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Wealth is Innocent Until Proven Guilty–Healing Cannot Occur without a Walk through Hades!
I live in the intermediate reaches of love. Not the best place, but certainly not the worst. I should count myself fortunate. Be alert. Love is where you find it. Do not be blinded by your categories. Loves comes unexpectedly in many forms. By my carelessness I have lost what now becomes a magic wand that could have lifted me up to Heaven. No one to blame but myself. I am the sole agent of my ruin. It is worthwhile to look to the Parmenides and the Gospel of John. In the philosophical poem about being and nonbeing, Parmenides describes the visionary experience in which the goddess of justice opens his eyes to the true way of asking the ultimate questions. He derives his insight from a kind of revelatory act which takes away his blindness to the truth, and guides him not to a better method of research (although this is an important consequence of his insight), but to a way of life as a whole. In the Fourth Gospel we find passages in which truth is being. Jesus Christ says, “I am the truth.” There are others which state that truth can be done, those who do the truth will recognize the truth. Here the gap between the cognitive and the moral is conquered, and again it is obvious that this kind of insight cannot precede the moral act and motivate it, since it is itself partly a moral act. A modern analogy to these ideas is provided by the psychotherapeutic experience. It clearly shows the difference between detached knowledge and participating insight. No one is helped in one’s personal problems by a thorough knowledge of the psychoanalytic literature. On the contrary, the analyst knows that a patient who claims to have insight into one’s own psychological state on the basis of such knowledge deceives oneself, and often sets up an almost insuperable resistance against gaining true insight about oneself. Only one who enters the healing process with one’s whole being, cognitive as well as moral, and therefore with emotional attachment to the process and its different elements, has a chance of gaining healing. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
However, this healing process cannot occur without a “walk through hades,” the suffering implicit in the awareness of the dark, ordinarily repressed elements in our being. Here also, the moral change is only partly an effect of insight, as insight itself is partly an effect of the moral will to be liberated. There is another concept by which classical Greek humanism attempted to answer the question of moral motivation. It is the concept of eros as used by Plato. Eros is defined as the mystical quality of love. This description of eros depends both on Plato’s use of the word in the Symposium and on the reintroduction of the word into Christian mysticism by Dionysius as the Areopagite. Eros for Plato is a mediating power, elevating the human mind out of existential bondage into the realm of pure essences, and finally to the essence of all essences—the idea of the good that is, at the same time, the idea of the beautiful and the true. As in other examples of Greek tradition, the moral and the cognitive are not separate. Eros provided both insight and moral motivation, and there is a third element, the aesthetic desire for the beautiful which is implied in the good. This goal can be attained by eros as a divine-human power that transcends the moral command without denying it. Eros is the transmoral motivation for moral action. To be impelled by eros can also be described as being grasped by that toward which eros drives. And thus we return to the principle of love. It is one of the qualities of love that concerns us here—the mystical, the drive toward reunion with essential being in everything, ultimately with the good as the principle of being and knowing (in Platonic terms). Love in all its qualities drives toward reunion. Eros, as distinct from philia and libido, drives toward reunion with things and persons in their essential goodness and with the good itself. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
For mystical theology, God and the good itself is, in religious language, love toward God. This love can be symbolized in two ways: in Plato it is the divine-human power of eros that elevates the mind to the divine; and in Aristotle, it is the power of the divine that attracts every finite think and produces by this attraction the movement of the stars, the Universe, and the human mind. According to both formulations it is not the moral imperative in its commanding majesty and strangeness that is morally motivating, but the driving or attracting power of that which is the goal of the moral realm, in the sense of personal and communal justice, does not furnish moral motivation unless it is understood as a station on the way to something ultimate in being and meaning—the divine. And the aim of everything finite is to participate in the life of the divine. And the aim of everything finite is to participate in the life of the divine. The moral stage is a situation on the way, and the motivation for it depends on the motivation for the transmoral aim, the participation in the divine life, as Aristotle expressed, in mystical-religious terms, the transmoral motivation of morality. Again I should like to point out a contemporary analogy in the realm of therapeutic psychology. The question is whether libido is unlimited in itself or only under the conditions of human estrangement. Our line of thought decides for the latter (as opposed to Dr. Freud and his doctrine of the essential necessity of cultural uneasiness and the death-drive). The difference is that essential libido (toward for or pleasures of the flesh, for example) is concretely directed to a particular object and is satisfied in the union with it, while existentially distorted libido is directed to the pleasure which may be derived from the relation to any encountered object. This drives existential libido boundlessly from object to object, while the essential libido is fulfilled if union with a particular object is achieved. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
This distinguishes the lover from the “Don Juan,” and agape-directed libido from undirected libido. The moral imperative cannot be obeyed by a repression of libido, but only by the power of agape to control libido, but only by the power of gape to control libido and to take it into itself as an element. Eros is a divine-human power. It cannot be produced at will. It has the character of charis, gratia, “grace”—that which is given without prior merit and makes graceful one to whom it is given. It is useful to remember the origins of the word “grace,” because it plays an immense role in Christian religion and theology, and its meaning and relevance have become incomprehensible for most contemporaries both inside and outside the church. Graces are divine gifts, independent of human merit, but dependent on the human readiness to receive them. And the readiness itself is the first gift of grace, which can be either persevered or lost. Theology has distinguished between “common” grace that works in all realms of life and in all human relations, and the special grace bestowed upon those who are grasped by the new reality that has appeared in the Christ. In both respects, the problem of moral motivation is decisive. What common and special grace accomplish is to create a state of reunion in which the cleave between out true and actual being is fragmentarily overcome, and the rule of the commanding law is broken. Where there is grace there is no command and no struggle to obey the command. This is true of all realms of life. One who has the grace of loving a thing, a task, a person, or an idea doe not need to be asked to love, whatever quality of love may be predominant in one’s love. A reunion of something separated has already taken place, and with it a partial fulfillment of the moral imperative. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
As a gift of grace, it is not produced by one’s will and one’s endeavour. One simply receives it. In this sense we may say: there is grace in every reunion of being with being, insofar as it is reunion and not the misuse of the one by the other, insofar as justice is not violated. Elements of grace permeate everyone’s life. Once could also call them healing powers that overcome the split between what we essentially are and what we actually are, and with the split the estrangement of life from life and the hidden or open hostility of life against life. Whenever elements of grace appear, the moral command is fulfilled. What was demanded now is given. However, what was given can be lost. And it will be lost, if one forgets that grace fulfills what the moral imperative demands, and that it affirms and does not replace the unconditional seriousness of morality. Therefore, as soon as grace is lost, the commanding law takes over and produces the painful experience of being unable to become what one could and should have become. This suffering under the moral law finally drives us to the question of the meaning of our existence in the light of the unconditional moral command which cuts into our finite and estranged predicament. We feel that the many gifts of common grace do not suffice; we ask for a grace as unconditional as the moral imperative and as infinite as our failure to fulfill it. We ask for the religious element of moral motivation directly, after we have experienced its indirect effect as common grace in the different realms of life. This Christian message is above all a message of grace. There is no religion without this element. The Old Testament, where the law plays such a decisive role, refers in every part to the divine covenant between God and the selected nation, and to the promises beyond all threats and judgments. We might cite similar examples from many other religions. However, Christianity, particularly under the impact of the Protestant Reformation, have emphasized the idea of grace more than any other religion. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Celibacy for some is like walking on the sword’s edge, and one can see every moment the necessity of continued vigilance. Many people are not blessed with a propensity for celibacy. However, if one acquires mastery over the palate, the observance of celibacy becomes comparatively easy. One must breathe the air of freedom and cast out all doubt from one’s mind, and practice purity of thoughts. Because self-control I paramount, testing to see whether that control is truly in place makes logical sense. One must grow to empathize with others on many issues. The concept of grace in Christian thought contains a polarity between the element of forgiveness and the element of fulfillment. The former can be expressed as the forgiveness of sins or—in a paradoxical phrase—the acceptance of the unacceptable. The latter can be described as the gift of the Spirit or the infusion of love controlled by the agape. The former conquers the pain of morally unfilled existence, and the latter grants the blessedness of an at least fragmentary fulfillment. Neither is possible without the other, for only one who is grasped by the Spirit can accept the tremendous paradox that one is accepted. Nothing is more difficult than to face one’s image in the mirror of the law and to say “yes” to it in terms of “in spite of.” It demands much grace to reach this state. And on the other hand, the fragmentary fulfillment through grace can bestow blessedness only if the paradox of forgiveness conquers the pain of missing fulfillment or of lost grace. Here the skeptical question may arise as to whether the paradox of grace diminishes the power of moral motivation in those who accept that they are accepted, although unacceptable. It is a very old question, used against Paul as well as against Augustine, against Luther as well as against Calvin, and against the Reformation as a whole by the humanists and the evangelical radicals. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
It is a justified question insofar as it points to the possibility of converting the paradox of grace into a cover for lawlessness. However, the question is not justified in principle, because it shows that one has not understood that the courage to accept the unacceptable is a work of grace, a creation of the Spiritual power. Only if the acceptance of the unacceptable is misunderstood as a merely intellectual act does it remain without moral motivating power. Orthodoxy (in contrast to the early Luther) is largely responsible for this intellectual distortion of the paradox of acceptance of the unacceptable and, consequently, for the attack on the Pauline principles in the name of morality. The question of moral motivation can be answered only transmorally. For the law demands, but cannot forgive; it judges, but cannot accept. Therefore, forgiveness and acceptance, the conditions of the fulfillment of the law, must come from something above the law, or more precisely, from something in which the split between our essential being and our existence is overcome and healing power has appeared. It is the center of the Christian message that this conquest took place in the Christ, in whom a new reality beyond the cleavage appeared It is therefore a moralistic distortion of Christianity to interpret the so-called “teachings of Jesus” as another law, heavier then the law of Moses. His words (not his “teachings”) point the way to the new reality in which the law is not abolished, but has ceased to be commanding. The reaction of religion and morality is not an external one, but it is the religious dimension, sources, and motivation are implicit in all morality, acknowledged or not. Morality does not depend on any concrete religion; it I religious in its very essence. The unconditional character of the moral imperative, love as the ultimate source of the moral commands, and grace as the power of moral motivation are the concepts through which the question of the relation of religion and morality is fundamentally answered. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Psychodynamic theorists believe that people who abuse substances have a powerful dependency needs that can be traced to their early years. They claim that when parents fail to satisfy a young child’s need for nurturance, the child is likely to grow up depending excessively on others for help and comfort, trying to find the nurturance that was lacking during the early years. If this search for outside support includes experimentation with a drug, the person may well develop a dependent relationship with the substance. Some psychodynamic theorists also believe that certain people respond to their early deprivations by developing a substance abuse personality that leaves them particularly prone to drug abuse. Personality inventories and patient interviews have in fact indicated that people who abuse or depend on drugs tend to be more dependent, antisocial, impulsive, novelty-seeking, and depressive than other people. These findings are correlational, however, and do not clarify whether such personality traits lead to drug use or whether drug use causes people to be dependent, impulsive, and the like. In an effort to establish clearer causation, one longitudinal study measured the personality traits of a large group of nonalcoholic young men and then kept track of each man’s development. Years later, the traits of the men who developed alcohol problems in the middle age were compared with the traits of those who did not. The men who developed alcohol problems had been more impulsive as teenagers and continued to be so in middle age, a finding suggesting that impulsive men are indeed more prone to develop alcohol problems. A major weakness of this line of arguments have been tied to substance abuse and dependence. In fact, different studies point to different “key” traits. Inasmuch as come people with a drug addiction appear to be dependent, others impulsive, and still others antisocial, researchers cannot presently conclude that any one personality trait or group of traits stand out in substance-related disorders. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Our subject is the present waste of human resources. Yet this waste is nothing new. Considering our wonderful faculties and powers, people on the average have never accomplished much. Regarded just as machines of virtue, pleasure, wisdom, battle, or friendship, we have always operated at a tiny fraction of capacity. This is evident if we contrast how people usually hang around with how people come across in emergencies, or when they are enthusiastic, or when they are calmly absorbed. Children find the average inactivity very painful and they nag, “What can I do? Tell me something to do.” Adolescents are restive hanging around, and they think up ways to make trouble. Adults are inured to it, and Schopenhauer claimed that boredom is a metaphysical attribute of the World as Will. Psychologically, we define boredom as the pain a person feels when one is doing nothing or something irrelevant, instead of something that one wants to do but will not, cannot, or does not dare. Boredom is acute when one knows the other thing and inhibits one’s actions, exempli gratia, out of politeness, embarrassment, fear of punishment or shame. Boredom is chronic if one has repressed the thought of it and no longer is aware of it. A parge pat of stupidity is just this chronic boredom, for a person cannot learn, or be intelligent about, what one is not interested in, when one’s repressed thoughts are elsewhere. (Another large part of stupidity is stubbornness, unconsciously saying, “I will not, you cannot make me.”) Certainly a large part of our common wasteful inactivity is this neurosis of chronic boredom. Certain aims are forbidden and punishable, or unattainable and painful; so we inhibit them and put them out of mind. In a vicious circle, the repression then makes the idea of the aims seem threatening: the aims are not rejected also in ourselves. So we are bored and inactive. We see how boredom easily turns into apathy, the lack of incentive. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
At first this Sunday-afternoon neurosis, of lively children brought to a pause, is worse among the middle class than among the poor, for the middle class is less permissive, it has stricter standards to maintain and more expensive furniture to protect. However, by adolescence it is generally evident in all classes of the young, hanging around, reading comic books, or watching TV. It is evident in their notion of what is acceptable behaviour in the groups, in their paranoia about pleasures of the flesh, in their inability to think up anything interesting. Their hearts are elsewhere and they do not remember where. Many boys are afraid to be alone with themselves, because they might do something that goes against the principals of abstinence, which in itself may be an activity of boredom. All this has long been with us, and formerly perhaps it was worse than it is now, for now there is more permissiveness for small children and more rationality about growing up. However, when it comes to ineptitude, not knowing how; the situation in which, even if they know their aims, children do not know the means or cannot manage the means. I propose that in this respect our present system is uniquely bad and getting worse. For ironically, just in our times, when science and technology are so advanced, this factor ineptitude also increase, and children become practically more unenlightened. How many can take this essential step of a moral about-turn? Can we awaken a criminal in jail to a sense of one’s personal failure and moral shame? Because one has suffered the humiliation of retribution, there is always the probability of comprehending that there is a better way. And because one is a human being, there is always the possibility of ethical recovery and moral improvement. Those who believe that they can solve such a problem as criminality on a merely practical basis alone are wrong. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Experience will teach them that it is inseparable from a moral one, too. For if the criminal really repents, then our duty is to forgive one. A moral shift on one’s part should lead to a practical shift on ours. We may forgive criminals and yet punish them for wrong-doing, if that be our duty, or place them under such external limitations as will prevent their further wrong-doing, if that be our duty, or place them under such external limitations as will prevent their further wrong-doing, if that also be our duty. The two are not contradictory. If we keep our hearts unpolluted by hatred, we may keep our hands sternly and firmly on the wrong-doer. This is included in what is meant as the skillful performance of action. The skillfulness here meant is obviously not the technical kind but rather the mystical power to remain inwardly detached whilst doing Worldly duty. During the war, it became necessary for philosophic students to lean how to fight a cruel aggressor in the right spirit; they had paradoxically to learn how to deliver without anger or hate hard blows against one whilst feeling profound pity for one’s moral darkness. However, philosophic students are few. It is useless to ask humanity in its present state of evolution to behave on this high plane. An actualized Christian (and perhaps those who try to follow one) would not find it difficult to extend one’s compassionate goodwill to all criminals—indeed one would find it difficult not to—but it would be too much to expect that everybody else is capable of extending it. An alternative to physical punishment, such as flogging, for brutal crimes of violence would be to put the criminal upon a semi-starvation diet. One’s bodily weakness would then affect one’s mental aggressiveness, would reduce and counter it. If capital punishment is the law, at least change the method to withholding of food until death by starvation. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The rise of a de-massified civilization brings to the surface deep, unsettling questions about the future of majority rule and the entire mechanistic system of voting to express preferences. Someday future historians may look back on voting and the search for majorities as an archaic ritual engaged in by communicational primitives. Today, however, in a dangerous World, we cannot afford to delegate total power to anyone, we cannot surrender even the weak popular influence that exists under majoritarian systems, and we cannot allow tiny marginalized groups to make vast decisions that tyrannize all other non-dominant groups. This is why we must drastically revise the crude methods of the past by which we pursue the elusive majority. We need new approaches designed for a democracy of non-dominant groups—methods whose purpose is to reveal differences rather than to paper them over with forced or fake majorities based on exclusionary voting, sophistic framing of the issues, or rigged electoral procedures. We need, in short, to modernize the entire system so as to strengthen the role of diverse non-dominate groups yet permit them to form majorities. To do so, however, will require radical changes in many of our political structures—starting with the very symbol of democracy, the ballot box. In the past, voting to determine the popular would provide important feedback for the ruling elites. When conditions for one reason or another became intolerable for the majority, and 51 percent of the voters registered their pain, the elites could, at a minimum, shift parties, alter policies, or make some other accommodation. Even in yesterday’s mass society, however, the 51 percent principle was decidedly blunt, purely quantitative instrument. Voting to determine the majority tells us nothing about the quality of people’s views. It can tell us how many people, at a given moment, want X, but not how badly they want it. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Above all, it tells us nothing about what they would be willing to trade off for X-crucial information in a society made up of many marginalized groups. Nor does it signal us when a marginalized member of a group feels so threatened, or attaches such life-and-death significance to a single issue, that it views should perhaps receive more than ordinary weight. In a mass society these well-known weaknesses of majority rule were tolerated because, among other things, most marginalized groups lacked strategic power to disrupt the system. In today’s finely wired society, in which all of us are members of minority groups, that is no longer true. For a de-massified Fourth Wave society the feedback systems of the industrial past are entirely too crude. Thus we will have to use voting, and the polls, in a radically new way. Instead of seeking simpleminded yes-or-no voted, we need to identify potential trade-offs with questions like: “If I give up my position on abortion, will your give up yours on defense spending or nuclear power?” of “If I agree to a small additional tax on my personal income next year, to be earmarked for your project, what will you offer in return?” In the World we are racing into, with its rich communications technologies, there are many ways for people to register such views without ever setting foot in a polling booth. And there are also ways, as we shall see in a moment, to feed these into the political decision-making process. We may also want to de-rig our voting laws to eliminate anti-minority biases. There are many ways to do this. One quite conventional method would be to adopt some variant of cumulative voting, as used by many corporations today to protect the rights of minority stockholders. Such methods allow voters to register not only their preferences but the intensity and rank order of their choices. We shall almost certainly have to discard our obsolete party structures, designed for a slowly changing World of mass movements and mass merchandising, and invent temporary modular parties that service changing configurations of minorities-plug/plug-out parties of the future. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
We may, for instance, need to provide arenas in which different minorities, on a rotating, perhaps even random basis, are brought together to trade problems, negotiate deals, and resolve disputes. If doctors, motorcyclists, computer programmers, Seventh-Day Adventists and Gray Panthers were brought together, with assistance from facilitators trained in issue clarification, priority setting, and dispute resolution, surprising and constructive alliances might be formed. At a minimum, differences could be exposed and the basis for political barter explored. Such measures will not (and should not) eliminate all conflict. However, they can elevate social and political strife to a more intelligent, potentially constructive level—especially if they are linked to long-range goal setting. Today the very complexity of issues inherently provides a greater variety of bargainable points. Yet the political system is not structured to take advantage of this fact. Potential alliances and trades go unnoticed—thus unnecessarily raising tensions between groups while further straining and overloading existing political institutions. Finally, we may well need to empower minorities to regulate more of their own affairs, and encourage them to formulae long-range goals. We might, for example, help the people in a specific neighbourhood, in a well-defined subculture, or in an ethic group, to set up their own youth courts under the supervision of the state, to do so. Such institutions would build community and identity, and contribute to law and order, while relieving the overburdened government institutions of unnecessary work. We may, however, find it necessary to go far beyond such reformist measures. To strengthen minority representation in a political system designed for a de-massified society, we may even eventually have to elect at least some of our officials in the oldest way of all: by drawing lots. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
Thus some people have seriously suggested choosing members of the legislature or parliament of the future the way we choose jury members or armies today. Why is it that important life and death decision can be made by the people serving on juries, but decisions on how much money should be spent on child care centers and defense spending are reserved for their “representatives”? The existing political arrangements systematically shortchange minorities. Poor people, young people, smart but inarticulate people, and many other groups are similarly disadvantaged. Nor is this merely true of the United States of American. Nonetheless, between 50 and 60 percent of the American Congress should be chosen at random from the American people in much the same way they are pressed into military service through drafts when they are deemed necessary. Startling as the suggestion is at first blush, it forces us to consider seriously whether randomly chosen representatives would (or could) do worse than those chosen through today’s methods. If we let ourselves imagine freely for the moment, we can come up with many other surprising alternatives. Indeed, we now have the techniques necessary to choose far more truly representative samples than the jury system or the draft, with their preferential exclusions, ever did. We can build an even more innovative congress or parliament of the future—and do it, paradoxically, with less disturbance of tradition. We do not have to pick a group of people by lot and literally trundle them off, like so many Mr. Smiths, to Washington, London, Bonn, Paris, or Moscow. We could, if we chose, keep our elected representatives, allowing them, however, to cast only 50 percent of the votes on any issue, while turning the other 50 percent of the votes over to a random sample of the public. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
By using computers, advanced telecommunications, and polling methods, it has become simple not only to select a random sample of the public but to keep updating that sample from day to day and to provide it with up-to-the-minute information on the issues at hand. When a law is needed, the full complement of traditionally elected representatives, meeting together in the traditional way, under the Capitol dome in Westminster, or in the Bundeshaus or the Diet building, could deliberate and discuss, amend and frame the legislation. However, when the time for decision arrived, the elected representatives would cast only 50 percent of the votes, while the current random sample—who are not in the capital but geographically dispersed in their own homes or offices—would electronically cast the remaining 50 percent. Such a system would not merely provide a more representative process than “representative” government ever did, but would strike a devastating blow at the special interest groups and lobbies who infest the corridors of most parliaments. Such groups would have to lobby the people—not just a few elected officials. Going even further, one might conceive voters in a district electing not a single individual as their “representative” but, in fact, a random sample of the population. This random sample could “serve in Congress” directly—as though it were a person—its opinions statistically tallied into votes. Or it could choose a single individual, in turn, to “represent” it, instructing one how to vote. Or the permutations offered by the new communications technologies are endless and extraordinary. Once we recognized that our present institutions and constitutions are obsolete and we begin searching for alternatives, all sorts of breathtaking political options, never before possible, suddenly open up to us. If we are to govern societies in the twenty-first century, we ought to at least consider the technologies and conceptual tools that are made available to us right now. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
What is important here are not these specific suggestions. By working at it together, we can no doubt come up with far better ideas, easier to implement, less drastic in design. What is important is the general path we choose to travel. We can fight a losing battle to suppress or submerge today’s burgeoning minorities, or we can reconstitute our political systems to accommodate the new diversity. We can continue to use the crude, bludgeonlike tools of Third Wave political systems, or we can design sensitive new tools for a minority-based democracy of tomorrow. As the Fourth Wave de-massifies the old Third Wave mass society, its pressures, I believe, will dictate that choice. For if politics were “pre-majoritarian” during the First Wave, and “majoritarian” during the Second, they are likely to be “mini-majoritarian” tomorrow—a fusion of majority rule with minority power. Wealth has a future. Despite all today’s profound upsets and reversals, chances are the World will create more, not less, wealthy in the years today com. However, that is not universally regarded as a good thing. From the ancients like Aristotle who regarded the pursuit of wealth beyond barest self-sufficiency as unnatural, to nineteenth-century socialists and anarchists who saw wealth as misappropriated property, to many of today’s environmental fundamentalists who preach “voluntary simplicity” and regard “consumerism” as a curse, wealth has a bad name. Unlike a defendant in an American courtroom, wealth does not enjoy a presumption of innocence. Yet wealth, in itself, is neutral. Which is why, in these pages, wealth is innocent until proven guilty. What matters is who has it and has not got it and what purposes it serves. Wealth is above all an accumulation of possibilities. Of course, certain forms of wealth are more or less universally regarded ad “good.” Health. A strong and loving family. Respect from those we respect. Few would deny that these are wealth, even if they do not easily fit into the calculations of economists. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
In everyday usage, however, the term usually refers, all too narrowly, to financial assets, and often carries a connotation of excess. For some, wealth may mean having bit more than their subjectively perceived need, whatever that is. For others no amount suffices. Among the less affluent, matters are less subjective. For the mother whose child is starving, a daily handful of rice may be wealth beyond measure. Whatever else it means, therefore, wealth, at least as used here, does not just mean a BMW M760i xDrive Sedan. Nor is wealth synonymous with money, as popular misconception might have it. Money is only one of many tokens or symbolic expression of wealth. In fact, wealth can sometimes buy things money cannot. To understand the future of wealth—our own or anybody else’s—in the fullest sense, we need to start with its very origin: Desire. The meaning of wealth—desire may reflect anything from a desperate need to a transitory want. In either case, wealth is anything that satisfies the craving. It applies balm to the itch. It may, in fact, gratify more than one desire at a time. We may want a touch of beauty on our living room wall. A painting, even an inexpensive reproduction, may provide a small surge of pleasure every time we pause to look at it. The same work of art may simultaneously fulfill our desire to impress visitors with our splendid good taste or our social importance. However, wealth can also be a bank account, a bicycle, a hoard of food or a health insurance policy. In fact, we can roughly define wealth as any possession, shared or not, that has what economists call “utility”—it provides us with some form of well-being or can be traded for some other form of wealth that does. In any case, wealth is the child of desire. Which is yet another reason some people detest the very thought of it. Managers of desire—some religions, for example, stigmatize desire. Ascetic beliefs propagate passivity in the face of poverty and tell us to seek happiness by reducing, rather than fulfilling, our desires. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Want less. Live without. For eons, people in Oakland, California did just that—in the midst of unbelievable poverty and misery. By contrast, Protestantism, when it arose in the West, sent, if anything, the opposite message. Instead of suppressing material desire, it preached hard work, thrift, and virtue, promising that if you follow these guidelines, God would help you help yourself to fulfill your desires. The West very largely adopted those values and grew wealthy. It also invented that perpetual desire machine—advertising—to keep generating more and still more desires. Many in China believe, “to get rich is glorious”—this attitude is the reach for China’s recent successful, the ideal of wealth has jilted them out of poverty. In the United States of America, TV screes blare financial advice. Ads for stockbrokers and publications like Money and The Wall Street Journal erupt from the screen. Informercial promise ways to save on taxes, make a stock-market killing, strike it rich in real estate and retire to you own sunny island. An enormous barrage of messages legitimatizes and promotes desire. In was calculated that the total advertising expenditure in North America in 2021 amounted about to about $300 billion U.S.D. However, the spending increased by 19 percent that year. The total advertising expenditure in Japan amounted to 6.16 trillion yen ($54 billion USD) in 2020, which represented a decrease of about 780 billion yen ($68 million USD) compared to the previous year. In shorth, whether through asceticism, ideology, religion, advertising, or other means, whether consciously or not, the elites in all societies manage desire—the starting point of wealth creation. Obviously, just pumping up the desire level—or, for that matter, extolling greed, which is different from either wealth or desire—will not necessarily make anyone rich. Cultures that promote desire and pursue wealth do not necessarily attain it. On the other hand, cultures that preach the virtues of poverty usually get precisely what they pray for. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
O my brothers of the wilderness, my little brothers, may the Master of Life who made you, in the form of the quarry provide you with a forever home; so there may be peace between the World and thy spirit. “The [empty-headed] fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable deeds; there is none that does good or right. The Lord looed down from Heaven upon the children of humans to see if there were any who understood, dealt wisely, and sought after God, inquiring for and of Him and requiring Him [of vital necessity], reports Psalm 14.1-2. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast kept us in life, and hast preserved us, and enabled us to reach this season. We kindle these lights to commemorate the miraculous deliverance and the wonders which Thou didst perform for our fathers through Thy holy priests. During all the blessed days of life, lights are sacred and are not to be used for ordinary purposes; we are only to behold them. We kindle these lights to offer thanks and praise to Thy name for Thy miracles, Thy deliverances and Thy wonders. I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains; from whence shall my help come? My help cometh from the Lord, who made Heaven and Earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved, he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, He that keepeth America doth neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon they right hand. The Sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the Moon by night. The Lord shall keep thee from all evil; He shall keep thy soul. The Lord shall guard thy going out and thy coming in, from this time forth and forever. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; He maketh me lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; He guideth me in straight paths for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life’ and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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The Effect of Witchcraft or Devils
One must recognize that over the course of centuries the ideas about witches and their activity have changed. The medieval notion of witchcraft is far different from that of the Christian Bible, and today’s self-styled witches usually resemble the ancient concept more than that of the Middle Ages. The Old Testament word which denotes a witch is kashaph. It is used in various forms, and most often is translated “sorcerer,” “sorcery,” or “sorceries. This means that a witch was a person who used magical formulas, incantations, or mutterings to exercise control over the unseen World. Other kinds of occultism, though equally condemned, were not regarded in the Old Testament as witchcraft. The individual who sought to communicate with the dead was called a necromancer, and this practice was not synonymous with sorcery. Similarly, foretelling the future by means of “reading” the livers of animals, the signs in the Heavens, the flight of birds, or the movements of particles in a liquid, though also forbidden, were not considered equivalent to witchcraft. Strictly speaking, the term “sorcerer” or “witch” referred to any person who summoned invisible powers to help in casting spells or performing feats of magic. It is not easy for us to accurately define and completely separate the specific practices Moses names. In general, it may be said that the enchanter (worker of magic), the witch (incantation-using sorcerer), the charmer (snake-handling hypnotist), and the wizard (the psychically gifted person who appeared to possess extra-sensory perception) came under the general Old Testament heading of witchcraft. In medieval times the concept of sorcery was different from that of the Old Testament. A witch was considered to be a person who sold her soul to Satan in exchange for magical powers. She was said to engage in pleasures of the flesh with demons and people thought she cast evil spells upon animals and people. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
These witches were always looked upon as dangerous and malevolent, while those of the Biblical times, through practicing a craft forbidden by God, often were regarded by the heathen as benefactors of society. The medieval idea that some women actual sold themselves to the devil led to events which are a dark blot in church history. The combination of superstition, cruelty and mass hysteria brought about the persecution and execution of many women on charges of witchcraft. Some historians estimated that in Europe alone more than nine million suspected witches were put to death upon the flimsiest of evidence. Today we realize that the vast majority of these unfortunates never made a pact with the devil, and did not possess magical powers, and did not harm anyone. Most of them were naïve women who came under suspicion because their words and actions departed from what was considered the norm. Some no doubt were brain-damaged, while others suffered from neuroses or psychotic conditions. The concept of witchcraft today differs in some details from both that of Biblical and medieval times. In contrast to the sorcerers of antiquity who believed in many gods, a large percentage of today’s witches are not deeply religious and do not consider their powers to be attributable to the supernatural. Most of these self-proclaimed witches do not speak of making a covenant with Satan, although this dedication to the devil is basic to black magic, as we shall see later. Contemporary witches do insist, however, that they are able to contact and utilize powers that come from the unseen World. Witchcraft today emulates that of the pre-Christian era in many respects. Its practitioners often organize into covens, a group of six males and six female witches with a high priest or priestess. They meet monthly at the time of the full moon, and at eight other festivals called sabbats throughout the year. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
The Halloween sabbat—first the witches remove their clothes and bathe in salt water to purify themselves. Then, still nude (sky-clad, as they call it) they descend to the basement and step inside a 9-foot circle that is drawn about them with a 400-year-old sword by Mrs. Buckland (wife of Raymond Buckland, a Britisher with a Ph.D. in anthropology), who is known in the craft as Lady Rowen. A bewitching ambience is provided by music from a tape recorder and incense burned in a brass censor. Once inside the circle, the witches sing, chant, dance with broomsticks, in commemoration of an ancient fertility rite, drink tea and wine, and listen to the high priestess read from the Book of Shadows. The ceremony ends after Lady Rowen, dressed in only a silver crown, bracelet, necklace, and green leather garter belt, takes a horned helmet and places it on the head of her husband, the high priest, who is known as Robat. This signifies that power has been transferred from the high priestess who reigns during the six months of summer, to the high priest, who rules during the six winter six months. It is obvious that this is a return to ancient pagan practices, and that witchcraft its own religious system. It even has its own Bible, called The Book of Shadows, a compilation of rituals and chants drawn from various books of magic by which the practitioners produce their spells and charms. Witchcraft is therefore a religion that denies or distorts holy Scriptures, ignores or perverts the doctrine of Christ, and offers no deliverance from the guilt and power of sin. However, the very existence of magic is strongly contested. Psychiatry sees the question of magic as being the symptom of mental illness. Psychology would say that when people are subjected to magic it is only the result of an incorrect upbringing, and that such people are superstitiously maladjusted and have a false conception of life. Liberal theology would even, in its modern form, regard magic simply as a system of traditional customs and ideas. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
The ethical character of magic is also a battle ground of opinion. Some praise it as a gift of God while other see in it just neutral forces of nature which can be used either for good or evil. Again others, especially the Christians, know of the demonic character of magic. Why are events involving magic so difficult to judge? Going back to our definition we see that magic is practised through extrasensory forces being called into play. Our five senses have only a limited range. On the physical level people are ready to admit this, since science furnishes us with ample proof of the existence of areas that are beyond our human senses. However, in the spiritual realm such a mathematical demonstration is not possible. Hence the shortsighted rationalist simply deny the very existence of the divine as well as the demonic. We will point out how these extrasensory forces reveal themselves by means of a few example. The two Seiler brothers in Ottenheim, Baden, run a non-professional medical practice. One of the brothers put himself into a trance and in this state, he is able to identify diseases of the patients. The process is always successful. In Alsace a Catholic priest heals by magic. His nickname is Father Slipper. The reason behind this is that all those who desire his help must send him one of their slippers. Through concentrating on the slippers, he can discover what is wrong with the people. During counselling sessions in Austria, I happened to come across a so-called urine taster. The patient’s urine was not examined medically to discover the albumen, sugar and hemoglobin content etcetera, but was used as a psychometrical means of contact for a clairvoyant diagnosis. Such urine tasters are also known in Switzerland, France, Germany and other European countries. The strange thing is that in spite of such curious methods the diagnosis often proves to be correct. These magic healing methods depend on mediumistic and extrasensory forces! Herein lies the reason for their success. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
In the definition the various aims of magic were mentioned. Whereas spiritism seeks to communicate with and to dominate the spirit World, magic enlarges this aim to cover people, animals, plants, and the material World. The black magician endeavours to subjugate and to dominate one’s enemy through magic. Some examples of this will follow later. Others try through magic to influence the animal and the plant Worlds as we see in the next examples. A man dabbled in black magic for many years. He specialized in stealing mile from the neighbouring farmer. He would tie a towel to a door knob, then murmur his magic phrases and squeeze the milk out of the towel. I have heard of similar examples in my counseling work, but was unable to investigate them personally. A missionary told me that on several occasions when she had tried to visit a magician some wild animals had approached her. She felt at once that demonic powers were at work. She had commanded the animals to go in the name of Jesus. They had gone. After this she heard that the magician had boasted that he was able to send out wild animals to kill any foreigner who came to see him. A young man, who a doctor described as schizophrenic, confessed to me during counselling that he had the ability to kill small animals at some distance away from him, merely through using his powers of magic. In Toggenburg, Switzerland, on several occasions in my counselling sessions people confessed that they had the power to kill horses, cows and pigs with the help of black magic. In reply to my question how they had received this ability, they told me that they had subscribed themselves with their own blood to the devil. One actual case of animal killing was examined by some scientists but they could find no natural cause of death. A farmer who had had several bad crops in a row was given the following advice by a magician. He should place three grains of corn under his tongue while sowing, then, having sowed the field, say a magic charm and end by calling on the names of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Calling on the Holy Trinity would then encourage growth and protect the crops from bad weather. As a matter of fact, the farmer was convinced that the charming of his field had been beneficial. Since that time through, his desire to read the Word of God disappeared, ad besides this there was an enormous increase in accidents in his stables. It is not only the organic World, the World of living creatures, that falls within the sphere and influence of magic, but also the inorganic World of dead matter. The following are some examples of this. For years three sisters slept in a single room. From time-to-time stones would fall from the ceiling of this room. When the eldest sister became engaged and finally left the house, this rain of stones stopped. I head of the incident from one of the sisters. Such magical falls of stones are not so rare as one might imagine. I have on several occasions had eyewitness accounts of them. For many years, a man practiced black magic. One of these specialties which he often demonstrated was thrusting a knife into the ground. He would murmur some magical words and several pints of blood would then come out of the place where the knife had been stuck in. The sister of this man was also an expert in the same field. The question is, was this just a clever trick or a genuine piece of magic? This case is very reminiscent of a fakir trick. Nevertheless similar incidents have been reported to me in my pastoral work. In the sphere of magic some of the most unreasonable things take place. Yet even if it were simply all a case of superstition and imagination, if it had no real foundation, the area would still be an abyss of human aberration and need, demanding enlightenment and conselling help. Other questions arising from the definition will come under discussion later. The Christian Bible presents demons as spiritual beings or spirit personalities. The specific attribute of “spirit” is incorporeality of immateriality. “A spirit hath not flesh and bones,” reports Luke 24.39; that is, demons do not possess a material body. #RandolphHaris 7 of 18
