the nutrient power that one can express in our day. Be careful who you are willing to die for, as they may not be there to nourish you in your time of need. I have argued against the idea that there is an irreconcilable incompatibility between power and the intellectual. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22

However, there is creative tension, which takes the form of pull between power and consciousness. This is why beings of intensive consciousness—like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Pascal—have preferred an ascetic life, in which there were at least periods of freedom from the paraphernalia of the World. It is the function of consciousness to be, as Sokrates described himself, “a gadfly to the state.” Consciousness can disturb the establishment of power. It leads to conflicts which can be turned into new integration. It is the function of consciousness to keep us alert, to keep our imaginations functioning, to keep us forever curious, forever ready to explore infinite possibilities. Whereas power requires decision and dispatch, consciousness requires a loosening of controls, a freedom to wander where the spirit listeth, and exploration of new forms of existence which may be far out on the frontiers of knowledge. Enactment of the master-pupil relationship, with the subordinate and submissive role allotted to one, is far better if it happens within one’s own person that if it is objectified without. Then the lower ego will have to play this role. Only when one is beginning to find one’s own way to the inner reality and feel its support, only when one is lessening one’s dependence on some other human being (call one a professor or what you like), can it be truly said that one is a disciple of the Holy Spirit itself—not some particular being’s disciple. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22

What Do You think Really? Inside of You? Is there a God or a Devil? I Mean Truly, What do You Believe?

July 20, 2019 1:27 am

I arrived quite early in the evening for I had gone backwards in time against the turning of the World. It was cold and crisp, but not cruelly so, though a bad norther was on its way. The sky was without a cloud and fully of small and very distinct stars. I went at once to my beautiful house at Cresleigh Rocklin Trails. It has an intimate view of the greenbelt and its is a beautiful community. It was not until tomorrow night that Mr. Raglan James meant to meet me. And impatient as I was for this meeting, I found the schedule comfortable, as I wanted to find Louis right away. But first I indulged in the mortal comfort of a hot shower, and put on a fresh suit of black velvet, very trim and plain, rather like the clothes I had worn in Miami, and a new pair of black boots. And ignoring my general weariness—I would have been asleep in the Earth by now, had I been still in Europe—I went off, walking like a mortal, through the town. The person living with an alienated and reified, negative identity concept of oneself closely resembles the hypochondriacal patient, except that one’s unhappy preoccupation concerns not a physical ailment but a reified physical or psychic quality that has become the focal point of one’s self-image. The relief one gains from one’s burdensome preoccupation is due to the fact that the reified bad quality no longer is viewed as part of the on-going process of living and of goal-directed thought and action. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13

The perceived reified bad quality has been severed from the “I” that acts with foresight and responsibility and is looked upon as an inherent, unalterable, unfortunate something an ossified part of oneself that no longer participates in the flux, growth, and development of life. It is experienced as an unchangeable fate whose bearer is doomed to live and die with it. The relief this brings is that the person no longer feels responsible for the supposed consequences of this fixed attribute; one is not doing anything for which one can be blamed, even though one may feel ashamed and unacceptable for being such and such. The preoccupation with the reified identity directs attention away from what one does to what one supposedly is. Furthermore, one no longer has to do anything about it because, obviously, one cannot do anything about it. Thus, the anxiety, fear, and effort that would be connected with facing and acting upon the real problem is avoided by putting up with the negative, fixed identity which, in addition, may be used to indulge self-pity and to enlist the sympathy of others. Kind of like how in Anne Rice’s The Tale of the Body Thief, Lestat is so lonely that he considers killing himself by going into the Sun, but David tells him not to, and he does it anyway and only gets darker. And also when Lestat considers letting the body thief take his body, but David tells him, “You’re going to make another ghastly mistake!” #RandolphHarris 2 of 13

So far we have discussed mainly negative self-images. However, alienated identity concepts may be beneficial as well as negative. Alienated identity of the beneficial variety occurs in vanity, conceit and—in its more pathological form—in delusions of grandeur, just as in its negative counterpart the “I” of the vain person is severed from a fixed attribute on which the vanity is based. The person feel that one possesses this quality. It becomes the focal point of one’s identity and serves as its prop. Beauty, masculinity or femininity, being born on the right side of the river, success, money, prestige, or being good may serve as such a prop. While in the negative identity feeling a reified attribute haunts the person, such an attribute serves the beneficial self-image as a support. Yet it is equally alienated from the living person. This is expressed nicely in the phrase “a stuffed shirt.” It is not the person in the shirt but some dead matter, some stuffing that is used to bolster and aggrandize the self-feeling. It often becomes apparent in the behavior of the person that one leans on this real or imagined attribute, just as it often is apparent that a person feel pulled down by the weight of some alienated negative attribute. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13

When one is weighed down by some alienated negative attribute, it could be similar to how Reglan James behaves in Anne Rice’s novel The Tale of the Body Thief. “David, that’s what’s wrong with him! I’ve been trying to figure it since I saw him on the beach in Miami,” says Lestat. “That isn’t his body! That’s why he can’t use its musculature or its…its height. That’s why he almost falls when he runs. He can’t control those long powerful legs. Good God, that man is in someone else’s body. And the voice, David, I told you about his voice. It’s not the voice of a young man. Oh, that explains it!” Instead of being possessed by another entity or being, people’s negative emotions give off such a vibe that they do not seem normal. The way they talk, the way they move, the things they say, it indicates something is wrong with them. They are possessed by darkness. The reliance on an identity, on a self-image based on the prop of some reified attribute remains precarious even where is seems to work, after a fashion, as it does in the self-satisfaction of the vain. This precariousness is inevitable since the beneficial self-evaluation of such a person does not rest on a feeling of wholeness and meaningfulness in life, in thought, feeling, and deed. One is always threatened with the danger of losing this thing, this possession, or which one’s self-esteem is based. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13