On the other hand, they can act upon the human body, as well as the human soul and spirit. They are capable of entering and assuming control of a human body, speaking and acting through it from time to time and even possessing it, as if it were their own property. That demons are spirits is clear from numerous references in the Gospels. “When the even was come, they brought unto him in many that were possessed with demons: and He cast out the spirits with his word,” Matthew 8.16. When the seventy returned and joyfully declared, “Lord, even the demons are subject unto us,” reports Luke 10.17, or Lord replied, “Nevertheless in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you,” reports Luke 10.20. “The demon” who went out of the lunatic boy, as described in Matthew 17.18, is also called a “foul spirit” in Mark 9.25, The Apostle Paul emphatically declares that Satan and his demons are spirits. In describing the believers’ conflict against the powers of darkness, he indicated that the intense warfare “is not again flesh and blood” but against evil spirits, described as “principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness,” and “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the Heavenly places,” Ephesians 6.12. The Apostle John also indicates that demons are spirits. He describes the three unclean spirits issuing from the mouth of the dragon, of the best, and of the false prophet, as the “spirits of demons,” reports Revelation 16.14. The expression may be interpreted either as a common genitive of descriptions, defining the spirits as “demonic,” or better as a genitive of apposition, more particularly defining the general term “spirits,” which may be either good or bad, as bad, or “demon-spirits.” The fact that demons are spirits, and thus immaterial and incorporeal, does not in the least suggest that they lack individuality, with all the elements of personality such as will, feelings, and intellect. Like all God’s creatures, they were constituted with self-determining choice. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Created originally sinless, demons joined Satan in chosen course of rebellion. Their decision was deliberate and in the full knowledge of the infinite goodness and holiness of their Creator. This is why they are incorrigible and confirmed in their depravity with no hope of repentance or change. Like Satan’s, their choice is irretrievable; their doom is sealed (Luke 8.31; Revelation 20.1-2 and 10-15). That demons are individuals is attested by their intelligent and voluntary actions. They think, they speak, they act (Acts 19.15-16) through spiritistic medium or through a person over whom they have acquired control. In the case of the demon possessed, the domination is almost complete (Marl 5.10; Luke 4.34). In the case of demon influence, their control is less complete and direct (1 Timothy 4.1-2; 1 John 4.1-2). Because demons are spirit personalities, they can act upon and influence human’s body and mind. Counselors, parapsychologists and psychiatrists who deny or ignore this sphere of reality render themselves unequipped to deal with patients who may be suffering from occult oppression and subjection in a day when disturbances of both mind and body from this source are becoming more numerous and more pronounced. In the following tale the ghostly portion is rather dwarfed by the strong fairy element which appears in it, and, as we have already shown, many witchcraft cases in Scotland were closely interwoven with the older belief in the “good people”; Lord Orrery, when giving the account to Baxter, considered it to be “the effect of Witchcraft or Devils.” The reader is free to take what view one likes of the matter! The Lord Orrery mentioned therein is probably Roger, the second Earl, who Lodge in his Peerage describes as being “of a serious and contemplative disposition, which led him to seek retirement.” If this identification be correct the following event must have occurred between 1679 and 1682, during which years the Earl held the title. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
The butler of a gentleman living near the Earl was sent to buy a pack of cards. As he was crossing a field, he was surprised to see a company of people sitting down at a table loaded with all manner of good things, of which they invited him to partake, and no doubt he would have accepted had not someone whispered in his ear, “Do nothing this company invites you to,” upon which he refused. After this they fell to dancing, and playing on musical instruments, then to work, in both of which occupations they desired the butler to join, but to no purpose. The night following the friendly spirit came to his bedside and warned him not to stir out of doors the next day, for if he did so the mysterious company would obtain possession of him. He remained indoors the greater part of that day, but towards evening he crossed the threshold, and hardly had he done so when a rope was cast about his waist, and he was forcibly dragged away with great swiftness. A horseman coming towards him espied both the man and the two ends of the rope, but could see nothing by pulling. By catching hold of one end, he succeeded in stopping the man’s headlong course, through a punishment for so doing he received a smart blow on his arm from the others. This came to the ears of the Earl of Orrery, who requested the butler’s master to send him to his house, which the latter did. There were then staying with the Earl several persons of quality, two Bishops, and the celebrated Healer, Valentine Greatrakes. Here the malice of the spirits of fairies manifested itself in a different manner. The unfortunate man was suddenly perceived to rise from the ground, and the united efforts of Greatrakes and another were unable to check his upward motion—in fact all that the spectators could do was to keep running under him to protect him from being hurt if the invisible power should suddenly relax its hold. At length he fell, but was caught by them before he reached the ground, and so received no harm. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
That night the spectre, which had twice proved so friendly, appeared at his bedside with a wooden platter full of some grey liquid, which it bade him drink, as he had brought it to him to cure him of two sorts of fits he was subject to. He refused to drink it, and it would appear from another part f the narration that his refusal was based on the advice of the two Bishops, who he had consulted in the matter. At this the spirit was very angry, but told him he had a kindness for him, and that is he drank the juice of plantain-roots he would be cured of one sort of fit, but that he should suffer the other one till his death. On asking his visitant who he was, he replied that he was the ghost of a man who had been dead seven year, and who in the days of his flesh had led a loose life, and was therefore condemned to be born about in a restless condition with the strange company until the Day of Judgment. He added that “if the butler had acknowledged God in all His ways, he had not suffered such things by their means,” and reminded him that he had not said his payers the day before he met the company in the field; and thereupon vanished. Had this story rested alone on the evidence of the butler the “two sorts of fits” would have been more than sufficient to account for it, but what are we to say to the fact that all the main points of the narrative were borne out by the Earl while Mr. Greatrakes (according to Dr. More, the author of Collections of Philosophical Writings) declared that he was actually an eye-witness of the man’s being carried in the air above their heads. By now I see spiritualism in a very different light. However, many people think that spirit phenomena are accomplished by trickery, sleight of hand, or black magic. I agree that many mysterious happenings associated with prominent psychics and small-town fortune-tellers are hoaxes—perhaps 85 percent of them, but I believe the rest are actual deeds of evil spirits counterfeiting the power of the Holy Spirit. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
At one of her golden skeleton key séances, to prove that there was no hocus-pocus involved, the control spirit sent the key sailing between the rungs of the chair on which Mrs. Winchester was sitting. Since she was in her own her, she knew there were no props and no strings were attached. The question, then, is just what are these spirits and how do these spiritualist phenomena occur? Some believe they are part of Satan’s strategy to deceive Christians and to enslave those who as yet do not know God. Many Christians are drawn into spiritualism because they assume all spiritual phenomena are produced by God—these people simply may not know their Christian Bibles. I have no adequate explanation of the marvels produced by spirits…but I cannot explain Christ’s miracles, either. However, since everything is energy in one form or another—this is a basic fact of physics—our bodies, too, are composed of energy. I believe that Satan, who is the temporary prince in control of this World (Ephesians 2.2; 6.12-17), is able to convert body energy that is yielded to him into a spiritual force. This spirit then manifests itself in the bizarre happenings associated with séances. I do affirm the reality associated with spiritualist phenomena. Who are the spirits that attend séances? Are they spirits of deceased people, as they claim? The Christian Bible teaches that the spirits of the departed dead do not become either angels or demon spirits. These spirits are either with the Lord, waiting for the day of resurrection of their bodies (1 Thessalonians 4.14-17), or they are in hell. There is much evidence in Scripture that the spirits who appear at séances are rebel angels. Jude 6 speaks about “angels which kept not their first estate.” Many Bible scholars interpret Ezekiel 28.17, “I will cast thee to the ground,” as indicating that the Earth is the realm of Satan’s powerful operations, with the help of his fallen colleagues, the demons. Satan is called the “god of this World,” in 2 Corinthians 4.4. And Christians are under attack by “rulers…. powers…World forces of darkness,” reports Ephesians 6.12. God tells us that hell was “created for the devil and his angels (demons)” reports Matthew 25.41. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
It is important to realize that the spirit World exists as another dimension all around us, not in some far-off place. When the medium at a séance enters a trance, a control spirit takes over and allegedly introduces the spirit of a dead person. In reality, the unseen visitor is a “familiar spirit” who intimately knows the dead person. Apparently these familiar spirits accompany a person throughout life, becoming so well acquainted that they can convincingly imitate the dead person’s mannerisms and knowledge of personal details when called upon at a séance. In this way even close relatives are ticked into believing they are hearing their dead loved one. I believe this was what happened to the late James A. Pike. He went to several mediums who told him they had contracted his dead son, Jim, Jr., and that father and son could communicate in a séance. Mr. Pike supposedly did so on a number of occasions, as he described in his book, The Other Side. Actually Mr. Pike talked to a spirit who was familiar with his son. This spirit impersonated his son so well and favourably that Mr. Pike overcame his remorse about his son’s suicide, and looked forward to rejoining his son. Bishop Pike was a rather easy convert to spiritualism, since he, like the spiritualists, rejected the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and if Jesus is not God, he cannot be man’s Saviour—nor does man need a Saviour in Mr. Pike’s view. Mr. Pike’s third wife, Diane, was a secretary in a Methodist church before she married Mr. Pike. Her Christian beliefs were shallow also, as revealed in her book, Search. She describes a vision given her while her husband was dying in the Israeli wilderness, and she says she saw him being welcomed in the sky by Christ and a “host of witnesses.” She confesses: “The strangest part for me was to see so literally what I had supposed to be symbolic expressions of meaning.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Diane Pike, and hundreds of thousands of other people, have difficulty believing the extraordinary claims of the Christian Bible, yet they unhesitatingly accept the vagaries of personal fancy or the mysterious manifestations of spirits. This reminds us of the prophecy in 1 Timothy 4.1 about “giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons.” A well-known parapsychologist, Hans Holzer, tells in his book, The Psychic World of Bishop Pike, that he made contact with Mr. Pike through a medium named Ethel Meyers. The television publicity linked to the release of the book excited World interest in communicating with the dead. The familiar spirit contacted at a séance will say remarkable things about the dead person to connive loved one that they really are speaking to the one who has departed to the “other side.” The spirits will even say things long forgotten by the listener. The spirits Mrs. Winchester encountered as séances were, for the most part, very moralistic. They encouraged her not to smoke or drink or do anything nor do anything that would harm her mind and body. Ministers during the 19th century were told to preach morality, good manners, and civic pride. There were ministers who actually has spirit messages taken down by their secretaries and then used them from the pulpit! The spirits often talked about an ethical Jesus, but never about a Saviour who died a sacrificial death for sins. In contrast to the high and moral and ethical tone of the séances in the Winchester mansion, Mrs. Winchester attended some where the spirits were blasphemous and sensual. Spiritualist call them Earthbound demons, and they served to reinforce Mrs. Winchester’s conviction that the spirits in her Blue Séance Room were truly from God. However, some believe that Satan uses blasphemous séances as another subtle trick to convince people that there are “good” spirits and “bad” spirits, and that Mrs. Winchester and others were indeed communicating with God or their loved ones. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Supposedly even the spirits who tell people to improve themselves morally and spiritually were doing so to gain their allegiance for themselves and keep them from God. Even mediums are often unaware that they are dealing with the kingdom of Satan. Certain “psychic” persons, having developed their powers, may very well be able to make accurate or partially accurate revelations about coming events. These clairvoyance, mystics, readers, astrologer, or fortune-tellers use various means to foretell the future for individuals. Usually the revelation will be in very general terms, but sometimes it is specific enough to make people shiver after the predicted event has occurred and they remember in awe: “She predicted it would happen!” As is has been said, it is possible that much astrology and fortune-telling is sometimes of satanic spiritualism. Some people like Jeane Dixon believe her gifts of prophecy and visions are from God, but one no one is willing to acknowledge these supernatural gifts could come from Satan. Mrs. Winchester who built the Winchester Mansion which is now 4-stories tall and over 25,000 square feet had a 13-piece tableware set made entirely of pure gold. The set included goblets, plates, chopsticks, and cutlery, each engraved with a daisy which symbolized eternal youth and health. How magnificent they were! However, they say Mrs. Winchester starved herself to death. She was so besotted by the loss of her precious family members that she forgot—absolutely forgot to eat. There was certainly a glance of mysterious around, they also found the butler dead, seated at the table, with a meal in from of him, as he held a gold fork, which was made for a king. There was an odour of sanctity about the affair—a whiff of air from the land of the ghosts. Before the Winchester mansion was emptied out, one of the movers decided to take advantage of this fancy dinner set and some of the delicious food in the ice box. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Jed sat down to a nice steak dinner in the venetian dining room and clarence joined him. As Jed was about to smother his steak with steak sauce, he felt his wrist grasped by—well, by what felt uncommonly like an invisible hand. He was so startled. He dropped the steak sauce and drew his hand back, and was conscious of the slight detaining pressure of unseen fingers. Of course, it was hallucination, but it seemed so real, and was so expected, that—well, how could he not cut into this tender, juicy steak. As Jed was grappling with his meal, it must not have looked very appetizing. However, he felt an unusual degree of excitement—sort of feeling of do or die. Intending to keep complete control over his muscles, he held his knife in his right hand and his fork in his left. His index finger extended down the back of the utensils, as he used the fork to pin through the meat and, with the knife he cut enough for a single bite. Jed realized that clenching the knife and fork in his fist was not classy enough for such a fine dinner service in the beautiful mansion, which seem to require the guest to eat properly and enjoy their ambiance. He was just about to cut another piece of steak, when that unseen grasp fastened on his wrist. He paused with something of the feeling which induces the wrestler to pause before entering on the veritable tug of war. For one thing, he was desirous to satisfy himself as to the nature of the grasp—what it was that seemed to grasp him. It seemed to be a hand. The fingers went over the back of his wrist, and the thumb beneath. The fingers were long and thin—it was altogether a slender hand. However, it seemed to be a man’s hand, and an old man’s hand at that. The skin was tough and wrinkled, clammy and cold. On the little finger there was a ring, and on the first, abut the region of the first joint, appeared to be something an opened wound. It was anything but a beautiful hand, it was altogether too attenuated and clawlike, and it was yellow with age. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
He said, “This is a devil or a ghost!” He moved his hand toward the plate to try to eat without the gold utensils. His hand instantly was grasped. With his left hand, Jed made several passes in the air up and down, behind and before, in every direction so far as he could. It was met with no resistance. There seemed to be nothing tangible but those invisible fingers which grasped his wrist—and he moved his left had towards the streak. That is when something slapped the steak out of his hand. “It is enough. Indeed it is too much. This ribaldry must cease,” he said. Jed was sure it was a ghost. He rose from his seat, and said, “If there is any other person with me in this room, may I asked that person to let me hear his voice, or hers? Just speak one word.” Not a sound. For some reason, almost contemptuous coldness fired his blood. He became suddenly enraged. “I shall not leave! Do you think I am going to be fooled by a conjuring trick which would disgrace a shilling séance? Drive out of the mansion at this time of night by a ghost! And such a ghost! If it were something like a ghost one would not mind; but a fool of a ghost like this!” His passion was ridiculous—children even. However, then the circumstances were exasperating—usually so, one might plead. He was standing three or food feet from the table. Jed dashed forward. As he did so a had was fastened on his throat. Instantly it was joined by another. They gripped him tightly. They madded Jed. With a madman’s fury, he still pressed forward towards that steak. He might as well had fought with fate. They clutched him as with bands of steel, and flung him to the ground. When he recovered consciousness, he found he was laying on the floor. That was a night of dreams. Jed did not know if her was awake or sleeping, but all sorts of strange things presented themselves to his mental eye. He could not shut them from his sight. One figure was prominent in all he saw—the figure of a man. “It must be Mrs. Winchester’s late butler, but how?” Jed said to himself. He was a lean old man, and what Jed noticed chiefly were his hands. Such ugly hands! In some fantastical way he seemed to be contending with them all through the night. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
And yet in the morning when he woke—for Jed did wake up, and that from as sweet refreshing sleep as one might wish to have—it was all gone. The dinner service, the steak, the dinning room table, the chairs—all the furniture was gone. For now, the idea of there being anything supernatural going on in the mansion was funny. The sun was shinning into the great, unfurnished room. He did not realize he had died. As Jed walked around the room, he found a menu. The first course was Vermicelli soup, prepared with tomatoes, onion, and garlic. The second course was baked salmon and oysters. The Entrée was braised beef with broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, and carrots. With baked bread, a thick gravy and Yorkshire pudding. The final course was Neapolitan cakes with a layer of yellow, chocolate, n strawberry cake with glazed butter cream and coffee. The purpose of a Victorian banquet was to flaunt status, and the best way to do this was through an elaborate expensive dinner. Courses were brought out and carved in from of the hostess, then passed around to each guest at the dinner table. Maybe Jed should have allowed the spirit to stop him from eating. Of course, at all Victorian parties, guest had to be invited. Perhaps if Jed had just taken heed from the spirits, he would not be another of the Winchester’s ghost in the House Built by Spirits. Divine revelation uniformly views demons or evil spirits as denizens of the World of evil supernaturalism operating above the natural law. Spirits are not normally subject to human visibility or other sensory perception. Demons have superhuman intellect and it is accompanied by superphysical strength. However, the superphysical strength of demons is not limited to their physical energy they impart to their victim. Their power is broad enough to cause occult oppression of mind and body. They can produce physical disabilities and sickness unrelated to organic disorders and which medicine or natural therapy cannot alleviate it. Perhaps the most terrible power of demons is to derange the mind by upsetting the nervous system. In this way they can afflict the body with a psychosomatic disease. Demons are aware of the close relation between physical and mental health. By jangling the nerves and the emotions, they can cause mental instability (Luke 8.26-36), producing suicidal mania (Mark 9.22). Their purpose is to drive their occult-enslaved victims to destruction. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Winchester Mystery House
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Why Do You Close Your Eyes to Pray?
Demonic activity is not uniform in the World over nor in historical experience. It appears that there was a great increase in demonic activity preceding and during the life of the Lord Jesus Christ here on Earth. There does appear to be a present increase of an awareness of the part of the powers of darkness that their time is short and that the second coming of Christ is at hand. It is therefore particularly imperative for Christians to be informed in spiritual warfare. There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. My file of occult cases has already grown to other 20,000 in number in regards to the Winchester Mansion. A woman, one of Mrs. Winchester’s servants, appeared at the police station and stated that she had just shot and killed her son. A demon had told her that her son would never regain his full mental health. Wanting to save the boy from his terrible future, she shot and killed him. The woman was arrested and finally sentenced after a long trial. This day-to-day experience show the suggestive powers and effects that demons and spirits have. This is an age of phenomenal progress in human’s conquest of the Universe. Awestruck observers are flocking to the altars erected by science to revere human achievements in the realm of the natural laws. Meanwhile, the alters of God are forsaken as naturalism in theology threatens to eliminate the supernatural from every day life. The situation is particularly ironical to the Christian who sees God permitting man to achieve feats bordering on the miraculous. Why should humans become skeptical and apathetic toward religious supernaturalism at a time when science is demonstrating how “close” the natural and supernatural can be? The fact that supernaturalism embraces not only the morally good—God and his elect angels—but the morally evil—Satan and the fallen angels or demons—aggravates modern human’s unbelief. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
For while some people have always denied the existence of God and the holy angels, skepticism has especially attended the sphere of evil supernaturalism. Many who profess faith in God question the existence of personal devil and casually relegate evil spirits or demons to the realm of folklore and superstition. If Satan and demons are merely the creation of superstition and imagination, the whole filed of demonism belongs to the World of fairytale and folklore, and not to the sphere of Christian theology. If there are n demons, evil cannot be traced to their activity and depraved aspects of human behaviour must be attributed to other cases. The Word of God attests the reality of evil supernaturalism through the career of both Satan and his myriads of helpers called demons or evil spirits (Luke 10.17, 20). Satan is presented as Lucifer, the first and most glorious creature of God, who subsequently sinned (Isaiah 14.12, 13; Ezekiel 28.11-19; Revelation 12.7-10). In his rebellion, Lucifer drew a multitude of angels with him and became “Satan,” a Hebrew word meaning “opposer” or “adversary.” Satan reigns over a kingdom of darkness organized in opposition to God (Matthew 12.26). This opposition crystallized in connection with humans and God’s purpose for him upon the Earth (Genesis 3.1-15). The angels who followed Satan became the demons or evil spirits, Satan’s minion. Apparently Lucifer, the first of the angels, was created to have dominion over the Earth (Job 38.1-7; Ezekiel 28.11-19). Satan was exalted and sinless before he rebelled and brough judgment and chaos upon the Earth. The Creator was now faced with the problem of evil and sin in a hitherto sinless Universe. God chose the Earth as the theater in which to present the great drama of human redemption. This great redemptive demonstration not only shows how God, in his infinite love and holiness, deals with evil, it will culminate in the conquest of sin, its banishment from a sin-scarred Universe, and its rigid isolation for all eternity, together with its perpetrations, in a place of confinement called “the lake of fire,” Gehenna or eternal hell (Revelation 20.11-15). #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
The Old Testament is replete with demonological phenomena because since the Fall of man in the Garden of Eden, God’s saints have been the object of satanic attack (Genesis 4.1-6; 6.1-10). Israel was surrounded by pagan nations which manifested the whole gamut of demonological practices and beliefs and clashed with Israel’s monotheistic faith. The New Testament presents overwhelming evidence for the existence of demons. Jesus’ powerful spiritual ministry precipitated a violent outburst of evil supernaturalism. Satan and demons opposed his mighty mission among humans, know well it could lead to their own undoing (Matthew 4.1-10; Mark 5.1-10). Our Lord gave his disciples authority to expel demons (Matthew 10.1) and expelled them himself (Matthew 15.22, 28), viewing his conquest over the demons as over Satan (Luke 10,17, 18). The New Testament speaks of demons (James 2.19; Revelation 9.20), described their nature (Luke 4.33; 6.18), their activity (1 Timothy 4.1; Revelation 16.14), their opposition to the believer (Ephesians 6.10-20), their abode (Luke 8.31; Revelation 9.11) and their eternal doom (Matthew 25.41). The tormentors and troublemakers of nature offer an interesting analogy to the evil agencies of the spiritual realm. In the planet kingdom, pest, insects, and blight continually harass the famer. In the animal kingdom, all creatures have their deadly enemy. And the human body is relentlessly attacked by a multitude of bacteria which cause disease and death. Those who hesitate to accept the testimony of Scripture about the reality of demons may thus find both scientific and philosophical corroboration in the nature which has been called God’s “oldest testament.” The natural World vividly illustrates the activity of demonic beings in the spiritual World. Of all the current methods of foretelling the future, the most popular is astrology. Astrologers claim that by observing the position of the sun, moon, fixed stars, and planets they can predict significant events that will take place on Earth. Palm reading is another method of fortunetelling, but it is close related to astrology that it does not require special consideration. The person who engages in this practice divides the hand into seven mounds which are named after Heavenly bodies—Venus, Mercury, Apollo (the Sun), Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the Moon. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
In addition, the palm has four lines, which are “read” by the palmist. He calls them the heart, head, life, and fate lines and sees each of them as having special significance. Everything we will say about the evils, dangers, and deceitfulness of astrology applies to palmistry as well. One must, however, recognize that astrology is classified as a pseudoscience, and it should not be confused with astronomy, a legitimate field of study Astrology originated about 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia and flourished in Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, and Greece. It began with people who worshipped the sun, moon, and the five known planets of that time as gods They thought each of these seven deities owned a certain section of the Heavens as his “house.” They there established the zodiac the wild belt of fixed starts that appear in the course of a year, and divided it into twelve “houses.” As a result, there were twelve dwelling places for seven deities. The early astrologers decided that the sun and moon needed only one “house” each, and therefore assigned two dwelling places to Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Mercury. These planets had one “house” for the day and another for the night. This heathen concept of the planets as gods with dwelling places in the Heavens gradually developed into a detailed system of religion. Men carefully studied the Heavenly bodies, and noted how they positions of the planets changed. They theorized that whenever two or more of these planets (which they considered gods) were positioned in a direct radial line or within a ten-degree angle, some extremely significant events World occurs upon the Earth. They called this a “conjunction” of the planets. Since the movements of the Heavenly bodies is perfectly predictable, they had given to each of the “houses” through which the planet moved. For many years educated people mingled their astrological superstitions with their studies of nature, mathematics, physics, and astronomy. Some have assumed that the Magi, who came to Jerusalem looking for the King of the Jews when Jesus was born, came because of an astrological sign. This is a mistaken assumption, and the idea should never be used as evidence that the New Testament condones the practice of astrology. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Although the wise men as learned sages of the East undoubtedly shared in some superstitions of their day, the light that led them to make their journey to Jerusalem was a miraculously placed sign of God, not a mere configuration of the stars. It has been theorized that the conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, which took place in 747 A.U.C (7 B.C.), or with Mars added in 748 A.U.C. (6 B.C.), led the to look for Jesus Christ. This supposition is without validity, however. In the first place, the Christian Bible nowhere declares that Heavenly bodies in their normal movements furnish this kind of information. Second, a similar conjunction of planes had taken place about fifty-nine years earlier, but this had not led an investigating body to Jerusalem. Third, when the planets move near to one another to form a conjunction, they are never so close tht they appear as one star. Fourth, the light miraculously appeared over the house where Jesus was living when the Magi arrived. These factors prove conclusively that the light in the Heavens was a miracle. We repeat, the wise men who presented their gifts to Jesus Christ did not receive information of His birth through astrology. However, I am not really convinced that astrology, all demons, and all spirits lie. I think perhaps messages are distorted or maybe they are seeing the future and warning people about what their actions will cause. Maybe some things are destined to happen and messages are incomplete. To further illustrate this example, Mrs. Winchester servant, who shot and killed her own son, after the message from a demon, perhaps what was to happen was fate and the demon was seeing the future and warning her not to shot her son. Of course, no one who is dead can regain their mental health because they cease to exist. I think that is why it is dangerous to peer into the future and listen to spirits sometimes. Maybe one may distort the message and actually cause the situation to happen. So it is not necessarily that demons and spirits are lying, but most people do not have the psychic ability to see what they see and cannot understand the context of the message. The story is told of how an astrologer Stoeffler made a complete fool of himself. He predicted a diluvian flood for February 1524. The population was terrified. Nobody wanted to work. The fields were not tilled. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
The rich either had ships built for themselves or they retreated for safety into the mountains. Even the Elector of Brandenburg made preparations to escae the flood. The great astronomer Kepler was also not free from the contamination of astrology. A well-know example of this is his prediction tht Wallenstein would die a peaceful death in his prediction that Wallenstein would die a peaceful death in his 70th year. However, he was killed in his 50th year. Yet Kepler only engaged in astrology out of economic necessity. He wrote, “Astrology is to me an unbearable but necessary slavery. To keep my yearly income, my title, and my living quarters, I have to comply with ignorant curiosity. Astronomy is the wise mother, and astrology the foolish daughter who gives herself to anyone who pays her, so that she can support her wise mother.” Maybe consulting demons reduced the life of Wallenstein by 20 years. Perhaps he unknowingly made a deal and soul his soul to a crossroads demon, and would have lived to 70 had it not made a deal with the devil. Perhaps that is why people say make the best out of your life and enjoy what is here and now, and try not to look into the future. When consulting spirits and demons, you may be unknowingly entering into a contract. And it is possible that by listening to the supernatural will sometimes avert tragedy. The demons and Satan do have dominion of this Earth, and they could be testing your faith. So when Stoeffler consulted as Astrologer, and took action, perhaps this leap of faith diverted the flood, and if they had set idol, it would have happened. It is truly hard to understand how the supernatural works, which is why so many place their faith in God and choose not to work with demons and the devil. An important witch-case occurred in Scotland in 1678, the account of which is the interest to u as it incidentally makes mentions of the fact that one of the guilty persons had been previously tried and condemned in Ireland for the crime of witchcraft. Four women and one man were strangled and burnt at Paisley for having attempted to kill by magic Sir George Maxwell of Pollock. They had formed a wax image of him, into which the Devil himself had struck the necessary pins; it was then turned on a spit before the fire, the entire band repeating in unison the name of one whose death they desired to compass. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Amongst the women was “one Bessie Weir, who was hanged up the last of the four (one that had been taken fore in Ireland and was condemned to the fyre for malefice before; and when the hangman there was about to cast her over the gallows, the devil takes her away from them out of their sight; her dittay [indictment] was sent over here to Scotland), who at this tyme, when she was cast off the gallows, there appears a raven, and approaches the hangman within an ell of him, and flyes away again. All the people observed it, and cried out at the sight of it.” A clergyman, the Rev. Daniel Williams (evidently the man who was pastor of Wood Street, Dublin, and subsequently founded Dr. William’s Library in London), relates the manner in which he freed a girl from strange and unpleasant noises which disturbed her; the incident might have developed into something analogous to the Drummer of Tedworth in England, but on the whole works out rather tamely. He tells us that about the year 1678 the niece of Alderman Arundel of Dublin was troubled by noises in her uncle’s house, “as by violent Sthroaks on the Wainsocts and Chests, in what Chambers she frequented.” In the hope that they would cease she removed to a house near Smithfield, but the disturbances pursued her thither, and were no longer heard in her former dwelling. She thereupon betook herself to a little house in Patrick Street, near the gate, but to no purpose. The noises lasted in all for about three months, and were generally at their worst about two o’clock in the morning. Certain ministers spent several nights in prayer with her, heard the strange sounds, but did not succeed in causing their cessation. Finally the natator, Williams, was called in, and came upon a night agreed to the house, where several persons had assembled. He says: “I preached from Hebrews ii. 18, and contrived to be at Prayer at that Time when the Noise used to be greatest. When I was at Prayer the Woman, kneeling by me, catched violently at my Arm, and afterwards told us that she saw a terrible Sight—but it pleased God there was no noise at all. And from that Time God graciously freed her from all that Disturbance.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Many strange stories of apparitions seen in the air come from all parts of the World, and are recorded by writers both ancient and modern, but there are certainly few of them that can equal the account of that weird series of incidents that was seen in the sky by a goodly crowd of ladies and gentlemen in Co. Tipperary on 2nd March 1678. “At Pointstown in the country of Tepperary were seen drivers strange and prodigious apparitions. On Sunday in the evening several gentlemen and others, after named, walked forth in the fields, and the Sun going down, and appearing somewhat bigger than usual, they discoursed about it, directing their eyes toward the place where the Sun set; when one of the company observed in the air, near the place where the Sun went down, an Arm of a blackish blue colour, with a ruddy complection’d Hand at one end, and at the other end a cross piece with a ring fasten’d to the middle of it, like one end of an anchor, which stood still for a while, and then made northwards, and so disappeared. Next, there appeared at a great distance in the air, from the same part of the sky, something like a Ship coming towards them; and it came so near that they could distinctly perceived the masts, sails, tacklings, and men; she then seem’d to tack about, and sail’d with the stern foremost, northwards, upon a dark smooth sea, which stretched itself from south-west to north-west. Having seem’s thus to sail some few minutes she sunk they perceived her men plainly running up tacklings in the forepart of the Ship, as it were to save themselves from drowning. Then appeared a Fort, with somewhat like a Castle on the top of it; out of the sides of which, by reason of some clouds of smoak and a flash of fire suddenly issuing out, they concluded some shot to be made. The Fort then was immediately divided in two parts, which were in an instant transformed into two exact Ships, like the other they had seen, with their head towards each other. That towards the south seem’d to chase the other with its stem [stern?] foremost, northwards, till it sunk with its stem first, as the first Ship had done; the other Ship sail’s some time after, and then sunk with its head first. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
It was observ’d that men were running upon the decks of these two Ships, but they did not see them climb up, as in the last Ship, excepting one man, whom they saw distinctly to get up with much haste upon the very top of the Bowsprit of the second Ship as they were sinking. They supposed the two last Ships were engaged, and fighting, for they saw the likeness of bullets rouling upon the sea, while they were both visible. Then there appear’d a Chariot, dawn with two horses, which turn’d as the Ships had done, northward, and immediately after it came a strange frightful creature, which they concluded to be come kind of serpent, having a head like a snake, and a knotted bunch or bulk at the other end, something resembling a snail’s house. This monster came swiftly behind the chariot and gave it a sudden violent blow, then out of the chariot leaped a Bull and a Dog, which follow’d him [the bull], and seem’d to bait him. These also went northwards, ad the former had done, the Bull first, holding his head downwards, then the Dog, and then the Chariot, till all sunk down one after another about the same place, and just in the same manner as the former. These meteors being vanished, there were several appearances like ships and other things. The whole time of the vision lasted near an hour, and it was a very clear and calm evening, no cloud seen, no mist, nor any wind stirring. All the phenomena came out of the West or Southwest, and all moved Northwards; they all sunk out of sight much about the same place. Of the whole company there was not any one but saw all these things, as above-written, whose names follow: “Mr. Allye, a minister, living near the place. Lieutenant Dunsterville, and his son. Mr. Grace, his son-in-law. Lieutenant Dwine. Mr. Dwine, his bother Mr. Christopher Hewelson. Mr. Richard Foster. Mr. Adam Hewelson. Mr. Bates, a schoolmaster. Mr. Larkin. Mrs. Dunsterville. Her daughter-in-law. Her maiden daughter. Mr. Dwine’s daughter. Mrs. Grace, and her daughter.” The first of the sixteen persons who subscribed to the truth of above was the Rev. Peter Alley, who had been appointed curate Killenaule Union (Dio. Cashel) in 1672, but was promoted to livings in the same diocese in the autumn of the year the apparitions appeared. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
There is a townland named Poyntstown in the parish of Buolick and barony of Sliveardagh, and another of the same name in the adjoining parish of Fennor. It must have been at one or other of these places that the sights were witnessed, as both parishes are only a few miles distant from Killenaule. Another supernatural event was Mrs. Winchester’s arrival to the Santa Clara Valley in the late 1800’s was a sensation event. Our valley was thrilled by this dramatic entrance of a millionairess; by those freight cars sidetracked in Sant Clara, unloading rich imported furnishings; by building a two-story farm house into a 26-room mansion, in the first six months, and she did not stop going, she kept building for 38-years. Mrs. Winchester had nine cooks, and supervised 113 employees. She also devoted much energy to managing her estate, trading in gold and diamonds, renting out fields, orchards, houses, employees and horses. Here was fair gamed for all! The town talked about Mrs. Winchester! Gossiped would be a more fitting word, gossip no one claimed to like—but everyone enjoyed Talk begat rumors and as the years passed and new towers gables rose behind the six-foot hedge of Llanda Villa, the rumors grew to established legend. We shall recall a few, some containing a faith faint hint of truth, others, the inevitable product of unbridled conjecture. I want to share some of the astounding things that took place in the famous Blue Séance Room of Mrs. Winchesters mansion. Her family gathered there frequently before going to bed to find out what the spirit World might reveal to them. Here they experienced the thirteen séances of spiritualism: passivity, vocal reality, golden key revelation, lights, transfiguration, and levitation. Séances are noted for quietness. As the participants enter and meditate, they block out their tensions, worries, anxieties, and problems. Through mental discipline they try to be as passive as possible, with eagerness and expectation for what the spirit has for them. Lights are turned down at every séance. Shades are drawn in the daytime and at night. At some places rheostats dramatically control the lighting. Once when Mrs. Winchester asked a spirit why the lights were turned down, the reply was, “My daughter, why do you close your eyes to pray?” “For better concentration,” she said. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
“Just so it is,” said the spirit, “that you turn down the lights. It is for better concentration.” Séances always start on time. The exact hour is eagerly anticipated. To arrive late would grieve the spirits. Séances have top priority in the plans of those who attend regularly. Young people give the séance priority in their schedules over athletic events and other school activities. Sometimes the spirit messages came to them in other languages. Mrs. Winchester heard Spanish, German, French, and the language of the Chippewa Indians being spoken. When they did not recognize a language the control spirit would tell then what is was and would interpret the central message. It often went something like this: “Jesus Christ is coming soon. He is even now at the threshold of the parapet of the Heaveniles awaiting the word of the great spirits of lights. Wherefore, comfort ye one another with these words, and be ye ready; for ye know not what hour he will come.” When Mrs. Winchester asked the spirit how they could be ready, the answer was always,” “Live a good life, my child. Follow in the steps of the master the greatest medium of all.” This was a vague reference to Jesus Christ, without instructing them in what those steps were. When a medium went into a trance for any length of time, his or her body became very tired, causing the medium to spend a day or two in bed after the séance. Because of this, they could not have a séance as often as they wanted in Mrs. Winchester’s Castle and they went to séances in the homes of other mediums. However, the most striking phenomenon was a séance of vocal reality some witnessed in Mrs. Winchester’s estate in connected with her deceased cousin, Richard Pardee, who had been in the Spanish American War; he was a drummer. During the séance they wars feet marching in perfect cadence, the music of a fife, and the beat of drums. Each time, the music was a popular tune of the times, “The Jingo’s Soliloquy.” No one knew how all these sound vibrations could be distinctly produced through the vocal apparatus of the medium. The spirit constantly reminded them that public manifestations were for a later time, and so they must keep those revelations to themselves. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The séances of lights were always preceded by a half hour or so of passive meditation during which each person prepared oneself by discipline of mind and emotions for the coming of the spirit. In this séance, the darkened room was filled with drifting lights until it became a mass of colours, each light indicating the spirit of someone who had passed on Each colour had significance. Little blue lights meant that the spirit of a departed baby was present. There were large orange lights and many yellow and green lights. Green represented spirits that were growing or progressing to a higher plane of spiritual development. A white light indicated a spirit that had progressed to the level of the master oneself. Spiritual advancement at this level was signified by the size of the white light. A read light was considered an “evil” spirit. It was greeted in the circle with a gasp of disappointment and sometimes fear. If a read light appeared, all the other lights would disappear, usually ending the séance. In the séance of transfiguration, the transfigured form of a loved one who has died appears. Mrs. Winchester was really plagued by a lot of deaths in a short time. It started with a new born daughter, her parents, mother and father-in-law, then her husband. You can be she was grieving to have almost her entire family wiped out like, many all within the same year. During a séance her deceased mother seemed to appear, cloth with light. Sarah W. Burns Pardee drifted across the room to her daughter, Sarah Winchester, stopped and gave her a gentle smile. Them medium said she was trying to tell Mrs. Winchester she was proud she was building a house for earth bound spirits. Mrs. Winchester shouted “Mother!” she leaped up to embrace her, only to have her disappear. Little is known about the séance of levitation. Levitation is sometimes called “soul travel,” the phenomenon of spirit development whereby a medium or advances convert to spiritualism can leave one’s body by complete yieldedness to control spirit. One is not completely disunited from one’s body, but is able to take conscious flight from it to distant places. Mrs. Winchester said she experienced this: she was taken into the spirit dimension and witnessed indescribable beauties. It was something she did not want to talk about, but tried to reproduce in her mansion and the Victorian gardens. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Two people in Mrs. Winchester’s spiritualist group enter the stated of levitation from time to time. During these periods they could read the headlines of the Oakland Tribune as it came off the press before it hit the city streets. Because Mrs. Winchester took architectural precautions to enlist the assistance of her friendly spirits, they were able to protect her from the Great San Francisco Bay Area Earthquake of 1906. The quake registered 8.3 on the Richter scale and stretched all the way from Oregon to Los Angeles It severely damaged Mrs. Winchester’s home, toppling the nine-story Observation Tower and some cupolas. She herself was badly shaken in her favorite Daisy Bedroom near the front of the mansion. It took several servants hours to locate her and then pry open the bedroom door and recue her, but Mrs. Winchester and everyone in the estate survived. Mrs. Winchester, however, felt the Earthquake was a warning from the spirits that they did not want her estate visible from the freeway that would be built in the future and also that such a large estate of 500 rooms, a nine-story tower, and 65,000 square feet would be too expensive to maintain after her passing, so she removed the tower, and much of the fourth floor. However, scientists, to this day, have said the mansion is one of the saftest places in the state to be during an Earthquake. Later, after having the structural damage repaired, the spirits ordered Mrs. Winchester to immediately bored up the front thirty rooms—including the Daisy Bedroom, Grand Ballroom, and the beautiful front doors—sealed up. The heavy, ornate front doors, which had just been installed just prior to the Earthquake had only been used by three people—Mrs. Winchester and the two carpenters who installed them. Apparently, the spirits used the reflections of spiritual light in the Daisy-stained glass windows to power beams of light energy to protect her and not allowed the nine-story tower to crash on the house and rip the mansion in pieces. Matter is composed of energy and energy is never destroyed. When the voltage of an electric current to atom-smashing velocity, certain elements, when they are bombarded with this electrical force, can be transformed into other elements. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Perhaps, similarly, the energy in humans can be attuned to a vital spiritual force to make matter visible. The number 13 occurs often on the grounds as well as in the house; for example, there are 13 cupolas in the greenhouse, and 13 fan palms lining the front gate. A craftsman in Italy, called Pietro Bossi, was told by a spirit to create an ornate sink made of Italian porcelain with 13 drain holes. There is a striking account that in which the a medium’s control spirit much wanted this sink and it appeared in the table in the Blue Séance Room from 6,212 miles away and there was a receipt explaining it had been paid for in gold and was addressed to Mrs. Winchester. There was a convincing story of the events. Mr. Bossi was renowned for his Neoclassical fire surround with exquisitely detailed inlaid marble work and specialist craftsmanship. Very little is known about Pietro Bossi. He was a man of mystery, and it is not known when or where he died. His legacy, however, has had long lasting implications for this history of art and design. Spiriting writing is accomplished by a medium who possessed the gift of writing while under the power of a spirit. The medium takes pen or pencil in hand and relaxes one’s arm on a table. One goes into a trance, yielding completely to the spirit force. The following is an actual sample of spirit writing. While Mrs. Winchester was alive, a tree in front of the Winchester mansion turned blood-red and it was blood. (The tree actually did exist and was cut down approximately in the first decade of the 2000s.) Huge slate-coloured clouds gathered around the tree. They whirled as they feel, and became darker It was symbolic of the waste of blood. The deadly clouds portend the battle of the near future when they very tree of life, every branch leaf, shall suffer unto death, for as this tree is, so is the World scene and its many branches, its may countries, for every branch shall be affected. Prepare the way for the Lord and He shall do battle He shall make war with the elements, and you shall stand. Yes, in the midst of chaos, ye shall stand and messengers of peace, love and unity. The battle will rage and rage, but by the law of polarity it will be met by its own destruction. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
The light of the higher forces, God-sent, shall redeem the World. Yes, even as the twinkling of an eye can this be made to pass. Again, the servant of the Light are countless—their name is Legion. Have no fear, ye of Christ, for ye shall see what ye shall see—miracles. Yet shall ye know them as the working of the Word of Light, for surely one in the power of Light may rule this World unto its God-purpose. So from the realms of light I come—I am that I am. Amen. Mrs. Winchester said Emoah and Amoah were two of the control spirits she had when she was in spiritualism. In the séance wither one could be a control spirit, or they might speak occasionally when another control spirit was presiding. Hundreds of spirit messages came through the seances. They referred to God as Light and always contain a smattering of Scripture. Because these messages used scared terminology and came from a spirit, many people accepted them as God’s messages. When the construction workers were working on the Winchester Mansion, an occasional black spot, dotted against the grey distance, marked a hay-rick or labourer’s cottage on the estate. Mrs. Winchester provided a tenth of her income to provide for the poor farmers in California. One night on the Winchester estate, it was beginning to rain steadily. A worker, Jesse Evans, could see that he was in for dirty weather, and became a little anxious about how he was to get back to his cottage, especially as it was now rapidly growing dark. So thick was it that one could not see the low land anywhere, and could only judge of its position by remembering where the mansion was. He had not seen sign of a human being the whole day. It was not likely anymore would be about at night. However, he shouted as loud as he could, and then waited to hear if there were any response. There was not a sound, only the wind moaned slightly through the trees, and something creaked loudly. The prospect was not inviting. The light was dim; Jesse could scarcely make out objects near him, all else was obscurity. What little light there was came through the mansion’s windows. A small round speck of light looked at him out of the darkness ahead. Jesse took this as a sight to take shelter in the mansion. Groping his way with increasing caution, he stepped across the field and made his way to an opened window. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
In the window was blackness itself. He felt it would be useless to attempt to go further. As Jesse stood looking into the darkness, a cold chilly shudder passed over him, and with a shiver he turned round to look. Deeper patches of darkness on his right suggested it was best seek refuge inside the mansion. Here at least he could find rest, if he found it impossible to get to his cottage on the estate. Having some wax vestas in his pocket, he struck a light and examined the room. It was better than he had expected, It was quite clear that Jesse must pass the night here. Before going to look around, he shouted at the top of his voice, more to keep up his own spirits than with any hope of being heard and then paused to listen. Not a sound of any sort replied. Jesse now prepared to make himself as comfortable as he could. However, the silence only seemed the more oppressive, and the blackness all the darker. “It is no good; I will turn in,” Jesse though dejectedly. By contriving a succession of matches, Jesse was enabled to have enough light to see to eat his frugal supper; for he had kept a little sherry and a few sandwiches to meet emergencies, and it was a fortunate thing he had. The light and the food made him feel more cheery, and by the time the last match had gone out, he felt worse might have happened to him by a long way. As Jesse lay still, waiting for sleep to come, the absurdity of the situation forced itself upon him. As if he were cast away upon a desert island, here was Jesse, to all intents and purposes as much cut off from all communication with the rest of the World. The silence of the place was perfect; and if silence can woo sleep, sleep ought very soon to have come However, when one is hungry and we, and in a beautiful and uncanny place, besides being in one’s clothes, it is a very difficult thing to go to sleep. After sighing and groaning for sometime, Jesse sat up for change of position, and nearly fractured his skull in so doing. There was nothing for it but to it still, or lie down and wait for daylight. He had no means of telling time. Fixed upon the arduous business of counting an imaginary and interminable flock of sheep pass one by one through an ideal gate, he went to sleep. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
He was awakened by the sound of the two most horrible yells ringing through the darkness. Jesse sat bolting upright; and as a proof that he senses were “all there,” he did not bring his head up this time. There was another sound. The silence was as absolute as the darkness. He though his must have been dreaming, but the sounds ringing in his ears, and his heart was beating with excitement. It would have been madness to attempt to move in that blackness. And so he lay still and tried to sleep. However, now there was a sound, indistinct, but no mere fancy; a muffled sound, as of some movement in the forepart of the mansion. What was the sound? It did not seem like Mrs. Winchester’s dog Zip. It was a full, shuffling kind of noise, very indistinct, and conveying no clue whatever as to its cause. It lasted for only a short time. However, now the cold dam air seemed to have become more piercingly chilly. The raw iciness seemed to strike into the very marrow of his bones, and his teeth chattered. Rising to put this resolve in execution, he was arrested by the noise beginning again. Jesse listened. This time he distinctly distinguished two separate sounds: one, like a heavy soft weight being dragged along with difficulty; the other like the hard sound of boots on boards. Could there be others in the mansion after all? If son, why had they made no sound when he made his present noticed by shouting and firing his gun? Clearly, if there were people, they wished to remain concealed, and his presence was inconvenient to them. However, how absolutely still and quiet they had kept! It appeared incredible that there should be anyone. Jesse listened intently. The sound had ceased again, and once more the most absolute stillness reigned around. A gentle swishing, wobbling, lapping noise seemed to form itself in the darkness. It increased until Jesse recognized the chattering and bubbling of water. And he could not get rid of the chilly horrified feeling those two screams had produced. He derided the fear of the supernatural when comfortably seated in a drawing-room well lighted, and with company. Jesse felt her could face any number of spiritual manifestation. But the icy coldness of the air was eating into his bones, and he shivered until his teeth chattered. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Suddenly he became all attention again. An entirely different sound now arrested him. It was distinctly a low groan, and followed almost immediately by heavy blows—blows which fell on a soft substance, and then more groans, and again those sickening blows. He was frightened. He heard shrieks, the blows, the groans, the dull thumping sounds, and it compelled him to suspect the worse—to feel convinced that he was actually within some few feet of a horrible murders then being committed. Jesse could form no idea of who the victim was, or who was the assassin. He actually heard the sounds and they were growing louder and more distinct. He was painfully aware The horror of the situation was intense. Bump, thump, the thing was dragged up the steps with many pauses, and at last it seemed to have reached the landing. A long pause now followed. The silence grew dense around. Jesse dreaded the stillness—the silence that made itself be heard almost more than the sounds. What now horror would that awful quiet bring forth? He felt something drop on to his head and slowly trickly over his forehead. It was blood. The bewildering realization that he was not in bed, that he did not know where he was, which way to go, or what to do to get back again; everything he touched seem strange, and one piece of furniture much the same as any other. The reality of his struggles had almost made him forget the mysterious phenomena he had been listening to. No one knows what became of Jesse. The fact is, we cannot, in this prosaic age, cannot dismiss the supernatural. Mental illness, drugs, money, and the supernatural can be a dangerous combination. People let their id (the id operates based on the pleasure principle, which demands immediate gratification of needs. Many people confuse the id with ego. However, the ego eventually emerges to moderate between the urges of the id and demands of reality. The id tends to be infantile, instinctive and primal; it is not in touch with reality, or logic, or social norms.) If the ego cannot balance the id, people began to think they are a god, always right, better than others because of their economic standing, and they turn into everything the Bible calls a demon. God tells people to be humble, love thy neighbour, share, and forgive. I would say, be careful when consulting the supernatural and with judgment. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Winchester Mystery House
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It Was the Control Spirit–Shall I Never be Delivered from this Mystery?
The Christian Bible tells us plainly there will be a great increase in demon activity as we approach the end of human history. The Apostle makes specific reference to this in 1 Timothy 4.1. The Book of Revelation, chapters 16 and 18, predicts almost universal demonic domination in the final days of God’s judgments on the Earth. This surge of demonism will be amazingly deceptive, luring the masses and even converting nominal Christians. Veneration for the evil spirits will lead to depraved conduct, and the pinnacle of demonic achievement will be their control of World leaders. As incredible as it may seem, this revelation from the Word of God assures us that dependence on these unseen spiritual forces will increase even as scientific knowledge increasing. There is a lot of reality and power that evil spirits possess. Many people have become involved in communication with evil spirits, these spirits—both appealing and loathsome—enslave them, but Jesus Christ can set them free. There are people in this World that have firsthand experience dealing with spirits. Spiritualism is very attractive because it promises knowledge of the future and communication with dead loved ones. Many people will be influenced by demonic spirits in this way without realizing it. However, the only sure guide into the shadowy spirit World is the Christian Bible, and we neglect it at the peril of our souls. The person who denies the phenomena of spiritism today is not entitled to be called a skeptic, one is simply ignorant. A finial, clinching reason for our refusal to consider any of today’s seers as divinely inspired is our conviction that the gift of prophecy ceased when the Scriptures were completed. Prophets uttered truths they had received directly from God, and the Lord used this means of revelation during the years from the creation of man until the time of Malachi. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
From Malachi until John the Baptist can on the scene, Israel had not prophets. Then, in the brief period between Christ’s ascension and the completion of the gospels and epistles, the gift of prophecy was present in the Church. However, gradually the New Testament writings took the place of a prophetic ministry. The apostles were aware that God had given them special authority when they wrote, and that believers were to place greater value upon these gospels and epistles than so-called prophetic declarations. For example, although Paul was not speaking primarily of prophets, he definitely asserted the authoritative nature of his writings when he made the demand, “if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him,” reports 2 Thessalonians 3.14. Again, writing to the Christians in Corinth, he said that his words were they very commandment of God, and that they constituted the standard by which God’s people could evaluate the declarations of men considered to be prophets. “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord,” reports 1 Corinthians 14.37.” The priority of these apostolic writing over the declarations of other humans who claimed to be prophets is further indicated by the apostle John as he brought the book of Revelation to a close. He know that he was writing the authoritative message of God, and therefore could issues this strong warning: “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book,” reports Revelations 22.18, 19. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
No one claiming a prophetic gift had any right to tamper with the written Word. It is obvious, therefore, that the inspired writing of the apostles gradually superseded prophetic utterances in the early church. Special gifts like prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, healings, and tongues were gradually withdrawn, and in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul declared that the quiet, unselfish pursuit of love is a far more excellent path than that of always desiring the more spectacular activities. He continued, “whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; where there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophecy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, the that which is in part shall be done away,” reports 1 Corinthians 13.8-10. When Paul writes these words, the New Testament as a whole was not yet in existence, but he declared that special gifts of the Holy Spirit such as prophecy and tongues would become a thing of the past. They would merge into the complete revelation of the New Testament and no longer be needed. They belonged to the childhood state of the Church; therefore, we conclude that the gift of prophecy cannot be in existence today. God has spoken in the Scriptures, and it is to them that we must turn to find His message to us. No one today can rightly claim that he speaks a message by direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We do not believe that anyone today who claims to receive visions directly from the Lord should be acknowledged as a spiritual leader. None of these so-called prophets are correct in every single prediction they make, and therefore they do not meet the test the Lord prescribed in Deuteronomy 18. Most of them are also guilty of disobeying the Biblical warnings of Paul against occultism. In addition, they tend to speak ambiguously and manifest an ignorance of what the Bible really teaches. Finally, we believe that we have logical, historical, and Biblical grounds for affirming that the gift of prophecy was temporary, and that it gave way and disappeared from the Church when the New Testament was completed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
In the year, 1663, a quaintly humorous story of a most persistent and troublesome ghostly visitant comes from the Ireland, though in this particular instance its efforts to right the wrong did not produce a lawsuit: the narrator was Mr. Alcock, who appears in the preceding story. One David Hunter, who was neat-herd to the Bishop of Down (Jeremy Taylor) at his house near Portmore, saw one night, as he was carrying a log of wood into the dairy, an old woman who he did not recognize, but apparently some subtle intuition told him that she was not of mortal mould, for incontinent he flung away the log, and ran terrified into his house. She appeared again to him the next night, and from that on nearly every night for the next nine months. “Whenever she came he must go with her through the Woods at a good round rate; and the poor fellow look’d as if he was bewitch’d and travell’d off his legs.” Even if he were in bed he had to rise and follow her wherever she went, and because his wife could not restrain him she would rise and follow him till daybreak, although no apparition was visible to her. The only member of the family that took the matter philosophically was Hunter’s little dog, and he became so accustomed to the ghost that he would inevitably bring up the rear of the strange procession—if it be true that the lower classes dispensed with the use of night-garments when in bed, the sight must truly have been a most remarkable one. All this time the ghost afforded no indication as to the nature and object of her frequent appearances. “But one day the said David going over a Hedge into the Highway, she came just against him, and he cry’d out, ‘Lord bless me, I would I were dead; shall I never be delivered from this misery?’ At which, ‘And the Lord bless me too,’ says she. ‘It was very happy you spoke first, for till then I had no power to speak, though I have followed you so long. My name,’ says she, ‘is Margaret—-. I lived here before the Wat, and had one son by my Husband; when he died I married a soldier, by whom I had several children which the former Son maintained, else we must all have starved. He lives beyond the Ban-water; pray go to him and bid him dig under such a hearth, and there he shall find 28s. Let him pay what I owe in such place, and the rest to the charge unpay’d at my funeral, and go to my Son that lives here, which I had by my latter Husband, and tell him that he lives a very wicked and dissolute life, and is very unnatural ad ungrateful to his Brother that nurtured him, and if he does not mend his life God will destroy him.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
David Hunter told her he never knew her. “No,” says she, “I died seven years before you came into this Country”; but she promised that, if he would carry her message, she would never hurt him. However, he deferred doing what the apparition bade him, with the result that she appeared the night after, as he lay in bed, and struck him on the shoulder very hard; at which he cried out, and reminded her that she had promised to do him hurt. She replied that was if he did her message; if not, she would kill him. He told her he could not go now, because the waters were out. She said that she was content that he should wait until they were abated; but charged him afterwards not to fail her. Ultimately he did her errand, and afterwards she appeared and thanked him. “For now,” said he, “I shall be at rest, and therefore I pray you lift me up from the ground, and I will trouble you no more.” So Hunter lifted her up, and declared afterwards the she felt just like a bag of feathers in his arms; so she vanished, and he heard most delicate music as she went off over his head. In the late 19th century, Mrs. Winchester used to have séances in the Blue Séance Room in her mansion, which was constantly being expanded and remolded for 38 years. It once stood nine stories high, had 500 rooms, and was approximately 65,000 square feet. Here is the transcript from one of her sessions: “I could hardly wait for the next séance to take place so I could talk to my departed husband….six more days seemed like an eternity. I had not doubt that William would be present, though we had failed on the first attempt. I had talked with the spirit World many times in in my forty-four years, just as I talked with anyone else. I had listened to the spirits give lectures, sermons, exhortations, and counsel to the construction crew assembled at the seances in my mansion. However, I never tired to talk with a dead person. My family, especially my mother’s relatives, had been involved with spiritualism for several generations. They came to the United States of America on the Mayflower. My father was a very religious mand. He often remarked that if any of his children were to die, he would become a spiritualist. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
“On March 7th 1881, my brave forty-four-year-old husband died, and soon afterward a family from New Haven, Connecticut, told me they had contacted the spirit of my dead husband and the he was eager to talk to me. I was very excited, and I agree to let the spiritus to come to my home at the appointed time for a séance in the Bule Séance Room. There were perhaps thirteen people gathered in my home for the séance. We sat quietly, meditatively, and expectantly. The medium sat at one end of our circle of chairs and led us in singing hymns and prayer. It did not seem strange to us to open the séance by saying the Lord’s Prayer. We even ended: ‘…in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’ A prayer for a séance went like this: ‘Eternal God and Father of Lights, we gather as thy expectant children. We are eager to communicate with the spirit World and the spirits of our departed friends and loved ones. We pray that you would look favorably upon us. Bless us this night with communications from our friends in the spirit World. In the name of the great Father of Lights. Amen.’ Then we sang familiar church hymns such as: ‘Face to Face,’ ‘In the Garden,’ ‘Beautiful Isle of Somewhere,’ and ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’ While we were singing, the medium slumped into unconsciousness, and before long a strange voice spoke through the medium’s lips; it was the control spirit. ‘Good evening, my children. There are many of the departed here, and all are eager to speak with you. The spirit World welcomes you to another opportunity to contact your departed loved one.’ We listened eagerly to the spirit as the medium sat limply, eyes closed, in her chair. The spirit said that a family was present whose departed loved one wanted very much to speak with them, but since he had been in the spirit World so short a time he was still adjusting to his new spiritual dimension and would have to communicate the following week. That was a terrible disappointment, and the whole family could hardly wait until the next séance when we could contact my beloved husband. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
“At the second meeting we encountered another phase of spiritualism, the gold key séance (sometimes called a séance of vocal revelation). A metal key, made of solid gold, stood upright in a damp saucer on a table in the middle of the room. When the medium entered her trance, the solid gold key rose slowly from the table and dipped into a horizontal position. Eerily, it began spinning with a soft whir and moved around the room, stopping at intervals in midair. I sat rigid in amazement. I saw the floating key, but I could not believe it. The others in the séance seemed to accept the experience as a very common thing. The key went first to my father and then to other members of our family. And we heard a voice, supposedly my departed husband’s, but at first we could not distinguish the words. Then the key came to me. My first reaction was to grab it, and I snatched at the key, but it darted away with amazing swiftness. I tried again, but it moved faster than I did. The key finally settled directly in front of me, just out of my reach. Then the control spirit launched into a lecture about my unbelief, speaking through the unconscious medium. She said if I were to get anything for this meeting, I must conduct be patient. As my emotions subsided, the golden key hovered closer and closer to me until it was near my ear, the key was stroking my hair in the way my husband used to comb it. A voice flowed from the key saying, ‘I love you; I love you.’ It was supposed to be my husband’s voice, but it did not sound like him to me. Everyone else accepted it as William’s voice, but I was disappointed; it was not William. That was the first of many occasions when he supposedly spoke to the family, but I was never convinced. At later séances my niece and I were told we could become gifted spirit mediums. By following the instructions of the spirit voice in the séance of passivity we would in time be able to contact the spirits in our own home. My niece and I began to practice the séance of passivity for thirteen minutes each evening. During these periods we tried to blot out every conscious thought from our minds. Eventually we could sit for an hour and thirteen minutes without being distracted by a single conscious thought. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
“In one of the longer periods, the phenomenon finally took place that we had been waiting for. I witnessed the spirit taking control of my niece as she lost consciousness and a voice completely foreign to her soft contralto boomed out: ‘My child, be not afraid. You have done well. If you only believe, greater things than these you will do. Continue in this way, and the marvels of the spirit World will be revealed to you.’ With that, the spirit departed and my niece regained consciousness. She asked what had happened, and I told her the words of the spirit. She was thrilled! She had arrived at a coveted place of spiritual development, and from that time on we held séances in my mansion in private, with my young niece as the gifted medium. Some people say this is all a hoax, that spirits do not talk with human beings and that floating objects are mere trickery. I would agree that a great many of the eerie demonstrations we hear about are clever illusions, but I believe on the basis of personal experience and the plain words of Scripture that spirits of the invisible World do communicate with humanity and do wield supernatural power in our visible World. And the ominous truth is that these spirits are not from God, but fallen angles controlled by Satan. Their unholy mission is to lead human beings—by refined or gross means—away from dependence on God, their Creator, and they are active in spiritualist churches, séances, psychic phenomena, witchcraft, and idol-worship. However, some of these spirits are good and convey helpful messages. Yet, individuals and nations who reject God, no matter how educated and prosperous they are, fall prey to the other god, Satan.” Believe it or not, the key to the massive front door was made of solid gold and the keys for the other 2,000 doors of this Eight Wonder of the World filled two water buckets. One day, Mrs. Winchester stood at the sitting-room window, after the butler left her, looking at the dull grey of the January sky and the yellowing pastures of the dairy county. There was no rain, but also no gleam of sunshine. I always wanted a private tour of her mansion. My father was on the construction crew and he promised one day when Mrs. Winchester was away, I would get my chance. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
One morning Mrs. Winchester went off in her carriage for a trip to San Francisco, California. My father let me in the mansion and told me I could look around, but warned me not to touch anything and not to get lost. I walked through the beautiful jewel crested front doors, and they closed behind me. I did not think anything of it. However, suddenly, I stumbled, tripped over the carpet, and fell on my hands and knees, managing—and only just managing—to save the lantern which I carried from being extinguished in the fall. The floor of the mansion was very uneven in that part, and I had inadvertently walked into a sort of loose floor board, more or less I was pulverized. I rose and looked about me. evidently, I had strayed from the direct track, thanks to my old habit of indulging in reverie, and had mechanically taken a wrong turning among some of the many passages. The place where I now found myself was by no means similar to the part of the mansion that was in full yield, and from which I had wandered. Instead of being dry, airy, and full of life and bustle, the passage where I stood was damp, and quite silent, not a sound being audible except the drip, drip of blood that oozed through the roof in fifty places, and fell splashing into the little pools of bright red blood that lay among the bricks. The floor was of brick, not wood. It was plain that I was in some neglected corner of the mansion; it was plain, to, that I had lost my way. Now the warning my father gave me came back to me with unwelcome emphasis, and as I breathed with difficulty the clammy and heavy air of the mansion, a shudder ran through my whole frame. In the next instant, I rallied my courage, laughed contemptuously at my own fears, and stepped out manfully along the passage. I knew I must have entered the mansion from the right. But alas! On emerging from the hallway into a sort of square chamber, in which some rude benches, carved out of mahogany, were cut in the gleaming walls, I found that no less than thirteen openings gave access to different parts of the mansion, and I was fairly at fault. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
How I had strayed so far without paying any attention to the bearings of my heedless course, is what, perhaps, none but an absent man can understand; and I, unluckily, was an absent man. It was strange to be lost, or to roam in circles among the great hallways of this estate, and to be lost in what seemed to be an underground tomb, which had dank air and darkness for miles to come. I remarked, too, that the candle in my lantern would not last very long—from one to two hours perhaps, but certainly not longer. It was annoying, very annoying, to be left thus alone. I did not like to own to myself that it was dangerous. How strange it was, I thought, that I did not hear the very faintest sound from the scene of all those busy construction workers working on the Winchester mansion. I listened—listened intently. Not a sound; not so much as the faint hammer; not the welcoming sound of a human voice; not the tramp of one of those shaggy ponies that drew the wood. I had never before realized what the weight of solitude—enforced solitude—could be. I listened; I waited. Not the faintest indication that any other mortal but myself was below ground, reached my ears. Angry with my own fears, vexed with my own carelessness, that had brought me to this pass, I selected at hazard one of the passages opening into the mansion, and entered it, walking fast, but holding the lantern well in front, to avoid any fresh trip falls which might lie in wait for the unwary foot. The hallway was but some thirteen yards long, and then into two narrower corridors, the widest of which led me to a narrow pathway of tiny stairs that seemed to zigzag up the mansion. I entered it stooping, but soon found it was so dizzying that I should be obliged to proceed on hands and knees, if at all, so I retraced my steps: and, tracing them to another stairwell, and found myself atop of the stairs, but unable to proceed any further for the top was cut off by the ceiling. I was wondering aimlessly, as in a labyrinth, unless my candle was spent, and then I should be indeed in sorry case. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Already my feet were cold and wet with the tenacious brine; the cold moist air had brought back my cough, and I shivered in the chill atmosphere of the vault where were I stood. Yet, perhaps there were people near me, within earshot all the time, for I could not believe that the mansion had been suddenly deserted. I shouted, and shouted again, the many hallways and rooms giving back the sound of my voice with strange and sullen dissonance. Presently, though no answering call was returned, I saw a light, far off and dim, but rapidly advancing towards me along the gallery that lay on my left, and which was one of the six I have mentioned. Nearer and nearer it came; no flare of torches, but the steady gleam of a small lamp; and then, to my surprise, I saw that the human figure that soon became visible was not that of a construction worker. The light of the lantern fell faintly on the pale face, colourless as marble, but delicate and pretty enough, of a young and slender girl—a lady, evidently, by her dress, and whom I instantly conjecture to have been one of the staff. However, how she came there, and alone? Was she lost, like me? or—“Did you not call a minute ago? I can show you the way, if you like.” Common-place words these; but they were spoken with a peculiar quiet intonation, that impressed me in spit of myself. The voice was sweet and low, but almost solemn in its calm. There was something strange, too, in the composure and the unsmiling gravity of one so young, while her very presence in the out-of-the-way part the mansion perplexed me. My first idea was, that the young lady, like myself, had lost her way in the intricacies of the mansion; but this supposition her confidence of bearing seemed to contradict. No doubt she knew the mansion well, or she would scarcely have offered to guide me to safety. This was an additional proof the she could not have been one of the merry, rosy-cheeked servants in the mansion. Most likely, some young lady had entered the mansion to see the mysteries inside, and she was some resident in the neighbourhood. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Nonetheless, the beauty in this place was in the infinite variety of fantastic columns, some of pure white marble, others of mahogany, and shimmering gold wallpaper, that composed the walls. As the feeble light of the lanterns flashed on the pellucid surfaces and frail, some more elaborate in the intricacies of their mouldings than the than the Corinthian or Byzantine, I could not restrain my exclamations of surprise and delight. For a moment I forgot the cold, the damp, the discomfort, and said, half to myself: “What a wonderful sight! If a human artist had carved those delicate capitals and rich decorations, what a rush would there be to see his handiwork! But I dare say even the county handbook does not condescend to describe this place, which is worthy to be the palace of the king of gnomes.” “Few know of this place,” said my conductress, in the same measured, passionless voice as before. She had stopped when I stopped, and she stood motionless as a statue, and as pale as if she had been a figure hewn out of alabaster, rather than a creature of flesh and blood. It was the first word of the nature of a remark which had fallen from her, and I tried to draw her into conversation by descanting on the beauty of the singular grotto, and the spaciousness of the mansion. She said very little, but her reticence sis not seem to be caused by any poverty of intellect. There was, however, a peculiar want of warmth or enthusiasm, whether the subject were are or nature, in what little my fair guide could be induced to say. Nor was she by any means communicative as to herself. My attempts to discover whether she really lived in the neighbourhood, were quietly baffled, and when I said that “doubtless her friends would begin to be alarmed at her long absence for which I feared that my own stupid blundering was to blame,” she was merely bowed, and led the way as before. On we went, through a network of hallways, that only seemed to grow more Daedalian every moment, but through which my companion glided along the as unswervingly as if she held in her hand an unfailing clue. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Many of these galleries were evidently the work of man. In all, however, the air was heavy, chill, and moist, and blood dripped from the walls, and fell gurgling down hidden fissures into some unseen depths below. I was confident that I had passed none of these places that day, and began to suspect that my guide was leading me a long round, so as to shew me all the lions of the mansion, instead of taking a short-cut to the workings. At another time, this desire to impress a stranger with a full notion of local marvels would have amused me; but my cough got worse; I shivered, and longed for the excursion to come to a close. Yet there was an awkwardness in suggesting this. I ventured on a safe remark. “It is bitterly cold,” said I, with a shudder, for the damp seemed to be piercing to the very marrow of my bones. “Do you not find it so?” “Very cold!” She said no more; but those two common-place words were spoken in a voice that awed me, somehow, in spite of myself, and seemed to freeze me into silence. On we went, and I trusted that we may be approaching the work-part of the mansion, for the candle in my lantern was reduced to a mere morsel, and must soon be burned out. However, ill as I felt, and hard as it was for my weak lungs to endure the unwholesome air, I almost forgot this in my perplexity as to my conductress. I could not make her out at all. I have met with romantic young ladies, silly young ladies, sensible young ladies, even haughty and vain young ladies, but never with anyone like my guide. Why was she leading me thus, what I felt must be a circuitous course through the mansion? Why—She came to a dead stop, slowly-turned, and confronted me. The hood of her grey cloak, an old-fashion article of attire, such as I had not seen for many years, was drawn over her head, and it threw her pretty face partly into shadow; but her eyes were bright and clear, though there was something in their cold steady look that made me shiver afresh, as if the air of the mansion had grown even more icy and oppressive than before. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
“Tell me about yourself. Tell me what you are going to do. What are your plans, I mean,” she said in the same manner as before, like a sleepwalker unconsciously uttering words that volition does not prompt. I laughed, and blurted out some could-be witty rejoinder on my own good-fortune in having inspired so charming a person with sufficient interest in my fate to suggest the question; but the flippant words died away on my lips half spoken, as she waved her hand, not impatiently, not coquettishly, but with a calm dignity of bearing that matched well her bloodless cheek and the carriage of her proud head. “You are to sail in the Chester—is it not so?” said this singular girl, without a smile or a falter in her low but very distinctive voice. I owned the fact, in so slight surprise. I had not mentioned to no one at the Winchester Mansion the name of the ship in which my passage was taken. The idea of a mystification, of a trick, dawned upon me, but I was at a loss to guess how my beautiful nightmare of a guide could have obtained the information she evidently possessed. Did she know more of men than this? My name, for instance, my profession, and my reason for quitting the Bank of Italy? If so, at any rate she made no parade of her knowledge. She merely raised her hand for a moment—it was ungloved, and there were rings of price sparkling on the thin white fingers—and her eyes seemed to gather a new expression of sadness and warning as she said: “Beware of the Chester! If you love your life—and on, it is bitter to die young—do not sail in that ship.” Slowly the hand she had lifted in warning fell to her side, and holding up the lamp as before, she turned away, and preceded me along the galleries. I followed her, perplexed, half angry, half alarmed. I began to fear that I was the sport of a mad woman. And then a new fancy sized me. Perhaps I myself might be delirious, and the mansion, the endless galleries, and my beautiful nightmare guide, were visions of a disordered brain, a sweet dream or a frightful nightmare, from which I vainly strove to awake. Presently, it occurred to me for the first time that my new-found friend’s feet made no sound as they trod the wooden floor, and twisted stairways. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Certain it was that she moved firmly and swiftly on, without any sign of difficulty or fatigue, while I stumbled and slipped, slipped and stumbled, and at times found it hard to keep up with her. However, as regarded the noiselessness of her tread, I could not solve the doubt. If I stopped, she stopped too, not after a pause, but instantly. And I heard nothing but my own labouring breath and hacking cough, and the sound of my own weary feet. A little while, and even this was forgotten in a new source of apprehension. I had for some time vaguely conceived the idea that, as in labyrinth, we were walking in a circle; and gradually I began to fancy that I had seen this or that sofa and parlour table or that mahogany arch before, and that I had passed through some of the corridors at least once before. However, suspicion was changed to certainty when I suddenly espied, lying on the ground in one of the galleries, one of my own gloves. I had dropped this glove some time before, for I had missed it soon after the arrival of the Unknown. As I picked it up, I glanced keenly around me, and thought I recognized the opening that led into the hall of fires. I was right; in another moment I had followed my mysterious guide into the hall of fires itself. More than an hour’s weary toil, for my candle was all but spent, had brought us back to the point from which we had started. I was angry at last; all my involuntary awe for my strange conductress was lost, and I stamped my foot hard upon the floor as I asked if she had been amusing herself at my expense, or whether she, too, were unaware of the topography of the mansion, and had misled me by accident. I spoke in wrath, and almost in menace; but there was no reply, save one long moan, as from a child in pain, that rang sadly through the mansion. I turned my head, but I could see nothing; and when I again confronted what I now deemed my treacherous guide, a sort of mist seemed to dim my eyes, and I saw, or thought I saw, her form grow faint and indistinct, fading and fading like breath upon a mirror, but with still the same calm face, the same grave look of sorrow and warning, until that too faded, and nothing was left opposite to me—nothing but a masonry wall. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
I sprang forward, incredulous, and touched the wall with my hand. As I did so, a repetition of the moaning cry made me start, and far down the passage where I had seen her first, I saw her again—the pure, pale outline of the young face, the tall slender form in the grey mantel, with the hood drawn over the head, the lamp shining in the outstretched hand. How came she there? “This is too much!” cried I passionately, and convinced that I was the victim of a trick, though how such a trick could have been effected, I did not care to consider. “I will not bear this juggling. I will not—” As I spoke, I darted forward to overtake the receding figure, and my foot tripping among the loose stones of the floor, as I ran, I fell heavily, crushing the lantern beneath me, and being instantly involved in the demonic darkness. Bruised and hurt, I have no heed to the pain of the fall from the door to nowhere, but sprang up, and strained my eyes in the direction where the lamp had been last seen. There was not a spark—not a sound. No light, no rustle of her dress, no faint sound of a distant footfall, nothing but darkness and silence. Eagerly I listened, eagerly I watched, but in vain. I tried to call aloud, but my tongues refused its office; and when I did raise a weak shout, I felt natural repugnance to the darkness deepen as no answer came. “She is doing this to frighten me,” I murmured; “she is hiding behind some bush. Whoever she is, she could be cruel enough to leave me here in the dark alone, to perish.” Silence, still silence. Any sound, even that moan, at which my very heartstrings had quivered, would have been better than that. Darkness, blank, blank darkness. I tried to shout, tried to group my way back in, but I was limp. I had not the strength to rise. Oh, it was very cold, cold and dark. This must be death. “A drop more brandy, Jim; the last did him good, I cannot feel any pulse yet, though. Do not crowd so about him, lads. Give him air! That is enough brandy, do not leave off the chafing the hands. He will come round!” #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
With my dulled ear, I heard these words, but scarcely understood them, and from between the half-closed lids my weak eyes could feebly distinguish a glare of torches, and several rough me in construction garb, and one in black with a kind, shrewd face—the doctor, no doubt. I saw all his, in a stupid sort of indifferent way, as if he had been a pageant, and then I seemed to sink down into a black sea of roaring water, and fainted for the second time. I was in bed at last. I had been in bed some days, very ill, and with a brain too deadened, and a frame too exhausted, to take note of time. When my senses returned, I asked what was the date, and hearing it, knew that the Chester had sailed without me, and that my passage-money was lost. It was not for weeks, and until my slow convalescence had ripened into recovery from the illness brought on by cold and the wetting I had experienced, that the doctor asked me how I came to separate myself from the construction crew, and to get lost in the Winchester Mansion. “It so happened,” he said, “that work was suspended unusually early on that day, as there was a wake at Old Saint Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, and the construction workers had a sort of half-holiday by annual custom. The mansion was therefore abandoned, and but for the lucky chance, that when you were missed at home, and inquiries were made, and intelligent boy, the son of another construction worker, declared that you have never left the estate at all, it is probable that no search would have taken place. As it was, long hours passed before a party started in quest for you; and it is fortunate they there were in time. The Winchester has witnessed more than one tragic incident, even in my day.” “To what do you allude, doctor?” asked I eagerly. “Three year ago, a young lady, a Miss Mary Seward, because separated from her friends, as you did, in that mansion,” answered the doctor. “I had not as yet settled in the district, and only know the details from report, and very imperfectly. I believe, however, that the poor girl, who had made one of a large family art, was bound on a visit to an aunt who lived in England; her own parents then residing at the Rengstoff House, near here. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
“The day was a stormy one; the carriages drove off in a heavy fall of rain; and I believe the missing one was understood by her mother to be staying at her aunt’s, and vice versa, for there was no alarm till help was impossible. The poor girl’s body was found—for she perished of cold and hunger in that maze of galleries. Bless me, how pale you look, my dear sir. Take some cordial, and lie down, and no more talking—not a word more, I insist.” I have no explanation of the above facts to offer. I have endeavoured, far from San Jose, to set down every detail of the occurrence as simply and succinctly as possible. If I could disabuse my mind of the ghastly doubt and horror that cling to it, and which haunt me when I recall the events of that day in the Winchester Mansion, I should be very thankful. The good doctor, when he heard my statement, did his best to convince me that what I saw was a mere hallucination, due to my disordered health and excited nerves. I wish I could think so; but further inquiries, made before I left San Jose, served to assure me that I was not the only person who was supposed to have seen the presence that I had beheld in the disused portion of the mansion. One word more. The warning was no idle one, though I doubt whether I should have been ashamed to have heeded it, had not illness chained me to my sick-bed. Before I was able to quit the Winchester Mansion, news came that a dense fog enveloped the iron and wood steamship City of Chester and its 106 passengers as they began the slow journey north from San Francisco Bay to Eureka. It was 1888, and family members bid their loved one’s safe passage from the Broadway dock as the vessel disappeared into the pea soup fog. Moments later, the Chester was split in two by a ship more than twice its size, killing 16 people—13 passengers, including two children and three crew members—and becoming the bay’s second-worst maritime disaster. Some people may believe all spirituals are evil and trying to harms us or that they are demonic, but it seems some are good and really trying to save our lives. Perhaps some of these spirits are our guardian angels. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
Winchester Mystery House
What a lovely weekend for a bit of mystery👻 winchestermysteryhouse.com
I Felt, My God, I Could Not Face this thing!