Today, especially in this country where youth has become a public fetish, many thousands try to preserve its alienated mask while terrified by the prospect of suddenly growing old, when the mask can no longer be worn or will become grotesque. The beautiful picture of youth can alienate beings from their actual life, which effects the internal markup of the being, marking their aura over with years of cruelty, selfishness, and greed, as they advance in age. Their true character is a secret threat that they feel when be exposed as they age because they are superficial and have no substance to go with their beauty. All beauty and no brains. In ever case of alienated identity concepts, there is a secret counterimage. Very often the hidden self announces its presence merely in a vague background feeling that the person would be lost, would be nothing if it were not for the alienated, reified quality on which the feeling of being something, somebody, or the feeling of vanity, is based. In this feeling both a truth and an irrational anxiety find expression. The truth is that no being who looks upon oneself as a thing and bases one’s existence on the support of some reified attribute of this thing has found oneself and one’s place in life. The irrational anxiety is the feeling that without the prop of such an attribute one could not live. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13

Similarly, in the negative alienated identity concepts there usually is a beneficial counterimage. It may take a generalized, vague form: If it were not for such and such (the reified attribute forming the focus of the negative identity), I would be all right, successful, wonderful, and so forth. Or it may take the more concrete form of some grandiose, exaggerated fantasy about one’s beneficial qualities. These artificial beneficial counterimages, too, express both an irrational hope and a truth. The irrational hope is that one may have some magical quality which will transport one into a state of security, or even superiority, because then one will possess that attribute which, instead of haunting one, will save one. However, actually it is nothing but the equally reified counterpart of what at present drags one down. The truth is that beings have potentialities for overcoming their alienation from oneself and for living without the burden and the artificial props of alienated, reified identity concepts. There is a distinction between helpful self-awareness and futile and self-torment rumination. We should oppose the ascetic interpretation we find among our modern hypochondrists and those who turn their vengeance against themselves. Instead, one sees the real meaning of self-knowledge in taking notice of oneself and becoming aware of one’s relation to other people and to the World. The pseudo self-knowledge against which one speaks foreshadows the widespread present-day self-preoccupation which is concerned, fruitlessly, with an alienated, negative sense of identity. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13

A productive self-knowledge is to pay attention to what one is actually doing in one’s relation to others, to the World and to oneself. A complete understanding of a neurosis is not possible without tracing it back to its infantile conditions, I believe that the genetic approach, if used one-sidedly, confuses rather than clarifies the issue, because it leads then to a neglect of the actually existing unconscious tendencies and their functions and interactions with other tendencies that are present, such as impulses, fears and protective measures. Genetic understanding is useful only as long as it helps the functional understanding. Proceeding on this belief I have found in analyzing the most varied kinds of personalities, belonging to different types of neuroses, differing in age, temperament and interests, coming from different social layers, that the contents of the dynamically central conflict and their interrelations were essentially similar in all of them. My experiences in psychoanalytical practice have been confirmed by observations of persons outside the practice and of characters in current literature. If the recurring problems of neurotic persons are divested of the fantastic and abstruse character they often have, it cannot escape our attention that they differ only in quantity from the problems bothering the normal person in our culture. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13

The great majority of us have to struggle with problems of competition, fears of failure, emotional isolation, distrust of others and of our own selves, to mention only a few of the problems that may be present in a neurosis. The fact that in general the majority of individuals in a culture have to face the same problems suggests the conclusion that these problems have been created by the specific life conditions existing in that culture. That they do not represent problems common to human nature seems to be warranted by the fact that the motivating forces and conflicts in other cultures are different from ours. Hence in speaking of a neurotic personality of our time, I not only mean that there are neurotic persons having essential peculiarities in common, but also that these basic similarities are essentially produced by the difficulties existing in our time and culture. As far as my sociological knowledge allows me I shall show later on what difficulties of our culture are responsible for the psychic conflicts we have. The validity of my assumption concerning the relation between culture and neurosis ought to be tested by the combined efforts of anthropologist and psychiatrists. The psychiatrists would not only have to study neuroses as they appear in definite cultures, as has been done from formal criteria such as frequency, severity or type of neuroses, but particularly they should study them from the point of view of what basic conflicts are underlying them. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13

The anthropologist would have to study the same culture from the point of view of what psychic difficulties its structure creates for would have to study the same culture from the point of view of what psychic difficulties its structure creates for the individual. One way in which the similarity of attitudes open to surface observer can discover without the tools of psychoanalytic technique, concerning persons with whom one is thoroughly familiar, such as oneself, one’s friends, members of one’s family or one’s colleagues. There is a curious relationship between our society’s attitude toward power on one hand and sexuality on the other. This is partially seen in our own day with pornography, our sexy commercialism, our advertising built on luscious blondes and shapely brunettes. If they could, people would mold magic gold into gigantic phallus to shock the ladies and gentlemen. In the Industrial Revolution there began the radical separation between the product of the worker’s hands and one’s relation with the persons who use one’s product. Indeed, the worker normally saw nothing at all of the product one helped produce except one’s own little act. The alienation of labor added to the alienation of persons from themselves and from other people. Their personhood is lost. With the growth of industry and the bourgeoisie, pleasures of the flesh becomes separated from the beings; one’s pleasures of the flesh are bought and sold, as is the product of one’s hands. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13