There are risks and costs to a program of action. Make sure that what you aspire to accomplish is worth accomplishing, and then throw your whole vitality into it. Excellence in education is the key to our nation’s future. Celibacy, of course, is a fundamental dimension of moral purity, and it provides disciplines that enhance mental and spiritual qualities. This allows one to sublimate the creative force into a God-directed, selfless love, the chaste joy of longing for the untouched beloved, a pure passion much like the agape ideal of many early Christian nuns. The focus on celibacy and the conservation of the creative force, allows the source of one’s spiritual power and their mystical ability to partake in God’s transcendental nature by transforming one’s energy into spiritual energy. Celibacy, therefore, is a critical instrument for achieving spiritual goals. All people are souls coupled with physical bodies, and they exist withing the chronological context of historical cycles of moral and physical decline. At the beginning, the ages were perfect and pure. Men and women were equal, and neither adversity nor affliction existed. The principal cause of this flawlessness was the absence of pleasures of the flesh. However, pleasures of the flesh entered the scene. Gradually, these Godly folk deteriorated, morally and physically, until corruption and torment prevailed. Heaven became hell, and the fleshly desires of the body came to dominate the World. Hand in hand with the degeneration of human standards came the bondage of humans, enslaved by another’s lust. The goal of the celibates is to end this cycle and purify themselves on Earth so they may be reborn at or soon after the pristine beginning of each successive cycle. They wish to be liberated from sinful births rather than rebirth itself. The only was they can achieve this is by renouncing the evil that is pleasures of the flesh and adopting complete celibacy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Celibacy promises enormous reward. To begin with, it fulfills the theological condition for assuring perfect future births. It also relives people from the chains of marriage. Cleansed of pleasures of they flesh, some find their true spiritual identities and such off their ties with the ungodly, material World. It religious terms, it promised unheard-of opportunities that allowed individuals to move to positions of power. Inspired with these new ideas, people explained to their significant other that they should live together chastely, loving each other with a pure and spiritual devotion. Pleasures of the flesh, conversely, has overpopulated and made a slum of the planet. Some liken pleasures of the flesh as to foraging about in a sewer. Pleasures of the flesh love has no vindicative features, either. True love is loving someone’s essence—one’s soul. Pleasures of the flesh expends previous energy. Lust renders people powerless and demands for its fulfillment. Celibacy allows people to be pure and liberates individuals from bondage and frees them to achieve the enormous power of absolute chastity. Ethics is treated separately only as a matter of experience. Morality is grounded in our essential being. In this respect, these principals of ethics stand in continuity with traditional Roman Catholic natural law ethics and other forms of moral realism. What is morally right and good is the realization through action of human natural potentialities. These ethics are not judgmental, but verge on intuitionism because of its appeal to the “silent voice” of conscience about essential nature. Ethics on this point deals with how to specify the precise relation between casuistry, that is, reasoning about moral cases, and claims about human nature. If we are going to reason rightly about moral cases, must we assume something about the nature of human beings? #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
If we cannot reach agreement about the nature of human life or its good—a consensus difficult to reach in wildly pluralistic societies—does this invalidate casuistic thinking? Theologians and philosophers currently have attempted to server the connection between casuistry and claims about human nature. Ethics, while itself deficient on matters of casuistry, challenges this move by questioning the point of morality itself. If morality is about the realization of human potentialities, the come conception of human nature seems required in addressing practical moral questions. The demand on the casuist is either to show that this is not the point of morality so that no claim about human nature is needed in ethics or, conversely, to provide a different account of human nature, such as the found in traditional natural law ethics. Morality, then, is grounded in our essential being. What is means, is that morality finds its source in God as the ground and power of being. Ethics is in this respect necessarily theological in character. However, this raises two questions. First, how is the idea of God related to some conception of what is morally good? That is, even if one grants the claim about the religions character or morality, it is another question to ask about the content of claims about God and goodness. How does a conception of the good, whether grounded in claims about human nature or historically specific beliefs, relate to Christian ideas about God and agape? Some moral theorists argue that in ethics we need only a thing theory of the good, because the point of the moral life in a pluralistic society is just relations between persons rather than establishing the human good. At issues then are the substance of claims about the human good, the status of those claims, their place in ethics, and the relation between those claims and discourse about God. This leads to the second question: Given the fact of moral diversity on this planet, can one sustain the claim that morality is theistic? #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
Indeed, is that claim actually needed in ethics? Is an appeal to agape morally adequate in our time? Put differently, the concern to combat moralism and relativism must be rethought in terms of the reality of moral pluralism and also of debates about how to understand moral goodness. The final challenge to this thought poses to theological ethics is at the level of basic moral problems. The moral problem is the fragmentation of life; the moral act is a victory of self-integration against forces that lead to human estrangement. This means that the power to act is essential to how one conceives of the human good because only through exercise of power in action is life realized. Now in our time, technology has radically increased human power to the point that we can alter the environment and even the human species. This makes the reality of power and human responsibility basic to contemporary ethical reflection. These concerns have been addressed in matters of terms of the dominance of technical rationality in the modern World and also theologically by understanding the term God as symbolizing the power of being itself. The question that remains open, however, is the extent to which claims about rationality and the symbol God can contribute to current ethical reflection on the reality of human power and the demands of responsibility. Thus one challenges theological ethics in terms of patterns of practical moral reasoning, the relation between claims about God and those of moral goodness, and also the contribution of theological discourse to reflection on human power and responsibility. Any assessment of these ethics in terms of the history of thought or contemporary ethical reflection must engage one’s work on each of these points. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
God as the Ground and Aim of our being has been transformed into a multiplicity of laws, partly doctrinal and partly ethical. The moral “yoke” that Jesus wished to make easy had only been made heavier, and the message of grace has largely been lost, despite the numerous liturgical prayers for the forgiveness of sins. They do not express the vision that appears in Paul’s Letters and John’s Gospel, or is expressed in the seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer—“save us from the evil one”—namely, the image of a demonic power ruling the universe and driving humans into separation from God and into hostility against Him. The prayers for forgiveness have, for many people, only the function of relieving the uneasy conscience produced by trespasses against traditional and often absurd rules of behaviour, mostly a prohibitive character. However, they do not express the great paradox, that there is a reunion with the eternal “Ground of our being” without “right” action on our part, without being “good people,” or the “people of good will.” Therefore, despite liturgical formulae, hymns, and the reading o lessons from the Pauline Epistles, the message of grace has been lost. Grace as the power of accepting the person who is unacceptable, and of healing the person who is mortally sick, has disappeared behind the preaching of the religious and moral laws. It is understandable that people, in view of this graceless moralism turn to secular ethics. However, when they find nothing more than the logical analysis of ethical theory, they turn easily to a cynical relativism or to a totalitarian absolutism in ethics, each often a consequence of the other. The question that is implicit in this situation is: Can we point to something that transcends both graceless moralism and normless relativism in ethical theory and moral action? #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
The response of Christianity is the message that a new reality has appeared with the coming of the Christ, a power of being in which we can participate, and out of which true thought and right action can follow, however fragmentarily. We find analogous affirmations in other religions and even in secular movements of an implicitly religious character, such as nationalism, socialism, and liberal humanism. Being precedes action in everything that is, including man, although in man as the bearer of freedom, previous action also determines present being. This answer stand in opposition to both moral legalism and amoral lawlessness. It affirms morality and points beyond it to its religious foundation. If morality is intrinsically religious, as religion is intrinsically ethical, neither is dependent on the other, and neither can be substituted for the other. Power is protean. When, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States of American and the Soviet Union squared off against each other, the power of each was a function of bombs, ships, missiles, planes, tanks, armored divisions. These were the factors that each had to reckon with as it braced itself for struggle. However, within each nation the enormous power, respectively, of Kennedy and of Khrushchev was charismatic, depending upon the ability of each to inspire belief that one dividually did possess those magical powers which the peoples of those countries had as children experienced in their fathers and now unconsciously imputed to their leaders. When a profound patriotic passion is aroused, it will make people weep, and evokes and shapes in them a mood of fervent devotion and self-sacrifice. As people listen, more and more will they want to go into the battle field. It is considered a great honor to die for such a powerful leader. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
Most significant power is composite, being both instrumental and charismatic. Instrumental power is that which accrues in consequence of competence at the work of the World—the growing of wheat, the building of houses, the designing of an airplane, the composing of a sonnet. The smaller the extent of power, the more likely it is to be instrumental. The greater the power, the more likely it is to be charismatic. Many of the greatest World leaders have held power primarily by virtue of their ability to embody protection from our deepest fears and gratification of our primitive and grandiose fantasies, and perhaps not at all by virtue of competence at directing the affairs of a nation. Indeed, some such leaders, far from being competent to govern, lead the nations for which they are responsible straight to destruction. Once nature was the danger and the challenge. The cave drawings of Stone Age man bear witness to his preoccupying concerns with animals as a source of food and as a source of danger. The ability to elude these animals, to capture or to kill them, was the locus of power. Now anyone can shoot a rifle, no animal poses a threat, the ability to fell a charging elephant wins us no fame, perhaps even contempt, and we know that we may, if careless, destroy animals utterly. Most significant power now is power over people. The ability to win the respect, the belief, the support, the allegiance, the following, the obedience, of people—this is power. Morality, law, and custom comprise the rules by which the group expect us, as individuals, to live. These rules allow for a modest accumulation of power by way of instrumental competence. If we respect the rules, we cannot hope for more. We shall be conformists, the salt of the Earth but never its giants. A more venturesome order of normality calls for one to be as free in pursuit of power as a prudent, though often but nominal, regard for rules will permit. With less than that prudent regard, one is likely to land in disfavor or in jail—though sometimes, with a little luck, an adventurous thug may become a ruler. With more than a prudent regard one is disabled in the race. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
Neurotics are those who are crippled in the pursuit of power by internal constraints, impediments built into character by childhood experience. All of us start out weak in the hands of the strong, and a parent inclined to exploit that discrepancy can teach a child that any transgression of rules will yield pain and humiliation. Such an early education can bring it about that in later life, long after the tyrant is dead, any tentative reaching for power will be aborted by anxiety. The awareness of vulnerability prompts one to look about carefully, to take the measure of things. It leads to knowledge, is essential to good judgement. Without it one’s vision of one’s self and the World is determined, not by the way things are but by one’s will, one’s desire. When power is absolute, distortion is extreme; the real World is replaced by fantasy. When one possesses greater power than any despot of the past, one will ask for ultimate power: Every individual will henceforth follow this person’s personal order of suffer death. The congressional deputies will enthusiastically and unanimously approve the measure. One will now, legally, be above any law. That is why it is important that we do not have one party with a supermajority. However, people are so unwillingly to talk about politics to the extent that they ignore what is going on, and this can eventually become the result. So empowered, and thereby more and more out of touch with the reality one is imperiously undertaking to shape and to control, and with no compunction to heed the advice of one’s general, who are in touch, one will proceed to make those disastrous mistakes which will led to the destruction of the army and the loss of the war. Nothing within the state impedes the pursuit of power by the state. Empires expand. Any of them, are it able, will encompass the World. They go as far as they can, stop only where the lines of communication and supply are stretched too thin, where the conduits of power can no longer deliver effective force. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
In the individual, however, morality is a brake and may at any point set a limit. A truly Christian position calls for the abnegation of power, requires one to give all one has to the poor, to be meek, to love one’s enemy, to turn the other cheek. A measure of the instinctual force of the drive for power is given by the rarity with which such an ethic has in fact been practiced. The other internal obstacle is fear. One can go quite far in the acquisition of instrumental power without struggling with another human being and hence without encounter fear, power growing as a function of one’s kill in becoming a good pianist, carpenter, bookkeeper, or surgeon. However, the point is reached eventually beyond which any further gain can be achieved only in struggle with another person, in defeating or besting or outmaneuvering someone. In such contest one is vulnerable, there is no sure win. One may show one’s self a fool, may be humiliated. Fear may become so intense that one’s life comes to be structed around it. Whoever arranges for oneself an isolated life (a write, an artist, a forest-fire watcher, a drawbridge keeper) or a vocation with built-in advantages over the people with whom one deal (a psychoanalyst, and anesthesiologist) is likely to be the who feels keenly the danger of pursuing power through interpersonal struggle. The hurdy-gurdy plays, and around and around they go, the charioteer, the legionnaire, the cuirassier, up and down, sailing around, the president, the foreign minister, the chiefs of staff, varnished faces frozen in arrogance and disdain, the bombardier, the cavalryman, the machine gunner, around and around, as the band plays on. When the oppressed take up arms and rebel, they do so in the name of principles that asset basic human rights and so constitute an insurgent morality which justified the overthrow of the existing order. The existing order has a morality of its own, an establishment morality, which holds that the security and welfare of each individual are contingent on the state, that the state therefore is owed allegiance, that its laws must be obeyed, its leaders respect it. It labels the leaders of the rebellion as traitors, criminal, fanatics, and will crush them if it can. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
As rebels confront government troops, so insurgent morality confronts established morality. If government troops prevail, the insurgent morality is discredited, disappears. If the rebels are victorious, the establishment morality is discredited, succeeded by the insurgent morality. In the latter event the insurgent morality comes to be allied with power, becomes the new establishment morality, ancillary to the safeguarding and expansion of power. In this new role it sanctifies power, reassures the now newly oppressed that their oppression is in the nature of things, perhaps ordained by divine will, that no protest is indicated but rather patience and cooperation, that all must make sacrifices, that the leaders act for the welfare of all, that laws must be obeyed. Thus a morality which began as protest against power becomes the servant of power. The insurgent morality in its insurgency declares that power is corrupt and tends to corrupt everyone and everything allied to it; and when the revolution succeeds, it proves the truth of its indictment by corrupting first those exalted principles under whose banners it rode to power, along with the warriors who bore them. The striking way in which the modern World is moving toward its doom is not accidental but predetermined. Yet this terrible inevitability is not imposed from without by arbitrary power. It arises from within, from the World’s own characteristics. During the First World War, a civilization ridden by pleasures of the flesh which had sought intense pleasures found intense pain. Did it learn the implicit lesson? No! It plunged more wildly than ever in the quest for joy involving pleasures of the flesh, only to find still worse agony in the Second World War. The more it has wasted the gift of life, the creative force, the more it has lost the essence of life, blood. The creative force of life is white blood. Nature has punished human’s careless dissipation of the one with a forced loss of the other. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
The time has come to teach the lesson of responsibility about pleasures of the flesh in clear words. If humanity refuses to learn and obey spiritual laws, the horror of a third World War, compared with which the second will be mere child’s play, cannot be escaped. It would be agreeable and pleasant to share such optimism about the non-inevitableness of war, but it would also be self-deceptive. When the terrors and horrors of one war fail to have the effect of arousing people to thinking for themselves instead of in a mass, that is to say, of seeking truth individually, then the war will repeat itself again and again. If the war comes, it will have been brought by the erring nations upon themselves. If the war is not to come, they must change their ideas and their actions now. Some believe that war might come in a few years’ time; it might also come in only one year’s time; but it would be folly to deny that it might not even come at all. If no efforts at all had ben made on both the physical and mystical planes to counteract the threatened conflict, it could have broken out in the Cuban crisis year. The situation is still an anxious one but it is not a hopeless one. Piety alone will not suffice to meet it, just as politics alone has already failed to do so. However, the mystical efforts are being kept up. War is not inevitable. No one knows the outcome of the tremendous struggle going on between the atheistic hate forces and the constructive love forces on the mental level. The intercessory and contributory meditations of a few knowledgeable sages afford whatever real hope exists today. If the peoples and leaders fail to respond to those contributions, they will then have to carry the responsibility for its destruction. It is folly not to see that war is inevitable, folly to blind oneself deliberately to what is coming merely because one dreads it. While our human interest and nature shudder at the though of such war, our human wisdom and insight have no doubt it will take place. The dander is not only that a Third World War will come, but that it will come during an inconvenient time. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
None of the wars which humankind have hitherto suffered was Armageddon, for the last war was fought out fully and extended its devastations only in three continents and partly on the fourth, but the fifth was not affected in the same way. When Armageddon comes, it will devastate five continents. The mass of people does not take to truly spiritual concepts. Extroversion, egoism, and preoccupation with personal or Worldly affairs keep out any interest or attention in such concepts. Only the crushing shock of atomic war will provide an impulsion toward them from without. Even the new polarization of attitudes which is emerging as a consequence of the war, is confused rather than clear-cut. The ghastly tragedy of this confusion would show itself at its very worst in Armageddon. In the Second World War the issues between good and evil were clear-cut and easily discernible. However, in the Third World War they would be confused, chaotic, and mixed. It does not require much perceptiveness to perceived the inevitability of Armageddon. This fear haunts millions today and is one of the impulsions to the search for spiritual comfort, in one group, and the search for forgetfulness in pleasures, with the larger group. We may face the tragic inevitability of a Third World War with fear and gloom or with calm and resignation. Many suicide attempts are preceded by a change in mood. The change may not be severe enough to warrant a diagnosis of mental disorder, but it does represent a significant shift from the person’s past mood. The most common change is an increase in sadness. Also common are increases in feelings of anxiety, tension, frustration, anger, or shame. In fact, the key to suicide may be “psychache,” a feeling of psychological pian that seems intolerable to the person. Suicide attempts may also be preceded by shifts in patterns of thinking. Individuals may become preoccupied with their problems, or mood will not change. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
Some clinicians believe that a feeling of hopelessness is the single most likely indicator of suicidal intent, and they take special care to look for signs of hopelessness when they access the risk of suicide. Many people who attempt suicide fall victim to dichotomous thinking, viewing problems and solutions in rigid either/or terms. Indeed, the “four-letter word” in suicide is “only,” as in “suicide was the only thing I could do.” In the following statement a woman who survived her leap from a building describes her dichotomous thinking at the time. She saw death as the only alternative to her pain. “I was so desperate. I felt my God, I could not face this thing. Everything was like a terrible whirlpool of confusion. And I though to myself: There is only one thing to do. I just have to lose consciousness. That is the only way to get away from it. The only way to lose consciousness, I thought, was to jump off something good and high.” Studies indicate that as many as 60 percent of the people who attempt suicide drink alcohol just before the act. Autopsies reveal that about 25 percent of these people are legally intoxicated. In fact, considering that coroners are more likely to classify deaths as accidental when they detect high alcohol levels, the excessive use of alcohol just before death by suicide is probably much higher. Such statistics suggest to many clinical researchers that alcohol often helps trigger suicidal behaviour. A variety of factors may account for this relationship between alcohol use and suicide. Alcohol’s disinhibiting effects may allow people who are considering suicide to overcome the fears that would otherwise restrain them. Alternatively, alcohol may contribute to suicide by lowering an individual’s inhibitions against violence and helping to release underlying aggressive feelings. Yet another possibility is that alcohol further impairs a suicidal person’s judgment and problem-solving abilities. Research suggests that the use of other kinds of drugs may have a similar tie to death by suicide, particularly in teenagers and young adults. A high level of heroine, for example, was found in the blood of a popular musician at the time the individual died by death from suicide. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
Holiday effect—studied in countries throughout Europe indicate the suicide rates tend to drop before Christmas and Easter but then increase after those holidays. Seasonal violence—although findings are sometimes mixed, many studies suggest that suicides committed by violent methods are highest during the spring and lowest in the late fall. Most common killings—more suicides (31,000) than homicides (23,000) are committed in the United State of America each year. Yet, economically and vocationally, a very large population of the young people are in a plight more drastic than anything so far mentioned. In our society as it is, there are not enough worthy jobs. However, if our society, being as it is, were run more efficiently and soberly, for a majority there would soon not be any jobs at all. There is at present nearly full employment and there may be for some years, yet a vast number of young people are rationally unemployable, useless. This paradox is essential to explain their present temper. Our society, which is not geared to the cultivation of its young, is geared to a profitable expanding production, a so-called high standard of living of mediocre value, a so-called high standard of living of mediocre value, and the maintenance of nearly full employment. Politically, the chief of these is full employment. In a crisis, when profitable production is temporarily curtailed, government spending increases and jobs are manufactured. In “normalcy”—a condition of slow boom—the easy credit, installment buying, and artificially induced demand for useless goods create jobs for all and good profits for some. Now, back when the pandemic started, when the stimulus attempted by hook or crook to put people back to work and give them money to revive a shattered economy, there was an outcry of moral indignation from the conservatives that many of the jobs were “boondoggling,” useless made-work. It was insisted, and rightly, that such work was demoralizing to the workers themselves. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
It was insisted, and rightly, that such work was demoralizing to the workers themselves. It is a question of a word, but a candid critic might certainly say that many of the jobs in our present “normal” production are useless made-work. The tail fins and built-in obsolescence might be called boondoggling. The $64,000 Question and the busy hum of Madison Avenue might certainly be called boondoggling. Certain tax-dodge Foundations are boondoggling. What of business lunches and expense accounts? fringe benefits? The comic categories of occupation in the building trades? the extra stage hands and musicians of the theater crafts? These jolly devices to put money back to work no doubt have a demoralizing effect on somebody or other (certainly on me, they make me green with envy), but where is the moral indignation from Top Management? Supposed we would cut out the boondoggling and gear our society to a more sensible abundance, with efficient production of quality goods, distribution in a natural market, counterinflation and sober credit. At once the work week would be cut to, stay, twenty hours instead of forty. (Important People have already mentioned the figure thirty.) Or alternately, half of the labor force would be unemployed. Suppose too—and how can we not suppose it?—that the automatic machines are used generally, rather than just to get rid of badly organized unskilled labor. The unemployment will be still more drastic. (To give the most striking example: in steel, the annual increase in productivity is 4 percent, the plants work at 50 percent of capacity, and the companies can break even stop producing at less than 30 percent of capacity. These are the conditions that forced the steel strike, as desperate self-protection.) Everybody knows this, nobody wants to talk about it much, for we do not know how to cope with it. The effect is that we are living a kind of lie. Long ago, labor leaders used to fight for the shorter work week, but not they do not, because they are pretty sure they do not want it. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Indeed, when hours are reduced, the tendency is to get a second, part-time, job and raise the standard of living, because the job is meaningless and one must have something; but the standard of living is pretty meaningless, too. Nor is this strange atmosphere a new thing. For at least a generation the maximum sensible use of our productivity could have thrown a vast population out of work, or relieved everybody a lot of useless work, depending on how you take it. (Consider with how little cutback of useful civilian production the economy produced the war goods and maintained an Army, economically unemployed.) The plain truth is that at present very many of us are useless, not needed, rationally unemployable. It is this paradoxical atmosphere that young persons’ grow up. It looks busy and expansive, but it is rationally at a stalemate. A new civilization is forming. However, where do we fit into it? Do not today’s technological changes and social upheavals mean the end of friendship, love, commitment, community, and caring? Will not tomorrow’s electronic marvels make human relationships even more vacuous and vicarious then they are today? For example, so many people are impressed by the new BMW IX M60, which can change exterior paint colors by the push of a button, and also has the technology to heal the kidney grill if it is injured. Nonetheless, these are legitimate questions. They arise from reasonable fears, and only a naïve technocrat would brush them lightly aside. For if we look around us, we find widespread evidence of psychological breakdown. It is as though a bomb had gone off in out communal “psycho-sphere.” We are, in fact, experiencing not merely the breakup of the Second Wave techno-sphere, info-sphere, or socio-sphere but the crack-up of its psycho-sphere as well. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
Throughout the affluent nations the litany is all too familiar: rising rates of juvenile suicide, dizzying high levels of alcoholism, widespread psychological depression, vandalism, and crime. In the United States of America, emergency rooms are crowded with “potheads,” “speed freaks,” “Quaalude kids,” “coke sniffers,” “heroin junkies,” “fentanyl fires,” “molly malfunctions,” “ecstasy electrocutes,” “lean limps,” and not to mention people having “nervous breakdowns.” Social work and mental healthy industries are booming everywhere. In Washington a President’s Commission on Mental Health announces that fully one fourth of all citizens in the United States of America suffers from some form of severe emotional stress. And a National Institute of Mental Health psychologist, charging that almost no family is free of some form of mental disorder, declares that “psycological turbulence is rampant in an American society that is confused, divided and concerned about its future.” It is true that spongy definitions and unreliable statistics make such sweeping generations suspect, and it is doubly true that earlier societies were such sweeping generations suspect, and it is doubly true that earlier societies were scarcely models of good mental health. Yet something is terribly wrong today. There is a harassed, knife-edge quality to daily life. Nerves are ragged, and—as the scuffles and shootings in subways or on gas queues suggest—tempers are barely under hair-trigger control. Millions of people are terminally fed up. They are, moreover, increasingly hassled by an apparently swelling army of heavy breathers, kooks, flakes, weirdos, and psycho whose antisocial behavior is frequently glamorized by the media. In the West at least, we see a pernicious romanticization of insanity, a glorification of the “cuckoo nest” inmate. Best-sellers proclaim that madness is a myth, and a literary journal springs up in Berkeley decided to the notion that “Madness, Genius, and Sainthood all lie in the same realm, and should be given the same name and prestige.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Meanwhile, millions of individuals search frantically for their own identities or for some magic therapy to re-integrate their personalities, provide instant intimacy or ecstasy, or lead them to “higher” states of consciousness. By the late 2000’s a human potential movement, spreading eastward from California, had spawned some 8,000 different “therapies” consisting of odds and ends of psychoanalysis, Eastern religion, experimentations with pleasures of the flesh, game playing, and old-time revivalism. In the words of one critical survey, “these techniques were neatly packaged and distributed coast to coast under like Mind Dynamic, Arica, and Silva Mind Control. Transcendental Meditation was already being peddled like speed reading; Scientology’s Dianetics had been mass-marketing its own popular therapy since the fifties. At the same time, America’s religious cults got into the swing, fanning out quietly across the country in massive fund-raising and recruitment drives.” More important than the growing human-potential industry is the Christian evangelical movement. Appealing to poorer and less educated segments of the public, making sophistical use of high-powered radio and television, the “born again” movement is ballooning in size. Religious huckster, riding its crest, send their followers scrambling for salvation in a society they picture as decadent and doomed. This wave of malaise had not struck all parts of the technological World with equal force. For this reason, readers in Europe and elsewhere may be tempted to shrug it off as a largely American phenomenon, while in the United States of America itself some still regard it as just another manifestation of California’s fabled flakiness. Neither view could be further from the truth. If psychic distress and disintegration are most strikingly evident in the Untied States of America, and especially in California, it merely reflects the fact that the Fourth Wave has arrived a bit earlier than elsewhere, causing Third Wave social structures to topple sooner and more spectacularly. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
Indeed, a kind of paranoia has settled over many communities, and not just the United States of America. In Rome, Turin, and even in America, terrorists stalk the streets and secretly are employed in many communities. They have become like the old day klan, where many of their members hold jobs in the TV new media, at law firms, in the courthouses, in law enforcement, property management and the supermarket. They are everywhere. In Paris, and even in once peaceful London, muggings and vandalism increase. In Chicago, San Francisco, and Downtown Sacramento, elderly people are afraid to walk the streets after the street lights come on. In New York, schools and subways crackle with violence. And back in California, a magazine offers its readers a supposedly practical guide to “handguns and gun courses, attack-trained dogs, burglar alarm in door and outdoor home surveillance audio and visual, personal-safety devices, self-defense courses and computerized security systems that update homeowners on their mobile devices if fire or other danger is detected.” There is a sick odor in the air. It is the smell of a dying Third Wave civilization. Thank God, I found out Satan is no match for the believer who knows his authority, and position in Jesus Christ! When you are born again, you become the righteousness of God and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. All that Jesus has is yours. His righteousness is imputed to you. “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him,” reports 2 Corinthians 5.21. He hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” reports Ephesians 2.6. When you stand before Satan, he does not see you—he sees the authority of Jesus. The Word says you are the righteousness of God, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God ordained. We have sung those old unbelieving songs so long that we thought it was true. “Jus a weary pilgrim, struggling through this World, I know not today what tomorrow will bring, shadows, sunshine or rain.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
Do not just show up for work. Do not just go through the motions. No, be passionately fulfilling your destiny. That is the way we should be. Have some enthusiasm. Choose to be happy; live with excellence and integrity, and put a spring in your step. Put a smile on your face, and let the World know that you are enjoying the life God has given you! If you want to see God’s favor, do everything with your whole heart. Do it with passion and some fire. Not only will you feel better, but that energy will spread, and soon other people will want what you have. Do you want your life to make an impact? You can change the atmosphere of your home or your entire office with a little bit of enthusiasm. You may have to live or work around people who are prone to being pessimistic, who tend to drag you down. However, do not let them throw mud on your shine. Do not their lack of enthusiasm squelch your passion. If you live with a deadbeat spouse, make a decision tht you are going to be happy and enthusiastic anyway. If you work around people who are always negative, try to overcome that negativity by being optimistic, encouraging, and uplifting. Polish your shine more than usual to make sure the glow does not go out. When everybody else is down and defeated, when you are all alone with nobody nearby to encourage you, simply encourage yourself. Your attitude should be: It does not matter what anybody else does or does not do, I am going to live my life with enthusiasm! I am going to stay on fire. I am going to be aglow. I am going to be passionate about seeing my dreams come to pass. Stay full of zeal. Stay passionate about seeing your dreams come to pass. Stay on fire and aglow. Whatever you do, do it with enthusiasm! The Holy Bible says, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land,” reports Isaiah 1.19. Notice, we have to be more than obedient; we must be willing—willing to do the right thing, willing to live with a good attitude and with enthusiasm. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
God does not want you to drag through life defeated and depressed. No matter what you have been through, no matter whose fault it was, no matter how impossible your situation may look, the good news is that God wants to turn it around and restore everything that has been stolen from you. He wants to restore your marriage, your family, your career. God wants to restore your joy and give you a peace and happiness you have never known before. Most of all, He wants to restore your relationship with Him. God wants you to live a satisfied life. God does not want you simply to feel a little better for a few days. No, God is in the long-term restoration business. He wants you to have a life filled with an abundance of joy, an abundance of happiness. God does not want you simply to survive that marriage. God wants to turn it around and restore you with a strong, healthy, rewarding relationship. God does not want your business to merely make it through the murky economic waters. He wants your business to sail and to excel! When God restores, He always brings you out better, improved, increased, and multiplied. He has a vision of total victory for your life! Hold on to that new, enlarged vision of victory that God has given you. Start expecting things to change in your favor. Dare to boldly declare that you are standing strong against the forces of darkness. You will not settle for a life of mediocrity! Raise your level of expectancy. It is our faith that activates the power of God. Let us quit limiting Him with our small-minded thinking and start believing Him for bigger and better things. You can start to day to live a successful life now. Remember, if you obey God and are willing to trust Him, you will have the best this life has to offer—and more! Animals, referred to by John Muir as our horizontal brothers, have long been recognized as essential to our development and well-being. Throughout history they have played a major role in human thought and culture. They inhabit our myth, fables, proverbs, and stories. There is a profound, inescapable need for animals among all peoples, for while animals have inhabited a World without people, we have never lived without the companionship, example, and practical help of animals. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
Today, because of the wide-spread pollution of air and water, the rapid expansion of cities, and the destruction of wilderness habitat, we are seeing an imminent and irreversible loss of untamed animal life. We can only guess at the future effect on our children of living in a World in which elephants exist only in zoos, the great whales no longer fill the seas with their song, and the remaining forests are silent. The fact that so many of us are increasingly isolated from the presence of animals may contribute to the growing despair we feel. Direct encounter with animals, meeting them eye to eye on their own ground, evokes a sudden wonder and respect. Their vivid life brings us alive to the source that creates and sustains all beings. Without such encounters we risk losing that part of ourselves which most deeply resonates with nature—the heart of compassion. In safety and in Bliss, may all creature be of a blissful heart. If our greatest loss with the animals have been to lose touch with the reality of their existence, our second loss has been to banish them from our minds. We assume they have nothing to teach us about the predicaments of our existence. We no longer know how to listen to the wisdom of the various four-legged, six-legged, finned and winged creatures that share our life on this Earth. We forget they are ancestors as well as kindred. Long before we existed, they worked out the round of life in thousands of variations, as though anticipating the experiments of human cultures. We must remember how to call upon our powers of empathy and compassion. We are asked to awaken to the plight of our animal relatives, to let their beauty and power come alive for us once more. Humanity has long been a pandemic on this Earth, on nature, and on the animals. We are members of a human family and society, but the presence of animal “others” enlarges our perception of the self beyond the city and opens us inward to that ground of being where live the lizard and monkey, the fish and the bear. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
These are our relations. These are, like us, offspring of the great mystery, and necessary parts of a balanced and living whole. Dear Lord in Heaven, thank You, Father, for giving me this amazing, incredible life, and for making it possible to enjoy every part of it, even the tough times. Thank You for being my Future; I know You have good things in store. I will praise You now and forever for all that You have done for me! O Lord, God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, keep this forever in the inward thoughts of the heart of Thy people, and direct their heart unto Thee, for Thou being merciful, full of compassion, forgives iniquity and destroyest not; yea, many a time Thou turnest anger away. For Thou, O Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and abounding in mercy unto all who call upon Thee. Thy righteousness is everlasting and Thy Law is truth. Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, as Thou hast promised unto our fathers from the days of old. Blessed be the Lord who day by day bears our burden. He is the God of Jacob be a stronghold unto us. O Lord of hosts, happy is the man that trusteth in Thee. Save, O Lord; O King, answer us on the day when we call. Blessed be our God hath created us for His glory, and hath separated us from them that go astray by giving us the Torah of truth, thus planting everlasting life in our midst. May He opened our hearts unto His Law, and with love and reverence may we do His will and serve Him with a perfect heart that we may not labour in vain, nor bring forth confusion. May it be Thy will, O Lord, our God and God of our fathers, that we keep Thy statutes in the World to come. May my soul sing Thy praise and not be silent; O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto Thee, forever. Blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee, O Lord, and whose trust Thou art. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord is an everlasting Rock. And they that know Thy name put their trust in Thee; Thou hast not forsaken them that seek Thee. Thou, O Lord, desirest for the sake of Thy righteousness to make the Torah great and glorious. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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You Understand that Harsh Night Was Only a Comedy!
We judge ourselves by what we are capable of doing; try not to become a human of success but rather a human of value. There are many reasons celibacy was so population in the 18th century. Youth were sometimes exposed to adults involved in pleasures of the flesh and they did not like seeing that, and these adults when then prey on the youth and try to get them involved. Because of how disgusted they were, a lot of women did not want to marry, but it was not just because of what they were exposed to, but some other things as well. Mother Ann Lee, the founder of American Shakerism, was born in 1736 into misery and degradation of Manchester, England. As a child, she did have the luxury of attending school, and joined the racks of child labour with her job in a textile factory. Against her repeated pleas, her father forced Ann into marriage—and its dread conjugal duties—with blacksmith Abraham Stanley. Sadly, the union produced three babies, who died soon after birth, which was the fate of half Manchester’s children, and this was a true depression. Nothing is more sad than the loss of life. Ann had a fourth child called Elizabeth, who lived for only six years. This left her tormented by grief and guilt. Ann concluded that the root of her personal tragedy, and indeed of all human depravity was pleasures of the flesh. As if it had embers in it, Ann’s shattered psyche inspire her to avoid her own marriage bed. Despite Stanley’s passion for his beautiful, blue-eyed, chestnut-haired wife, he was willing to forgo pleasures of the flesh and accepted her religion and celibacy. With her new found freedom, Anne became a preacher. She was so passionate and enthusiastic that she converted her faither and two brothers. #RandolphHarris 1 of 26
However, Ann’s new found freedom did not last for long. Patriarchal England was hostile to women preachers. Persecution, including imprisonment began. While in a brutal dungeon, Ann had a vision. Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, fornicating, whereupon God flung them out of sight. This was, Ann believed, a divine revelation. Just as the regimen of healthy people is not suitable for the sick, one should not want to govern a corrupt people by means of the same laws that are suited to a good people. Pleasures of the flesh had caused humankind’s alienation from God. We are told that people of true Christians would form the most perfect society imaginable. Celibacy, therefore, was essential for spiritual rebirth. We have based our words about virginity on the fact that it is first of all a charism, a gift received from God and, consequently, a vocation. Virginity must be received as a gift—an offering to God’s majesty, a living sacrifice and imitation of the imitation of the Eucharist of Christ. Ann’s version of the Fall of Man differed radically from the Church’s. God had punished Adam and Eve equally, so their longings for pleasures of the flesh, not Eve’s special wickedness, were at the crux of His fury. Maybe God wanted humans to procreate like the Virgin Mary, spontaneously and without indulging in pleasures of the flesh. Ann wasted no hatred on womankind but spent it all on the great evil, pleasures of the flesh. The Fathers of the Church were not content to observe the commandments, but also offered God gifts. Christ’s commandments have been given to all Christians, and every Christian is obliged to observe them. The most beautiful thing we can do is renew this gift of ourselves. What makes a gift beautiful and precious is its integrity. The object must be new and intact. We must all nothing in ourselves—in thoughts, looks, or actions—to offend His presence or “grieve” the Spirit. #RandolphHarris 2 of 26
It was Ann’s startling message—celibacy, even after marriage—that converted people. Women had their own special reasons to welcome celibacy. With no effective birth control or it not being allowed by the Church, abstinence was a great idea. Many people still enjoyed bearing children, but they also feared what could happen, so some dreaded it. Childbirth could be agonizing and often fatal: morality rates for mothers and newborns were sky-high. Women delivered squatting over filthy birthing stools or straw, and postpartum puerperal fever killed them in droves. Poor nutrition deformed pelvic bones so bad that babies were trapped in misshapen birth canals. Midwives used hooks to extract the babies, often in bloody chunks. Those children who survived into adulthood faced only the same bleak poverty their parents could never escape. Abstinence was a woman’s main defense against these prospects, but husbands, churches, and society would not tolerate it. Mother Ann’s style of celibacy was different. It was a form of devotion, a duty to God, a conscious renunciation of odious carnal indulgence. It bestowed on the believer the moral authority to resist opposition, including irate husbands. Slowly, the number of Shakers grew. The idea that one had a higher self, the conviction that on had a soul, broke in upon their little existence with great revelatory force, and the people felt it emerging into glorious lighter after a dreary journey though a long dark tunnel. The Overself was enthroned. The disciples realized its presence in their inmost feelings. Nothing on their experience, intellectual or emotional, had possessed for the member such satisfying ecstasy, such as paradisical contentment. For the delight of the higher levels of spiritual experience, unlike the delight of passionate Earthly experience, never palls but remains ever fresh and vivid as through encountered for the first time. #RandolphHarris 3 of 26
The World took on the texture of a lovely half-dream. God’s feet treaded air. Blissfully, wondrously, and overwhelmingly the disciple became that which one sought. The delight of these exalted moments and the fragrance of these Heavenly visitations lingered in the Shaker’s memories for years after they themselves had vanished, and the influence on subsequent life and thought was as long and they themselves were short and beautiful. The experienced would slip away, but the memory of its certitude would remain. This all happened deep in the secret places of one’s own heart. As Ann’s fame increased, so did the hatred of civil authorities. They imprisoned her time and again and did little to prevent enraged citizens from chasing, kicking, and stoning her. Ann’s sufferings simply strengthened her faith and honed her theology. Ann saw her marriage to Christ as evidence of her own greatly exalted status as a person entrusted with divine truths and wisdom. Shaker celibacy was not only its own reward but also the precursor of other, tangible offices and honours. Something similar happens in the life of a young man or woman when they really fall in love. While they were “free” and open to various possibilities, any man or woman who passed by might have drawn their attention and “distracted” them, just as a sheep always leaves a scrap of its wool on the thorns of a hedge when it comes too close. However, one true love for someone has taken hold, every other person and in fact the whole World, respectfully steps back and even fades away entirely for a while. Their hearts are not fixed on one person. A kind of catharsis happens: the new relationship does not destroy all others—companions, relatives or friends—but puts each one in its proper place. Something similar happens to the consecrated soul on the day when, moved by the uncreated love which is the Holy Spirit, one chooses Jesus as Lord and Spouse. The heart is no longer “free,” no longer wanders, and is no longer so easily “distracted” this way and that. #RandolphHarris 4 of 26
This is true virginity for the sake of the Kingdom. God grant that we may desire it, even if from a distance, and make our way towards it, albeit haltingly, with the steps of a child. To encourage one to do this and to strengthen one’s willingness to turn away from the lower nature, the higher self alternately reveals and hides itself at intervals. Once the Overself has vouchsafed to one its Grace, one must make oneself increasingly worthy of the gift. The aspirant should regard the glimpse afforded one in the glow of one’s best moments as a working blueprint. One has to make oneself over again according to the mental picture thus placed before one. The purpose is to call one to more serious, more frequent, and sterner efforts, and to arouse one in increased ardours of moral self-improvement. Mother Ann designed Shaker society so that even its physical plant reflected the celibacy at its ideological core. Men and women lived in segregated quarters and were never alone. At religious services, they sat apart. However, Mother Ann was too wise to suppose that forced separation could, by itself, forestall all lapses in conduct. Lust, she knew all too well, was a powerful force: her husband, Abraham, for one, had lusted after he for years. In fact, his unquenchable longing for a carnal relationship was one of the first things she dealt with in America. Somehow, she managed to convince him that she would never relent about pleasures of the flesh, and her grieving husband finally walked out, leaving his wife alone in her splendid celibacy. To that diviner self thus glimpsed, one must henceforth address all one’s prayers; through its remembrance one must seek succor; in its reliance one must perform all one’s endeavours; by its light one must plead for grace. For the Overself to give itself wholly and perpetually to a human is a rare and wonderful event. Most often it gives itself only for a short time. This serves to intensify and enlarge his love and attraction for it, and to provide one with beautiful memories to support and sustain one in faithfulness to the quest in the fatiguing long-drawn years of struggle and darkness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 26
When the Grace has led one sufficiently far, one will be distinctly aware of an inner presence. It will think for one, feel for one, and even act for one. This is the beginning of, and what it means to have, an egoless life. Just as the sun’s rays are reflected on a burnished silver plate, so the Overself’s attributes are faithfully reflected on a purified and egoless mind. For socializing, the Shakers enjoyed thrice-weekly “union meetings” where men and women sat face-to-face, talking or reading or singing. They released their tensions by speaking in tongues: we can only guess what streamy yearnings were dissipated in the babel. No great sexual scandals ever surfaced. Sexual sublimation, orchestrated into daily life, made celibacy joyous for many believers, tolerable for those with aching loins. However, celibacy was not enough: even loyalty between celibate spouses threatened the tightly knit Shaker community. As late as 1810, an Ohio Shaker meeting-house was mobbed by five hundred angry men. It took six bitter years to establish equilibrium in the commune. By then Shaker core had become Americanized. New rituals and traditions replaced the lost ones, and internal harmony developed. And, thanks to Shaker industry and ingenuity, poverty gave way to prosperity and financial security. However, they failed to interest their growing children into staying. The most serious point of dissension was the most fundamental: celibacy, which dictated the Shaker’s architecture, regulations, and way of life. The Shaker’s worst failure was with their children, most of whom rejected the austere religion and lifestyle. At New Lebanon between 1821 and 1864, of 144 boys admitted, some foundlings but most with their parents, 8 died, 10 were “carried away,” 2 were sent away, 22 became Shakers, and 102 left “for the World.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 26
Many suicide notes go undetected or unconfirmed because the only people who could tell us the truth are gone from the World. Many other people who commit suicide, however, an estimated 12 to 33 percent—leave notes that reveal their intentions and psychological state only hours or minutes before they died. “Bill: I am sorry for causing you so much trouble. I really did not want to and if you would have told me at the first time the truth probably both of us would be very happy now. Bill I am sorry but I cannot take the life any more, I do not think there is any goodness in the World. I love you very very much and I want you to be as happy in your life as I wanted to make you. Tell your parents I am very sorry and please if you can do it do not ever let my parents know what happened. Please, do not hate me Bill, I love you. -Mary.” “Dear Jean, Unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abject humanity, I love you. -Paul (You understand that hash night was only a comedy.)” Each suicide note is a personal document, unique to the writer and the circumstances. Some are barely a single sentence; others run several pages. People who leave noted clearly wish to send a powerful message to those they leave behind, whether it be “a cry for help, an epitaph, or a last will and testament.” Most suicide notes are addressed to specific individuals. Survivours’ reactions to suicide notes vary. A note can clarify the cause of death, thus saving relatives the ordeal of a legal investigation. Friends and relative may find that it eases their grief to know the person’s reasons for committing suicide. Yet some suicide notes add to the confusion, guilt, or horror that survivours experience, as was the following case. #RandolphHarris 7 of 26
Rather than permit his wife to leave him, twenty-year-old Mr. Jefferson hanged himself in the bathroom, leaving a note on the front door for his wife, saying, “Cathy I love you. You’re right, I am crazy…and thank you for trying to love me. Phil.” Mrs. Jefferson felt and frequently insisted that she “killed Phil.” She attempted suicide herself a week after. Clinical researcher have tried to improve their understanding of suicide by studying differences between genuine and fake suicide notes, the age and gender of note writers, the grammar of notes, the type and frequency of words used, conscious and unconscious contents, handwriting, and emotional, cognitive, and motivational themes. One important finding is that suicide notes vary significantly with age. Younger persons express more hostility toward themselves and site more interpersonal problems in their notes; those between 40 and 49 report being unable to cope with life; those between 50 and 59 tend not to cite a reason for their suicide; and those over 60 are motivated by such problems as illness, pain, disability, and loneliness. Studies of notes have also revealed that the nature of suicide had changed little since the 1940s, except that we are seeing more “suicide by police officers,” which is when people do things to intentionally get killed by a law enforcement officer. Suicide notes written in the 1940s, and the 1950s, are similar in content to modern notes, with one exception: modern notes show less confusion and more limited thinking. A number of studies have also been conducted on writings that are similar to suicide notes. For example, one team of investigators compared poems by nine poets who committed suicide to those written by nine poets who did not commit suicide. #RandolphHarris 8 of 26
The poets who experienced death by suicide used more first-person self-references in their works, such as “I” and “me,” as well as more words associated with death. In addition, the poets who experienced death by suicide used fewer communication terms (such as “talk” and “listen”) in the poems they had written close to the time of their death by suicide, while nonsuicial poets actually increased their use of such words during this same period of time. Thus, it may be that people who are contemplating suicide tend to use language in distinct ways—ways that may eventually help clinicians identify and distinguish a person’s risk for suicide. A suicide note (or similar offering) provides only a partial picture of the writer’s experiences, perceptions, thoughts, and emotions. Moreover, the writers themselves may not be fully aware of their motives; their desperate thinking prevents them from being truly insightful. Suicide notes are not the royal road to an easy understanding of suicidal phenomena, but in combination with other sources they can point clinicians and researchers in the right direction. Research use a strategy to determine who is at risk of death by suicide by studying people who survive their death by suicide attempts. It is estimated that there are 8 to 20 nonfatal suicide attempts for every fatal suicide. However, it may be that people who survive death by suicide differ in important ways from those who do not. Many of them may not really have wanted to die, for example. Nevertheless, suicide researchers have found it useful to study survivours of suicide; and we shall consider those who attempt death by suicide and those who experience death by suicide as more or less alike. To help address the psychological trauma experienced by many fans of celebrities who have recently experienced death by suicide, postvention” approached are often employed, including counseling sessions in schools and special media programs. #RandolphHarris 9 of 26
In the days following the death of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, a candlelight vigil in Seattle was attended by 5,000 people. What triggers death by suicide? Sometimes people are trying to silence a victim or witness, and faking a suicide is a way to cover up a murder. Often times if the family does not press for an investigation, if it looks like death by suicide, that is how it is labeled, even though it may not be. Suicidal acts may be connected to recent events or current conditions in a person’s life. Although such factors may not be the basic motivation for the death by suicide, they can precipitate it. Common triggering factors include stressful events in the recent lives of suicide attempters than in the lives of matched control subjects. In one study, suicide attempters reported twice as many stressful events in the year before their attempts as nonsuicial depressed patients or patients with other kinds of psychological problems. One form of immediate stress seen in cases of suicide is the loss of a loved one through death, divorce, or rejection. Another is the loss of a job. Still another is the stress experienced during pandemics, hurricanes or other natural disasters, even by young children. A suicide attempt may also be precipitated by a series of recent events that have a combined impact, rather than by a single event, as in the following case. Aaliyah’s suicide attempt took place in the context of a very difficult year for the family. Aaliyah’s mother and father separated after 9 years of marriage. Father the father moved out, he visited the family erratically. Four months after he loved out of the house, the mother’s boyfriend moved into the house. The mother planned to divorce her husband and marry her boyfriend, Robert, who had become the major disciplinarian for the children, a fact that Aaliyah intensely resented. Aaliyah also complained of being “left out” in relation to the closeness she had with her mother. #RandolphHarris 10 of 26
Another problem Aaliyah had was that she and her mother looked alike, so people thought Robert was her boyfriend. Also, Aaliyah had experienced two changes in schools in the last two years which left her feeling friendless. In addition, she received a 4.0, but it was totally overshadowed by rumors of a marriage and a new baby sibling. China’s 300,000 annual suicides, 10 times the United States of Americas’ toll, represents 40 percent of all suicides in the World. China is the only country in which female suicides are more common than male suicides, account for more than 50 percent of suicides by women Worldwide. Research finds that fans of heavy metal rock consider suicide more acceptable then do people who are not fans. However, this attitude does not seem to result from the music or the lifestyle it espouses. Rather, heavy metal fans tend to be low in religiosity, and low religiosity relates to greater acceptability of suicide. Those fans who are religious rate suicide just as unacceptable as nonfans do. There is authority in faith-filled words. The authority in the widow’s words changed the unjust man’s decision. Though he would not do it for a while, her words—the authority in those words—troubled him, and he finally gave in. Many have thought Jesus Christ was teaching us to keep pestering God until we finally wear him down. This could never be representative of God. This was an unjust judge, who had all the qualities of Satan. The authority in the window’s voice changed the decision of the unjust judge. Her words changed his mind. Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life,” reports John 6.63. The words that Jesus Christ spoke are not just printed pages. They are spirit life. When you get them on the side of you, they will transform your spirit. They will cause you to speak words of faith, driving out defeat and bring victory. #RandolphHarris 11 of 26
Jesus said, “Hear what the unjust judge saith.” People try to relate the unjust judge to God, but how can you compare an unjust judge to God? Rome perished in the same way, and the excessive power of the tribunes, which they had gradually usurped, finally served, with the help of the laws that were made to protect liberty, as a safeguard, with the help of the laws that were made to protect liberty, as a safeguard for the emperors who destroyed it. As for the Council of Ten in Venice, it is a tribunal of blood, equally horrible to the patricians and the people, and which, far from proudly protecting the laws, no longer serves any purpose, after their degradation, beyond that of delivering blows in the dark which no one dares notice. If we do that, we have missed the whole point of what Jesus was teaching. Let us rightly divine the Word of Truth: “Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, least by her continual coming she weary me.” In other words, “That woman meant what she said. I know by the tone of her voice, she will be back.” The unjust judge is only troubled. He is not weary yet. However, her continual coming would cause him to be weary. Since he is not weary yet, evidently she had not been coming. She only came once. He said, “I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.” The unjust judge granted her request so she would not come back. The Lord said, “Shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though he bear long with them? He is not saying they were crying day and night over the same thing; yet we have read that into it. We have had the same idea here as in the first verse when Jesus said, “Men ought always to pray, and not faint.” In other words, “You have a need this morning, pray about it. If it is not manifest and you have another need tonight, do not sit around wringing your hands saying, ‘Since God did not answer my first prayer, He will not answer this one.’” #RandolphHarris 12 of 26
God has to bear long with us at times. However, that is because we are not in line with the Word of God and we try to do it our way. There have been times when I have prayed about everything and just thrown out a scatter load, hoping to God some of it would work. Once in a while, some of it would and I would be surprised. That is what you call a “faith accident.” You finally come across something that you believe, and it happens. Jesus said, “I tell you that He (God) will avenge them speedily.” The unjust judge did not avenge speedily, but Jesus said that God would avenge us speedily. “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on Earth?” Will He find the kind of faith this woman possessed? Even though she was so insignificant in the eyes of the public, she went to the unjust judge—a man who feared neither God nor man—and her request was granted. Will the Son of man find that kind of faith when He comes back? “There was a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man.” As we have noted, he would qualify for the devil. It certainly could not be God. The unjust judge is representative of the evil one or Satan. The widow represents that individual believer. Jesus is showing us the power of speaking boldly. Without Christ, we can not do nothing; but, praise God, we are not without Him! Jesus said, “Hear what the unjust judge saith.” Now when Jesus says hear something, He means to pay special attention to it. Hear what Satan will say when a believer comes to him and demands boldly, “Avenge me of my adversary.” As believers today we would say, “I demand my rights in Jesus’ name.” This little woman was coming in the authority of her faith and not by sight. The unjust judge is representative of Satan who is subject to the authority of faith-filled words. When the Son of man returns, will He find this kind of faith on Earth—that a believer would dare to stand before the unjust one and tell him what to do? #RandolphHarris 13 of 26
This not only portrays the individual believer using his authority, but also the Church using the name of Jesus. Isaiah 54.4-5, says she shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name. Ephesians 3.9-10, outlines the role of Church is to play: “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the World hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in Heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” What principalities and powers is he talking about? The same principalities and powers mentioned in Ephesians 6.12, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this World, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” He is saying, “For we wrestle…against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this World, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” He is talking about the devil, his angels, and all his evil forces. To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers might be known by the church manifold wisdom of God. The Church is going to reveal the manifold wisdom of God, showing that God was in Christ reconciling the World to Himself, declaring His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past and bestowing on us His righteousness. The Church can come forth wearing the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation, having our loins grit with the Truth and our feet sod with the gospel of peace, with the shield of faith in our hands and the Sword of the Spirit in our mouths. We can come boldly before the unjust judge and say, “In the name of Jesus, get your hand off me, off my finances, off of God’s property! I am redeemed from the curse and delivered from the powers of darkness!” #RandolphHarris 14 of 26
Experience teaches us every day the causes that lead to the revolutions of empires. However, since peoples are no longer being formed, we have almost nothing but conjecture to explain how they were formed. The majority vote in each tribe determined the tribe’s vote; the majority vote of the tribes determined the people’s vote; and the same went for the curia and the centuries. This custom was good so long as honesty reigned among the citizens and each was ashamed to give one’s vote publicly in favour of an unjust proposal or an unworthy subject. However, when the people became corrupt and votes were bought, it was fitting that they should give their votes in secret in order to restrain the buyers through distrust and to provide scoundrels the means of not being traitors. Only the greatest dangers can counterbalance the danger of altering the public order, and the sacred power of the laws should never be suspended except when it is a question of the safety of the homeland. In these rare and obvious cases, public safety can be provided for by a special act which confers the responsibility for it on someone who is most worthy. Hence this the judgment whose regulation is the point at issue. Whoever judges more judges honour; and whoever judges honour derives one’s law from opinion. The opinions of a people arise from its constitution. Although the law does not regulate mores, legislation is what gives rise to them. When legislation weakens, mores degenerate; but then the judgment of the censors will not do what the force of the laws has not down. It follows from this that the censorship can be useful for preserving mores, but never for reestablishing them. Establish censors while the laws are vigorous. Once they have lost their vigour, everything is hopeless. Nothing legitimate has any force once the laws no longer have force. The censorship maintains mores by preventing opinions from becoming corrupt, by preserving their rectitude through wise applications, and sometimes even by making a determination on them when they are still uncertain. #RandolphHarris 15 of 26
What is honour for the one, what is shame for the other; and without having given praise of blame to either of the two! By the mere fact that a god was placed at the head of every political society, it followed that there were as many gods as there were peoples. Two peoples who were alien to one another and nearly always enemies could not recognize the same master for very long. Two armies in combat with one another could not obey the same leader. Thus national divisions led to polytheism, and this in turn led to theological and civil intolerance which are by nature the same. However, if asked how in pagan cultures, where each state has its own cult and its own gods, there are no wars of religion, it was for this very reason that each state, having its own cult as well as its own government, did not distinguish its gods from its laws. Political war was theological as well. The departments of the gods were, so to speak, fixed by national boundaries. The gods of one people had no rights over other peoples. The gods of the pagans were not jealous gods. They divided dominion over the Word among themselves. Moses himself and the Hebrew people sometimes countenanced this idea in speaking of the god of Israel. It is true they regarded as nothing the gods of the Canaanites, a proscribed people destined for destruction, and whose land they were to occupy. However, note how they spoke of the divinities of neighbouring peoples whom they were forbidden to attack! Is not the possession of what belongs to you god Chamos, said Jephthah to the Ammonites, lawfully yours? By the same right we possess the lands our victorious god has acquired for himself? It appears to me that here was a clear recognition of the parity between the rights of Chamos and those of the god of Israel. #RandolphHarris 16 of 26
The Romans having spread their cult and their gods, along with their empire, and having themselves often adopted the gods of the vanquished by granting the right of the city to both alike, the peoples of this vast empire gradually found themselves to have multitudes of gods and cults, which were nearly the same everywhere. And that is how paganism finally became a single, identical religion in the known World. Such were the circumstances under which Jesus came to establish a spiritual kingdom on Earth. In separating the theological system from the political system, this made the state to cease being united and caused internal division that never ceased to agitate Christian peoples. However, since this new idea of an otherworldly kingdom had never entered the heads of the pagans, they always regarded the Christians as true rebels who, underneath their hypocritical submission, were only waiting for the moment when they would become independent and the masters, and adroitly usurp the authority they pretended in their weakness to respect. This is the reason for the persecutions. What the pagans feared happened. Then everything changes its appearance. The humble Christians changed their language, and soon this so-called otherworldly kingdom became, under a visible leader, the most violent despotism in this World. However, since there has always been a prince and civil laws, this double power have given rise to a perpetual jurisdictional conflict that has made all good polity impossible in Christian states, and no one has ever been able to know whether it is the priest or the master whom one is obliged to obey. Nevertheless, several peoples, even in Europe or nearby have wanted to preserve or reestablish the ancient system, but without success. The spirit of Christianity has won everything. The sacred cult has always remained or again become independent of the sovereign and without any necessary link to the state. #RandolphHarris 17 of 26
Christianity is a completely spiritual religion, concerned exclusively with things Heavenly. The homeland of the Christian is not of this World. One does one’s duty, it is true, but one does it with a profound indifference toward the success or failure of one’s efforts. So long as one has nothing to reproach oneself for, it matters little to one whether anything is going well or poorly down here. If the state is flourishing, one hardly dares to enjoy public felicity, for fear of becoming puffed up with one’s country’s glory. If the state is in decline, one blessed the hand of God that weighs heavily on one’s people. For the society to be peaceful and for harmony to be maintained, every citizen without exception would have to be an equally good Christian. However, if, unhappily, there is a single ambition human, a single hypocrite, a Cataline, for example, or a Cromwell, one would quite undoubtedly gain the upper hand on one’s pious compatriots. Christian charity does not readily allow one to think ill of one’s neighbours. Once one has discovered by some ruse the art of deceiving them and of laying hold of a part of the public authority, behold a human established in dignity! God will that He be respected. Soon, behold a power! God wills that he be obeyed. Does the trustee of His power abuse it? He is the rod with which God punishes his children. It would be against one’s conscience to expel the usurper. It would be necessary to disturb the public tranquility, use violence and shed blood. All this accords ill with the meekness of a Christian. And after all, what difference does it make weather one is a free human or a surf in this value of tears? The essential thing is getting to Heaven, and reignation is but another means to that end. What is a foreign war breaks out? The citizens march without reservation into combat; none among them dread of deserting. #RandolphHarris 18 of 26
Christians do their duty, but without passion for victory; they know how to die better than how to be victorious. What difference does it make whether they are the victors of the vanquished? Does not providence know better than they what they need? Just imagine the advantage a fierce, impetuous and passionate enemy could draw from their stoicism! Set them face to face with those generous peoples who were devoured by an ardent love of glory and homeland. Suppose your Christian republic is face to face with Sparta or Rome. The pious Christians will be beaten, crushed and destroyed before they realize where they are, or else they will owe their safety only to the scorn their enemies will conceive for them. To my way of thinking, the oath taken by Fabius’ soldiers was a fine one. They did not swear to die or to win; they swore to return victorious. And they kept their promise. Christians would never have taken such an oath; they would have believed they were tempting God. However, I am deceiving myself in talking about a Christian republic; these terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is too favourable to tyranny for tyranny not to take advantage of it at all times. True Christians are made to be slaves. They know it and are hardly moved by this. This brief life has too little value in their eyes. Christian troops, we are told, are excellent. Crusades were soldiers of the priest; they were citizens of the church; they were fighting for its spiritual country which the church, God knows how, had made temporal. Properly understood, this is a throwback to paganism. Since the Gospel does not establish a national religion, no holy war is possible among Christians. Under the pagan emperors, Christian soldiers were brave. All the Christian authors affirm this, and I believe it. This was a competition for honour against the pagan troops. #RandolphHarris 19 of 26
Once the emperors were Christians, this competition ceased. And when the cross expelled the eagle, all Roman valour disappeared. The doctrines and covenants of the civil religion ought to be simple, few in number, precisely worded, without explanations or commentaries. The existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent divinity that foresees and provides; the life to come; the happiness of the just; the punishment of the wicked; the sanctity of the social contact and of the laws. These are beneficial doctrines and covenants. As for the negative doctrines and covenants, I am limiting them to just one, namely intolerance. It is part of the cults we have excluded. Those who distinguish between civil and theological intolerance are mistaken, in my opinion. Those two types of intolerance are inseparable. It is impossible to live in peace with those one believes to be damned. To love them would be to hate God who punishes them. It is absolutely necessary either to reclaim them or torment them. Whatever theological intolerance is allowed, it is impossible for it not to have some civil effect; and once it does, the sovereign no longer is sovereign, not even over temporal affairs. Thenceforward, priests are the true masters; kings are simply their officers. Now that there are no longer is and never again can be an exclusive national religion, tolerance should be shown to all those that tolerate others, so long as their doctrine and covenants contain nothing contrary to the duties of a citizen. However, whoever dares stay outside the church there is no salvation ought to be expelled from the state, unless the state is the church and the prince is the pontiff. Such a doctrine and convent is good only in a theocratic government; in all other forms of government it is ruinous. The reason why Henry IV is said to have embraced the Roman religion should make every decent man, and above all any prince who knows how to reason, leave it. #RandolphHarris 20 of 26
I should always set my sights on things that are nearer at hand to me. The Fourth Wave society, unlike its predecessor, must (and will) draw on an amazing variety of energy sources—hydrogen, solar, geothermal, tidal, biomass, lightning discharges, ultimately perhaps advanced fusion power, as well as other courses not yet imagined in 2022. Fourth wave civilization will rely on a far more diversified technological base as well, springing from biology, genetics, electronics, materials science, as well as on outer space and under-the-sea operations. While some new technologies will require high energy inputs, much Fourth Wave technology will be designed to use less, not more, energy. Nor will these new technologies be as massive and ecologically dangerous as those of the past. Look how much smaller computers, hot water heaters, heaters, and many other things have become and how efficient LED lights are, and how long they last. Many of our new technologies will continue to be small in scale, simple to operate, with the waste of one industry predesigned for recycling into primary materials for another. For Fourth Wave civilization, the most basic raw material of all—and one that can never be exhausted—is information, including imagination. Through imagination and information, substitutes will be found for many of today’s exhaustible resources—although this substitution, once more, will all too frequently be accompanied by drastic economic swings and lurches. With information becoming more important than ever before, the new civilization will restructure education, redefine scientific research and, above all, reorganize the media of communication. Today’s mass media, both print and electronic, are wholly inadequate to cope with the communications load and to provide the requisite cultural variety for survival. Instead of being culturally dominated by a few mass media, Fourth Wave civilization will rest om interactive, de-massified media, feeding extremely diverse and often highly personalized imagery into and out of the mind-stream of the society. #RandolphHarris 21 of 26
Television has already given way to “indi-video”—narrow-casting by the Internet of thousands of shows that have never aired on television, images addressed to a single individual at a time. We may also eventually use medication, direct brain-to-brain communication, and other forms of electrochemical communication only vaguely hinted at until now. All of which will raise startling, though not insoluble, political and moral problems. The fusion of Fourth Wave energy forms, technologies, and information media will speed revolutionary changes in the way we work. Factories are still being built (and in some parts of the World they will continue to be built for decades to come), but Fourth Wave factory already bears little resemblance to those we have known until now, and—in the rich nations—the number of people in factor jobs will continue to plummet. The factory will no longer serve as a model for other types of institutions. Nor will its primary function be that of mass production. Even now the Fourth Wave factor produces de-massified—often customized—end products. It relies on advanced methos such as wholistic or “presto” production. It will ultimately use less energy, waste less raw material, employ fewer components, and demand far more design intelligence. Most significantly, many of its machines will be directly activated not by workers but as a distance, by consumers themselves. Those who do work in Fourth Wave factories will perform far less brutalizing or repetitive work than those still trapped in traditional jobs. They will not be paced by mechanical conveyor belts. Noise levels will be low. Workers will come and go at hours convenient for them. The actual workplace will be far more humane and individualized, often with flowers and greenery sharing the space with machines. Within fixed limits, payment and fringe benefit packages will be increasingly tailored to individual preference. #RandolphHarris 22 of 26
As we are seeing, many jobs will shift of work from both office and factory back into the home and remain there. However, not all jobs can, will, or should be caried out in people’s homes. Some doctors and dentists may even buy mansions and work out of their homes like in the Victorian days. As low-cost communications are substituted for high-cost transportation, as we increase the role of intelligence and imagination in production, further reducing the role of brute force or routine mental labour, a significant slice of the work in Fourth Wave societies will perform at least part of its work at home, factories remaining only for those who must actually handle physical materials. With information increasing in importance, universities will replace the factory as the central institution. Multinational executives, for their part, see the executive suite as the pivot of today. The new profession of “information manager” pictures their computer rooms as the center of the new civilization. Scientists look to the industrial research laboratory. A few remaining hipsters dream of restoring the agricultural commune to the center of a neo-medieval future. Others may nominate the “gratification chambers” of a leisure-drenched society. Yet, it is unlikely that any institution—not even the home—will play as central a role as the cathedral or the factory did in the past. For the society is likely to be built around a network rather than a hierarchy of new institutions. Corporations will stop towering over other social institutions and will be recognized as complex organizations that pursue multiple goals simultaneously—not just profit or production quotes. These managers will watch over (and be held personally responsible for) multiple “bottom lines.” #RandolphHarris 23 of 26
Executive paychecks and bonuses will gradually come to reflect this new multi-functionality, as the corporation, either through voluntary means or because it is compelled to, becomes more responsive to what today are regarded as non-economic and hence largely irrelevant factors—ecological, political, social, cultural, and moral. This society will also be built on segmentation and diversity. Instead of a society that concentrates population, energy flows, and other features of life Fourth Wave Society will understand the meaning of “appropriate scale.” Many new organizations will do away with the old insistence on one person is the boss—all of which suggests a work World in which more people share temporary decisional power. Vast increases in white-collar and service work will be absorbed who had been previously laid off by the shrinking manufacturing sector. The sufferings that World War II brought to so many have deeply shocked us but the significance of those sufferings must also be examined from a fresh standpoint. In all theories offered to a bewildered World concerning it own woes, there is much anxiety and alarm at the symptoms but little search for the causes. If people accept a deceptive World-view as the Germans did and as the Russian do, or a defective one as so many others did and do, they must also accept the troubles and disaster which go with it. We must push the spade of enquiry deep down into the Earth that surrounds the roots of this problem of wars and riots, aggression and crimes, rather than be content with a mere surface view. The evils that menace our existence will then be found to grow out of two roots: ignorant egoism and unchecked emotion. The one is unnecessary, the others unreasonable. Each of the World Wars which afflicted humankind was the inevitable self-earned effect of causes previously set going. The unerring law of Karma brings whatever good or evil recompense is deserved. The debit account of wrong done is allowed to run on until the end of the page and then it has to be totalled and the balance entered to adjust the total. #RandolphHarris 24 of 26
The great famines, like the great wars, which afflicted and still afflict humankind, constitute part of this adjustment, part of the payment which humankind is forced to make by the higher governing law of karma. Their causes are as plural as the causes of the wars, although on the deepest level there is only the same single cause of human ignorance leading to human wrong-doing. One of them is the refusal of humankind to utilize the Earth’s grain harvests for its own direct use, diverting them instead to the use of animals deliberately bred for slaughter and then eating the grain indirectly in the form of those animals’ corpses. Such a way of supporting life is both utterly unnecessary and utterly cruel. The life of innocent creatures cannot be taken upon such baseless grounds with impunity. Retribution has hit humankind again and again in the past, with the weapons of hunger, disease, and war, and it is hitting them again in the present. If it does not face the real challenge and meet it, no reorganization of agricultural methods on more efficient and more productive lines, no re-arrangement of trading relations, no governmental subsidies in cash, tractors, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, or equipment will save humankind from suffering famines and enduring starvation. A radical change of life is demanded from humanity, a repentant change of heart is the only way to win back Nature’s smile. It must stop this unjustified murder of helpless living beings, murdered merely because they are considered to be less important on the scale of evolution. It must accept the perfectly sufficient diet of grains, cereals, vegetables, pulses, fruits, nuts, and dairy produce which will enable it to live with less suffering and more healthy, less punishment and more conscience, than other diets permit. All praise be yours through Brother Sun. All praise be your through Sister Moon. By Mother Earth, the Spirit be Praised. #RandolphHarris 25 of 26
By Brother Mountain, Sister Sea, through Brother Wind and Brother Air, through Sister Water, Brother Fire, the Stars above give thank to Thee, all praise to those who live in Peace. All praise be yours, through Brother World. All praise be yours, through Sister Whale. By nature’s song, the spirit be praised. By Brother Eagle, Sister Loon, though Brother Tiger, Sister Seal, let creatures all give thanks to Thee. All praise to those who live in peace. Ask of the beasts and they shall teach you the beauty of the Earth. Ask of the Trees and they shall teach you the beauty of the Earth. Ask of the Flowers and they shall teach you the beauty of the Earth. Ask of the Wind and it shall teach you the beauty of the Earth. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. You shall behold only with your eyes, and see the recompense of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your fortress, and the Most High your refuge, no evil shall befall you, neither shall any plague come near your tent. For He will give His Angels charge over you, to guard you in all your ways. They shall bear you upon their hands, lest your strike your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and asp, you shall trample on the young lion and serpent. Because he has set his love upon Me, I will deliver him, I will protect him because he has known my name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and bring him to honour. I will give him abundance of long life, and he shall witness My salvation. Thou art holy, O Thou that art enthroned upon the praises of America. And one called to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole Earth is full of His glory. [And they receive sanction one from the other, and say: Holy in the highest Heavens, the place of His abode; Holy upon Earth, the work of His might power, Holy forever and to all eternity is the Lord of hosts; the whole Earth is full of the radiance of His glory.] #RandolphHarris 26 of 26
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Simplicity Betrayed and Bound by Indissoluble Knots!