There are some situations of power when force, or coercion, or compulsion is an integral part of power. War is one of them. With sick persons or children, compulsion or coercion has to be used in proportion to the lack of capacity of knowledge of the other person. When my son was three years old, I kept a firm grip on his hand as we walked across Broadway, a condition that was relaxed as he grew and earned the intricacies of traffic enough to be able safely to take on the responsibility of crossing himself. However, there are ultimate limits to the application of force. If a species of animal uses its superior force to kill off all the other animals in its vicinity, it obviously will not have them for food when it needs them. This balance of nature is a delicate interweaving of the force of various animals and plants in relation to each other. When this balance is upset, we are faced with fearful prospects, indeed—as we are learning to our sorrow in modern ecology. Thus, to keep from self-destruction, power can be allied with force only up to the point where it might destroy the identity of the other. In a gun battle of the West, to destroy the identity of the enemy is precisely the goal of shooting. Hence I cite this as an example of the self-destructive effect of power allied with force. The one who is killed, obviously losing one’s being, is no longer present to give what one can to the community, no longer a person to whom to relate; and we are the poorer thereby. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13

Also the spontaneity of the other person cannot be destroyed without a loss to the destroyer as well. This is the danger in extreme forms of coercion and compulsion in brainwashing, conditioning, and hypnosis. If the person is transformed into something resembling a mechanism, one may still preserve some spontaneity; but if he is transformed into a complete mechanism, one ceases to be a person in the process. Power, therefore, ought to move with the affirmation of the spontaneity of the person it encounters; this will assure it most success in the long run. This is why I permitted Mercedes, an individual with practically no sense of her own power or spontaneity or choice to start with, to decide wen she wished to come to her psychotherapy sessions and when she chose not to. It was a process not only of letting her use her own spontaneity but requiring her to use it. While it is utopian to try to divorce power completely from force, compulsion, and coercion, it is cynical to identity all kinds of power with them. Is a tiny rain drop the same rainstorm? Can it cause a dam to burst as a rain storm? No—although the two are of the same nature, they are not of the same identity. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13

For any being to say “I am God” is incorrect, unless one understands the statement to refer only to the nature of one’s innermost being and only in this way, that one is but an insignificant drop of God with all the limitations that belong to a spark. We have to find our own self before we can find that of God’s. Hence there is real need of the higher self tenet. We are not entitled to aspire towards union with the wholeness of God so long as we still have not attained union with the godlikeness in beings. The mystical quest does not open the inner mysteries of God to our gaze. It opens the inner mysteries of beings. It leads them to one’s own divinity, not to God’s. There was once a less affluent Russian painter who could scarcely get enough money to buy bread for his wife and children. When the artist is on his death bed, his best friends finds the canvas on which the painter was working. It I blank except for one word, unclearly written and in very small letters, that appears in the center. The word can either be solitary—being alone; keeping one’s distance from events, maintaining the peace of mind necessary for listening to one’s deeper self. Or it can be solidarity—living in the market place; solidarity, involvement, or identifying with the masses. Opposites though they are, both solitude and solidarity are essential if the artist is to produce works that are not only significant to his or her age, but that will also speak to future generations. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13

There is no contradiction between advising aspirants at one time to seek a master and follow the path of discipleship, and advising them to seek within and follow the path of self-reliance at another time. The two counsels can be easily reconciled. For if the aspirant accepts the first one, the master will gradually lead one to become increasingly self-reliant. If one accepts the second one, one’s higher self will lead one to a master. When this craving for a guru becomes excessive, inordinate, it is a sign of weakness, an attempt to escape one’s own personal responsibility and to place it squarely on somebody else’s shoulders, a manifestation of inferiority complex such as we are accustomed to see in faces that have long been enslaved by others. Although it is true that one must find one’s own way to the goal, one need not do so as if one exists alone on this planet. One may be helped by drawing creatively on the experience gained by others even while one critically judges it. “And they did land upon the shore of the promised land. And when they had set their feet upon the shores of the promised land they bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves before the Lord, and did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of God’s tender mercies over them. And it came to pass the they went forth upon the face of the land, and began to till the Earth,” reports Ether 6.12-13. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13

The Self-Conscious Preoccupation with this Wished-form Magic Object Called Personality Interfere with the Actual Experience for Living

July 18, 2019 1:46 am

I told you. Such stories always come into our hands. Satanism, vampirism, voodoo, witchcraft, sightings of werewolves; it all comes across my desk. Most of it goes into the trash, obviously. However, Godsmack produced a great song called “Voodoo,” which is about Resurrection. I know the grain of truth when I see it. In daily life the question of identity arises when we want to claim something from the post office, or when we want to pay by check in a store where we are not known, or in crossing a border. On such occasions we are asked: “Who are you, so that I can know for sure that it is you and nobody else?” And we establish our identity by showing a driver’s license or a passport or some similar document which tells our name, our address, the date of our birth, and perhaps some physical characteristics. Together, these will tell us apart from anybody else and will also establish that we are the same person that was born on such and such a date. We have papers to establish our identity, and this paper-identity is something fixed and definite. This is also the meaning of the word “identity,” as applied to people, for the average person. Such paper-identity seems far removed, at first glance, from the current concern of psychoanalysts, philosophers, and other students of the contemporary scene, with a being’s search for and doubt in one’s identity. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13

However, actually paper-identity is quite central for a person’s search of oneself. It is a telling symbol of alienated identity. It is a kind of identity which is the product of bureaucratic needs of commerce or administration. It is most gruesome and tragic manifestations occurred in our time when being’s identities were reduced to numbers on plantations and or in the penal system, and when countless people fleeing from the terror of the totalitarian states were shunned from country to country because they did not have the right paper-identities. In the case of paper-identities, the person who demands and examines one’s papers is the one who, in one’s role as an official, is alienated from the other person as a human being. Similarly, the guards on the plantations were alienated from their victims. However, many of these victims systematically robbed of any meaningful purpose and dignity in their lives, succumbed to their tormentors and lost their sense of identity long before they lost their lives. In our own and many other societies the loss of identity takes place without the terror of the plantation in more insidious ways. Many beings in our time tend to think of their lives as though they were answering the kind of questionnaire that one has to fill out when, for example, applying for a passport. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13