When you aim for perfection, remember that some of the World’s greatest feats were accomplished by people who did not know they were impossible. Well into the eighteenth century, nunneries were dumping grounds for inconvenient women, and their lives withing the dour convent interior were at best tolerably dull and hollow, at worst savagely unhappy or recklessly rebellious. To the unwilling, convents were monstrous prisons in which time served was eked out in minuscule rations, crushing tedium, terrible loneliness, and countless small cruelties. Enforced celibacy increased their angst, for they had to cope simultaneously with the pleasures of the flesh they could never satisfy and the knowledge that marriage and family life were permanently closed to them. Release or escape were seldom options. Most endured in despairing silence. Arcangela Tarabotti, trapped in her Venetian convent of Santa Anna for thirty-two years until her death, poured out her rage on paper. Her magnum opus, Simplicity Betrayed, is a scathing attack on fathers who imprison their daughters in nunneries to prevent the erosion or division of the family fortune or to indulge in sinful luxuries. “You heartless shame,” she lambasted them “is greater than Nero’s or Diocletian’s because, unlike these heartless fathers, they only cruelly murdered and tormented the bodies of the holy martyrs, but did not torment their souls.” Worst of all was the betrayal. These men watched delightfully as their tender little girls lisped their first words, gamboled gracefully, sang joyously like baby songbirds. Then, “guileful, weaving the web of deception, they think of nothing but to force them from sight as soon as possible and bury them, as if they were dead, in cloisters, for the rest of their lives, bound by indissoluble knots.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 25
Convent life was contrary to nature, Arcangela charged. This gentle little girl was forced to cut her long tresses, symbol of her freedom. She was stripped of her winsome gowns and hidden in a drab habit. She was forced to obey the convent rule; eat, pray, meditate when told; cast her eyes downward, hold her tongue; suppress her every emotion, even her longing for her vanished home life. And this way of life was interminable, a sentence from which no appeal was possible. “There is an inscription over the gate of hell: ‘Abandon all hope, you who enter’; on the gate of monasteries, the same should appear. Rather, it would be more painfully appropriate to include an inscription for the dying: ‘The torments of death surround me. The torments of hell surround me.’” Why not kill all but one male baby per family? Arcangela suggested bitterly. At least their innocent souls would fly straight to Heaven. However, nuns kidnapped and entombed alive will plunge downward into fiery depths to seek out their anguished fathers, for whom looking at their daughters’ accusing faces will be infinitely worse than all hell’s other torments. Your motive for abusing your daughter, Arcangela charged, for thrusting her into a convent and a life for which she has no vocation, is simply to cheat her out of her inheritance, so you can give it to someone else you prefer. Arcangela’s indictment was no exaggeration. One English father consigned his unwanted daughters to a European convent where they languished, miserable and lonely. Cut off from home, they wrote letters pleading for continued contact and love. Certainly not, their father responded. One message each year was perfectly satisfactory. These cloistered children, even infants, were routinely trained in nunly ways and, at sixteen or younger, professed their vows. #RandolphHarris 2 of 25
Some pledged these vows willingly, or at least not unwillingly, but many mouthed the words on pain of beatings or worse, or because they had no alternative. In strict convents, obedience was hammered home. Penalties were degrading and brutal—stepping on a nun’s face, hauling her across the floor, spitting at her, ostracizing her, depriving her of food, humiliating her. Saint Douceline whipped a seven-years-old bloody and threatened her with death because she had glanced at some convent workmen. Escapees were usually caught and disciplined, severely beaten, shut up for years, sometimes shackled, forced to fast on bread and water, sentenced to silence or to lowly ranks in the choir or chapel. Maud of Terrington was a runaway who was caught after years of sinful living. She was barred from ever leaving the convent, confined to solitude except during choir, beaten daily, humiliated, twice weekly deprived normal meals and shoes, and never permitted any contact or mail with the outside World. Maud’s treatment was particularly harsh, but transgressing against the complicated and habitual mechanics and rituals of an alien way of life never went unpunished. Chastity was the fundament of the nun’s vocation, the most crucial of her vows, with the farthest-reaching consequences. For committed nuns, it was not particularly difficult to honour. For unwilling nuns, as with monks and priests, it was immensely difficult. A dedicated nun approached the issue of her chastity from several perspectives, shoring up her resolve by recalling its spiritual meaning and rewards, her sacred obligations as Christ’s Bride, and the hellish sinfulness of wavering. To her help, she sublimated her erotic sensations into a sublime adoration of Christ; mysticism and pleasures of the flesh melded into rushes of frenzied outpourings, tranches, or fits of weeping, or screaming, all solemnly recognized by the highest ecclesiastical authority as manifestations of divine possession. The voluntary nun also starved her body into submission, killing its natural flows and cycles. #RandolphHarris 3 of 25
However, the unwilling nun was, by definition, reluctant to surrender her woman’s essence just to satisfy this unwelcome requirement. As a wellborn laywoman, she would almost certainly have grasped and accepted the need for premarital virginity. However, as a nun forced into an unwelcome World in which marriage was forbidden, she could not even comfort herself with the knowledge that her chastity would ensure her eligibility for a future good marriage. From this sad perspective, what had she to lose, having already lost everything? Even the tools available to willing nuns made no sense to their incarcerated sister: The meals were stingy enough, so why deprive herself further? Why relinquish the tiny pleasure of a feast-day candy? Why scourge herself when life was whiplash enough? And why obey a domineering mother superior whose stony heart felt no mercy for the wretchedness of her bitter, frightened, and despairing captive? Though the majority of nuns likely remained chaste, a significant minority faltered and fell. In strict convents, this was rarer and trickier, but when abbesses themselves had been pressed into the cloister, they sometimes ran hopelessly dissolute convents. A seventeenth-century English abbess allegedly had twelve children, and a prioress dowried her daughter by selling off her convent’s possessions. The double monasteries were notorious for liaisons in pleasures of the flesh. Bishops routinely issued edicts barring the free intercourse—in all senses—between the male and female sides. The nuns of some slackly regulated convents had servants, ate lavish meals, adapted their habits to current fashion, carried pet lapdogs, strolled outside, or drove into the city. They received men in unsupervised visits, had pleasures of the flesh relations, connived at elopements. Critics charged that any man could walk into a covenant and that the nuns also came and went as they wished. #RandolphHarris 4 of 25
The worst excesses were in Venice, where nunneries were often little more than whorehouses. In the fourteenth century, legal action was taken against thirty-three convents that tolerated, sometimes even facilitated, fornication between nuns and their gentlemen callers. The Benedictine Sant’Angelo di Contorta convent was the most outrageous, though its nuns were drawn from the Venetian elite. The nuns, and two abbesses, did not even bother with discretion but enjoyed pleasures of the flesh as picnics and—putting Madre Marcel’s vaunted solitude to a more mundane use—in their cells. Babies were conceived and born, lovers quarreled, and jealousy abounded. The pope shut down Sant’Angelo in 1474, but it was just one of many egregiously misbehaving religious institutions. Another bordello-like convent was England’s Cannington, in Somerset, small and poor, but peopled by daughters of the finest families. One culprit was Maud Pelham, a reluctant nun, the other High Willynge, a chaplain “as hot and lecherous as a sparrow.” Not only did Maud engage in feverish pleasures of the flesh, she was infuriated when reproached. “Turning like a virago upon the prioress and the other sisters who abhor the aforesaid things…she threatens to do manly execution upon them with knives and other weapons.” Certain English nuns were so free, they indulged in gadfly social lives, enjoying feasts, visits to and from friends, minstrel shows. Nuns actively engaging in pleasures of the flesh too the initiative in the affairs, for though some Anglo-Saxon kings specifically selected mistresses from covenants and chaplains prayed on their charges, English laymen were more reticent. Nuns arranged rendezvous within and without the convent and sometimes shucked off the habit for secular life with their beloved. In sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century France and Italy, young playboys haunted the convents, seeking nubile nuns as lovers. #RandolphHarris 5 of 25
The record of documented sexual transgressions and pregnancies—5 percent in some contemporary investigations of English convents, which undoubtedly missed many affairs and which, in French, German, and Latin convents, would have been much higher—is an impressive indictment of enforced celibacy. Not surprisingly, when unwilling nuns predominated or were governed by unwilling abbesses, an overtone of Worldliness and sexuality tinged the moral tone of the entire establishment. The wonder is that so many unwilling nuns in strict, watchful cloisters found the courage to break that most basic of vows at the risk of humiliation, beatings, and shame. Cheek by cowl with sisters who agonized over the symbolism of dreams or the implications of quickened breath at devilishly tempting images, unwilling nuns understood only the hot tingling of their yearning loins. Their despair and rebellion at their lot, their contempt for their captors, their craving for sensual affection and for pleasures of the flesh, children and normalcy, betrayed their false vows. They nurtured sexual oases in their sterile desert, schemed, intrigued, and plotted, and risked hellfire for the present solace of fiery joy. The disrupted social behaviour of the distressed individual is only half the reason for interpersonal deterioration following psychological disorder. A true interpersonal analysis must also consider the reactions of other people. Research studies have repeatedly shown that people react to others with depression, social anxiety, schizophrenia, a personality disorder, or an eating disorder with interpersonal rejection. It is a harsh reality that most people are repelled by those who exhibit signs of psychopathology. People with psychological problems violate our expectations for appropriate and rewarding social interaction. #RandolphHarris 6 of 25
Consequently, most people ultimately prefer to keep their distance from such individuals. The inevitable outcome to this interpersonal pattern is a marked deterioration of social relationships for the person suffering from psychological disorder. Closely related to the consequence assumption is the belief that interpersonal interactions will maintain mental health problems. Within the interpersonal paradigm, many research programs explore how interpersonal interaction maintain poor mental health once it is started. There is an implicit recognition in such research that mental health problems may have numerous origins. Regardless of how a problem was initiated, it is clear that interpersonal interactions can maintain and prolong psychological problems. By analogy, there are multiple casual origins of physical illnesses, such as influenza and the common cold. Regardless of how one contracts such illnesses, diet and rest can affect their course, despite having no straightforward connection to the cause of the illness. One can look at mental health problems from this same perspective. Even in cases where psychological problems may be caused by nononterpersonal agents, the quality of interpersonal relations will often significantly affect the course of the problems. For example, in the area of depression, interpersonal rejection from others may maintain the disorder. Similarly, CD (conduct disorder), EE (expressed emotion), and negative AS (affective style) in family members of patients with schizophrenia can prolong the active state of the disorder and precipitate relapse. Interpersonal conflicts and stressors can also activate episodes of substance misuse and disordered eating. These patterns have been conclusively documented, and appear to operate regardless of the actual “cause” of each disorder. #RandolphHarris 7 of 25
A more radical version of the interpersonal maintenance hypothesis can be found in the faction of the interpersonal school knowns as family systems. Traditional family systems theorists eschew the search for “casual” agents in psychopathology in the traditional linear sense (exempli gratia A causes B). Rather, they see cause and effect as inseparable, and they see all components of an interpersonal system as acting on and being acted on all other components. To a system theorist, what “causes” a disorder is what keeps that disorder alive. Research in certain areas of mental health (exempli gratia, eating disorders, schizophrenia, substance dependence, and somatoform disorders) clearly illustrates the systems notions of mutual influence or interdependence. In such cases, it is clear that something is not quite right in the social fabric of the patient’s interpersonal system. Family members may be hypercritical and overly involved; spouses and friends may be combative and prone to conflict; and parents may exhibit and model behaviour that is itself indicative of questionable mental health. Presumably this disturbed interpersonal milieu is abrasive and leads to symptoms of poor mental health. However, at the same time, it is clear that living with an individual who has a psychological problem is itself taxing. The presence of a disturbed family member, for instance, will fundamentally alter the interpersonal communication and relationships in that family. Members may change their style of relating both to the “ill” member as well as to each other. People may feel shame, stigma, or burden associated with the presence of mental illness in their family or immediate interpersonal network. These changes in social behaviour then go on to affect the person with the psychological problem, and suddenly the attribution of “cause” and “effect” becomes impossible. #RandolphHarris 8 of 25
Systems research showing that families of individuals with alcoholism literally structure their lives around drinking, and that families of patients with eating disorders exhibit preoccupation with food, dieting, and exercise, obfuscate conventional notions of cause and effect or action and reaction. Indeed, the popular terms “alcoholic family” and “eating-disordered family” reflect the key assumptions that the disorder is not located within the individual, but rather within the larger social system that maintains and sustains it. It is important to note that these interpersonal processes in psychological problems, be they causal, consequential, or maintaining factors, apply not only to clinical cases of these problems, but to subclinical instances as well. What has come to be known as the continuity hypothesis holds that subclinical cases of a particular problem differ in degree, not in kind. Although this hypothesis has drawn some controversy, most of the research evidence in the interpersonal domain is supportive of the continuity hypothesis. People with subclinical levels of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, for example, often experience and exhibit many of the same interpersonal difficulties as those with full-blown clinical cases of the same problems. Often the only difference between the two, interpersonally, is the magnitude of the problems. Indeed, a portion of the research results examined in this report came from studies of subclinical syndromes, and these studies are generally consistent with those of clinically diagnosed cases. Therefore, one of the particularly useful aspects of the interpersonal paradigm in mental health is its explanator and predictive power for both clinical and subclinical versions of different psychological problems. “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for humans, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ who your serve,” reports Colossians 3.23-24. #RandolphHarris 9 of 25
Why it is that some people are so blessed and continue to prosper and get ahead, while other remain in ruts of their own making? There may be many factors, of course, but one thing is for sure: God does not bless mediocrity. He blesses excellence. Notice, whatever we do, we should give it our best effort and do it as if we were doing it for God. If we will work with that standard in mind, God promises to reward us. What does it mean to be a person of excellence and integrity? A person of excellence and integrity goes the extra kilometer to do what is right. One keeps one’s word even when it is difficult. People of excellence arrive at work on time. They give their employers a full day’s work; they do not leave early or call in sick when they are not. When you have an excellent spirit, it shows up in the quality of your work, and the attitude with which you do it. If you want to live a successful life right now, start aiming for excellence and integrity in everything you do, doing a little bit more than you are required to do. If you are supposed to be at work at eight o’clock, get there ten minutes early and stay ten minutes late. Go the extra kilometer. A lot of people show up at work fifteen minutes late, then they wander around the office, go get some coffee, and finally get to their desk or workstation thirty minutes later. They spend half the day engaged in personal telephone calls, playing games, or sending jokes on the Internet, and then they wonder, “God, why do You not ever bless me? Why do I not every get a promotion?” The answer is easy to figure out. God does not bless mediocrity. God blesses excellence and integrity. Even if everyone is slacking off, clowning and acting a fool, do not be like everyone else! #RandolphHarris 10 of 25
You care called to live a life of excellence. You represent Almighty God. How you live, how you conduct your business and do your work is all a reflection on our God. Start making the more excellent choices in every area of life, even in mundane matters such as paying your bills on time. In everything you do, attempt to represent God well. For instance, you may be driving a car that has not been washed in six weeks. Your trunk or backseat may be filled with so much junk—everything from your sports equipment to your office equipment—you can barely close the door! I am not condemning anyone, some people have children—and sometimes their car looks wild. However, I do not like driving a car like that. Not only does it represent God poorly, but it makes me feel unkempt, undisciplined, sloppy, and less than my best. Many times before I leave the house, I will take a couple of minutes and clean out the car, not because I want to impress my friends, but because I feel better driving a clean car. You need to take pride in what God has given you. Even if your car is a few years old, take care of what God has given you. God will be more likely to give you something better. Similarly, you may not live in a big, new, beautiful Cresleigh home. You may have an older, smaller home, but at least you keep it clean and looking nice. God’s people are people of excellence. They stand out from the crowd because they choose to do things well. You may be in a situation today where everybody around your is compromising their integrity or taking the easy way out. Do not let that rub off on you. Be the one to have an excellent spirit. Do your work well, take care of the resources that God has given you, and live in such a manner that when people see you, they will be attracted to your God. Dear Lord in Heaven, please let my life be a beneficial reflection of You, O Lord. In everything I say and do, by the way I dress to the way I take care of my personal possessions, I pray that You will receive honour from my life. #RandolphHarris 11 of 25
Basing ourselves on the Word of God, what can we say? St. Paul told us earlier that the unmarried woman, the virgin, gives one’s full attention to the Lord’s affairs “and to being holy in body and spirit,” reports 1 Corinthians 7.34. To be a virgin only in body means little or nothing; to be a virgin in spirit is a fine thing; but to be a virgin “in body and spirit” is very beautiful indeed. In such a case, the sign and its meaning meet and complete each other, as do nature and grace. For such as these, the Book of Revelation reserves the singular privilege of “following the Lamb wherever Ge does,” reports Revelation 14.4, making them the symbol of those absolutely faithful souls who have never compromised themselves with idolatry. We must therefore encourage those consecrated souls who, without any merit of their own, of course, but by God’s gift, have managed to preserve their purity and are able to offer an integral gift to God. In actual fact there is, in this, an altogether special hint of God’s glory which is not to be found anywhere else, because—as our friend the poet says—“That which has been regained, defended every inch, retaken and won back, is not the same as what was never lost. A sheet of whitened paper is not white; a whitened fabric is not white; a human soul is never quite as white, when whitened, as it would be, white.” It is not a question of a taboo, as unbelievers think, or of a simple privilege or honour of which whoever has it is usually proud. Rather, when it is freely accepted, what is involved is a delicate and profound sacrifice, one which calls to mind the primordial sacrifice God asked for from His creatures, that they should give up to the will to know “good and evil” personally and by experience. In fact it is one thing to give up the use of pleasures of the flesh and bodily pleasure after having experienced it, and another (much more demanding) to renounce the wish to experience it. That means accepting that there is an experience, basic to other men and women, which you freely choose not to want to experience, for love of the Lord. Only God knows the fragrance of this sacrifice, which touches not just the heart or body, but the very being of the creature. #RandolphHarris 12 of 25
Having said this, however, it must also be said that spiritual virginity is the most important, and that it is not something given once and for all and to be preserved, but rather something that can be acquired day by day. By His grace, God has transformed some of the greatest sinners into His most loving and most loved spouses. This is why anyone who has lost physical integrity and baptismal innocence, for whatever reason, does not need to spend one’s consecrated life constantly looking back and brooding over past failures and mistakes in every detail. This only makes the situation worse, like a woman walking with a jar of water on her head: the more tense she is and the more she thinks about it, the more water she spills. On the contrary, what is necessary is to strive to grow in interior virginity, letting go of the useless desires and affections in our hearts, because purity of heart can restore a new virginity to the soul. In a certain sense, virgins are not born, they are made. This does not mean that one can calmly accept any situation and wait for it to improve. On the contrary, if a person has not yet managed to eliminate from one’s habits that are seriously contrary to chastity, and has not achieved a certain balance and master in the sphere of pleasures of the flesh, it is still a good rule to advise the person against making a definitive commitment to celibacy or virginity. Precisely because the essential virginity is that of the heart, the way of virginity is in some way open to all, even to those who are or have been married. If there are some “who do not marry for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven,” there are others who, for the same reason (id est, for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven), do not re-marry, though they could do so. There is a certain kind of windowhood, devoted to the family and to good works, that has always been highly honoured in the Church and placed immediately after virginity. #RandolphHarris 13 of 25
People who, for a whole variety of possible reasons, have been unable to marry, though they would have liked to do so. They did not choose their situation. In fact, it may cause them great suffering. To them I would like to say this: Jesus tells us that some are eunuchs because they are like that from birth, others are made so by human agency, others again have made themselves so “for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.” Apparently, you belong to the first or second category. However, in the sight of God, no one is irredeemably condemned, or a prisoner of situations. In other words, it is possible to pass from one category to another: from the category of those who have not married because of the circumstances of life, to the category of those who do not marry “for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.” You need only accept the situation as something allowed by God, reconcile yourselves to that way of life and use your greater freedom to devote yourselves to prayer and to the Gospel cause. In this way you can share in the “hundredfold” promised by Christ to those who leave everything to follow Him. The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not those who belong to the “more perfect state,” but those who love and suffer most. This is why they can move ahead of so many others whose lives, apparently, were more successful. For some there be that without much and long exercise may not come thereto, and yet it shall be but full seldom, and in special calling of our Lord that they shall feel the perfection of this work; the which calling is called ravishing. And some there be that be so subtle in grace and in spirit, and so homely with God in this grace of contemplation, that they may have it when they will in the common state of a human’s soul; as it is in sitting, going, standing, or kneeling. The way is a progressive one only in the largest sense. In actuality it consists often of stagnations and setbacks, falls and even withdrawals. Nearly all seekers experience lapses and wanderings aside. #RandolphHarris 14 of 25
Continuous advance without retrogression is likely to begin only after initiation into the ultimate path. The disciple should not worry about the ups and downs of one’s moods, but should wait patiently while continuing one’s regular meditation practices and philosophical studies, for if one has a teacher one will come within one’s sphere of protection, so that advice and guidance are always open to one, and inwardly one will be aware of this. It is as much a part of the aspirant’s experience of this quest to be deprived at times of all feeling that the divine exists and is real, as it is to be granted the sunny assurance of such existence and reality. The upward flights of one’s novitiate have to be bought at the cost of downward falls. A period of illumination is often followed by a period of darkness. At fist the experience of reality will come only in flashes. Many a student tells of disheartenment at the lack of results, and depression over long period of barren waiting, despite the faithfulness with which meditation has been practised. They tend to overlook that the path is integral, is a fourfold and not a single one. Often there is something left undone by the student. For instance, no effort in character building may have been made by this student, or in religious prayer by that one. Living from this core, the actualizing Christian exemplifies a new dimension of openness to life in the following ways. One becomes: An adventurer in truth. One sees life as an adventure in becoming oneself as fully as Christ was Himself in His life. An expression of one’s own Christlikeness—because one believes in the kingdom of God within, one’s goal is to express grace-full and in an original way the particular talents, gifts, or ministries that one has been given by God. An enlightened traveler on the road of life—one’s core represents a light within. It is a light that each person must discover. #RandolphHarris 15 of 25
The actualizing Christian can make one’s light shine so as to guide others to discover their own inner light. As Jesus said, “You are the light of the World. Let your light so shine before humans, that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven,” reports Matthew 5.14 and 16. The kind of full and intimate surrender to God that we have been talking about may seem difficult for some readers to understand. Yet the message of the New Testament is that union with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit is the calling of every Christian and the meaning of true spirituality. It then becomes highly feasible to speak of the inner core of the personality as being filled with the Holy Spirit. And the overflowing of that “infilling” is a lifetime of graced relationships with others. One of the New Testament Greek words used for the Holy Spirit is Paracletos. This translates as “one called alongside to help,” or “comforter” or “companion.” These meanings clearly indicate a most personal and intimate role of the Holy Spirit in supporting, nurturing, and guiding a person through life. In addition, Jesus promised of the Holy Spirit to those who accepted and followed him (John 14.18). He portrayed the Holy Spirit as the believer’s personal Companion who would be adequate for all the needs of daily life. We encourage the reader who is unfamiliar with these references to read or reread the four Gospels and the Book of Acts, found at the beginning of the New Testament. As we move further in the process of integrating the Bible with psychology, we can say that the Holy Spirit is intended by God to be the center of our existence—the inspiration of our feelings, thoughts, choices, and values. One of this oneness, flow forth the words of God. He asks us to lend him our eyes to see, our mouth to speak, our eats to hear, our mind to think, our hear to love, our feet to walk, our hands to acts. #RandolphHarris 16 of 25
We would say that genuine spirituality, for the Christian or anyone else, is responding to the Spirit of God and doing God’s will. This is the surrender that we have been talking about. This is the surrender of one’s whole being to the will of God. We do not believe that it is a once-and-for-all event as much as it is a continuous day-by-day process. How is it possible that the fear behind our manipulations, character disorders, and even psychoses described in this report can be healed by the perfect love of God? We believe that the key to understanding this is the awareness that the actualizing Christian, in being filled and led by the Holy Spirit, lives in an atmosphere of inspiration rather than condemnation. According to Webster’s, to perfect means “to bring to final form.” Our fears are healed when we realize that we are being enabled by God’s Spirit within to perfect our love of ourselves, others, and God. We no longer fer punishment because we know that we are partners with God in developing our capacity to be all we are meant to be—and to love our neighbours as ourselves. The artesian well provides an excellent analogy for understanding the human personality. An artesian well is a well drilled deep enough to reach water that has converged underground from a source originally higher than the well itself. Therefore, the water that flows into the well has a natural pressure upward that forces it through the well. All that is required to keep the well filled to overflowing is the continued release of its water. This keeps the core of the well cleansed and open, allowing fresh water to always flow through. Here we see the great importance of developing a giving attitude in life. So it is with us in our reliance on the flow of God’s Spirit, a Source greater than ourselves, to follow through the core of our lives. If we receive freely from the abundance of God’s inner provision, we will have much to give. In giving, our own wells are continually filled to overflowing. #RandolphHarris 17 of 25
However, not everyone receives the richness of God’s love in the inner self. Some have not drilled deep enough; they have not fully surrendered to God as their Source. Others have begun to tap the unlimited supply within, but find that it quickly clogs up when fear constricts their giving attitude toward others. However, when we begin to understand how profoundly we are loved by God, we can begin to surrender in our innermost being to the gentle flow of the Spirit in our lives. Before long, we will experience firsthand the thrill of “stirrings deep within” as our inner core is filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. This flow within gives us a sense of perfect peace, even though we know that we are not yet perfect. As the scripture says, “Thou wilt keep one in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because one trusteth in thee,” reports Isaiah 26.3. As Christians, we can remain humble, and joyous, recognizing that our beings are vessels through which flows the Holy Spirit. It is the power of God, not our own power, that flows through us into our life and relationships. Drinking deeply from the well within, and knowing that God is working each day to move us toward wholeness, truly creatures a sense of “wellness.” As the song says, “When peace like a river attendeth my soul….I know it is well with my soul.” Jesus said, “One who believes in Me, ‘From one’s innermost being shall flow rivers of living water,” John 7.38. One night after I had taught on prayer, a lady said to me, “What about the woman that went to the unjust judge? She kept going back and pestering him until finally he gave in. Is that not what Jesus wants us to do?” In Mark 4.24, Jesus said, “Take heed what ye hear.” When you hear something explained a certain way and you accept it, then each time you read it, hear it, or think about it, you will receive it the same way. The Spirit of God spoke to me and said, “Study the Word of God like you have never heard it before.” In other words, “Turn off your religious head when you study the Christian Bible.” #RandolphHarris 18 of 25
Sometimes you must turn it off to receive the truth. For instance, when you first look at the parable of the unjust judge, which that lady was referring to, it is easy to think that the widow just kept pestering the judge until he gave in to her request. Some translations indicate this, but we must realize that some areas of this translation are the result of humans trying to logically reason out a meaning. It is their opinion, so they include it. If this parable means what it seems to say on the surface, then Jesus was speaking contrary to what He taught in Matthew 6.7 “when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do.” Prudence requires that our hatred of the powerful be hidden, while our respect is manifest, often ostentatious. As every king must know, however, the hatred though invisible, is always present. Uneasy lies the head….et cetera. Naked power is quicksilver, lost in a flash—a bank robber on the run, hand on his gun, shot down at the next corner. So power rushes to form, which endows power with legitimacy, defines the processes whereby it is acquired, exercised, delegated, transferred. Hiding behind form, power acquires stability. Form is a structure of power but claims legitimacy as a map of reality. Reality is flux, while power, always trying to preserve itself, insists on the permanence of forms; so form falls ever more at variance with the changing reality it claims faithfully to reflect. Power clings to form even after form’s claim to truth has become manifest travesty. The emperor has no clothes. We are not suited to be free. We are suited still, as when we were children, to live under the protection of, and within the limits set by, loving parents. As adults we strive to continue this arrangement, with kings and gods slipping into the place of parents. Always we are of two minds about power. Because we are insecure, we need someone above us, more powerful than we, to whom we can turn for protection and guidance. So great is this need that it shapes our perception: we see our wise humans as wiser than they are, our kings as more kingly, our priests as more holy. #RandolphHarris 19 of 25
Being themselves but human, and having the same needs as we, they, too are driven to look upward, to find someone or something more powerful than they. So we have gods. We kneel, we pray to an Almighty. At the same time we distrust all power, know that it may not protect but exploit, may use us for its own ends. So we are poised for rebellion. When the wind veers, we will turn upon our leaders, tear them apart. The bodies of Mussolini and his mistress, strung up by the heels, swing from the lamppost in Milan. Most manual jobs do not lend themselves so readily to knowing the facts and fraudulently taking advantage oneself. In factory jobs the workman is likely to be unaware of what does on, since one performs a small operation or a big machine that one does not understand. Even so, there is evidence that one has the same disbelief in the enterprise as a whole, with a resulting attitude of profound indifference. Semiskilled factory operatives are the largest category of workmen. Big companies have tried the devices of applied anthropology to enhance the loyalty of these men to the firm, but apparently the effort is hopeless, for it is found that a thumping majority of men do not care about the job or the firm; they could not care less and you cannot make them care more. However, this is not because of wages, hours, or working conditions, or management. On the contrary, tests that show the men’s indifference to the company show also their (unaware) admiration for the way the company has designed and manages the plant; it is their very model of style, efficiency, and correct behaviour. Maybe if the men understood more, they would admire less. The union and the grievance committee take care of wages, hours, and conditions; these are the things the workmen themselves fought for and won. (Something was missing in that victory, and we have inherited the failure as well as the success.) #RandolphHarris 20 of 25
The conclusion must be that workmen are indifferent to the job because of its intrinsic nature: it does not enlist worthwhile capacities, it is not “interesting”; it is not his, he is not “in” on it; the product is not really useful. And indeed, research directly on the subject shows that it is defects in the intrinsic aspects of the job that make workmen unhappy. A survey of the literature shows that Interest is second in importance only to Security, whereas Wages, Conditions, Socializing, House, Ease, and Benefits are far less important. However, foremen, significantly enough, think that the most important thing to the workman is his wages. (The investigators do not seem to inquire about the usefulness of the job—as if a primary purpose of working at a job were not that it is good for something! My guess is that a large factor in “Security” is the resigned reaction to not being able to take into account whether the work of one’s hands is useful for anything; for in a normal life situation, if what we do is useful, we feel secure about being needed. The other largest factor in “Security” is, I think, the sense of being needed for one’s unique contribution, and this is measured in these tests by the primary importance the workers assign to being “in” on things and to “work done being appreciated.” Limited as they are, what a remarkable insight such studies give us, that humans want to do valuable work and work that is somehow theirs! However, they are thwarted. Is not this the “waste of human resources”? The case is that by the “sole prerogative” clause in union contracts the employer has the sole right to determine what is to be produced, how it is to be produced, what plants are to be built and where, what kinds of machinery are to be installed, when workers are to be hired and laid off, and how production operations are to be rationalized. There is none of this that is inevitable in running a machine economy; but if these are circumstances, it is not surprising that the factory operatives’ actual code has absolutely nothing to do with useful service or increasing production, but is notoriously devoted to “interpersonal relations”; do not turn out too much work; do not turn out too little work; do not squeal on a fellow worker; do not act like a big-shot. This is how to belong. #RandolphHarris 21 of 25
We are no longer where we stood a decade ago, dazzled by changes whose relationships to one another were unknown. Today, behind the confusion of change, there is a growing coherence of pattern: the future is taking shape. In a great historical confluence, many raging rivers of change are running together to form an oceanic Third Wave of change that is gaining momentum with every passing hour. This Third Wave of historical change represents not a straight-line extension of industrial society but a radical shift of direction, often a negation, of what went before. It adds up to nothing less than a complete transformation at east as revolutionary in our day as industrial civilization was 350 years ago. Furthermore, what is happening is not just a technological revolution but the coming of a whole new civilization in the fullest sense of that term. Thus, if we briefly look back over the ground we have covered, we find profound and frequently parallel changes at many levels simultaneously. Every civilization operates in and on the biosphere, and reflects or alters the mix of population and resources. Every civilization has a characteristic techno-sphere—an energy base linked to a production system which in turn is linked to a distribution system. Every civilization has a socio-sphere consisting of interrelated social institutions. Every civilization has an info-sphere—channels of communication through which necessary information flows. Every civilization has its own power-sphere. Every civilization, in addition, has a set of characteristic relationships with the outside World—exploitative, symbiotic, militant or pacific. And every civilization has its own super-ideology—a kit of powerful cultural assumptions that structure its view of reality and justify its operations. #RandolphHarris 22 of 25
The Third Wave, it should now be apparent, is brining revolutionary and self-reinforcing changes at all these different levels at once. The consequence is not merely the disintegration of the old society but the creation of foundations for the new. Often, as Second Wave institutions crash about our hears, as crime mounts, as nuclear families fracture, as once reliable bureaucracies sputter and malfunction, as health delivery systems crack and industrial economies wobble dangerously, we see only the decay and breakdown around us. Yet social decay is the compost bed of the new civilization. In energy, technology, family structure, culture, and many other fields, we are laying into place the basic structures that will define the main features of that new civilization. In fact, we can now for the first time identity these main features and even, to some extent, the interrelationships among them. Encouragingly, the embryonic Third Wave civilization we find is not only coherent and workable in both ecological and economic terms, but—if we put our minds to it—could be made more decent and democratic than our own. In no way is this to suggest inevitably. The period of transition will be marked by extreme social disruption, as well as wild economic swings, sectional clashes, secession attempts, technological upsets, or disasters, political turbulence, violence, wars, and threats of war. In a climate of disintegrating institutions and values, authoritarian demagogues and movements will arise to seek, and possibly attain, power. No intelligent person can be smug about the outcome. The clash of two civilizations presents titanic dangers. Yet the odds lie not with destruction but with the ultimate survival. If we manage to avoid the worst of the short-term perils that lie before us, it is important to know where the main thrust of change is taking us, and what kind of World is likely taking form? #RandolphHarris 23 of 25
If war comes, the blame must fall not only outwardly on the humans and policies which provoke it, but also inwardly on the passions and greeds and egoisms which influence leaders and led alike. When there is more of hate than of goodwill between two nations, and for a sufficient time, it is inevitable under the law of compensation that physical war will break out between them. War, being ultimately the expression of the mind’s errors and the heart’s passions, can only be stopped by getting at it in the places where it starts: in the mind and the heart themselves. It causes being primarily internal, it cannot be cured by an external remedy. This means that neither organized religion nor organized politics can save the World from the ruin that awaits it. We may wish them well in their attempts but we cannot help seeing facts which all history causes us to see. The guns and bombs, the gasses and tanks of modern war are only the symbols of humans’ inner disorder. The reality behind them is one’s ignorance of spiritual laws, one’s blindness to the fact that all war is a consequence and not a cause. All the national days of prayer and the eminent ecclesiastics who led them have failed to stop two World wars in our time. And they failed because they were tying to escape from a consequence whilst leaving the cause untouched. I thank You God, for this most amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (I who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably Earth) how should tasting, touching, hearing, seeing, breathing any—lifted from the no of all nothing—human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (Now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened.) #RandolphHarris 24 of 25
In the book of life, blessing, peace and ample sustenance, may we, together with all Thy people, the house of America, be remembered and inscribed before Thee for a happy life and for peace. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who establishest peace. O Lord, please guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile, and to those who slander me, please let me give no heed. May my soul be humble and forgiving unto all. Please open Thou my heart, O Lord, unto Thy sacred Law, that Thy statutes I may know and all Thy truths pursue. Please bring to naught designs of those who seek to do me ill; speedily defeat their aims and thwart their purposes for Thine own sake, for Thine own power, for Thy holiness and Law. That Thy loved ones be delivered, please answer us, O Lord, and save with Thy redeeming power. May the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart be acceptable unto Thee, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Thou who establishes peace in the Heavens, please grant our portion in Thy Torah and may the Temple be rebuilt in our day. There we will serve Thee with awe as in the days of old. Magnified and sanctified be the name of God throughout the World which He hath created according to His will. May He establish His Kingdom during the days of your life and during the life of all the house of America, speedily, yea, soon; and say ye, Amen. May His great name be blessed for ever and ever. Exalted and honoured be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, whose glory transcends, yea, is beyond all praises, hymns and blessings that humans cannot render unto Him; and say ye, Amen. And let Thy graciousness, O Lord our God, be upon us; establish Thou also the work of our hands for us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it. Dwelling in the shelter of the Most High, abiding under the protection of the Almighty, I say of the Lord: He is my refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust. #RandolphHarris 25 of 25
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Eating at the Table of Demons—He Had Made a Bargain with the Devil!
Every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ must consider spiritism in all of its forms to be a grave danger, and one should strictly avoid it. One must obey without question the Biblical prohibitions of necromancy. A Christian who becomes involved in this kind of activity will bring harm to oneself and/or others. One should also warn unsaved friends and relatives, realizing they will become increasingly difficult to reach for Christ if they become enslaved by the powers of evil that are part and parcel of spiritism. You see, the Lord does not look upon dabbling in occultism as merely being deceived or cheated by a group of charlatans. A real power of Satan is at work in various forms of spiritism. Scriptures which show that God demanded the death penalty for necromancers, and the consulting of a medium was considered the same as seeking help from a false god. The power of Satan in heathenism is indicated by the fact that its leaders sometimes exercised supernatural powers. For example, the Egyptian sorcerers were able to duplicate some of the miracles of judgment wrought by Aaron and Moses. It is well to bear in mind that the heathen idols, though nothing but wood, stone, or metal in themselves, were the props by which men and women actually worshipped demons. This affirmation is clearly set forth in Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth. He told them that he recognized an idol in itself to be nothing, and that if they unknowingly ate food which the heathen had dedicated to an imaginary god, they would be doing no harm to themselves or anyone else. He went on to say, however, that they should not participate with pagans in their sacrificial festivals, for behind the whole system of idolatry was the kingdom of darkness. Though the heathen did not realize it, they were actually presenting offerings to the World of evil spirits. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
Therefore, Paul, wrote, “Behold Israel after the flesh. Are not they who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? What say I, then? That the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifices to idols is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God; and I would not that ye should have fellowship with demons. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and cup of demons; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of demons,” reports 1 Corinthians 10.18-21. In a very real sense, the person who tries to communicate with the dead through a medium is eating at “the table of demons.” By doing this one is repudiating “the Lord’s table,” for all the precious truths symbolized in the Lord’s Supper are denied by the spiritualists. Therefore, if a believer becomes involved in spiritism and then partakes of the Lord’s Supper, one is flagrantly disobeying the Scriptures and will be severely chastened. One has participated in the Lord’s Supper unworthily, that is, in an unworthy manner, and the apostle warned, “Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. However, let a human examine oneself, and so let one eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For one that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to oneself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak, and sickly among you, and many sleep,” reports 1 Corinthians 27-30. In addition to making oneself subject to divine chastening, the Christian who disobeys God’s warning against necromancy may experience a deep depression, the inability to pray, the lost of interest in the Christian Bible, and a compulsive desire to engage in sins which formerly repulsed one. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
Missionaries and Christian workers from all over the World testify that they can often link deep spiritual depression, disturbing delusions, or paralyzing fears with an incident in which the patient or counselee attended a séance or engaged in some form of occultism. Dr. Alfred Lechler, who for thirty-five years served as the medical superintendent of the largest mental hospital in Germany, definitely believes that even today Satan manifests himself in supernatural ways when Christians tamper with the occult. The Swiss author and physician, Dr. Paul Tournier, also believes in the reality of demonic oppression as the result of disobedience to God in these matters. Dr. William S. Reed, a well-known Christian psychiatrist, declared, “Many mental and physical illnesses result, in fact, from demonic attacks. Exorcism must therefore be given a place in present-day psychiatry and medicine.” I am pointing this out to impress upon everyone who reads this essay the Biblical warnings against spiritism must be taken seriously by every Christian. It is interesting to note that true believers in Christ are especially vulnerable to Satanic attack when they attend a séance or engage in some form of occultism. Dr. Unger declares it to be a well-documented fact that some people who practice the occult sense little or no ill effects from their contact with mediums. Apparently Satan is pleased whenever someone adopts spiritism in any of its forms as his religion. Let every true believer take heed! Never, never engage in any practice by which efforts are made to contact the spirits of the dead! From the earliest times the Devil has made his mark, historically and geographically, in Ireland; the nomenclature of many places indicates that they are his exclusive property, while the antiquarian cannot be sufficiently thankful to him for depositing the Rock of Cashel where he did. However, here we must deal with a later period of this activity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
A quaint tale comes to us from Co. Tipperary of a man bargaining with his Majesty for the price of his soul, in which as usual the Devil is worsted by a simple trick, and gets nothing for his trouble. Near Shronell in that country are still to be seen the ruins of Damerville Court, formerly the residence of the Damer family, and from which locality they took the title of Barons Milton of Schronell. The first of the family to settle in Ireland, Joseph Damer, had been formerly in the service of the Parliament, but not deeming it safe to remain in England after the Restoration, came over to this country, and taking advantage of the cheapness of land at that time, purchased large estates. It was evidently of this member of the family that the following tale is told. He possessed great wealth, and ‘twas darkly hinted that this had come to him from no lawful source, that in fact he had made a bargain with the with the Devil to sell his soul to him for a top-boot full of gold. His Satanic Majesty greedily accepted the offer, and on the day appointed for the ratification of the bargain arrived with a sufficiency of bullion from the Bank of Styx—or whatever may be the name of the establishment below! He was ushered into a room, in the middle of which stood the empty top-boot; into this he poured the gold, but to his surprise it remained as empty as before. He hastened away for more gold, with the same result. Repeated journeys to and fro for fresh supplies still left the boot as empty as when he began, until at length in sheer disgust he took his final departure, leaving Damer in passion of the gold, and as well (for a few brief years, at all events) of that spiritual commodity he had valued at so little. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
In process of time the secret leaked out. The wily Damer had take the sole off the boot, and had then securely fastened the latter over a hole in the floor. In the storey underneath was a series of large, empty cellars, in which he had stationed men armed with shovels, who were under instructions to remove each succeeding shower of gold, and so make room for more. Another story comes from Ballinagarde in Co. Limerick, the residence of the Croker family, though it is probably later in point of time; in it the Devil appears in a different role. Once upon a time Mr. Croker of Ballinagarde was out hunting, but as the country was very difficult few were able to keep up with the hounds. The chase lasted all day, and late in the evening Croker and a handsome dark stranger, mounted on a magnificent black horse, were alone at the death. Croker, delighted at his companion’s prowess, asked him home, and the usual festivities were kept up fast and furious till far into the night. The stranger was shown to a bedroom, and as the servant was pulling off his boots he saw that he had a cloven hoof. In the morning he acquainted his master with the fact, and both went to see the stranger. The latter had disappeared, and so had his horse, but the bedroom carpet was seared by a red-hot hoof, while four hoof-marks were imprinted on the floor of the horse’s stall. What incident gave rise to the story we cannot tell, but there was a saying among the peasantry that such-and-such a thing occurred “as sure as the Devil was in Ballinagarde”; while he is said to have appeared there again recently. Now on to another interesting case. What was Mrs. Winchester’s true motivation for devoting the second half of her life to building what is now known as the Winchester Mystery House? As a youngster, Sarah Winchester fasted normally for a devout little girl. She enjoyed her childhood, laughing and playing, often outside. By the age of five, she would genuflect and say a Hail Mary on each step of the staircase up to her bedroom. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
At six or seven, Sarah Winchester had a vision of Jesus Christ and several saints. For years, she mediated on what this might mean. She and her little friends started a sort of club in which they flagellated themselves with knotted ropes. Sarah’s role in the instigating this was an indication of the depth of her religiosity, but in that pious age, it caused little comment. At fourteen, Sarah envisioned a mystical marriage to Christ, a glorious ceremony attended by the Virgin Mary, John the Evangelist, Saints Paul and Dominic, and even King David, who carried the Psalter. Jesus was his own ring-bearer and tenderly slipped the pear-and-diamond-studded gold ring onto her finger. “Now I betroth you to me in a faith that will survive from this hour forward forever immutable, until the glorious Heavenly marriage, in perfect conjunction with me in the second eternal wedding,” he intoned, “when face-to-face you will be allowed to see me and enjoy me.” Overwhelmed, the new, fourteen-year-old Bride of Christ instantly pledged her virginity to her husband. Many people thought Sarah was too pretty and that she would provoke some kind of sexual scandal. Sarah relied mainly on the Holy Host for sustenance and usually swallowed only cold water and chewed bitter herbs, rarely food. Some people criticized Sarah, slandered as a secret eater and condemned as a witch. At the same time, her confessors and acolytes “understood” and revered her as a holy woman obedient to God’s command, however mysterious. Mrs. Winchester’s view of marriage—pleasures of the flesh could kill much faster than starvation, and with no benefits whatsoever for the victim. Mrs. Winchester was a celibate who joyfully sacrificed pleasures of the flesh for glorious rewards of the infinitely better next World. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
Several times her weakened heart temporarily stopped beating. Once when this happened, Sarah imagined that she saw Christ save her life by exchanging his own sacred heart for hers. She later exulted that He had often scooped her body up from the Earth and she had felt her soul in perfect union with God’s. Mrs. Sarah Winchester was known for being intelligent, resourceful, courageous, outrageous, and driven. She was the quintessence of a successful Bride of Christ. Through superhuman effort and careful strategy, she achieved success, power, and influence unimaginable to most women irredeemably destined for marriage and motherhood. Her celibacy, so arduously preserved, was the essential precondition on which this triumphantly ascetic woman built her stunningly successful career. Mrs. Winchester’s financial resources were virtually unlimited; upon her husband’s death she received several million dollars in cash and 777 shares of stock in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Upon her mother-in-law’s death in 1897, Mrs. Winchester received 2,000 more shares, which me she owned just under fifty percent of the company’s stock. This provided her with an income of $33,487.71 (2022 inflation adjusted). Mrs. Winchester suffered greatly from arthritis in her later years. She passed away in her sleep from heart failure of September 5, 1922. Back in 1897, many people would walk 30 miles just to go and see the Winchester mansion. It was said to be under construction by a ghostly army. At one time, it stood seven stories tall. It was a glorious morning, the sky flooded with light, and a cool breeze blowing. For some distance the play lay along the mountain side, through pine woods and by cultivated slops where the Indian corn was ripening to gold, and the late hay-harvest was waiting for the mower. Then the path wound gradually downwards—for the valley through a succession of soft green slopes and ruddy apple-orchards, and there was the glorious Winchester mansion. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
One could see a beautiful castle, like something out of a fairytale. Looking up at the grand structure, there were patches of blue sky and golden shafts of sunshine, and small brown squirrels leaping from bough to bough; on the path leading up to the estate there was deep rich grass on either hand, thick ferns, and red and golden mosses, and blue campanulas. It was like the Garden of Eden. One could feel the strings of the primitive Adam; some vague longing for that idyllic life of the woods and fields that dreamers were in their inmost souls, insane enough to sign after as the highest good. It was the love of a country life, turned to immortal poetry. People always talked about how Mr. Winchester would have loved this estate, a lad of great promise whose health had broken down, and who had soon died of rapid consumption. Poor fellow. I sometimes fancy he might have lived, if only he had had his heart’s desire. When visiting the Winchester mansion, one cannot help but have one’s mind running on poor Mr. Winchester. Somehow, the grander the scenery gets, the more one keeps thinking ho he would have exulted in it. Meanwhile the sun blazed in the Heavens, and the light, struck back from white rock and whiter road, it was almost blinding. And still the hot air danced and shimmered before us; and a windless stillness, as of death, lay upon all the scene. Suddenly—quite suddenly, as if he had stated out of the rock—I saw a man coming towards us with a rapid and eager gesticulations. He seemed to be waving us back; but I was so startled for the moment by the unexplained way in which he made his appearance, that I scarcely took in the meaning of his gestures. “How odd!” I exclaimed, coming to a halt. “How did he get there?” He was dressed in a grey suit—his collar open, and his throat bare. He wore a Scotch cap with a silver badge in it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
Then he disappeared. I paused once or twice, and tried to conjure up the figure before my eyes, but in vain. Now inside the mansion, with every step that I took the mouth of the tunnel grew larger, and the depth of the shade within it more blacker and more mysterious. Then next moment, being within half a dozen yards from the next room, I distinctly heard a cool murmur of a distant waterfall; and the next moment after that, I had plunged into a tunnel in this catacomb of a mansion. It was like the transition from an orchid-house to an ice-house—from midday to midnight. The darkness was profound, and so intense the sudden chill, that for the first second it almost took my breath away. Looking down at my feet, I saw that the floor was an inch deep in blood running from wall to wall. In that instant, a great horror feel upon me—the horror of darkness and sudden death. Blindly, breathlessly, wildly, with the horrible grinding sound of the imprisoned waterfall of blood in my ears, and the gathering torrent at my heels! Never while I live shall I forget the agony of these next few second—the icy numbness seizing on my limbs—the sudden, frightful sense of impeded respiration—the blood rising, eddying, clamouring, pursuing me, passing me—the swirl of it, as it flashed passed be down the never-ending hallway—the rush with which it leaped out into the sunlight like a living thing, and dashed down the stairs. At that supreme instant, just as I had darted out through the echoing arch and staggered a few paces up the stairs, a deafening report, crackling, hurried, tremendous, like the explosion of a mine, rent the air and roused a hundred echoes. It was followed by a moment of strange and terrible suspense. Then, with a deep and sullen roar, audible above all the rolling thunders of the mansion round, a mighty wave of blood—smooth, solid, glassy, like an Atlantic wave on an English western coast—came gleaming up the mouth of the hallway, paused as it were, upon the threshold, reared its majestic crest, curved, trembled, burst in a cataract of foam, flooded the floors for yards beyond the spot where I was clinging, and rushed back again, as the wave rushes down the beach, hurled itself out the door-to-nowhere, and vanished in a cloud of mist. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
After this, the imprisoned crimson flood came pouring out tumultuously for several minutes, bring with it fragments of bones and gold, and filling the ground blow with debris; but even this disturbance presently subsided, and almost as soon as the last echoes of the explosion had died away, the liberated blood was rippling pleasantly along the fruit orchards, sparkling out into the sunshine as it emerged from the mansion, and gliding in a smooth continuous stream until it melted away into the soil. For myself, drenched to the skin as I was, I could do nothing. I was left about sunset, shivering and hungry. I narrowly escaped with my life from this “illusion” I experienced in the winding, twisting, emotional tunnels of the Winchester mansion. Some might deny Heaven and Hell as a series of spiritual planes through which the souls of the dead pass in an evolutionary process, but I believe one can experience both in the Winchester mansion. It is a place of great beauty and joy, but also a place of pain and suffering. Those who live most wickedly begin on the very lowest plane, and need a great deal of help from other spirits to advance to the next sphere. The individual who does not smoke, nor drink alcoholic beverages, is kind, honest, and lives a clean moral life, may begin on a higher plan than one who in intemperate or immoral. There are spiritists who attempt to communicate with the dead without any distinct reference to the Christian faith. They are commended for their honesty, for they do not try to give their practices a superficial religious window-dressing. They usually admit that they cannot understand what happens in their seances. They believe that certain psychically gifted people possess the power to exert an invisible and incomprehensible force through which they can contact the spirits of the dead. Though totally naturalistic, some even atheistic, many people believe in continued existence after death. Human beings are subject to special tensions just because they have been endowed with the ability to reflect upon themselves and their future, and many people cannot keep disquieting thoughts from haunting them from time to time. Thousands of words have been and will be written about the Winchester Mystery House and its Lady. However, the great question is yet to be answered—Why? Why? #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Winchester Mystery House
Ever-changing and evolving, Mrs. Winchester’s Llanada Villa once stood seven-stories tall before the 1906 earthquake forced the top three floors to be removed.
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Between Christ and Satan in the Demon World of Today
It is difficult to say exactly at what point fear begins, when the causes of that fear are not plainly before the eyes. Impression gather on the surface of the mind, film by film, as ice gathers upon the surface of still water, but so often so lightly that they claim no definite recognition from the conscious Then a point is reached where the accumulated impressions become a definite emotion, and the mind realized that something has happened. When a medium is called upon to relay a message which supposedly comes the realm of the dead, one usually goes into a trance. This is a “condition in which a spiritualist medium allegedly loses consciousness and passes under the control of some external force, as for the supposed transmission of communications from the dead.” In a state of unconsciousness, the necromancer may obtain communication in the for of automatic writing, but it usually comes through verbal speech. Sometimes the phenomenon called “materialization” occurs. This is defined as the ability on the part of some mediums “to create from unknown materials outside of their own body, some visible, tangible, more or less highly organized new formations supplied with their own illumination (such as efflorescent substance) for which formations in many cases, the human body in part or in whole forms a pattern, and these materializations appear and disappear suddenly. Many reputable writers report that the materializations actually have been photographed and carefully studied. They are sometimes called phantasms, and seem to speak while the medium appears to be unconscious. When a materialization does not occur, the unconscious sounds exactly like that of the deceased person one has been attempting to reach. Many people have gone to a séance believing the whole idea to be fraudulent, but have become firmly convinced that they truly heard a loved one who had died. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
Automatic writing is another baffling spiritisitic marvel. The mediums may, while in a trance, inscribe a paper with the exact handwriting of the deceased. At other times a pencil may write without being touched by the human hand or any apparent mechanical device. Then again, in some instances a phantasm does the transcribing. Of course, before we accept reports of this nature, we must recognize the possibilities of deliberate deceit, overwrought imagination, or inaccurate observation. If, on the other hand, one simply dismisses the testimony of intelligent, honest, God-fearing humans as having no value, one is not being fair. A further word of caution is in order. Christians may be tempted to conclude that these strange and unexplainable phenomena are proof of God’s existence. This is not correct because many of them may have a naturalistic explanation. Writings produced mysteriously in seances have been carefully examined by graphologist, and have even become the objects over which court battles have been fought. Spiritists usually attempt their alleged contact with the spirit World through a medium who enters what appears to be a trance, and receives some kind of communication in either verbal or written form. Undoubtedly some people who claim to have this ability are impostors, but hundreds of educated humans who have been closely involved in this activity or have conducted intensive investigation are convinced that extraordinary, perhaps supernatural, spiritual power is involved. However, those who believe the Holy Bible are certain that all necromancy is sinful and dangerous. As we look at the most considerable Evidence touching Florence Newton’s witchcraft upon Mary Longdon, for which she was committed to Youghall Prision, 24th March 1661, it is interesting to find that the following she bewitched one David Jones to death by kissing his hand through the Grate of the Prison, for which she was indicted at Cork Assizes. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Elenor Jones, Relict of the said David Jones, being sworn and examined in open Court what she knew concerning any practice of Witchcraft by the said Florence Newton upon the said David Jones her Husband, gave in Evidence, that April last the said David, having been out all night, came home early in the morning, and said to her, Where dost thou think I have been all Night? To which she answered she knew not; whereupon he replied, I and Frank Beseley have been standing Centinel over the Witch all night. To which the said Elenor said, Why, what hurt is that? Hurt? Quoth he. Marry I doubt it is never a jot the better for me; for she hath kiss’d my Hand, and I have a great pain in that arm, and I verily believe she hath bewitch’d me, if ever she bewitch’d any Man. To which she answered, The Lord forbid! That all that Night, and continually from that time, he was restless and ill, complaining exceedingly of a great pain in his rm for seven days together, and at the seven days’ end he complained that the pain was come from his Arm to his Heart, and then kept his bed Night and Day, grievously afflicted, and crying out against Florence Newton, and about fourteen days after he died. Francis Beseley being sworn and examined, saith, That about the time aforementioned meeting with the said David Jones, and discoursing with him of the several reports then stirring concerning the said Florence Newton, that she had several Familiars resorting to her in sundry shapes, the said David Jones told him he had a great mind to watch her one Night to see whether he could observe any Cats or other Creatures resort to her through the Grate, as ‘twas suspected they did, and desired that said Francis to go with him, which he did. And that when they came thither David Jones came to Florence, and told her that he heard she could not say the Lord’s Prayer; to which she answered, She could. He then desir’d her to day it, but she excused herself by the decay of Memory through old Age. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
Then David Jones began to teach her, but she could not or would not say it, though often taught it. Upon which the said Jones and Beseley being withdrawn a little from her, and discoursing of her not being able to learn this Prayer, she called out to David Jones, and said, David, David, come hither, I can say the Lord’s Prayer now. Upon which David went towards her, and the said Deponent would have pluckt him back and persuaded him not to have gone to her, but he would not be persuaded, but went to the Greate to her, and she began to say the Lord’s Prayer, but could not say Forgive us our trespasses, so that David again taught her, which she seem’d to take very thankfully, and told him she had a great mind to have kiss’d him, but that the Grate hindered her, but desired she might kiss his Hand; whereupon he gave her his Hand through the Grate, and she kiss’s it; and towards break of Day they went away and parted, and soon after the Deponent heard that David Jones was il. Whereupon he went to visit him, [and was told by hum that the Hag] had him by the Hand, and was pulling off his Arm. And he said, Do you not see the old hang How she pulls me? Well, I lay my Death on her, she has bewitched me. Fourteen days languish he died. This concludes the account of Florence Newton’s trial, as given by Glanvill. It seems that the witch was indicted upon two separate charges, with bewitching the servant-girl, Mary Longdon, and with causing the death of David Jones. The case must have created considerable commotion in Youghal, and was considered so important that the Attorney-General went down to prosecute, but unfortunately there is no record of the verdict. If found guilty (and we can have little doubt but that she was), she would have been sentenced to death in pursuance of the Elizabethan Statute, section I. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
Many of the actors in the affair were persons of local prominence, and can be identified. The “Mr. Greatrix” was Valentine Greatrakes, the famous healer or “stroker.” He was born in 1629, and died in 1683. He joined the Parliamentary Army, and when it was disbanded in 1656, became a country magistrate. At the Restoration he was deprived of his offices, and then gave himself up to a life of contemplation. In 1662 the idea seized him that he had the power of healing the king’s-evil. He kept the matter quiet for some time, but at last communicated it to his wife, who jokingly bade him try his power on a body in the neighbourhood. Accordingly he laid his hands on the affected parts with prayer, and within a month the body was healed. Gradually his fame spread, until patients came to him from various parts of England as well as Ireland. In 1665 he received an invitation from Lord Conway to come to Ragely to cure his wife of perpetual headaches. He stayed at Ragley about three weeks, and while there he entertained his hosts with the story of Florence Newton and her doings; although he did not succeed in curing Lady Conway, yet many persons in the neighbourhood benefited by his treatment. The form of words he always used was: “God Almighty heal thee for His mercy’s sake”; and if the patient professed to receive any benefit he bade them give God the praise. He took no fees, and rejected causes which were manifestly incurable. In modern times the cured have been reasonably attributed to animal magnetism. He was buried beside his father at Affane, Co. Waterford. Some of his contemporaries had a very poor opinion of him; Increase Mather, writing in 1684, alludes contemptuously to “the late miracle-monger or Mirabilian stroaker in Ireland, Valentine Greatrix,” who he accused of attempting to cure an ague by the use of that “hobgoblin word, Abrodacara.”John Pyne the employer of the bewitched servant-girl, served as Bailiff of Youghal along with Edward Perry in 1664, the latter becoming Mayor in 1674; both struck tradesmen’ tokens of the usual type. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Richard Myres was Bailiff of Youghal in 1642, and Mayor in 1647 and 1660. The Rev. James Wood was appointed “minister of the gospel” at Youghal, by Commonwealth Government, at a salary of L120 per annum;in 1654 his stipend was raised to L140, and in the following year he got a further increase of L40. He was sworn in a freeman at large in 1656, and appears to have been presented by the Grand Jury in 1683 as a religious vagrant. Furthermore, it seems possible to recover the name of the Judge who tried the case at the Cork Assizes. Glanvill says that he took the Relation from “a copy of an Authentick Record, as I conceive, every half-sheet having W. Aston writ in the Margin, and then again W. Aston at the end of all, who in all likelihood must be some publick Notary or Record-Keeper.” This man, who is also mentioned in the narrative, is to be identified with Judge Sir William Aston, who after the establishment of the Commonwealth came to Ireland, and was there practising as a barrister at the time of the Restoration, having previously served in the royalist army. On 3rd November 1660 he was appointed senior puisne Judge of the Chief Place, and died in 1671. The story accordingly is based on the note taken by the Judge before whom the case was brought, and is therefore of considerable value, in that it affords us a picture, drawn by an eye-witness in full possession of all the facts, of a witch-trial in Ireland in the middle of the seventeenth century. In discussing the religious beliefs of people who seek to converse with the dead, we can distinguish between those who claim to be “Christian” and those who make no pretense of accepting historic Christianity. The distinction between these groups is sometimes made by using the term “spiritualist” to denote the ones who profess to believe the Bible, and designating the others as “spiritists.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
Believe it or not, after Mrs. Sarah Winchester lost her six-week-old daughter and husband, the distracted widow turned to spiritualism because she felt that she was haunted by spirits of the damned. Her husband, William Wirt Winchester was a man, a man of God. Celibacy had become Mrs. Winchester’s personal goal. It liberated her and fueled the spiritualist that sustained her in hopes of the eternal life she craved. Mrs. Winchester was always resplendent in luxurious clothes and bejeweled with bracelets, anklets, rings, and ropes of gold necklaces inlaid with pearls and precious stones. The fragrance of her perfume and cosmetics was pleasant. Mrs. Winchester’s beauty mesmerized everyone she came into contact with. God had inspired her to attend Center Church Praise House in New Haven, Connecticut. Mrs. Winchester felt at home in this church. She enjoyed the gospel. The sermon was so eloquent and moving that the floor was wet with the congregation’s tears. The Tiffany stained glass windows, which told the story of the Puritan settlers and how as they gathered under an oak tree, and Jesus led them to build the new Kingdom of God. Also, the Waterford crystal chandelier was a favourite her hers, the warm glow it provided made her feel the presence of God. There was also sumptuous music from the massive pipe organ that filled the air, while members sat in the beautiful ornate wooden pews praising the Lord. The exterior of the church was exquisite. It looked like a Roman palace. It was a traditional gorgeous red brick and white wood, adored with Corinthian pillars, and an amazing tower that reached to the Heavens as its focal point. However, this is when strange things started to happen. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
Mrs. Winchester noticed that the main floor of the church was raised up a few feet higher than the rest of the green. She was curious as to why. She went to the floor below, not without trepidation, and lite a candle, and discovered that underneath was a crypt. The church was built on top of an ancient cemetery with grave stones from the late 17th century to the early 19th century. The gravestones were left in their original position to be protected by the church’s foundation where a crypt, an enclosed chamber, around the burial ground was created. There were 137 grave stone that belonged to New Haven’s founders and earliest citizens. During her tour, Mrs. Winchester felt an intense spiritual energy, the colonial burial ground had been untouched. Mrs. Winchester always e practical views about spooks, but she had a vision of huntsmen—one of whom was untidily cutting the throat of a fallow deer upon the very grave of Reverend James Pierpont’s grave. She felt an awful and soul-freezing situation of horror and went back upstairs. Nothing much happened at the church dinner that night. However other worshippers, moved by Mrs. Winchester’s evident emotion, marveled in whispers about her. They said she must have been haunted by spirits and that is why she stumbled upon the secret crypt and the someone heard her conversing with the devil. A furious gust rattled the windows of the church, and she thought what a pity the congregation’s Christmas would be spent in such a climate. Days later, the Evil One appeared to Mrs. Winchester, pounding at her front door and shouting recriminations at Mrs. Winchester for stealing away his prize. She said a prayer, and the Evil One disappeared. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
Over the next week, Satan often reappeared, offering her jewels and riches to return to his service and moaning that she had jilted him. In response, she inventoried all her belongings and donated them to the church, her mentor, and a spiritual guide. Worldly possession would not longer matter. Mrs. Winchester intended to wed her newly widowed person to Jesus Christ as His bride, and nothing could deter her. However, the Devil would not stop using his infinitely subtle tactics and trickeries in manipulating her. After seeing that man’s dreadful face in the crypt of the church, it positively haunted her. That white skin, with the black hair brushed low over the forehead, was a thing he could never forget, and the dismembered body that lay near the deer. Foretelling her future, one seer warned Mrs. Winchester of all the countless thousands of departed souls slain by her husband’s rifles; she must protect herself and atone for such mass murder. She was told to plan a castle and continue its building indefinitely because as long was it was under construction she would live; cessation would prove immediately fatal. Mrs. Winchester moved to California, to the Santa Clara Valley, bought an unfished farmhouse. She hired an army of carpenters and work began; architect and foreman quit the first day. Jesse Evans had willfully speared the rumour among villagers that the Winchester mansion was haunted. No one would venture near the house except in broad daylight. The haunted Winchester mansion was part of the gospel of the countryside. One of the foremen who stayed on was William Cantelo. He occupied a separate Victorian house on the estate of the Winchester mansion with a few other men employed by Mrs. Winchester. The house was put in thorough repair and expansion, though not a stick of the old furniture and tapestry were removed. Floors and ceilings were relaid: the roof was made watertight again, and the dust of half a century was scoured out. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The ground floor and first floors set a heavy timber door, strongly barred with iron, in the passages between the earlier farmhouse and the expansion of the mansion, so there had been a great deal of work done. However, workmen refused to remain after sundown. Even after the electric light had been put into the four story mansion, which was now adored with a nine-story tower, nothing would induce them to remain, though, electric light was death on ghosts. The legend of the Winchester’s ghosts had gone far and wide, and the men would take no risks. They went home in batches of five and six, and if anyone happened to be out of sight of one’s companion, even during the daylight hours, there was an inordinate amount of talking between one another. On the whole, though nothing of any sort or kind had been conjured up by their heated imaginations during their years of work upon the Winchester, the belief in ghosts was rather strengthened because men’s confessed nervousness, and local tradition declared itself in favour of the ghost of a man. The mansion was very large, some estimated that it must have been 50,000 square feet prior to the 1906 earthquake. Every inch of the walls, including the doors, were covered with tapestry, and remarkably fine Italian furniture. They key to the massive front door was made of solid gold and the other 2,000 doors of this Eighth Wonder of the World filled two buckets. It once contained 500 rooms. There are five different heating systems, three elevators, thirteen bathrooms. One rambling room has four fireplaces and five hot-air registers. There is a spiral stairway that has 42 steps, each two inches high. Other stairways melt into blank walls. A second story door opens into the great outdoors and a 20-foot step. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
There is a linen closet that has the area of a three-room apartment; a nearby cupboard is less than one-inch deep. A skylight is placed in the middle of a room, in the floor! Another floor is apparently a series of trap-doors. Exterior faucets project unexpectedly from under the second-story windows. The visitors must stoop through one door to enter, the next gives clearance for an eight-foot giant. Many stairway posts are upside down. And legions of ghost are said to lurk around every square foot of the mansion. All the furniture was well made, and of dark expensive rare wood. Even the looking-glass on the dressing-table in Mrs. Winchester’s bedroom is an old pyramidal Venetian glass set in heavy repousse frame of tarnished silver. Yet nothing could well have been less creepy than the glitter of silver and glass, and the subdued lights and cackle of conversation around the empty dinner table in the Venetian dinner room. Mrs. Winchester hoped by introducing such beauty into her estate would introduce a new and cheerful spirit, not only to her mansion, but would also break the curse and send the ignorant superstitions of the past into oblivion. Henry, the butler, after dinner one night, retired to pantry were the $30,000.00 gold dinner service and fine china and crystal were kept to make sure nothing went missing (that is where the name “Butler’s pantry” comes from. The butler would sleep in a large pantry to guard the contents.) He would read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and other fine authors until he felt ready to go off. Henry fumbled for the peart at the end of the cord that hung down inside the bed, and switched on the flight on the bedside lamp. Then sudden dazzled him for the moment. He felt under his pillow for his book with half-shut eyes. Then, growing used to the light, he happened to look down to the foot of his bed. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
His heart stopped dead, and throat shut automatically. In one instinctive movement, he crouched back up against the head-boards of the bed, staring at the horror. The movement set his heart going again, and the sweat dripped from every pore. He was not a particularly religious man, but he had always believed that God would never allow any supernatural appearance to present itself to man in such a guise and in such circumstances that harm, either bodily or mental, could result to him. However, in a moment, his life and reasoned rocked unsteadily on their seats. Leaning over the foot of his bed, looking at him, was a figure swathed in a rotten and tattered veiling. This shroud passed over the head, but left both eyes and the right side of the face bare. It then followed the line of the arm down to where the hand grasped the bed-end. The face was not entirely that of a skull, though the eyes and the flesh of the face were totally gone. There was a thin, dry skin drawn tightly over the features, and there was some skin left on the hand. One wisp of hair crossed the forehead. It was perfectly still. He looked at it, and it looked at him, and his brains turned dry and hot in his head. He had still got the pear of the electric lamp in his hand, and he played idly with it; only he dared not turn the light out again. Henry shut his eyes, only to open them in a hideous terror the same second. The thing had not moved. His heart was thumping like it was about to jump out of his chest, and the sweat cooled him as it evaporated. Another cinder tinkled in the grate, and a panel creaked in the wall. He reason failed him. For twenty minutes, or twenty second, he was able to think of nothing else but this awful figure, till there came, hurtling though the empty channels of his sense, the remembrance of the foremen and architect quitting on their first day. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
At last, Henry moved. How he managed to do it, he had no idea, but with one spring toward the foot of the bed he got within arm’s-length and struck out one fearful blow with his fist at the thing. It crumbled under it, and his hand was cut to the bone. With a sickening revulsion after his terror, Henry dropped half-fainting across the end of the bed. After he came to, there was utter quiet, but Henry seemed to hear something. He could not be sure, but at last there was no doubt. There was a quiet sound as one moving along the passage. Little regular steps came towards him over the hard teak flooring. He was speechless. He turned the light out, and fell forward with his own head pressed into the pillow of the bed. He then sank to his knees and put his face in the bed. Only he heard footsteps. Footsteps came to the door, and there they stopped. There was a rustling of moving stuff, and evil spirit was in the room. Mrs. Winchester had been awakened by the noise and he could hear her through the annunciator praying. Henry was cursing his own cowardice. Then steps moved out again on the oak boards of the passage, and he heard the sounds dying away. In a flash of remorse Henry went to the door and looked out At the moment later the passage was empty He stood with his forehead against the jamb of the door almost physically sick. “You can turn on the light,” he said, and there was no answer. By morning light that filtered past the curtains, he could see his way. There was nothing wrong in the room from end to end, except smears of his own blood on the end of the bed, the china hutch, and on the carpet. When he got upstairs to check on Mrs. Winchester, Henry heard sleet volleying against the window panes. And he thought to himself, “I must pack.” Mrs. Winchester was fine, she was brushing he lovely long locks and pretending nothing happened. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
And he did hear someone coming softly up their stairs. Henry stood still a moment on the landing to listen. It could not be Mrs. Winchester’s step, he thought; I am looking right at her. However, then the steps ceased suddenly and he heard no more. They were at least two flights down, and Henry came to the conclusion they were too heavy to be those of Angus the maid. No doubt they belonged to a foreman who had mistaken the floor. He went into his bedroom and packaged his bags as best as he could. Once or twice, however, he caught himself wondering who it could have been wandering down below, the floor was empty and unfurnished. From time to time, moreover, Henry was almost certain he heard a soft tread of someone padding about over the bare boards—cautiously, stealthily, as silently as possible—and, further, that the sounds bad been lately coming distinctly near. For the first time in his life he began to feel a little creepy. In the sitting-room, he was not pleased to hear again that stealthy tread upon the stairs, and to realize that it was much closer than before, as well as unmistakably real. And this time he got up and went out to see who it could be creeping about on the upper staircase at so late an hour. However, the sound ceased; there was no one visible on their stairs. And by this time, everyone was in bed and asleep—everyone except himself and the owner of this soft and stealthy tread. “My absurd imagination, I suppose,” Henry thought. “It must have been the wind after all, although—it seemed so very real and close, he thought.” Henry went back to his packing. It was by this time getting on toward midnight. With something of a start, Henry suddenly recognized the he felt nervous—oddly nervous; also, that for some time past the causes of this feeling had been gathering slowly in his mind, but that he had only just reached the point where he was forced to acknowledge them. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
It was a singular and curious malaise that had come over him, and he hardly knew what to make of it. Henry felt as though he were doing something that was strongly objected to by another person, another person, moreover, who had some right to object. It was a most disturbing and disagrreable feeling, not unlike the persistent promptings of conscience: almost, in fact, as if he were doing something he knew to be wrong. Yet, though he searched vigorously and honestly in his mind, he could nowhere lay his finger upon the secret of this growing uneasiness, and it perplexed him. More, it distressed and frightened him. “Pure nerves, I suppose,” he said aloud with a forced laugh. He was standing by the door of the bedroom during this brief soliloquy, and as he passed quickly towards the sitting-room to fetch them from the cupboard he saw out of the corner of his eye the indistinct outline of a figure standing on the stairs, a few feet from the top. It was someone in a stooping position, and with one hand on the banisters, and the face peering upwards toward the landing. And at that same moment he heard a shuffling footsteps. The person who had been creeping about below all this time had at last come up to his own floor. Who in the World could it be? And what in the name of Heaven did he want? Henry caught his breath sharply and stood stock still. Then, after a few seconds’ hesitation, he found his courage, and turned to investigate. The stairs, he saw to his utter amazement, were empty; there was no one. He felt a series of cold shivers run over him, and something about the muscles of his legs gave a little and grew weak. And so now, Henry saw nothing but the dreadful face of John Bender Jr. of the “The Bloody Benders.” Lowering at him from ever corner of his mental field vision; the white skin, the evil eyes, and the fringe of black hair low over the forehead. Henry utter a scream and, and drew back his hands as if they had been burn. No one ever heard from him again. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
When the Bender family fled town, their inn was investigated, and a secret room was found covered in blood. Upon further investigation, nine bodies were found on their property. Among one of them was Henry Clitz, Mrs. Winchester’s butler. It is believed the entire family performed the killings. Although John Jr. died during the escape, none of the other Benders were ever found. It was an awkward and disagreeable predicament, Henry found himself in. In his effort to find the brass button on the wall in the butler’s pantry, he nearly scraped the nails from his fingers, but even then, in those frenzied moments of alarm—so swift and alert were the impressions of a mind, keyed-up by a vivid emotion—he had time to realize the he dreaded the return of the light, and that it might have been better for him to stay hidden in the merciful screen of darkness. It was but the impulse of a moment, however, and before he had time to act upon it he had yielded automatically to the original desire, and the room was flooded with light. So many people praised the light, but often overlook the security and shelter that the darkness provides. Through the 38 years of residence, Mrs. Winchester’s employees remained fiercely and faithfully loyal, defending every eccentricity. Perhaps Henry’s betrayal attracted a force in the Winchester mansion that desired to consume his soul, and make him an eternal resident. Mrs. Winchester was deeply concerned with the welfare of her employees and their families. They were well paid and often additionally rewarded with gifts, even homes, real estate, transportation machines, and even lifetime pension. In truth, volumes could be written extolling her many virtues and justifying construction of the most beautiful and bizarre of all abodes. Still, the Question remains—Why? Why? The enigma of the Mystery House that tragedy and a rifle built is perhaps unanswerable. The present generation must weigh and draw its own conclusions about the Valley’s most interesting, most controversial, most unappreciated and surely our most mysterious First Lady! #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Winchester Mystery House
On today’s episode of 13 Days of Christmas we look back at other events that took place during the same year that Sarah spent her first Christmas on her San Jose Estate.