Most beings tend to accept the paper-identity as their real identity. It is tempting to do so because it is something fixed and definite and does not require the person be really in touch with oneself. The paper-identity corresponds to the logical propositions concerning identity: A = A, and A is not non-A. However, beings are not a logical proposition, and the paper-identity does not answer the question who this person, identified by some scrap of paper, is as a person. This question is not simple to answer. It has haunted many people increasingly in the last hundred and seventy years. They no longer feel certain who they are because in modern industrial society, they are alienated from nature, alienated from others and from the World around us. The problem of identity and alienation from the self came to the attention of psychoanalysts in the last one hundred years when they observed its role in an increasing number of patients. Many beings suffer in one form or another from the lack of a sense of identity. This may take the form of feeling like an imposter—in their work or in relation to their background, their past, or to some part of themselves that they repress or consciously want to hide because they feel ashamed or guilty. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13

Or else some feel that they ought to have something they ought to have something they lack or imagine they lack, such as material possession, prestige, or certain personal qualities or traits; or they feel that a different husband or wife, or friends different from those they have, would give them the status they want and thereby, miraculously, transform them into full-blown persons. When the lack of a sense of identity becomes conscious, it is often experienced—probably always—as a feeling that compared with others one is not fully a person. Among adults one can observe two frequent reactions to the conscious or unconscious feeling of not being fully a being, of not having found an identity acceptable to oneself. One is an anxious retreat or depressive resignation, or a mixture of these. The other is a more or less conscious effort at disguise, at playing a role, at presenting an artificial façade to the World. These reactions are not mutually exclusive. They usually occur together, one of them being more emphasized or closer to consciousness than the other. The fear or exposure is present in both, but especially strong in people who rely on a façade. They tend to feel that they travel with a forged passport, under an assumed identity. When their disguise and the reasons for it have been analyzed, the sense of a lack of identity often comes to the fore as strongly as in those who, to begin with, have been aware of and suffered from the feeling of not really or fully being a person with a meaningful place in life. Both then to feel that they do not really know who they are, what they want, or how they feel about other people. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13

When these people consult an analyst, they often expect, implicitly or explicitly, that one will tell them who they are or who they should be. Their wish and search is for a definite, fixed identity. They want to be a personality. Often these are people who suffer from over-adaptation to whatever situation they are in, and to whomever they are dealing with at the moment. They have been described pointedly in several pays and stories by Pirandelio. They long for a definite, fixed, circumscribed personality. Having such a personality, as one has a possession, they hope will solve their dilemma. Having such a personality, they feel, is good; not having it, bad. Their wish is to possess a definite identity does not and cannot solve the problem of their alienation from themselves, because it actually is the continuation of alienation. They want to substitute a fixed, reified personality for the on-going process of living, feeling, acting, and thinking in which alone they could find themselves. They search for a definite, stable shell called personality to which they want to cling. Their quest is self-defeating, because what they search for is an alienated concept of a thing, rather than a living, developing person. Their wish is a symptom, not a cure. In this symptom, however, both the malady of alienation and the longing for more meaningful life find expression, even thought in a way which perpetuates the ill form which they seek to escape. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13

The self-conscious preoccupation with this wished-form magic object called personality interfere with the actual experience for living. In calling the object of these people’s search an alienated concept of identity, I do not mean a scientific or even an explicit concept. I am describing an implicit concept, which becomes apparent only in the analysis of the underlying, often not conscious, assumptions that direct this kind of search. This applies equally to the following examples of alienated concepts of identity. Talking of fears and defenses, I am afraid that by this time many being will have become impatient about such an extensive discussion of so simple a question as what constitutes a neurosis. In defending myself I may point out the psychic phenomena are always intricate, that while there are seemingly simple questions there is never a simple answer, that the predicament we meet here at the beginning is no exceptional one, but will accompany us throughout the essay, whatever problems we shall tackle, The particular difficulty in the description of a neurosis is possessed in the fact that a satisfactory answer can be given neither with psychological nor with sociological tools alone, but that they must be taken up alternately, first one and then the other, as in fact we have done. If we should regard a neurosis only from the point of view of its dynamics and psychic structure we should hypostatize a normal human being: one does not exist. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13

We run into more difficulties as soon as we pass the borderline of our own country or of countries with a culture similar to our own. And if we regard a neurosis only from the sociological point of view as a mere deviation from the behavior pattern common to a certain society, we neglect grossly all we know about the psychological characteristics of a neurosis, and no psychiatrist of any school or country would recognize the results as what one is accustomed to designate a neurosis. The reconcilement of the two approaches is possessed in a method of observation that considers the deviation both in the manifest picture of the neurosis and in the dynamics of the psychic processes, but without considering either deviation as the primary and decisive one. The two must be combined. This in general is the way we have gone in pointing out that fear and defenses are one of the dynamic centers of a neurosis, but constitutes a neurosis only when deviating in quantity or quality from the fears and defenses patterned in the same culture. We have to go one step father in the same direction. There is still another essential characteristic of a neurosis and that is the presence of conflicting tendencies of the existence of which, or at least of the precise content of which, the neurotic oneself is unaware, and for which one automatically tires to reach certain compromise solutions. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13