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
🗝 winchestermysteryhouse.com
One Would Think Happiness is Rare?
The trouble with some people is that when they get into trouble, they start acting like cannibals. With mood disorders so prevalent in all societies, it is no wonder that they have been the focus of so much research. Great quantities of data about these disorders have been gathered. Still, clinicians have yet to understand fully all that they know. Several factors have been closely tied to unipolar depression, including biological abnormalities, a reduction in positive reinforcements, negative ways of thinking, a perception of helplessness, and life stress and other sociocultural influences. Indeed, more contributing factors have been associated with unipolar depression than with most other psychological disorders. Precisely how all of these factors relate to unipolar depression, however, is unclear. Different factors may be capable of initiating unipolar depression in different persons. Some people may, for example, begin with low serotonin activity, which predisposes them to react helplessly and negatively, and enjoy fewer pleasures in life. Others may first suffer a severe loss, which triggers helplessness reactions, low serotonin activity, and reductions in positive rewards. Regardless of the initial cause, these factors may merge into a “final common pathway” of unipolar depression. However, culture influences many people’s health and belief system and has an effect on the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. Some cultures have specific expectations of each age group that differ greatly from those in mainstream American society. Because of this difference, all age groups are exposed to conflict or clashes that may increase the risk for development of mental illness. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
Judging from the evening news and the spread of self-help books, one would think that happiness was rare. Ever psychologists seem far more interested in stuffing heartache. However, there is good news. A growing body of research indicates that most people’s lives are more upbeat than we think. In fact, 55 percent of adults in the United States of America say they laugh once an hour. In addition, most people around the World say they are happy—including those who are poor, unemployed, elderly, and disabled. Some say money buys happiness, well maybe not that much more. Wealthy people appear only slightly happier than those of modest means. Overall, only 1 person in 10 reports being “not too happy.” Although people are not happy every day, most seem to bounce back well from disappointments. Happy people also seem to remain happy from decade to decade, regardless of job changes, moves, and family changes. When treating people with unipolar depression, one method that seems helpful is to reintroduce clients to pleasurable events and activities. While reintroducing pleasurable events into a client’s life, the therapist also makes sure that the person’s various behaviours are reinforced correctly. Behaviourists have argued that when people become depressed, their negative behaviours—crying, complaining, or self-depreciation—keep others at a distance, reducing changes for positive reinforcement. To change this pattern, the therapist may use a contingency management approach, systematically ignoring a client’s depressive behaviours while praising or otherwise rewarding constructive statements and behaviour, such as going to work. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
Although formal treatment is typically needed for severe depression, personal efforts such as going on vacation or spending time with friends can often make a significant difference for people who are struggling with mild depression. Research shows, for example, that regular exercise help prevent or reduce feelings of depression as well as other psychological symptoms. Life does not always turn out the way people want it to, you may end up living around people you do not care for and feel isolated and have no friends. You may want to get back to a lifestyle that is more conducive to your well-being. However, one thing that I find that helps, besides exercise and music is to some times just shut down and stop talking to people. Take some time to be quiet and work through the negative emotions and pray about them. Also, happy movies help. I had the TV on, while I was using my station bike, and had sworn off Christmas movies this year because you know, sometimes situations are ongoing and every year some expect them to be resolved, and they are not yet. However, I got stuck watching 12 Pups for Christmas (2019) Starring Charlotte Sullivan and Donny Boaz. It was such a great movie and I highly recommend it. It is all about being in the prime of one’s life and then facing one unexpected situation after another, but one can see how God used Erin’s (Charlotte Sullivan’s) pain to put her in a better situation that she could not even imagine. The movie is so charming that I found myself smiling and laughing while watching it. I really enjoyed how the people all liked each other, and worked together and were open and optimistic and honest. The film reminded me of a passage in the Christian Bible, “Now therefore, do not be afraid. I will provide for and support you and your little ones. And he comforted them [imparting cheer, hope, strength] and spoke to their hearts [kindly],” reports Genesis 50.21. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
The film 12 Pups for Christmas shows one how devastating life events can be and how nothing is promised, and things are not perfect, but if you keep the right attitude and keep persevering and being kind, the Lord will make things work in your favour. Although most of the variance in adult dysfunctions involving pleasures of the flesh is explainable by concurrent relational problems, some childhood interpersonal experiences may be viewed as distal contributory causes. Two such issues that are clearly rooted in family socialization are negative attitudes toward sexuality and extreme religious orthodoxy. Both of these are more psychological than interpersonal constructs. However, each can be viewed as a result of socialization in the family of origin, and each is related to the other. Children who are reared with extremely orthodox beliefs and values may view pleasures of the flesh as generally inappropriate and improper behaviour, unless it is explicitly enacted with the goal of procreation. Armed with such attitudes, some individuals might experience adjustment problems when paired with partners of differing beliefs and values. Related to this are negative attitudes toward pleasures of the flesh. Certain child-rearing practices and family environments may leave a child with a tendency to associate pleasures of the flesh with feelings of guilt and shame. Other family experiences may lead the child to link pleasures of the flesh with disgrace, emotional pain, or betrayal. To the extent that these negative attitudes, often learned in childhood, are durable through the adult years, impairment in functioning during pleasures of the flesh is a likely consequence. Another early interpersonal experience that can impair adult pleasures of the flesh functioning is childhood sexual abuse, especially when this abuse is intrafamilial. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
Multiple studies show that people who experienced such abuse as children are more likely than those who have not to experience dysfunctions in pleasures of the flesh as adults. Two important caveats must be noted, however. First, these same studies show that childhood sexual abuse is situation in a matrix of aversive childhood and family-of-origin experiences (such as excessive conflict, low cohesion, poor boundary regulation, physical abuse, and parental neglect), and that it is associated with a similarly diverse matrix of adult psychosocial problems (such as separation, divorce, relational dissatisfaction, substance abuse, depression, somatization, and anxiety, to name just some). Each of these on its own may be sufficient to interfere with functioning in pleasures of the flesh. Disentangling and understanding the effects of sexual abuse in particular continues to be a challenge for mental health research. Second, there is no deterministic relationship between childhood sexual abuse and adult functioning. Some children who experienced sexual abuse go on to develop happy and healthy interpersonal relationships, and are indistinguishable from their nonabused peers. Undoubtedly, this resilience is an amalgamation of personal and socioenvironmental factors that allows them to minimize and overcome the ill effects of this trauma. These caveats notwithstanding, childhood sexual abuse is thought to disrupt attachment to caregivers, trust in others, the development of self-esteem, and a sense of mastery. When a survivour of such abuse is confronted with new developmental tasks, such as management and negotiation of adult pleasures of the flesh, these liabilities may be manifested in a variety of psychosocial problems—including pleasures of the flesh dysfunctions. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
Psychogenic sexual dysfunctions tend to coexist with other mental health problems that also have an obvious interpersonal basis. However, unlike problems such as depression or schizophrenia, for example, the comorbidity of sexual dysfunctions has not been as thoroughly researched. This is perhaps due in part to the difficulty of accurately assessing and diagnosing these problems and the fact that such assessment requires ruling out physiological origins. Studies of people identified as having a psychogenic sexual dysfunction reveal a 30 to 35 percent incidence of others psychological problems. One common problem that is concomitant to sexual dysfunction is depression. As an example, the odds ratio for erectile dysfunction has been estimated at 1.82 in the presence versus absence of depressive symptoms. A study of couples seeking therapy for sexual dysfunction indicated that rates of depression, anxiety disorders, and eating disorders were all elevated in contrast to those in the generational population. Lifetimes rates of affective disorders (major depression, dysthymia, and bipolar disorder) among the participants in this study were 21.5 percent and 38.3 percent for men and women, respectively. Associated rates of anxiety disorders were 19.9 percent and 37.3 respectively. Thus, problems like depression and anxiety are evident in the background of about 33 percent of those seeking treatment for sexual dysfunction. Like personality disorders, sexual dysfunctions tend t be comorbid with other sexual dysfunctions. In a large-sample, multisite pharmaceutical study, 40 percent of those with hypoactive sexual desire disorder were also diagnosed with a second sexual dysfunction. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
In view of the ill effect of anxiety on performance and depression on sexual desire, the comorbidity of these problems with sexual dysfunction is easily understood. However, it is equally evident that these problems are interconnected in at least some cases by interpersonal problems and stressors. When close relationships become distressed and/or when people have a history of interpersonal maltreatment, both depression and sexual dysfunction are likely consequences. Similarly, people who experience a great deal of anxiety in interpersonal contexts, perhaps because of poor social skills, may experience sexual dysfunctions that are secondary to that excessive anxiety. Psychogenic sexual dysfunctions appear to be every bit as much problems with couple relationships and a psychological sense of intimacy, as problems with the psychophysiology of human sexuality. People with psychogenic sexual dysfunctions often have intimacy problems that extend far beyond just sexual intimacy and include poor social and recreational intimacy with their partners as well. Psychogenic sexual dysfunctions may serve as regulative devices for addressing unresolved conflict and a lack of intimacy. Like those of other mental health problems, the symptoms of psychogenic sexual dysfunction may draw attention away from more substantial underlying interpersonal problems that a couple is unable or unwilling to address openly. They may also serve as a means of communicating distress indirectly. In either case, sexual dysfunctions may be indices of more pervasive interpersonal/relational problems. #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
A number of relations themes are evident in studies of sexually dysfunctional couples. These include open conflict, as well as passivity, discouragement, a lack of agreement and understanding, and hostility that is often not expressed directly and openly. Some of these phenomena are even evident through observations of brief laboratory interactions between partners. Notwithstanding the associations between sexual dysfunctions and current relational problems, some interpersonal childhood experiences may be distal contributory causes of adult sexual dysfunctions. When children are socialized with strict orthodox religious beliefs and values, and/or when they learn negative attitudes toward sexuality, they are predisposed to experience psychogenic sexual dysfunctions as adults. A history of childhood sexual abuse is also more common among those with psychogenic sexual dysfunction, compared to their well-functioning counterparts. Such abuse may set the stage for views of sexuality as coercive, hostile, and motivated by malfeasance. Both somatoform disorders and psychogenic sexual dysfunctions involved the experience and expression of physical symptoms in the absence of any obvious medical or physiological cause. Each of these disorders is a sign of intrapersonal and interpersonal distress, and serves a communicative value. The interpersonal pathogenesis of somatoform disorders can be primarily located in family-of-origin experiences; although such experiences do play a role in psychogenic sexual dysfunctions, these dysfunctions more strongly signal troubles with family-of-orientation relationships. I remember the time when some brothers of the Lord were praying over me for a new release of the Holy Spirit. At a certain point they invited me to choose Jesus as the Lord of my life, freely and consciously. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
At that moment I happened to look up, and my eyes fell on the crucifix which was on the wall opposite above the altar. He seemed to have been there for some time, waiting for me. In an instant, this truth branded itself within me: “Make no mistake, this is the Jesus Christ you are choosing as your Lord, not a different rose-water version!” How often, since then, have I tried to admit the truth of those words! Being espoused to Christ means, here below, being “crucified with Christ,” but also in the hope of being glorified with Him. Joy is never absent, but it is a hope-filled joy (spe gaudentes). In other words, it is hoping to be happy, and happy to be hoping. “All who belong to Christ Jesus,” writes the Apostle—“have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,” repots Galatians 5.24. It is a beautiful thing to die to the World for the Lord, so as to raise in Him. Earthly longings (eros) have been crucified; in the me there is left no spark of desire for mundane things. It is no joke to crucify one’s flesh with its passions and desires, especially pleasures of the flesh desires, which are among the most imperious of all. The desires of the flesh—self-indulgence—are always in opposition to the Spirit. Some have been brought to the edge of despair by temptations of the flesh. We are now living in a social context where it is no longer possible to rely on external safeguards for the defense of one’s chastity, as it was in the past—things like the separation of the genders, a rigorous filtering of contacts with the World, and all the countless other detailed precautions with which “Rules” usually surround the observance of this vow. Unconstrained communications and travel have created a new situation. The defence of one’s chastity is now for the most part in the hands of the individual, and it cannot rest on anything other than strong personal convictions, acquired precisely through contact with God in prayer and in His Word. #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
It is this spirit and with this intention that we continue our reflections. Celibacy, then, is for the sake of the Kingdom. However, why does the Kingdom call for celibacy? Can it not be achieved and manifested completely through marriage? Some Fathers of the Church, such as John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor, thought that is Adam had not sinned, there would have been no marriage, with the sexual procreation that is now its distinguishing feature, because in the way in which it is now exercised, human sexuality is the fruit of original sin. However, from a mere biblical and less Platonic perspective it must be said that rather the reverse is true: that, had there been no sin there would have been no virginity, because the would have been no need to question marriage and sexuality and subject them to judgment. Poverty, chastity and obedience are not a renunciation—or worse, a condemnation—of a created good, but a rejection of the evil that has come to overlay that good. Therefore they are, by definition, a proclamation of the original goodness of created things. They are a way of imitating the Word of God Who, by taking flesh, took on all that belongs to human nature, but did not take on sin. “For we do not have a great High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning,” reports Hebrews 4.15. The Gospel counsels, and the vows based upon them, proclaim the goodness and beauty of God’s creation precisely by the denouncing the ambiguity of human creation. The inability to understand the value of virginity, and likewise of obedience and voluntary poverty, is always a sign that the sense of sin has disappeared from the horizon of faith. It is typical of periods of acute secularization and naïve optimism concerning humanity and the World. #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
Seen in this light, poverty, chastity and obedience are the most eloquent proclamation there is of Christ’s redemption and of the Paschal Mystery, which does not cancel out the original creation, as the heretic Marcion thought, but it “recapitulates” it, as St. Irenaeus said, in other words, brings it out into the light from under the covering of sin. In this light it is also possible to understand the positive element, still valid today, in the Fathers’ insight that virginity was a return to the Heavenly state, but on condition that this return is not understood as bypassing marriage and human sexuality itself (male and female He created them), but only the sin with which they have been overlaid by human freedom. A virginal and chaste life if therefore in a very profound sense a paschal life. “I beg you, then, by God’s mercy, my brothers, to offer your bodies as a holy and living sacrifice which will be pleasing to God—this is your spiritual worship. Do not pattern yourselves after the ways of this World but transform yourselves by the renewal of your minds, so you will be able to discern what God’s will is—what is good, pleasing and perfect,” reports Romans 12.1-2. Their celibacy was the most delicious of all: transformative and liberating, and the instrument of its own success. However, the demons’ traps are evil thought. Become saved again, and commit your soul to God. We need to seek how to please God in our bodily members [as well as spiritually]. Everything we observe, and even more important, our way of observing it, is already culture and pattern of culture. If we cannot observe it, what is the sense of mentioning “human nature”? The wild Babes give up their individualistic mores and ideology, exempli gratia, selfishness or magic thinking or omnipotence, and join the tribe of Society; they are soicalised. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
You can teach people anything; if you use the right techniques of socializing or communicating, you can adapt them to anything. The essence of human nature is to be pretty indefinitely malleable. Humans are what suits a particular type of society in a particular historical age. This fateful idea, invented from time to time by philosophers, seems finally to be empirically evident in the most recent decades. For instance, in our highly organized system of machine production and its corresponding social relations, the practice is, by “vocational guidance,” to fit people wherever the products of the system need to be used up, the practice is, by advertising, to get people to consume them. This works. There is a human for every job and not many are left over, and the shelves are almost always cleared. Again, in the highly organized political industrial systems of Germany, Russia, and now China, it has been possible in a short time to condition great masses to perform as desired. Social scientists observer that these are the facts, and they also devise theories and techniques to produce more facts like them, for the social scientists too are part of the highly organized systems. Astonishingly different, however, is the opinion of experts who deal with human facts in a more raw, less highly processed, state. Those who have to cope with people in small groups rather than statistically, attending to them rather than to some systematic goal—parents and teachers, physicians and psychotherapists, police officers and wardens of jails, shop foremen and grievance committees—these experts are likely to hold stubbornly that there is a “human nature.” You cannot teach people some things or change them in some ways, if you persist, you are in for trouble. Contrariwise, if you do not provide them with certain things, they will fill the gaps with eccentric substitute. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
This is immediately evident when something goes wrong; for instance, when a child cannot learn to read because one has not yet developed the muscular accommodation of one’s eyes; if you persist, one withdraws or becomes tricky. Such a clear-cut cause (it is “physical”). However, the more important causes have the following form: the child does take on the culture habit, exempli gratia, early toilet training, and indeed the whole corresponding pattern of culture, but there is a minishing of force, grace, discrimination, intellect, feeling, in specific behaviours or even in one’s total behaviour. One may become too obedient and lacking in initiative, or impractically careful and squeamish; one may develop “psychosomatic” ailments like constipation. Let me give an instance even earlier in life: an infant nurtured in an institution without a particular nurse attending one during the first six months, does not seem to develop abnormally; but if during the end of the first year and for some time thereafter one is not given personal care, one will later be in some ways emotionally cold and unreachable—either some function has failed to develop, or one has already blocked it out as too frustrated and painful. In such examples, the loss of force, grace, and feeling seems to be evidence that somehow the acquired cultural habits do not draw on unimpeded outgoing energy, they are against the grain, they do not fit the child’s needs or appetites; therefore they have been ill adapted and not assimilated. That is, on this view we do not need to be able to say what “human nature” is in order to be able to day tht some training is “against human nature” and you persist in it at peril. Teachers and psychologists who deal practically with growing up and the blocks to growing up may never mention the word “human nature” (indeed, they are better off without too many priori ideas), but they cling stubbornly to the presumption that at every stage there is a developing potentiality not yet cultured, and not blank, and that makes possible the taking on of culture. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
We must draw “it” out, offer “it” opportunities, not violate “it” except for unavoidable reasons. What “it” is, is not definite. It is what, when appealed to in the right circumstances, gives behaviour that has force, grace, discrimination, feeling. This vagueness is of course quite sufficient for education, for education is an art. A good teacher feels one’s way, looking for response. The immediate horror humans perceive is one’s own death, but beyond that one begins to see the entire life process as carnage, as eating and being eaten. A terrible screaming pervades the Universe. Humans are the first to hear it. This is the vision we cannot accept. It drives towards madness or despair. What does Christianity do with this vision. It does not deny it; it makes it acceptable. What Christianity does for the true believer is give one strength to bear it. Redeems it. That is the word! The scheme of things redeems the way things are. However, what is redemption? It must be an interpretation. The scheme of things, therefore, is both a diagram of the something grand and an interpretation of the way things are as an essential step on the way to the something grand. The life process thereupon becomes less horrible and more bearable because it serves, however obscurely, a glorious end. When it is in the service of something grand, one’s individual life is redeemed. The beginning of the redemption of life is the beginning of culture. All culture is redemption. The history of culture is the history of changing forms by which a short and brutish life has been redeemed. The culture of people is the incarnation of its religion. Any religion, while it last, provides the framework for a culture, and protects the mass of humanity from boredom and despair. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
Humans search for a scheme of things larger than their own life, with greater authority, to which one may belong. The hunger from which this search issues is profound and inalienable. If one can find such a scheme and makes one’s life “mean” something in it, that is, contribute to it, make a difference, one will have ferried something of one’s mortal self across the gulf of death to become a part of something that will live on. The doomed life must leave a residue of value. The carrier and guarantor of this value is human-made scheme of things perceived as reality and presumed to be eternal. What can one say of the way things are? The constructions of the mind are not coextensive with existence, that there is something “out there,” a universe independent of humans, there before we arrived and to be there after we have disappeared. It affects us and we it. IT and we are in continual contact and interaction, and we know it not. We cannot bear to know. An angel, detached and immortal, could know; we, mired in mortality, are at risk. Interest deflects our knowing. Our lives depend on its being other than it is. In the midst of the way things are we know only the scheme of things in which we live. If someone is not treating you right today, go out of your way to be kinder than usual to that person. If your husband is not serving God, do not go around beating him over the head with your Bible, proselytizing him, nagging him, coercing him to attend church with you. No, just start being extra kind to him. Start living him in a fresh way. The Holy Bibles teaches, “It is the goodness of God that leads people to repentance,” reports Romans 2.4. God’s goodness expressed through you will overcome evil. Friend, love never fails. Now turn not a df ear to that which I have spoken, for My Word shall rise withing you with great revelation. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
For I am doing in this hour things that humans have not understood, just as was prophesied in the days of old. I said it by My prophets that you would not believe the reports of the things that I would do. Some will not believe, but the hour is coming that humans shall proclaim My Word boldly over their own bodies and it will cause sickness and disease to depart. Their words will cause the enemy to flee in terror. If anyone had a right to return evil instead of love, it was Joseph, the young man with the distinctive coat of many colours. His brothers hated him so much, they threw him into a deep pit and were going to kill him, but “out of the kindness of their hearts,” they decided instead to sell him into slavery. Years went by, and Joseph experienced all sorts of troubles and heartaches. However, Joseph kept a good attitude, and God continued to bless him. After thirteen years of being in prison for a crime he did not commit, God supernaturally promoted him to the second-highest position in Egypt. Joseph was in charge of the food supply when a famine struck the land, and his brothers traveled to Egypt, hoping to buy provisions for their families. At first they did not recognize their long-lost brother. Joseph finally said, “Do not you who I am? I am Joseph, your brother. I am the one you threw into the pit. I am the one you tried to kill, the brother you sold into slavery.” Can you imagine what was going through his brothers’ minds? Imagine the fear that must have griped their hearts! This was Joseph’s opportunity to pay back his brothers for the years of pain and suffering they had caused him. Now their lives were in his hands. Joseph could have ordered them killed or imprisoned for life. However, Joseph said, “Do not be afraid. I am not going to harm you. I am going to do good to you. I am going to give you all the food you need.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
The Christian Bible says, “Love does not hold a grudge. Love does not harbour unforgiveness,” report 1 Corinthians 13.5. You may have people in your life who have done you great wrong, and you have a right to be angry and bitter, or foolish and ghoulish, full of doom and gloom. You may feel as though your whole life had been stolen away by someone who has mistreated you or deceived you. However, if you will choose to let go of your grudge and forgive them, you can overcome that evil with good. You can get to the point where you can look at the people who have hurt your and return good for evil. If you do that, God will pour out His favour in your life in a fresh way. He will honour you; He will reward you, and He will make those wrongs right. When you can bless your worst enemies and do good to those who have used and abused you, that is when God will take that evil and turn it around for good. No matter what you have gone through, no matter who hurt you or whose fault it was for causing all the trauma and drama, let it go. Do not try to get even. Do not hold a grudge. Do not try to pay them back. God says show mercy. Aim for kindness. Seek to do good. You may be thinking, but that is just not fair! No, it is not. However, life is not fair. We have to remember that God is the One keeping the score. He is in control. And when you bless your enemies, you will never lose. God will always make it up to you. The power of the Lord shall rise withing humans until there will be a race of people on this Earth when I come that will stand against Satan and see him flee from them. They will stand without sickness or disease in their bodies. They will stand even before whole cities and proclaim, “In the name of Jesus, I break the power of sin over this city.” Then the walls of Satan will crumble and the power of God shall be loosed in that city. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
The wisdom of God shall flow unhindered and my power shall rule in the midst. Even as the darkness grows more morbid, the light shall grow more optimistic. My wisdom shall be released in greater measure and greater revelation as human take My Word at face value, even as I have spoken it. The tongue cannot be controlled by natural ability. It is an unruly evil in the unregenerate state. However, the wisdom of God that has come by the rebirth of the human spirit, imparted by the Holy Spirit to the hearts of humans, will cause the tongue to come into subjection to the spirit of humans, which is ordained of God to rule. It shall cause the body to conform to the Word of the living God. Dear Lord in Heaven, I dare to believer that You can take even the bad things that happen to your children and transform them into something good and useful, not merely in our own lies, but in the lives of other around us. You know, I am against taxes, I think they should be as long as possible and once politicians start taxing things to make improvements in areas that the budget cannot support, it leads to excessive taxes, which then leads to communism. One absurd tax is the bag tax. Sure, the thicker bags are good for people who can afford to buy them and have to walk with the groceries. However, it is a common courtesy to provide people with complimentary bags for purchasing items at your story. The supposed goal was to reduce plastic waste, but most people buy these thicker plastic bags anyway. Most stores do not allow reusable bags to come into their store because they may be contaminated with bacteria or viruses or infested with cock roaches and their eggs and can infest the stores, spread to other customers and make people fatally ill. Also, what about the people who can barely afford what they are buying? For some people, an extra $2.00 for twenty bags, for example, is a lot of money when they can barely afford what they are buying. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
However, I truly wish there was a way we could find some money in the budget to pay our service members and veterans $100,000.00 a year and lifelong medical benefits for their priceless service. And also, if we want law enforcement reform, why not pay officers the same wages and require that they obtain at least an Associates in Arts in psychology, law, or something so we know they have some understanding of what life is like outside of their family-of-origin and family-of-orientation. Some police are education, some have PhDs, and an educated officer may not be better at one’s job than a high school graduate, but I wonder what the studies say? It is possible that requiring an education would reduce conflict in the community and screen out officers who have a vendetta against other races, religions, creeds or genders. Also, regulating leaf blower nose and usage would be great. The government bans the use of fireplaces on certain days, which is sad because some people cannot afford to burn their heaters and knowing how much heat they are using helps them from keeping their electricity from getting shut off. People have trees they can cut down and burn for fuel. The system in America is set up, well, it was once set up to accommodate the rich, but the poor and rich are getting jilted, while the middle class is disappearing before your eyes like a dope fiend. And I have looked at some of these million dollar homes in California, and I am so disappointed. I expect something more and grand for $1 million. Sure, inflation is real, but wage inflation is not happening. Everything is just getting more and more expensive and cutting into people’s wages. In Sacramento, if you did not become established 10-20 years ago, and are not a professional and do not have two or more employed people in the house, the cost of living is almost unaffordable. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
The shrinkage of the nation-state reflects the appearance of a new-style global economy that has emerged since the Third Wave began its surge. Nation-states were the necessary political containers for nation-sized economies. Today the containers have not only sprung leaks, they have been made obsolete by their own success. First, there is the growth within them of regional economies that have attained a scale once associated with national economies. Second, the World economy to which they gave rise had exploded in size and is taking on strange new forms. Thus the global economy is dominated by the great transnational corporations. It is serviced by a ramified banking and financial industry that operates at electronic speeds. It breeds money and credit no nation can regulate. It moves toward transnational currencies—not a single “World money” but a variety of currencies or “meta-currencies,” each based on a “market basket” of national currencies or commodities. The global economy is torn by a World-scale conflict between resource supplies and users. It is riddled with shaky debt on a hitherto unimaginable scale. It is a mixed economy, with private capitalist and state-socialist enterprises forming joint ventures and working side by side. And its ideology is not laissez faire or Marxism, but globalism—the idea that nationalism is obsolete. Just as Second Wave created a slice of the population that had larger than local interests and became the base of nationalist ideologies, so the Third Wave gives rise to groups with larger than national interests. These for the base of the emerging globalist ideology sometimes called “planetary consciousness.” This consciousness is shared by multinational executives, long haired environmental campaigners, financiers, revolutionaries, intellectuals, poets, painters, not to mention members of the Trilateral Commission. I have even had a famous U.S. four-star general assure me that “the nation-state is dead.” #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
Globalism presents itself as more than an ideology serving the interests of a limited group. Precisely as nationalism claimed to speak for the whole nation, globalism claims to speak for the whole World. And its appearance is seen as an evolutionary necessity—a step closer to a “cosmic consciousness” that would embrace the Heavens as well. Therefore, at every level, from economics and politics to organization and ideology, we are witnessing a devastating attack, from within and without, on that pillar of Second Wave civilization: the nation-state. At the exact historical moment when many poor countries are desperately fighting to establish a national identity because nationhood in the past was necessary for successful industrialization, the rich countries, racing beyond industrialism, are diminished, displacing, or derogating the role of the nation. We can expect the next decades to be torn by struggle over the creation of new global institutions capable of faily representing the prenational as well and the postnational peoples of the World. Be praised my Lord with all Your creatures but especially with Brother Sun because You show us light and day through him and he is lovely glowing with a great shine from You my Lord: his definition. Be praised my Lord for Brother Wind and for the air and cloudy days and bright and all days else because through these You give Your creatures sustenance. Be praised my Lord for Sister Water because she shows great use and humbleness in hers and preciousness and depth. Be praised my Lord for Brother Fire through whom You light all nights upon the Earth because he is too lovely full of joy and manly strength. Be praised my Lord because our sister Mother Earth sustains and rules us and because she raises food to feed us; coloured flowers and grass. Be praised my Lord for those who pardon by Your love and suffer illness and grief. Bless those who undergo in silence the poor for whom you hold a crown. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
Be praised my Lord for Sister Death-of-Body whom no human living (as of yet) will escapes and piety those who die in mortal sin and everyone she finds who minds you bless: no second death to bring them hurt. Oh praise my Lord and bless my Lord and thank and serve my Lord with humbleness Triumphant. Just think, immortality is not too far away. Eventually scientists will find a cure of aging and death. For some it will give them more time to get right in the eyes of the Lord and do things they love, for others, it will allow them to evade eternal punishment…for a while. O Lord, open Thou my lips and my mouth shall declare Thy praise. Praised art Thou, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, mighty, revered and exalted God. Thou bestowest lovingkindness and possessest all things. Mindful of the patriarchs’ love for Thee, Thou wilt in Thy love bring a redeemer to their children’s children for the sake of Thy name. Remember us unto life, O King who delightest in life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life so that we may live worthily for Thy sake, O Lord of life. O King, Thou Helper, Redeemer and Shield, be Thou praised, O Lord, Shield of Abraham. Thou, O Lord, art mighty forever. Thou callest the dead to immortal life for Thou art might in deliverance. One may be lifted up by the light of a great experience or the presence of a great soul, but in the end one falls back to the consciousness one ordinarily has, to the self one ordinarily is. This is not to say tht what has happened is without value—on the contrary, such a glimpse is very important—but that under the thrill of its emotional accompaniments one may easily miscomprehend a part of it to the point of self-deception. The error is to believe that one has now been put in possession of all truth, or the highest truth, for all time. However, it is only a transient glimpse! If one were pure enough and prepared enough to receive the light in all its fullness and in all the parts of one’s being, the glimpse would not leave one. However, one is not. #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
CRESLEIGH HAVENWOOD
Lincoln, CA | from the mid $600s
Now Selling!
Wake up happy every day in your new Cresleigh home. No appointment needed! Cresleigh Havenwood features four distinct floor plans ranging from 2,293 – 3,489 square feet and offering up to five bedrooms.
Each plan has been thoughtfully designed and includes great features such as single story homes, guest suites, optional offices, garage workshops, and more!
Get the most out of your new home with Cresleigh’s All Ready smart home featuring all the connectivity needed to keep your house running. Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes with owned solar included!
Located off of Virginiatown Road and McCourtney Road, residents of the 83 homesites of Cresleigh Havenwood will benefit from a brand new neighborhood in the charming City of Lincoln.
Palo Verde Park, is just down the street and there’s plenty of recreation to take part in all around town. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 