It is this latter characteristic which in various forms Dr. Freud has stressed as an indispensable constituent of neuroses. What distinguishes the neurotic conflict from those commonly existing in a culture is neither their content nor the fact that they are essentially unconscious—in both respects the common cultural conflicts may be identical—but the fact that in the neurotic the conflicts are sharper and more accentuated. The neurotic person attempts and arrives at compromises solutions—not inopportunely classified as neurotic—and these solutions are less satisfactory than those of the average individual and are achieved at great expense to the whole personality. Reviewing all these considerations, we are not yet able to give a well-rounded definition of a neurosis, but we can arrive at a description: a neurosis is a psychic disturbance brought about by fear and defenses against these fears, and by attempts to find compromise solutions for conflicting tendencies. For practical reasons only if it deviates from the pattern common to the particular culture, then is it advisable to call this disturbance a neurosis. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13

Some perceive their World as boring and their stature as lowly, and these beings long to break away from their predicament, to soar—but in the quickest, most inexpensive way. The devil can provide beings with a mirror on this longing and immerses one in its consequences. Some of these consequences are delightful—as they are for most overachievers—but many of them disastrous. In the end, most are able to reassess their expansiveness, appreciate the value of one’s limitations, and thus become a more enriched and deliberate person. One must think of what life can be—its temptations, its catastrophes, and its joys. What is life and what are damnation and salvation? What does it mean to be a human being? God is the occult of the Universe. God created humans in his own image and likeness. I suspect that is the key. Nobody knows what it really means, you know. God is a creative force. And so are we. He told Adam to “Increase and multiply.” That is what the first organic cells did, increased and multiplied. Not merely changed shape but replicated themselves. God is a creative force. He made the whole Universe out of himself through cell division. That is why the devils are so fully of envy—the bad Angels, I mean. They are not creative creatures; they have no bodies, no cells, they are spirit. And I suspect it was not envy so much as a form of suspicion—that God was making a mistake in making another engine of creativity in Adam, so like himself. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13

The Angels probably felt the physical Universe was bad enough, with all these replicating cells, but thinking, talking beings who could increase and multiply? They were probably outraged by the whole experiment. That was their sin. God has a body and always did. The secret of cell dividing life lies within God. And all living cells have a tiny part of God’s spirits in them, that is the missing piece as to what makes life happen in the first place, what separates it from nonlife. It is exactly like Anne Rice’s vampiric genesis. The first spirit of Amel—one evil entity—infused the bodies of all the vampires. Well, the humans share in the spirit of God in the same way. People yearn to believe that the God of progress—our great machines, our vast technology, our supernational corporations, now even our nuclear weapons—all these, we yearn to believe, will have a beneficent effect upon us and will bring us vast gains to humanity. It is indeed thrilling to realize that out of the same milieu of strive, intense activity, even cruelty, came our political proclamation: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We now living in a person when vast numbers of people are dedicated to interpreting evil in such a way that it will eventuate in good. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13

Power is the ability to cause or prevent change. It has two dimensions. One is power as potentiality, or latent power. This is power that has not yet been fully developed; it is the ability to cause a change at some future time. We speak of this future change as possibility, a word which comes directly from the same root as power, namely posse, “to be able.” The other dimension is power as actuality. It is to this aspect of power I shall be referring in this chapter. Ancient Greek philosophers define power as being—that is to say, there is no being without power. And since power is the ability to chance, being is in continual flux. This definition has come down the mainstream and tributaries of philosophy through the ages to contemporary ontological thinkers like Paul Tillich, who describes power similarly as “the power of being.” The philosopher of life, such as Nietzsche with his will to power emphasize the element of power in all living things. Power is for them an expression of life. No teaching can be a final complete and exhaustive one. The Universe may yield its secret but being’s minds are not the World-Mind; it cannot put into finite words what is greater than itself. When we attempt to identify power with the life process itself, there can be danger. This would lead us astray. There are many things in the life process—such as consciousness, desire, curiosity—which may be allied with power but are not to be identified with it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13

If a being claims to know what God is in the same way that God knows it, one is talking nonsense, and falling into the sin of spiritual pride. No one can penetrate this irreducible mystery expect in one’s own imagination, speculation, or psychic fantasy. No human effort can plumb the depth of the ultimate power. No human being has found the truth in all its angles, nor uttered the last word upon it. Whatever knowledge a mystic may acquire through trance or intuition, it will always be limited. The World-Mind’s knowledge is always absolute. The circumferences of these two circles can never coincide. Power and love can be allied, but they also can be contrasted; the distinction between them must be kept clear. Power can be identified only with the original power of being itself, from which beings gets its start. Beware of professionalism in this field, of the professional expounder of truth and the professional seeker of it. Both Way and Goa are far simpler than most of them seem to think it is, and markedly unlike the impression left by many writings and lectures, books and teachings, whether ancient or modern. First at the beginning of the Long Path, and again at the beginning of the Short Path a master, a spiritual guide, is really required. However, outside of these two occasions an aspirant had better walk alone. The teacher oneself has to go to this inner source for one’s own enlightenment, why not go to it directly yourself? #RandolphHarris 12 of 13

It may be slower but it will be much safer, present-day conditions being what they are, to teach oneself and liberate oneself. Something more is needed than what books or even gurus can give one. This can only be found within oneself. The courage needed for such a standpoint must also be found, and can be, within oneself. For curious reason we are shy about sharing the things that matter most. Hence people short-circuit the more dangerous building of a relationship by leaping immediately into bed. After all, the body is an object and can be treated mechanically. However, intimacy that begins and remains on the physical level tends to become inauthentic, and we later find ourselves fleeing from the emptiness. Authentic social courage requires intimacy on the many levels of the personality simultaneously. Only by doing this one can overcome personal alienation. No wonder the meeting of new persons brings a throb of anxiety as well as the joy of expectation; and as we go deeper into the relationship each new depth is marked by some new joy and new anxiety. Each meeting can be a harbinger of an unknown fate in store for us but also a stimulus toward the exciting pleasure of authentically knowing another person. “I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end,” reports Moroni 8.3. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13

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I Would Gladly Give My Life if it Would Advance the Cause of Truth!

July 16, 2019 12:52 am

Ah, such a circus for the eye—this low-ceilinged cave—chocked-full of every imaginable kind of packageable and preserved foodstuff, toilet article, and hair accoutrement, ninety percent of which existed not at all in any form whatsoever during the century when I was born. We are talking sanitary napkins, medicinal eyedrops, plastic bobby pins, felt-tip markers, creams and ointments for all nameable part of the human body, dishwashing liquid in every color of the rainbow, and cosmetic rinses in some colors never before invented and yet undefined. Imagine Louis XVI opening a noisy crackling plastic sack of such wonders? What would he think of Styrofoam coffee cups, chocolate cookies wrapped in cellophane, or pends that never run out of ink? Well, I am still not entirely used to these items myself, though I have watched the progress of the Industrial Revolution for two centuries with my own eyes. Such drugstores can keep me enthralled for hours on end. Sometimes I become spellbound in the middle of Wal-Mart. And everybody is to everybody else a commodity, always to be treated with certain friendliness, because even if one is not of use now, one may be later. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

There is not much love or hate to be found in human relations of our day. There is, rather, a superficial friendliness, and a more than superficial fairness, but behind that surface is distance and indifference. There is also a good deal of subtle distrust. When one being says to another, “You speak to Louis Pointe du Lac; he is all right,” it is an expression of reassurance against a general distrust. Even love and the relationships between genders has assumed this character. The great the emancipation of the pleasures of the flesh, as it occurred after the First World War, was a desperate attempt to substitute mutual pleasures of the flesh for a deeper feeling of love. When this turned out to be a disappointment the erotic polarity between the genders was reduced to a minimum and replaced by a friendly partnership, a small combine which has amalgamated its forces to hold out better in the daily batter of life, and to relieve the feeling of isolation and aloneness which everybody has. The alienation between being and being results in the loss of those general and social bonds which characterize medieval as well as most other precapitalist socities. Modern society consists of atoms (if we use the Greek equivalent of individual), little particles estranged from each other but held together by selfish interests and by the necessity to make use of each other. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

Yet beings are a social entity with a deep need to share, to help, to feel as a member of a group. What has happened to these social strivings in beings? They manifest themselves in the special sphere of the public realm, which is strictly separated from the private realm. Our private dealings with our fellow beings are governed by the principle of egotism, “each for oneself, God for us all,” in flagrant contradiction to Christian teaching. The individual is motivated by egotistical interest, and bot by solidarity with and love for one’s fellow beings. The latter feelings may assert themselves secondarily as private acts of philanthropy or kindness, but they are not part of the basic structure of our social relations. Separated from our private life as individuals is the realm of our social life as citizens. In this realm the state is the embodiment of our social existence; as citizens we are supposed to, and in fact usually do, exhibit a sense of social obligation and duty. We pay taxes, we vote, we respect the laws, and in the case of war we are willing to sacrifice our lives. What clearer example could there be of the separation between private and public existence than the fact that the same being who would not think of spending one hundred dollars to relieve the need of a stranger does not hesitate to risk one’s life to save the stranger when in war they both happen to be soldiers in uniform? The uniform is the embodiment of our social nature—civilian garb, of our egotistic nature. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

The division between the community and the political state has led to the projection of all social feelings into the state, which thus becomes an idol, a power standing over and above the being. Beings submit to the state as to the embodiment of one’s own social feelings, which one worships as powers alienated from oneself; in one’s private life as an individual one suffers from the isolation and aloneness which are necessary result of this separation. The worship of the state can only disappear if beings take back the social powers into oneself, and builds a community in which one’s social feelings are not something added to one’s private existence, but in which one’s private and social existence are one and the same. What is the relationship of beings toward oneself? I have described elsewhere this relationship as marketing orientation. In this orientation, beings experience themselves as a thing to be employed successfully on the market. One does not experience oneself as an active agent, as the bearer of human powers. One is alienated from these powers. One’s aim is sell oneself successfully on the market. One’s sense of self does not stem from one’s activity as a loving and thinking individual, but from one’s socioeconomic role. Our sense of value depends on ourselves: on whether we can sell ourselves favorably, whether we can make more of ourselves that we started out with, whether we are a success. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

One’s body, one’s mind and one’s soul are one’s capital, and one’s task in life is to invest it favorably, to make a profit of oneself. Human qualities like friendliness, courtesy, kindness, are transformed into commodities, into assets of the personality package, conducive to a higher price on the personality market. If one fails in a profitable investment in oneself, one feels that one is a failure; if one succeeds, one is a success. Clearly, one’s sense of one’s own value always depends on factors extraneous to oneself, on fickle judgment of the market, which decides about one’s value as in decides about the value of commodities. Nevertheless, as people begin their journey, they pause in the vestibule of hell, where they hear the cries of anguish from the opportunists. These souls who in life were neither good nor evil but acted only for themselves. They are the outcasts who took no sides in the rebellion of the Angels. In modern psychology these opportunists are called well adjusted; they know how to keep out of trouble! However, they are guilt of the sin of fence-sitting. Hence they are neither in hell nor out of it. They are eternally unclassified, they race round and round pursuing a wavering banner that runs forever before them through the dirty air; and as they run they are pursued by swarms of wasps and hornets, who sting them and produce a constant flow of blood. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

Hell enacts the law of symbolic retribution: since these opportunists took no sides they are given no place. As their sin was a darkness, so they move in darkness. As their own guilty conscience pursued them, so they are pursued by swarms of wasps and hornets. Any being who is neither good nor evil is simply not living an authentic life. The law tends to take care to punish the evil depicted in society, and they understand profoundly the passion that drives beings away from the moral life. They believe that it takes courage to be a real sinner. Many people learn to cope wit their problems (not to cure them) in part by means of religion or a therapist’s superior familiarity with disordered human types. As one journeys deeper into hell, such as the gluttonous, the hoarders, and wasters, the wrathful and the sullen, the important thing is not the specific evils with which one struggles but the journey itself. In any quest-romance the recognition of negative states leads to a purification of the self, a casting of the dead/diseased self in favor for a new life. Likewise the function of psychoanalysis, from one point of view, is a movement toward healthy by traversing the morbid landscape of one’s own past. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

Dr. Freud remarks that hysterical patients suffer mainly from reminiscence might be extended to include all those who are inwardly compelled to autobiographical narrative. The Inferno—or hell—consists of suffering and endless torment that produces no change in the soul that endures it and is imposed from without. However, in Purgatorio suffering is temporary, a means of purification, and is eagerly embraced by the soul’s own will. Both must be traversed before arriving at the celestial Paradiso. I think of these three stages as simultaneous—three coexisting aspects of all human experience. Leaving aside the manifest picture and looking at the dynamics effective in producing neuroses, and that is anxieties and the defenses built up against them. Intricate as the structure of a neurosis may be, this anxiety is the motor which sets the neurotic process going and keeps it in motion. Anxieties or fears—let us use these terms interchangeably for a while—are ubiquitous, and so are defenses against them. These reactions are not restricted to human beings. If an animal, frightened by some danger, either makes a counter-attack or takes flight, we have exactly the same situation of fear and defenses. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

If we are afraid of being struck by lightning and put a lightning rod on our roof, if we are afraid of the consequences of possible accidents and take out an insurance policy, the factors of fear and defense are like wise present. Fear and defense are present in various specific forms in every culture, and may be institutionalized, as in the wearing of amulets as a defense against the fear of the evil eye, the observation of circumstantial rites against the fear of the dead, the taboos concerning the avoidance of menstruating women as a defense against the fear of evil emanating from them. These similarities present a temptation to make a logical error. If the factors of fear and defense are essential in neuroses, why not call the institutionalized defenses against fear the evidence of cultural neuroses? The fallacy in reasoning this way is possessed in the fact that two phenomena are not necessarily identical when they have one element in common. One would not call a house a rock merely because it is built out of the same mater as the rock. What, then, is the characteristic of neurotic fears and defenses that makes them specifically neurotic? Is it perhaps that the neurotic fears are imaginary? No, for we might also be inclined to call fear of the dead imaginary; and in both cases we should be yielding to an impression based on a lack of understanding. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

No, for neither does the primitive know why one has a fear of the dead. The distinction has nothing to do with gradations of awareness or rationality, but it consists in the following two factors. First, life conditions in every culture give rise to some fears. They may be caused by external dangers (nature, enemies), by the forms of social relationships (incitement to hostility because of suppression, injustice, enforced dependence, frustrations), by cultural traditions (traditional fear of demons, of violation taboos) regardless of how they may have originated. An individual may be subject more or less to these fears, but on the whole it is safe to assume that they are thrust upon every individual living in a given culture, and that no one can avoid them. The neurotic, however, not only shared the fears common to all individuals in a culture, but because of conditions in one’s individual life—which, however, are interwoven with general conditions—one also has fears which in quantity or quality deviate from those of the cultural pattern. Secondly, the fears existing in a given culture are warded off in general by certain protective devices (such as taboos, rites, customs). As a rule these defenses represent a more economical way of dealing with fears than do the neurotic’s defenses built up in a different way. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

Thus the normal person, though having to undergo the fears and defenses of one’s culture, will in general be quite capable of living up to one’s potentialities and of enjoying what life has to offer one. The normal person is capable of making the best of the possibilities given in one’s culture. Expressing it negatively, one does not suffer more than is unavoidable in one’s culture. The neurotic person, on the other hand, suffers invariably more than the average person. The only reason why I did not mention this fact when discussing the characteristics of all neuroses that can be derived from surface observation is that it is not necessarily observable from without. The neurotic oneself may not even be aware of the fact that one is suffering. Reason does not at all mean our contemporary intellectualism, or technical reason, or rationalism. It stands for the brad spectrum of life in which a person reflects on or pauses to question the meaning of experience, especially suffering. In our age reason is taken as logic, as it is mainly channeled through the left hemisphere of the brain. Therefore, if we take it in a broad sense, reason can guide us in our private hells. However, reason even in one’s amplified sense cannot lead us into the celestial paradise. We have the need of other guides on our journey. These guides are revelation and intuition. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

The Real is wholly nothing to the five senses and wholly unthinkable to the human intellect. Therefore and to this extent only it is also called the Unknowable. However, there is a faculty latent in beings which is subtler than the sense, more penetrative than the intellect. If one succeeds in evoking it, the Real, the unknowable, will then come within the range of one’s perception, knowledge, and experience. However, although the Absolute in its passive state is unknowable, the Overself as a representative of its active aspect, of the World-Mind, is knowable. If the pure essence of Godhead is too inaccessible for beings, nevertheless one has not been left bereft of all divine communion. For there is a hidden element within oneself which has emanated from the Godhead. It is really one’s higher, better self, one’s soul. The Infinite Mind is beyond human perception but its presence and operation are not. The point in human consciousness where these become known is the Overself. However, although the Absolute is imperceptible to human powers, It has not left us utterly bereft of all means of communion. We are linked to It by something that is possessed hidden in the very deeps of our own being, by Its deputy to beings, the divine Overself. Human power can penetrate to those deeps and discover the hidden treasure. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

This higher self is what the successful mystics of all religious have really achieved union with, despite the widely different names of God downwards, which they have given it. One may know that God is here even though one is incapable of know what God is like. If we cannot know the all of God because we do not have the equipment of God, we can at least know something of God and the way we are related through the Overself. Living through other people is a fine way to evade our own problems and it will also make the other person a first-rate candidate for therapy later one. You have as much as a right to live as any other human being. However, there is a common defense of many people overwhelmed by feelings of powerlessness. Some other force must have the power to change things since obviously these people do not; their actions do not really mater. To fill the vacuum left by their failure to act, the powerless frequently rely on the practice of magic rites. Worried about being above average weight, some people ask to be hypnotized to cause them to eat less. However, this only takes away a person own responsibility; and why not learn to be one’s own hypnotist? This dependence on magic stretches back through the centuries of oppression of unrepresented groups, and colonial peoples. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

It is assumed that beings can be made passive, docile, and helpless and can be kept this way by the use of built-in threats and the occasional assignation of a loved or community member. However, in the false calm, we repressed the question we should have been asking: When an individual is rendered unable to stand up for oneself socially or physically, as in slavery, where does one’s power go? No one can accept complete impotence short of death. If one cannot assert oneself overtly, one will do it covertly. Thus magic—a covert, cult force—is an absolute necessity for the powerless. The spread of magic and the reliance on the occult is one symptom of the widespread importance in our transitional age. Sometimes people also lash out at others, paradoxically, against those closet and dearest to one. That is because these individuals represent people in whom one has submerged oneself. In this respect they should be fought (in the individual’s mind) for the sake of one’s own autonomy. It is parallel to the counter-will, the being’s self-assertion in opposition exactly to those upon whom is most dependent. Thus the life-destroying violence becomes also life-giving violence. They are intertwined as the sources of the individual’s self-reliance, responsibility, and freedom. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

Although it is inevitable, beings do not immediately fight everyone in their lives to assert their own freedom. This occurs partly because the people who are still helping them, they have to surrender temporarily some of the autonomy they do have; partly as a counterbalance to the excessive transference that turns the people helping them (financially and or emotionally) into a god. There is thus a self-affirmation precisely in self-destructive violence. Ultimately the affirmation is expressed in the person’s demonstration of one’s right to die by one’s own hand if one chooses. If, as is our tendency in this country, we condemn all violence out of hand and try to eradicate even the possibility of violence from a human being, we take aware from one an element that is essential to one’s full humanity. For the self-respecting human being, violence is always an ultimate possibility—and it will be resorted to less if admitted than if suppressed. For the free beings it remains in imagination an ultimate exit when all other avenues are denied by unbearably tyranny or dictatorship over the spirit as well as the body. To be alive is power, existing in itself, without a further function, omnipotence enough. The persons I have known, or have known of, who have great moral courage have generally abhorred violence. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

We should not allow the crushing of another person, whether physically, psychologically, or spiritually. One’s moral courage stands out more clearly when they become the symbol of a value lost sight of in a confused World. The innate worth of a being must be reversed solely because of one’s humanity and regardless of one’s politics. As long as there exist persons with moral courage, we can be sure that the triumph of the human robot has not yet arrived. Courage often arises not only out of one’s audaciousness, but also out of one’s compassion for the human suffering one witnesses around one. It is highly significant, and indeed almost a rule, that mortal courage has its source in such identification through one’s own sensitivity with the suffering of one’s fellow beings. I am tempted to call this perceptual courage because it depends on one’s capacity to perceive, to let one’s self see the suffering of other beings. If we let ourselves experience the evil, we will be forced to do something about it. It is a truth, recognizable in all of us, that when we do not want to become involved, when we do not want to confront even the issue of whether or not we will come to the assistance of someone who is being unjustly treated, we block off our perception, we blind ourselves to the other’s suffering, we cut off our empathy with the person needing help. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

Hence the most prevalent form of cowardice in our day hides behind the statement, “I did not want to become involved.” When we find our own heart and mind, our own inspiration, our spiritual longings, one senses of being guided by ethereal means, this encounter is compared to the secular resurrection. Resurrection reappears in a radically different landscape in order to restore love and joy to the craving soul. It is as if by helping others, we are coming back for our own salvation. We participate wit the ongoingness of the race. To find out the truth little by little oneself is to make it really one’s own. To be pushed into it with a plunge by a master always entails the likelihood of a return to one’s native and proper level later on. We must find the Overself through our own perceptions, that is, through our own eyes—or never. It will not suffice to believe that we can go on seeing it through the eyes of another being—be one a holy guru, or not. The seeker must elicit these things for oneself, and from within oneself; reading about them is not enough, hearing about them from gurus, or at lectures, is not enough. Something more is needed that what books or even gurus, or not. The seeker must elicit these things for oneself, and from within oneself: reading about them is not enough, hearing about them from gurus, or at lectures, is not enough. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16

Randolph Harris II International Institute

Category Archives: life

What Do You think Really? Inside of You? Is there a God or a Devil? I Mean Truly, What do You Believe?

The Self-Conscious Preoccupation with this Wished-form Magic Object Called Personality Interfere with the Actual Experience for Living

I Would Gladly Give My Life if it Would Advance the Cause of Truth!

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